You will understand this better if you will let me temperately explain to you the proposal, which he has just made so abruptly and confusedly in his own words." "Proposal, sir!" exclaimed Mrs.Peckover faintly, looking more frightened than ever--"Proposal! Oh, sir! you don't mean to say that you're going to ask me to part from little Mary ?" "I will ask you to do nothing that your own good sense and kind heart may not approve," answered the rector.

"In plain terms then, and not to waste time by useless words of preface, my friend, Mr.Blyth, feels such admiration for your little Mary, and such a desire to help her, as far as may be, in her great misfortune, that he is willing and eager to make her future prospects in life his own peculiar care, by adopting her as his daughter.

This offer, though coming, as I am aware, from a perfect stranger, can hardly astonish you, I think, if you reflect on the unusually strong claims which the child has to the compassion and kindness of all her fellow-creatures.

Other strangers, as you have told us, have shown the deepest interest in her on many occasions.

It is not therefore at all wonderful that a gentleman, whose Christian integrity of motive I have had opportunities of testing during a friendship of nearly twenty years, should prove the sincerity of his sympathy for the poor child, by such a proposal as I have now communicated to you." "Don't ask me to say yes to it, sir!" pleaded Mrs.Peckover, with tears in her eyes.