“I shall profit by your words, dear father.  I shall need much of that heavenly quality which is so little appreciated, and apt to be mistaken for lack of force.”

“May you grow in all the Christian graces, and be life and light to yourself and others, always remembering that your light is none the less for lighting another’s torch.”

“I shall go to-day to G—.  Will you drive there, yourself alone?”

“I will.”

An hour later they were on their way to a quiet village, a few miles from the Wyman’s, where lived a friend of Dawn and her father, with whom she would stay a few days.  The ride was delightful, and their communion so close and deep, that when they parted, it seemed as though they had never realized before, their need of each other.  This feeling of tenderness brought them nearer in soul, if that were possible.  It was like moonlight to the earth, mellowing and softening all lines and angles.

“Dearest father, did I ever love you before?” said Dawn, throwing herself on his breast, at parting.

“If you had not been working yourself so many years into my heart, you could not touch its very centre as you do now,” he said, wiping the moisture from his eyes, and folding her more tenderly to himself.  “Partings are but closest approaches, drawings of the heart-strings, which tell how strong the cords are which bind us to each other.”  The door of the friend’s house was thrown open just at this point of his remarks, and a welcome face smiled on Dawn, who sprung from her seat beside her father, into the arms of her friend.

“Take good care of her, and send her home when you are weary,” said her father, and turned his face homeward, but lingered long in spirit in the atmosphere of his child.

As he wound his way slowly up the long, shady avenue, that led to his home, another love came to his bosom, and transfused his being with a different, but equally uplifting life.  A moment more, and he held that other love close to his heart, the woman whom he had chosen to brighten his days and share his happiness.

“It seems as though Dawn had returned with you,” she said, as she received his loving caress.

“She is with me, and never so near as now.  Heaven grant I may not make her an idol,” he said, fervently, and then, almost regretting his words, he gazed tenderly into the eyes of his wife.

“You would find me no iconoclast,” she said, “for I, too, love her with my whole heart, and am jealous at times of all that takes her from us.  Yet she must go; day must go, for we need the change which night brings.”

“True,” answered Hugh, “no mortal could live continually in such concentrated happiness as I enjoy in the companionship of my child.”  He looked into the face of her who sat beside him, and saw in its every feature love, true love for him and his own, and he thanked God for the blessings of his life, laid his head on that true woman’s breast, and wept tears of joy.