"Let us go to him," Cary exclaimed presently, rising, with his arm still about her.

There were two wax candles burning in their sconces that had been made over forty years ago in Paul Revere's foundry. By the softened light Cary glanced at the flushed face, downcast eyes and dewy, tremulous lips. Half the sweet story was still untold, but there would be years and years. Oh, Heaven grant they might have them together! And at this instant he was filled with a profound sympathy for his father's loss and lonely life.

They walked slowly through the hall and paused a moment in the doorway.

Winthrop Adams was leaning his head on his hand, and the lamp a little at the side threw up his thin, finely cut features, as if they had been done in marble, and he was almost as pale. The exultation went out of the soul of the young lover, and a rush of tenderness such as he had never experienced before swept through him.

"Father," he said softly, touching him on the shoulder, "father--will you give me Doris, for your claim is first? Will you accept me as her lover, sometime to be her husband, always to be your son, and your daughter?"

Winthrop Adams rose half-bewildered. Had the secret hope of his soul unfolded in blessed fruition? He looked from one to the other, then his glance rested on his son--their eyes met, and in that instant they came to know each other as they never had before, to understand, to comprehend all that was in the tie of nature. He laid one hand on his son's shoulder, the other clasped the slim virginal figure, no longer a little girl, but whose girlhood and affectionate devotion would always fill both hearts.

"Doris, my child--you are quite sure----" He could not have his son defrauded of any sweetness.

Doris raised her downcast eyes and smiled, while the pink flush was like a rosy gleam of sunrise. Then she laid her hand over both of the others'

in a tender, caressing fashion. But she was too deeply moved for words.

Winthrop Adams kissed her fair brow, but her lover kissed her on the sweet, rosy lips.

They announced the engagement almost at once. It was done partly for De la Maur's sake, though after the first he took it quite philosophically.

There were three people supremely happy over it. Miss Recompense, Madam Royall,--who declared she would have been disappointed in Providence if it had been any other way,--and Cousin Betty, who was happy as a queen in her own life, though why we should make royalty a synonym for happiness I do not know.

"You never could have left Uncle Win," wrote Betty, "and Cary could not have gone away, neither could he have brought home a strange woman. This was the only satisfactory ending. But I hope you will be awfully in love with each other and sweet--and silly and all that. I am sorry for Captain Hawthorne, for, Doris, he loved you sincerely, but your French cousin can console himself with an English rhyme:

"'If she be not fair for me, What care I how fair she be?'"

And oddly enough a few months later he did console himself with Eudora Chapman.

Just a few years afterward there was a great time in Boston. For she had adopted a charter and become a real city, after long and earnest discussion. There was a grand celebration and no end of dinners, and young Cary Adams made one of the addresses. Mr. Winthrop Adams insisted that his life work was done, but he lived to be interested in many more improvements, and some charming grandchildren.

"But after all," Doris would declare, "splendid as it is going to be, I am glad to belong to Old Boston with her lanes and byways and rough hills and marsh lands, with their billowy grasses and wild flowers, and great gardens full of fruit trees, and the little old shops and people sitting on front stoops sewing or reading or chatting cozily. And what a pleasure it will be by and by to tell the children that I was a little girl in Old Boston."

THE END.

Other Books Published by A. L. BURT COMPANY

The "Little Girl" Series

By AMANDA M. DOUGLAS

A Little Girl in Old New York

A Little Girl of Long Ago A sequel to "A Little Girl in Old New York"

A Little Girl in Old Boston

A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia

A Little Girl in Old Washington

A Little Girl in Old New Orleans

A Little Girl in Old Detroit

A Little Girl in Old St. Louis

A Little Girl in Old Chicago

A Little Girl in Old San Francisco

A Little Girl in Old Quebec

A Little Girl in Old Baltimore

A Little Girl in Old Salem

A Little Girl in Old Pittsburg

The Camp Fire Girls Series

By HILDEGARD G. FREY.

THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS IN THE MAINE WOODS; or, The Winnebagos go Camping.

This lively Camp Fire group and their Guardian go back to Nature in a camp in the wilds of Maine and pile up more adventures in one summer than they have had in all their previous vacations put together.

THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT SCHOOL; or, The Wohelo Weavers.

How these seven live wire girls strive to infuse into their school life the spirit of Work, Health and Love and yet manage to get into more than their share of mischief, is told in this story.

THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT ONOWAY HOUSE; or, The Magic Garden.

Migwan is determined to go to college, and not being strong enough to work indoors earns the money by raising fruits and vegetables.

The Winnebagos all turn a hand to help the cause along and the "goingson" at Onoway House that summer make the foundation shake with laughter.

THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS GO MOTORING; or, Along the Road That Leads the Way.

In which the Winnebagos take a thousand mile auto trip.

THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS' LARKS AND PRANKS; or, The House of the Open Door.