Mildred at Home: With Something About Her Relatives and Friends.

It was several weeks after their arrival in Pleasant Plains that one day, finding himself alone with her, Rupert asked, "Juanita, my love, which would you prefer, going to housekeeping, or just living on here as we have been doing so far, with my father and mother?"

"Ah, Rupert, would they like to have us stay?" she asked, with an eager look up into his face, for he was standing beside the low chair in which she was seated.

"Yes," he said, smiling down on her; "and I see you would like it too."

"Oh no, not unless you please; I mean I should prefer whatever would be most for the pleasure and happiness of my dear husband."

"Thank you, love," he said, bending down to caress her hair and cheek; "then we will stay here at least for the present, for I perceive that will be agreeable to all parties. But whenever you weary of it, and think you would be happier in a home of your own, you must tell me so without reserve. Promise me that you will."

"Yes, señor," she returned, gayly, "I promise; but the time will never come till I have learned to do all housewifely duties just as your dear mother does."

Her words gave him great pleasure, and she saw with delight that they did. She sprang up in a pretty, impulsive way she had, threw her arms round his neck, and gazing up into his face with eyes beaming with light and love, "Oh, my dear husband," she cried, "how good, how kind you are to me always, always!"

"I should be a brute if I were anything else to you, my precious little darling!" he said, holding her close, with many a fond caress.

Rupert was again devoting himself to business with all the old energy and faithfulness.

Don, unable to decide what was best suited to his capacity and inclination, waited for some sort of opening, and in the mean time resumed some of his former studies, and spent a good deal of his leisure in the society of his sisters and Dr. Landreth's relative and guest, Miss Flora Weston.

He was pleased with her, and the liking was mutual. Don was a handsome, high-spirited fellow, and could be very entertaining in conversation. And Flora, with improving health and spirits, had become quite an attractive girl.

The friendship at length ripened into love. She remained in Pleasant Plains through the winter, and before spring had fairly opened the two were affianced, with the knowledge and consent of parents and relatives on both sides. But as both were very young, the marriage would not take place for a year or more.

In May Mr. Weston came for his daughter.

His home was in New Jersey, where he was largely engaged in manufactures, and he had not been long in Pleasant Plains before he proposed that Don should take a position in his business establishment, with the prospect of becoming a partner at no very distant day.

Don thanked him heartily, took a few days to consider the matter and consult with parents and friends, then accepted the offer, and again bade farewell to home and kindred; but this time the parting was by no means so sorrowful as on a former occasion.

He was not going so far away or into such dangers, difficulties, and temptations, and might hope to return now and then for a visit to his childhood's home. It was but such a separation as is common between parents and their sons grown to man's estate.

Here we will leave our friends for the present, perhaps taking up the thread of our narrative again at some future day, and telling what befell them in after years.

THE END