rries."

"A professor has to be particular only to please himself--and the
woman. His choice is not regulated by salaries and congregations."

She returned to her point: "You breed fine cattle and fine sheep,
and you try to improve the strain of your setters. You know how
you do it. What right has Dent to injure his children in the race
for life by giving them an inferior mother? Are not children to be
as much regarded in their rights of descent as rams and poodles?"

"You forget that the first families in all civilizations have kept
themselves alive and at the summit by intermarriage with good,
clean, rich blood of people whom they have considered beneath them."

"But certainly my family is not among these. It is certainly alive
and it is certainly not dying out. I cannot discuss the subject
with you, if you once begin that argument. Are you going to call
on her?"

"Certainly. It was Dent's wish and it is right that I should."

"Then I think I shall go with you, Rowan. Dent said she was coming
to see me; but I think I should rather go to see her. Whenever I
wished to leave, I could get away, but if she came here, I
couldn't."

"When should you like to go?"

"Oh, don't hurry me! I shall need time--a great deal of time! Do
you suppose they have a parlor? I am afraid I shall not shine in
the kitchen in comparison with the tins."

She had a wry face; then her brow cleared and she added with relief:

"But I must put this whole trouble out of my mind at present! It
is too close to me, I cannot even see it. I shall call on the girl
with you and then I shall talk quietly with Dent. Until then I
must try to forget it. Besides, I got up this morning with
something else on my mind. It is not Dent's unwisdom that
distresses me."

Her tone indicated that she had passed to a more important topic.
If any one had told her that her sons were not equally dear, the
wound of such injustice would never have healed. In all that she
could do for both there had never been maternal discrimination; but
the heart of a woman cannot help feeling things that the heart of a
mother does not; and she discriminated as a woman. This was
evident now as she waived her young son's affairs.

"It is not Dent that I have been thinking of this morning," she
repeated. "Why is it not you that come to tell me of your
engagement? Why have you not set Dent an example as to the kind of
woman he ought to marry? How many more year