with delight and dread: delight at the beauty; dread that fills the soul
of any mother when she feels that she no longer holds her boy,--that his
life has another keeper,--and queries, "What of the keeper?"

"Well?" she said, looking up at her husband.

"Well," he answered, with a tone that meant, well. "She's thorough-bred.
Democratic or not, I will always insist, blood tells. Look at her: no
one needs to ask _who_ she is. I'd take her on trust without a word."

"So, then, you are not her critic, but her admirer."

"Ah, my dear, criticism is lost in admiration, and I am glad to find it
so."

"And I. Willie saw with our eyes, as a boy; it is fortunate that we can
see with his eyes, as a man."

So, without any words spoken, after that night, both Mr. and Mrs. Surrey
took this young girl into their hearts as they hoped soon to take her
into their lives, and called her "daughter" in their thought, as a
pleasant preparation for the uttered word by and by.

Thus the weeks fled. No word had passed between these two to which the
world might not have listened. Whatever language their hearts and their
eyes spoke had not been interpreted by their lips. He had not yet
touched her hand save as it met his, gloved or formal, or as it rested
on his arm; and yet, as one walking through the dusk and stillness of a
summer night feels a flower or falling leaf brush his check, and starts,
shivering as from the touch of a disembodied soul, so this slight