the cause of his diffidence, had been employed in training and
richly storing his mind. Moreover, to one so accustomed to the
insincerity of society, his perfect frankness of speech and manner
was a novelty, interesting, if not always pleasing. She read his
thoughts as she would an open page, and saw that he esteemed her
as a true, sincere girl, kind and womanly, and that he had for her
the strongest respect. She feared that when he discovered her true
self he would scorn her to loathing. Not that she cared, except
that her pride would be hurt. But as she was more proud than vain,
she feared this honest man's verdict.

But soon her old reckless self triumphed. "Of course what I am
doing will seem awful to him," she thought. "I knew that before I
commenced. He shall not preach me out of my fun in one half-hour.
If I could make him love me in spite of what I am, it would be the
greater triumph. After all, I am only acting as all the girls in
my set do when they get a chance. It's not as bad as he makes out."

Still that was an eventful half-hour, when they looked out upon a
transfigured world together; and while she saw nature in her rarest
and purest beauty, she had also been given a glimpse into the more
beautiful world of truth, where God dwells.

But, as the morning advanced, good impulses and better feelings
and thoughts vanished, even as the snow-wreaths were dropping from
branch and spray, leaving them as bare as before. By the time the
sleigh drove up to the door she was as bent as ever upon victimizing
the "Western giant," as the conspirators had named him. She was
her old, decided, resolute self; all the more resolute because
facing, to her, a new hindrance,--her own conscience, which Hemstead