Father Abram pushed open the mill door, and entered softly.  And then he stood still, wondering.  He heard the sound of some one within, weeping inconsolably.  He looked, and saw Miss Chester sitting in a dim pew, with her head bowed upon an open letter that her hands held.

Father Abram went to her, and laid one of his strong hands firmly upon hers.  She looked up, breathed his name, and tried to speak further.

“Not yet, Miss Rose,” said the miller, kindly.  “Don’t try to talk yet.  There’s nothing as good for you as a nice, quiet little cry when you are feeling blue.”

It seemed that the old miller, who had known so much sorrow himself, was a magician in driving it away from others.  Miss Chester’s sobs grew easier.  Presently she took her little plain-bordered handkerchief and wiped away a drop or two that had fallen from her eyes upon Father Abram’s big hand.  Then she looked up and smiled through her tears.  Miss Chester could always smile before her tears had dried, just as Father Abram could smile through his own grief.  In that way the two were very much alike.

The miller asked her no questions; but by and by Miss Chester began to tell him.

It was the old story that always seems so big and important to the young, and that brings reminiscent smiles to their elders.  Love was the theme, as may be supposed.  There was a young man in Atlanta, full of all goodness and the graces, who had discovered that Miss Chester also possessed these qualities above all other people in Atlanta or anywhere else from Greenland to Patagonia.  She showed Father Abram the letter over which she had been weeping.  It was a manly, tender letter, a little superlative and urgent, after the style of love letters written by young men full of goodness and the graces.  He proposed for Miss Chester’s hand in marriage at once.  Life, he said, since her departure for a three-weeks’ visit, was not to be endured.  He begged for an immediate answer; and if it were favourable he promised to fly, ignoring the narrow-gauge railroad, at once to Lakelands.

“And now where does the trouble come in?” asked the miller when he had read the letter.

“I cannot marry him,” said Miss Chester.

“Do you want to marry him?” asked Father Abram.

“Oh, I love him,” she answered, “but—­” Down went her head and she sobbed again.

“Come, Miss Rose,” said the miller; “you can give me your confidence.  I do not question you, but I think you can trust me.”

“I do trust you,” said the girl.  “I will tell you why I must refuse Ralph.  I am nobody; I haven’t even a name; the name I call myself is a lie.  Ralph is a noble man.  I love him with all my heart, but I can never be his.”

“What talk is this?” said Father Abram.  “You said that you remember your parents.  Why do you say you have no name?  I do not understand.”

“I do remember them,” said Miss Chester.  “I remember them too well.  My first recollections are of our life somewhere in the far South.  We moved many times to different towns and states.  I have picked cotton, and worked in factories, and have often gone without enough food and clothes.  My mother was sometimes good to me; my father was always cruel, and beat me.  I think they were both idle and unsettled.