the schoolmaster's daughter."

"Could you not take her own mother?"

"Lucy has no mother. Her father has been father and mother both to her
since she was two years old. He loves her beyond everything."

"I can believe that. I know a little of Ralph Lugur. He has been to see
me twice about the children of the village."

"He has them all at his beck and call. And Lucy, mother, she is so fair
and sweet! If you could only see her!"

"I have seen her."

"Oh, mother dear, don't speak unkindly of her!"

"Nay; why should I? She is, as you say, very pretty; and I'll warrant
she is as good as she is pretty. I could trust Lugur to bring her up
properly--but she is not a mate for you."

"I will have no other mate."

"Miss Lugur may be all your fancy paints her, but why should your mother
be asked to leave her home, her duties, and pleasures for a year? To
subject herself to bad weather and sickness and loneliness and fatigue
of all kinds in order that she may throw the mantle of her social
respectability over an equivocal situation. I do not blame the girl, but
I feel more keenly and bitterly than I can tell you the humiliation and
discomfort you would gladly put upon me in order to give yourself the
satisfaction of Miss Lugur's company. Harry, you are the most selfish
creature I ever met. John has promised to give up your rightful
assistance in the mill, to really do your work for a year, your income
is to be paid in full, though you won't earn a farthing of it; you
expect the use of the yacht for yourself and a girl out of my knowledge
and beneath my social status. Oh, Harry! Harry! It is too much to ask of
any mother."

"I never thought of it in this way. Forgive me, mother."

"And who is to take care of John if I go with you? Who is to care for
the old home and all the treasures gathered in it? Who will look after
the farm and the horses and cattle and poultry, the fruit-trees and
lawns and flowers as I do? Do you think that all these cares are
pleasures to me? No, my dear lad, but they are my duty. I wouldn't have
thy father find out that I neglected even a brooding hen. No, I
wouldn't. And the yacht was thy father's great pleasuring. I only went
with him to double that pleasure. I don't like the sea, though I never
let him know it. Oh, my dear! But there! You haven't learned yet that
self-sacrifice is love, and no love without it."

"Mother, I am ashamed of my selfishness. I never realized before how
many thin