er always. There can be no
going back to old haunts, so attractive to men; club life must become
merely an incident. Again, he must not be under her feet all the time.
Too much or too little will not do; it must be the happy between."

"You are a very wise young man."

Warrington laughed embarrassedly. "I have had to figure out all these
things."

"But if she does not love him!"

"How in the world can she help it?"

She caught up his hand in a motherly clasp.

"We mothers are vain in our love. We make our sons paragons; we blind
ourselves to their faults; we overlook their follies, and condone
their sins. And we build so many castles that one day tumble down
about our ears. Why is it a mother always wishes her boy to marry the
woman of her choice? What right has a mother to interfere with her
son's heart-desires? It may be that we fear the stranger will stand
between us. A mother holds, and always will hold, that no woman on
earth is good enough for her son. Now, as I recollect, I did not think
Mr. Bennington too good for me." She smiled drolly.

Lucky Jack! If only he had had a mother like this! Warrington thought.

"I dare say he thought that, too," he said. "Myself, I never knew a
mother's love. No doubt I should have been a better man. Yet, I've
often observed that a boy with a loving mother takes her love as a
matter of course, and never realizes his riches till he has lost them.
My aunt is the only mother I have known."

"And a dear, kind, loving soul she is," said Mrs. Bennington. "She
loves you, if not with mother-love, at least with mother-instinct.
When we two get together, we have a time of it; I, lauding my boy;
she, praising hers. But I go round and round in a circle: my boy. Sons
never grow up, they are always our babies; they come to us with their
heartaches, at three or at thirty; there is ever one door open in the
storm, the mother's heart. If she loves my boy, nothing shall be too
good for her."

"I feel reasonably sure that she does." Did she? he wondered. Did she
love Jack as he (Warrington) wanted some day to be loved?

"As you say," the mother went on, "how can she help loving him? He is
a handsome boy; and this alone is enough to attract women. But he is
so kind and gentle, Richard; so manly and strong. He has his faults;
he is human, like his mother. John is terribly strong-willed, and this
would worry me, were I not sure that his sense of justice is equally
strong. He is like me in