let me still call this my home, and you my best beloved, I ask no more. My cup will be full; full to the brim."

"Blame you, Anna? No! If there has been any blame, I must bear it. You have been right. Love you ? We cannot tell you how much we love you. And may the day be far distant when you shall go to another home!"

"You have made me happier, dear father, than I have ever been," Anna said, struggling to hide the emotion that was swelling in her bosom. “Do not again feel offended with me. You have taught me to act from a sense of right in all I do,-you have wisely sought to elevate my understanding, and have given me principles by which to determine all my actions. These principles I will ever strive to make rules of conduct. By them I will seek to determine between right and wrong; and, choosing the right, I will endeavour to abide by it, in all firmness and conscientiousness."

"Do so, my child, even if your father, strange as such a thing may be, should rise up in opposition. Obey him just so far as he wishes you to obey the truth he has taught you, but no further. You are now a woman, and by your own acts you must be justified or condemned. Take no step in life without a clear perception that it is right. Seek aid and light from all who are wiser than yourself, but let their wisdom guide you, if guided by others at all. If you cannot see with them, do not act from them. Avoid this, as you would a great evil."

After a slight pause, Mr Lee added,

"I saw Mr Gardiner to-day, and declined for you his offer. Deeply thankful am I that you had the re

solution to refuse him. You acted with true wisdom, and a noble firmness that I shall ever admire. Of all that occurred, your mother will inform you at another time."

CHAPTER VII.--A DISAPPOINTMENT.

WHEN Mr Lee went to his office on the morning of the day named as that on which he was to give an answer to Herbert Gardiner, he felt in a very uncomfortable state of mind. The cause for this was two-fold. First, he could not help feeling a strong desire for the proposed union; and second, he felt that the interview with the young man would be an embarrasing one. But it could not be avoided.

He was sitting in his own private room, about eleven o'clock, when Gardiner came in, smiling pleasantly, and bowing with perfect ease and self-possession. But in a few minutes his manner changed. The disturbed state of Mr Lee's mind was communicated to his own.

"You know the nature of my business, Mr Lee," he said, after talking indifferently for a short time. "What is the answer I am to receive at your hands?"

"to

"I regret exceedingly," returned Mr Lee, be compelled to decline your very flattering offer; but my daughter is firm in her opposition to our wishes in the matter. We have

"Your daughter objects?" the young man said, with an instantly flushed face, rising quickly to his feet. "Humph!"

There was an air of contempt and conscious superiority in the manner of Gardiner that seriously offended Mr Lee. "Yes, sir," he said, his own manner also changing, "She objects, and she, doubtless, has good reasons for it; for she never acts from prejudice or caprice."

"Ha! ha! Don't she, indeed ?" The young man had lost control of himself, and spoke very contemptuously. He was quick-tempered, proud, and could ill bear opposition. The unexpected rejection of his suit from one whose social position he considered below his own, had chafed him severely. For nearly a minute he returned Mr Lee's steady gaze; and then, turned on his heel and strode from the room.

The father of Anna drew a long breath, as soon as he found himself alone-sat with eyes upon the floor for some time, and then got up, and walked to and fro, in a deeply abstracted mood. While doing so, one of the Directors of the Company, of which he was the President, an intimate friend, came in. He noticed that Lee was disturbed, and inquired the reason; when he related the interview which had just transpired.

"The vain fop!" ejaculated the friend. "And he really had the assurance to offer himself to your sweet Anna?" "He offered himself," replied Mr Lee; "but why should that be called assurance?"

"Humph! You certainly do not know him."

"I never heard a breath against him in my life." “I have, then; and words to. Why, this Herbert Gardiner is totally unfit to be the husband of a pure-minded creature like Anna, or indeed to be permitted to enter the society where she is."

"You speak strongly."

"Not more so than I should speak. It is strange that you have never heard his character. I thought that it was notorious."

"He is in business with a very excellent young man."

"O yes; his capital does that. But a business connection and a marriage are two very different things. I might be willing to enter into business relations with a man that I should not like to see the husband of my daughter."

"Very true. But tell me something specific about Gardiner."

"Let it suffice then to say that his associates are often of the vilest character, and his habits exceedingly irregular. Depend upon it, he would have cursed your child in marrying her. From all I have seen and heard of that young man, I would sooner see Anna in her grave than his wife!"

"I rejoice however there is no danger of such a sacrifice. But why should he have sought my daughter's hand ?"

"It is a tribute to her loveliness. Even one like him could bow before it. But the love of mere external grace and beauty by a man without principle is only of brief duration. These do not minister long to his selfishness-and then the flower that charmed for a brief season is thrown aside with indifference, or trampled upon with scorn."

When Mr Lee returned home, his feelings were widely different from those with which he had left his family in the morning. The reader has seen the change.

CHAPTER VIII.-A WISE SELECTION OF FRIENDS.

ABOUT a week after the interview described in the last chapter, a note was left for Anna Lee, containing an invitation for her to spend an evening at the house of Mrs Leslie. "A few friends are to be present," was added in

the note.

"What have you there?" asked Mrs Lee, coming into Anna's room about ten minutes after, and finding her daughter sitting in a thoughtful mood, with Mrs Leslie's invitation in her hand.

Anna gave her mother the note. After reading it, she handed it back, and said with a smile

"Mrs Leslie is very kind, always to remember you when she has company."

"Yes."

This response was cold, and made in an equivocal tone. Anna said nothing more, and Mrs Lee did not refer more particularly to the subject. On the day before the one to which the invitation had referred, Anna said to her mother

"After thinking a good deal about it, I have made up my mind not to go to Mrs Leslie's to-morrow, nor ever again."

"Have you a good reason?"

Perhaps not one that I could make fully plain to every body. But I think you can understand me. I do not feel right, when I think of going there."

"There must be some reasons for such a feeling."

"And there are. But even these reasons are so linked