and personal advantages that made him the most desirable match in
Sardis. Starting with the premises given above, her first conclusion
was the natural one that she should marry the best man available,
and the next that that man was Harry Glen.

Her efforts had been bounded by the strictest code of maidenly
ethics, and so artistically developed that the only persons who
penetrated their skillful veiling, and detected her as a "designing
creature," were two or three maiden friends, whose maneuvers toward
the same objective were brought to naught by her success.

It must be admitted that refining causists may find room for censure
in this making Ambition the advance guard to spy out the ground
that Love is to occupy. But, after all, is there not a great deal
of mistake about the way that true love begins? If we had the data
before us we should be pained by the enlightenment that, in the
vast majority of cases the regard of young people for each other
is fixed in the first instance by motives that will bear quite as
little scrutiny as Miss Rachel Bond's.

We can afford to be careless how the germ of love is planted. The
main thing is how it is watered and tended, and brought to a lasting
and beautiful growth. Rachel's ambition gratified, there had been
a steady rise toward flood in the tide of her affections. She
was not long in growing to love Harry with all the intensity of a
really ardent nature.

After the meeting at which Harry had signed the recruiting roll,
he had taken her home up the long, sloping hill, through moonlight
as soft, as inspiring, as glorifying as that which had melted even