Hart Richfield touched the horse lightly with his whip, then leaned back in the buggy-seat and drew a long breath of enjoyment.

It was six o'clock in the morning. The country road over which he drove was rutless and grass-edged; some of it lined with cottonwood trees, their satiny, green leaves winking and twinkling in the noiseless morning breeze. On either side were meadows of lucerne and long stretches of tilled fields, many of them with a lark perched like a sentinel on the fence-poles, alternating their near plaintive cadence with the faint calls of a fellow songster somewhere in the distance. Over in the east the indigo peaks were tinting up with reflections cast by patches of sunrise-reddened cloud, poised like kites in the sky above. The air was dewily cool, as if blown from the surface of some crystal stream, and its breath, and the hush, and all the sweet freshness and fragrance of the morning made Hart's pulses glow with absolute delight.

The sense of new birth of time and the world, which the sight of an early dawn brings even to jaded hearts--was it not three-fold keen with this lusty young fellow hardly out of his teens, strong, hopeful, ambitious, with life's thousand avenues of effort and achievement open before him? And then, too, to be experiencing at this particular time a first touch of that "perennial sorcery of the world"--love; and to be upon this particular morning on his way to an opportunity of seeing, and being, and conversing with its object-was it wonder that the air and landscape and dawn should hold magnified enchantment.

It was a holiday--the Twenty-fourth, and she was to be his partner to a picnic at Hilton's Farm, or Hilton's "Grove," as it had been newly christened since the street cars ran there.

They were to meet the rest of the "crowd" at seven o'clock, and he had just an hour to ride out to the mouth of the canyon where she lived and join the others at the ward schoolhouse, from whence they were to start.

The "crowd" were six inseparable young couples (of which he and Millie were members) who considered any pastime insipid which lacked the full complement of their number in its participation. Not any of them were engaged yet; but the pairing of these young fledglings meant some pretty mating and nesting in future time, though the majority of the sextette would have blushingly and cynically disclaimed any present idea of such serious and important prospects.

Hart had little to do in the way of talk, but he had no bashfulness in owning to himself about Millie. She was to be "his girl" always, as now, if only she remained willing. He could answer for his own sentiments, and as to their families--no room for doubt existed with regard to them.

The pleasure had been embarrassingly manifest. Hart's nerves grew tense yet at the remembrance of the open congratulations which had taken place at the ward entertainment between their respective parents, upon the evident liking of the young people for each other, when his and Millie's "beauing" was as yet but a fortnight old. It had almost "broken it up" at first, but the sentiment had proven too strong to be snapped by the little gust of bashfulness and self-consciousness which followed--and it had come now to all but an open understanding between them.

He was to take a two-year's study of dentistry in New York to equip himself with a profession, and if when he came back, she was still the same, they would be married. This thought, too, helped to tinge the wonderful morning.

How cool and green the hills looked near at hand, with their shadows filtered into halftones by the morning sunshine. A pretty spot for a home, with the pines and cedars running down the hill slopes to the very edge of the yard.

The house was set back from the street under a shade of poplar and cottonwood trees, and Hart leaned down, trying to glimpse of the doorway under them, before getting out of the buggy. He thought she might be on the porch waiting. Then he tied the hitching-strap to a tree and went in.

The front door was open, and Hart rapped on it; a little girl came into the hall from a side room. It was Millie's sister.

"Hello, Fanny," said Hart. "Is Millie ready?" "No. She ain't going."

"Not going! why what's the matter! Is she sick?"

"No," said Fannie. "She ain't sick. She can't go. Pa won't let her."

"Can I see her a minute?" asked Hart, confidently.

"She told me to give you this," said Fannie in answer, handing him a note. The child acted shy and strange, something entirely new to Hart's long acquaintance with her.

"She said to read it when you was alone," went on Fannie, as Hart, with characteristic directness was about to break the seal and at once settle the mystery.

"Oh!" said Hart. He turned away quietly, satisfied that something more serious than he could imagine had caused this strange and formal proceeding. Once away from the house he opened and read her letter. It contained the following:

Dear Hart!

Father has refused to let me go to the Grove with you today, and he has also told me to tell you that you can't come to see me any more. It is something about that case that was tried in court the other day. He says that your testimony not only betrayed and sacrificed your brother, but the principles of your Church as well. You know, dear Hart, just how father feels about these things, and I hope you will not blame me for what I believe to be his unjust judgment. I know you too well to believe for a moment that you would do anything that your conscience could reproach you for, and I am sure you can explain all to your own and father's satisfaction. Try not to be angry with him or me, and believe that I am, as ever,

Your loving, Millie

Hart crumpled the note into his pocket with an indignant and impatient gesture. Not because of Millie. He could ask for nothing sweeter nor fuller than her expression of sympathy, but his clear conscience and the double blow he had received through his disappointment and pride made him unable to suppress a swift feeling of resentment against the man who had punished him in so harsh a way for an uncommitted, or at least purely innocent, fault.

The facts of the matter were these: In the trial of his half-brother for polygamy, Hart had been called upon to testify in the case, and the sharp examination had called forth certain damaging statements against the defendant. The second marriage, in fact, had been of too long duration and too publicly acknowledged to make possible a successful defense under any circumstances, and Hart had but followed the instructions of his brother in answering frankly as to what he knew in regard to the reputed relation existing between the two. It ended in a six months' sentence, which the brother was now fulfilling with every show of patience and cheer. This was the gist of the circumstances which had called down upon him David Hurst's unexpected anger. Hart was too well acquainted with the man's character to be at all surprised at the step, if the latter believed him really culpable.

No fault on earth, there was, that could not be more easily pardoned by him, than that of turning in any way against the Church--Mormonism being to him a jewel, in whose defense he would elect as willingly to die as live.

For his devotion, nothing, indeed, could be but praise. Hart had been forced always to admire the strict integrity--the uncompromising adherence to principle which was his predominant trait of character--a trait as fixed as the hills to the earth. He came of a long line of Calvinistic ancestors who were as willing to be burnt as they were to burn for religious conviction; as willing to sacrifice a son as an enemy, to principle; and the trait had descended in direct force to David Hurst, making him, in any serious or important matter, a stern antagonist to compromise or quibbling, and in the question of his religion ready to become a voluntary martyr rather than slight its cause. With this commendable integrity and fervor, however, there was a fault of temperament which made his zeal sometimes objectionable, unmingled as it was with the discretion and forbearance by which ends are so much better and quicker gained through bluster. His spirituality was of a bristling sort, that pricked rather than soothed; goaded rather than led, and repulsed instead of won.

It was a common description in the ward, when David preached, that "Brother Hurst scolded the congregation," his discourse imitating oftener the Caudle style, than that of an evangel of Christ--harshly pointing out the shadows of the world, without unfolding any light which might dissipate the darkness.

This was the man with whose prejudices or peculiarities Hart Richfield had involuntarily clashed, and in whose hands lay the privilege of influencing at least one part of his destiny for good or ill. Hart's knowledge of the grain of gold in the man's character had made him lenient in many cases where a display of ill-directed zeal or anger had awakened severe judgement from others. But to theorize generously and dispassionately about others' grievances and one's own are two separate things; and Hart for the first time was able to realize how cruel the sting of an unmerited and harsh rebuke, prompted by however honest and worthy a motive.

He rode back through the lanes and meadows with a sore heart. The enchantment had faded from the dawn and landscape. The sun-brightened fields looked dry and parched, and the long road, fretted by a light wind that faced him, showed a scurry of gray dust that rose over the wheels and filled his throat. This and the rest of the disagreeable happenings made him glad to reach home.

In about two hours' time, Miles Hentley, Hart's particular friend, rode back from the grove to find out the cause of the missing couple's absence.

"We thought possibly you'd been tipped over," said Miles, "and the crowd appointed me a committee to investigate." Hart told him the occurrence and Miles persisted in laughing at the entire affair. "It will all come out right," he said, "and I for one shouldn't let it spoil my pleasure--I'd spend the day at the Grove just the same."

But Hart was too miserable to think of that. He stayed about the house all day-sitting on the front porch and trying to fix his mind on the Dental Journal, for which he had recently subscribed. But it was in vain. His thoughts whirled and revolved inevitably upon the engrossing slight. The house was situated in the nearer limits of ------ addition--the main road leading past his home and on towards the Hurst farm at the extreme outskirts.

Sometime in the afternoon Hart recognized David Hurst's buggy coming in the distance, and upon its approaching nearer, saw that it was the man himself in the seat driving. Hart walked down to the gate. Hurst drove past looking straight ahead.

"Mr. Hurst."

The other turned.

"I want to speak with you a moment." David drew rein, looking at Hart in silence. "I want to ask you, Mr. Hurst, if you think the stand you have taken with regard to me and Millie is entirely justifiable," he said quietly.

David Hurst leaned toward him over the buggy.

"Hart," he said impressively, "I can't put in words how I felt when I read in the paper what you'd done. I couldn't have felt worse if it had been my own son. To think that a lad that I've watched grow up from a babe to manhood, born in the Church, reared in the Church, and with parents that have suffered persecution, and given up all that they had on earth for its sake, should have turned traitor and betrayed its principles to our enemies, and one of his own flesh and blood, to further the ends of their hatred, is almost more than I can believe, even with the proof that I have. I tell you Hart, I'd rather have seen you buried than to see you live for this."

Hart kept silent until he ended. The man's sincerity was so evident that it helped to keep in check the resentment rising in his heart at the severe arraignment.

"I suppose you are referring to my testimony in my brother's case," he said at length; "and on my part, I can assure you that I never would have dreamed it possible for any one on earth to take such a view of it as you have expressed. In the first place the case would have been decided as it was, without my testimony. My brother himself recognized the hopelessness of making a defence, and advised all of us to attempt no further reservation than the examination would permit."

"I'd have seen them in Tophet," interrupted David Hurst warmly, "before I'd a helped to make it easy for 'em to carry on their persecution."

"I simply answered the questions they put to me," said Hart. "I couldn't do less than that."

"They'd have had to take more trouble than asking, to get it out of me. Red hot irons couldn't have made me tell what you told, if it had been an enemy on trial, let alone one of my own kin."

Hart's face flushed.

"I have explained the circumstances," he said, "and can feel that I have nothing to reproach myself for; with regard to my part in the trial my conscience is absolutely clear."

David Hurst straightened himself up as if to go, then turned and looked at Hart. The face which had been flushed and angry became pale.

"Hart Richfield," he said slowly, "I've looked on you and loved you always as if you were my own son. I've been proud of you and your good name and standing in the community, but I tell you when you dare to stand up before me and talk of a clear conscience with the knowledge in your heart of having sided with our enemies against your people and the principles of your Church, I want none of you. And I warn you now that from this time on, unless you acknowledge your fault and repent before the Lord, you'll go down, till you're brought to the dust, to mourn for it in sackcloth and ashes."

Hart Richfield for a moment was deadly pale, then his face flushed with hot resentment.

"I've done nothing to repent of nor to be made to mourn for," he said; "and if it was you or my father I'd do the same thing again; I--"

David Hurst interrupted him. His face was flushed again, and his eyes blazing with anger. He leaned far out over the buggy and shook his fist in Hart's face.

"If you'd ever have dared to take the stand against me that you did in that case," he said, "I'd have smashed your face so that your own mother would never have known you!"

Then he picked up the reins and drove away. That evening, after dark, Hart's father drove over to the Hurst farm. Both parents had taken the affair seriously to heart.

Priceless, next to their religious faith, was the good name and standing of their beloved son in the Church and community, and the thought that anything so like the nature of a curse as that pronounced by David Hurst had descended upon his head, was to this good and devout couple something almost like a tragedy.

"I for one sha'n't let such a thing pass by," said Jacob Richfield; "It's a wrong to me as well as to Hart, and I mean to go to Brother Hurst and lay the whole matter before him in its true light. Then if he wants to make it right he can; if not, it will rest on his own head."

"I don't believe but what he will make it right, when you've explained it to him," said Mrs. Richfield. "I believe David Hurst would do whatever he thought was right, no matter how much he had to humble himself."

"I know that," said her husband. If I didn't I shouldn't think of going near him. But Hart will never get over this unless he does make amends, nor I neither, for that matter; and I'll be fair enough to give him the facts in the case, anyway, and then let him act for himself."

"The trouble will be," said Mrs. Richfield significantly, "to make him see that he is in the wrong."

"That's where the trouble usually does come in with David Hurst," answered her husband.

He went away, coming back after a long evening, with spirit sorer than when he left home.

"Well," he said to his wife, who was waiting for him, sitting down and taking off his hat with an emphatic air, "I've had my trouble for my pains this time."

"You don't tell me," said Mrs. Richfield.

"I've heard of stiff-necked people before," he answered slowly, "but if there was ever an incarnation of stiff-neckedness, I believe it's David Hurst."

"I want to hear all about it," said his wife anxiously.

Her husband drew his chair up to a little leaf-table and commenced to eat from a bowl of bread and milk placed ready for him, with nervous excitement.

"To sum it all up in a nutshell," he said, "the man wouldn't hear a thing I had to say. I couldn't tell him anything, nor explain a word about the affair. He knew all about it, and didn't want to hear any more. There wasn't an iota of excuse for Hart, under any kind of circumstances, he declared, and he'd live to see the day every word he'd said to him would be fulfilled."

"I can't believe it," said Mrs. Richfield, the tears filling her eyes.

"'Well, Brother Hurst,' I said, 'I come in a peaceable and friendly spirit-though I don't consider it my place to make the advances--to come to an understanding with you if possible, so there would be no bad feelings between us. I know my boy's heart better than anyone, and I know he wouldn't do any more to hurt the Church or this people than you would yourself. But if this is your stand after all I've done to explain matters, I've nothing more to say on the subject.' Then he went on and talked an hour, all to the end that he'd done righteously in rebuking Hart, and that he had nothing to retract. At last I saw it was no use arguing, and I came away."

"Poor Hart!" said Mrs. Richfield, "I guess he'll feel worse than anyone knows about losing Millie."

"I told Brother Hurst so; and I said 'twas a shame to separate them, and he told me in plain terms that he'd rather see her dead than that she should marry him. I tell you, Annie, I've had just about all I could do to keep my temper within bounds tonight."

"I guess you have," said his wife.

"Now, I ain't going to worry anymore about it," declared Jacob, with a trusting way that he had; "I'm going to leave the whole matter in the hands of the Lord."

In the fall Hart went to New York to take up the study of dentistry. He had seen nothing of Millie in the meantime and went away without the privilege of a word of farewell. How different had been his "castles"--those dawn-built structures, vanished now into gray air! The event had made a perceptible change in both the young people--evident to familiar and loving hearts, if to none else. Hart had become strangely taciturn and thoughtful, if not morose, and had given up all pleasures and his meetings as well, staying closely at home; while Millie went about the Hurst household, a shadowy negative of her former self. Not a quiet negative, though. Her unhappiness found expression in a continual discontent and peevishness which was as unpleasant to those about her as it was unusual to her hitherto even and cheerful disposition.

"She's no more like herself than black is like white," her mother said to David Hurst one day. "It's getting so we can hardly live in the same house with her--she's so fretful."

"I've noticed it," said her husband, "and more than all that, she's neglecting her meetings and the association. There's always some excuse ready with her to get out of going. Either you or I shall have to take her in hand now, and have her do different. It is pure stubbornness, her giving up to this spirit."

"I don't know about that, David," said his wife, "Millie was never willful in her life before and you have only to look at her to know she ain't well."

"Well, have something done for her. I'll tell Dr. Haight to come over today and see if he can't give her a tonic or something to help her."

"I don't believe medicine would do her a mite of good. If you want to know just what I think, I believe it's nothing but her fretting about Hart Richfield that ails her."

"Then it's time she was coming to her senses. I'll have a talk with her myself tomorrow." This threat was carried out; resulting in a protracted conversation between the two in the parlor, the next day, from which Millie emerged with eyes betraying signs of weeping.

She commenced to go regularly to her meetings again, and went occasionally to the "Mutual" though with an air that revealed better than objections could have done, her actual lack of interest in their concerns.

"Millie's the last one on earth I could ever have believed would turn so shrewish," said her mother to the others. But she was gentle and forbearing of the child's fretful outburst, guessing at the unhappy heart whose secret had caused the change.

"Brother Andy, I'm glad to see you around again," shouted David Hurst from his buggy, driving past a vine-covered adobe cottage on his way home one afternoon in the late spring.

Andy Gale rose from the porch steps and limped down his tulip-edged path to the gate.

"How are you Brother Hurst," he said giving his thin hand into the other's strong grasp. "Yes," in reply to his neighbor's first greeting, "I'm glad to be well again: I just told Sister Gale that it was pay enough for hibernating in a sick room all winter to come out again with the rest of the June roses."

"We all know your heart's as fresh as they are, if your frame's not, Brother Andy," said David affectionately. The old man was a tenderly loved soul in the community, his sympathetic, gentle, and brave spirit attracting hearts with a spell as subtle and steady as the magnet's.

"Well, maybe it is," he answered, "but I guess a little pruning wouldn't hurt it. How are things up town, now; the Commonwealers gone yet?"

"Not all; I've just been to one of their open air meetings to-day. I was passing, and thought I'd wait and hear what they had to say."

"Pretty threatening talk engaged in, I understand."

"Terrible! Scandalous! I never thought the time would come in any place in this country, that such talk would be allowed, or countenanced, let alone in our own quiet little valleys in the mountains."

"Well, we can rest sure it will go no further than talk, with us here, but with the nation I fear it will be a more serious affair."

"It will, unless steps are taken to crush it out."

"Brother Hurst," said Andy solemnly, "this problem that has risen in the midst of the nation will not be crushed out until the Lord's purposes are fulfilled. If we think this scourge has come about by accident--we forget the predictions that have been uttered by our prophets since the foundation of the Church. I tell you, Brother Hurst, it is the beginning of the end. The Lord has been patient long enough with this nation, and now, the times of threshing for the harvest have begun. What is all this trouble, whose uproar is filling the land, but the outcome of the selfishness and iniquity of those into whose hands have fallen the power of governing the people? Since the emancipation of the slaves, what effort has been made by the government for the advancement of human right? None that have not been backed by selfish and mercenary interests of individuals seeking their own and not another's gain. For nearly thirty years the parties of this nation have been making a fetich of the tariff question whilst abuses have been rolling up whose problem the justest tariff measure on earth can never solve."

"I guess you're right about that. The tariff would hardly serve effectually in the present instance either way. Protection can't put all the unemployed at work, now, any more than it has in the past; and, on the other hand, as the politicians say-cheap articles don't benefit a man much if he hasn't got the money to buy them."

"It's a shibboleth," said Andy solemnly, "a war cry, that men quarrel for, while they pass graver questions by. Joseph Smith foresaw this time. I've heard him say often that a crisis would come when the great parties of this nation would have to consider the cause of humanity and live out the law of equality and brotherhood which Christ declared to be the only perfect system, or they would split asunder and go to the wall. In Nationalism, Populism, and the hundred and one movements that are being made in the direction of bringing about the establishment of that system, we can see as plain as Belshazzar the handwriting that predicts the downfall of the selfish and useless powers that have usurped the place of right so long."

"These questions are certainly figuring in the affairs of the nation now," said David.

He had always a pleasure in hearing Andy talk. There was a gift of foresight and prediction belonging to the spiritual side of the old man's nature, and his thoughts gave one material, always, for remembrance and reflection.

"Why Brother Hurst," the latter went on, in his quietly earnest way, "what is this Nationalism we hear so much about now-a-days, but the very system revealed to us by prophecy, years before this agitation began?

"Here is that young fellow, Hart Richfield, just back from New York and Boston, where they are in the thick of the movement, explaining Nationalism to me as if it was some new thing just heard of. I told him to go home and read up on the Order of Enoch in his Doctrine and Covenants, and see if the two systems wasn't as near alike as two peas. 'Of course they differ a little in detail,' I said, 'but the principle's just the same.'"

"That's just about how it goes," said David Hurst quietly. "The young people will rush off into the world for something they can find right at home."

"So I told him. But he came right back at me with a question that fairly swamped me, smart as I am. 'I've heard of the Order of Enoch, of course, Brother Gale,' he said, 'but with the people here it seems to be practically a theory. Back East, now, they are trying to put it into practice--that's what a right principle is made for, isn't it?' I can tell you, Brother Hurst, I felt--quat! Of course I told him we intended to practice it some time--when the right time came. But he thought with such an important principle imparted to our trust we ought to have commenced it long ago. And I don't know but what he's right. At any rate the Lord has seemed to see fit to put into the hearts of others to bring about the establishment of this system on the earth, and all we can do now is to fall in and help the work along."

"I've said it a thousand times over," answered David Hurst, earnestly, "that some time we would be called to task for our lackness and negligence in attending to the principle. And I believe that the trials of these hard times that are on us are a lesson to us, as well as to the nation, for our selfishness and forgetfulness."

"Brother Hurst," said Andy solemnly, "it's not alone in this matter that we Latter-day Saints merit chastisement. It's in our everyday life as well. For a half a century we've been priding ourselves on having a gospel that ought to make us Christ-like if anything could! But how many of us live up to the letter of his teachings? How many of us enjoy the blessing that ought to come from a right observance of his word? Have we less sickness, less deaths, less hardships and worry than other people? No. And yet the Book of Mormon tells us that the ancient inhabitants of this earth who had the same gospel, lived so purely at times that for long periods no afflictions or trouble came upon them. Now, if they could do that, why shouldn't we? Because we don't take the trouble to live to deserve it. We're just as ready to hate as to love, to curse as to bless, to let die as to let live! and the result is that we have trials come on us that we never would have, if we'd live up to our commandments and light.

"I want to ask you why it is that some of our people are running after this Christian Science? Is it because that doctrine has more truth than Mormonism, any purer principles than our religion, any greater power of healing than our system? No. But because we've been careless of our privileges, and of our way of living, careless of our gifts as we have been of our Enoch system, till we're in danger of losing what power and influence have ever been bestowed to our trust."

David Hurst winced. He realized of course that the neighbors must know that Millie had taken to "running after Christian Science," and the mention of anything approaching the subject, seemed to him a cruel sting. Yet he could not believe the kindly old man meant malice, and he answered frankly:

"Brother Gale, I have a daughter who, to my sorrow, has seen fit to go outside the Church for spiritual comfort; but I can't think that it's because every good thing she needs is not contained in this religion."

"Why, man, there's nothing good that's not contained in it! But the trouble is, in nine cases out of ten, though--like the Order of Enoch, we don't take the pains to prove it. I tell you, Brother Hurst, the time is coming when we've got to live every word of our religion to keep its blessings. And I believe all these trying things have come about to bring us to it."

David Hurst rode homeward with a thoughtful heart. Andy Gale's talk had come home to him with unusual power and suggestion. A new light had seemed to enter his soul, and by it he saw clearly for the first time in his life the web of prejudice and self-will in which he had been entangled for many years. His thoughts kept going back to and reiterating Andy's words. "As ready to hate as to love, to curse as to bless." Yes. He knew too surely that that could apply to himself. And about Millie, too? Was not his conscience sore there? How many times had she been harshly repulsed? And that, too, when she had been all love and kindness. It had made him angry to see the sudden change in her of late, since she had taken up Christian Science, for she had attributed it all to that. Was not love, and gentleness, and the forbearance and all those considerations of which she was so tenacious now, in Mormonism also? Indeed yes! But, had he always applied them? Alas! Too many instances were in his memory to let his conscience boast here!

And Hart Richfield! Had he possibly been wrong in that affair? In the two years that had passed since then, no doubt had crossed his mind. Only once a shadow had flitted, when after a year in which Hart's family had not spoken, the good old couple had come to him at the time of the Temple dedication and freely proffered their forgiveness and friendship.

"We can't go into that holy place holding hard feelings or resentment against a living soul," they had said, their lips quivering, and he could not but guess then, how hard it was for them; especially after reports had come that their son was drifting away from Mormonism, as if in fulfillment of his word--a trial harder than any on earth for them to bear. He could see now how selfish, how ungenerous it was for him to let them make the first advances of peace. To him, who, without any personal right or business in the affairs had taken it upon himself to interfere--and chastise their son. How blind he had been! As he rode on, tears were in his eyes, and he was praying silently. When he reached the Richfield cottage he tied his horse and went in.

"Sister Richfield," he said as she came forward to greet him, "is your son Hart at home?" "Hart," he went on quickly, as Hart, hearing his name, looked up from his desk, "I've come here today in humility and repentance to make amends if I can, for the wrong I committed against you two years ago. I took upon myself to judge you then for a fault that was grievous in my eyes, not seeing that I was committing a greater one by my lack of charity and brotherly forbearance. I see it now, and I am ashamed of it. I'm ashamed for the slight I put upon you, and more than all for the fit of anger and spleen I exhibited toward you that day at the gate. I'm ashamed that I let Brother and Sister Richfield, here, come to me with offers of peace, whilst I held back and rejoiced in my pride and self-righteousness. And I want Hart, and I want you friends, to forgive me, if you can, for it--and to try and take me back into your friendship and esteem."

"Millie," said her father some two weeks afterward, "how do you like the idea of giving a picnic to some of your young friends here at the farm on the Twenty-fourth? There's room under the orchard-trees there for a floor to dance on, and we might put up a pavilion over in the pines across the creek for refreshments-and the swings and other amusements we could think up would make a first rate holiday for the folks."

"Father! You don't really mean it!" cried Millie in delighted amaze. She had often thought of the plan, but the hints she had thrown out twice as "feelers" in that direction had been met by so chilling a douche by the head of the house that she had not dared to crystallize them into a formal suggestion. And now it had come at his own will! Not that it was a surprise that it would have been a month since. He had been so changed of late--so full of gentleness and love towards them all in the household, that this last evidence of considerate forethought for her happiness seemed indeed but natural in this kind father whom she was newly learning to know and love aright. And yet--it seemed, indeed, too good to be true!

"Oh! Pa!" shouted Fannie, who had overheard the precious proposal, "will you let us have bonfires and ice cream?"

"Do you want 'em mixed?" asked her father.

"Yes," replied Fan, eagerly, "and oh! can we have some Chinese lanterns to hang in the air?"

"In the air or on the trees, Fan?" asked Millie laughing. "Your idea of combining the elements is somewhat supernatural."

"Well, can we?" insisted Fan.

"I shouldn't be surprised," answered her father. Then as she bounded away to apprise the rest of the household of the princely event promised, he turned to Millie.

"I guess daughter," he said, "you'll need some one to help you plan out and carry on the affair, and I thought perhaps you'd better ask Hart Richfield over to take some of the responsibility off your shoulders. He's apt to have new ideas, and--"

"Father!" Millie's slim form was shaken with sobs, and her arms were clinging close around his neck. David Hurst's strong hand gently stroked the short auburn curls pressed tight against his shoulder.

"There daughter! There my little girl!" he said.

The important day soon came at the Hurst farm. In the house, on the porches and lawns, in the pavilion across the creek, and upon the smooth floor laid down in the orchard grove-groups of young people--pretty girls in dainty white and pink, and blue dresses, and good-looking young fellows in cool nobby summer suits had laughed and talked and danced, and downed ices and lemonades and sandwiches with purest enjoyment all the afternoon, and showed no signs of tiring of it until the furthest hours of evening.

Millie in her white swiss dress, flitting here, and there, and everywhere throughout the house and grounds in her role of hostess, made Hart think of a snow-white butterfly he had chased once in childhood across fields and meadows, and through strips of orchard, only to vanish, eventually--when he had about imprisoned the pretty whisp of light under his hat--so far up in the air, that even his strained glance could not pursue it.

Today he had shadowed Millie throughout the grounds with like success so far as futile following went, and in his disappointment he had told himself that she would probably slip from him forever in some such effectual, if not solemn way, in which he had lost the butterfly.

He had been with her frequently during the past week but had not dared to speak of his newly-aroused hope, lest it might prove the step too far beyond the limit of her father's willing concessions. So he had put it off from day to day. He had not had a word with her today since the people began to arrive at two o'clock. It was now twilight. The lanterns were lit about the porches and in the orchard, and Hart for a moment was sitting apart, enjoying the fanciful scene made by the colored lights and the pretty groupings under the trees.

"Is that you, Hart?" asked Millie's voice suddenly near by. "I was looking for you," she said coming towards him in the dusk. "Will you come with me to look for little May Burns and Fannie? We can't find them anywhere about the place, and mother's afraid they've strolled up the canyon. She wants me to find them before father knows."

Hart put her hand under his arm, and they went quietly across the creek and towards the canyon. As they walked along the lonely road, Hart told Millie of his thought about the butterfly.

"I don't see why that particular circumstance should suggest me," said Millie laughing. "I don't believe I shall go so far as to die to escape you, and that seems to me to be the only possible way to establish an analogy."

"There are other ways of losing you as hopelessly," said Hart, tinging his tone with his blue mood.

They walked on a few steps in silence, then Millie spoke softly.

"Hart!"

"Yes," he answered.

"Why don't you drop your hat over the butterfly?"

"Millie!" cried Hart.

They were quite alone; but if a hundred had been near no one could have told whether it was the gurgling water or a kiss; and before Hart had released her, they heard Fannie's and May's voices just ahead in the darkness. They were crying pitifully, and Hart and Millie hurried toward them anxiously.

"Fannie!" called Hart reassuringly as they approached, "It's all right, Millie and I are here to take you safely home."

"I don't want you to," came a reply in wailing, petulant tones, "I want Annie and Jim to!"

"Why folks are you with them?" cried Millie and Hart in a breath. Millie's cousin Ada and her fiancé were in a buggy, each holding a weeping child in their arms.

"Yes," said Ada, "we got tired of staying around the grounds, so Jim hitched up and we took the children up the canyon for a ride. "What are you crying for, Fan," asked Millie, "are you afraid of the dark, or that you'll be reminded about not asking leave to go, when you get home?"

"I ain't afraid of either," snapped Fannie.

"She says she knows the refreshments will be eat up," said Jim explainingly.

"You saw to that yourself before you came away, Fan," volunteered Millie, unsympathetically.

But only Hart's assertion of countless freezers waiting to disgorge their entire treasures at the "open sesame" of the two certain small wanderers brought peace eventually to the mournful, aching hearts. Finally the buggy went on with its rejoicing load, Millie and Hart bringing up the rear of the triumphal procession.

As the latter walked homeward, Millie told Hart about the change in her father; and Hart told her of his work, and plans for the future. She was interested in his new politics as well, and Hart told her about that, too.

"I've found out one thing, though," said Hart finally before they reached home, "in everything I've taken hold of that amounts to anything, I've discovered in studying the subject up, that we've got something in the same line just as good, if not a great deal better, in Mormonism."

"I've found that out, too," said Millie. "That dear old gold-brick, Andy Gale," went on Hart, "put the whole truth in a nutshell when he told me, that people travel all over the universe--and discover Utah!"

"Hart," said Millie presently, in a shy but earnest tone, "I feel that it is only right to tell you before-hand--that--I wouldn't be married--any way but in the temple--for anything on earth!"

"Why, neither would I!" said Hart.

*Josephine Spencer's biographical data is found with her poem, "The Long Steel Road," presented earlier in this book. This story was published in the Contributor, 15 (1893-94).