heir admiration and pleased their vanity.

Anson English favored early marriages, and began to think it would be
better all around if Ben should bring a wife home.

She could do the work better than hired help, and keep the money all in
the family. And Ben would not waste his time and means on half a dozen,
as he was now doing, but would stay at home, no doubt, and settle down
into a sensible, practical business man. Yes, Ben ought to marry, and
his father told him so.

Ben smiled.

"I'm already thinking of it," he said. He had expected opposition from
his father, and was surprised at his suggestion.

"Yes," continued the "old man," as Ben already designated him, "I'd like
to see you settle down before you're twenty-one. But you want to make a
good choice. There's Abby Wilson, now. She's got the muscle of a man,
and ain't afraid of anything. And her father has a fine property--a
growin' property. Abby'll make a man a good, vigorous helpmate, and
she'll bring him money in time. You'd better shine up to Abby, Ben."

Ben gave a contemptuous laugh. "I'd as soon marry a dressed-up boy," he
said. "She's more like a boy than a girl in her looks and in her ways. I
have other plans in my mind, father, more to my taste. I mean to marry
Edith Gilman, if she'll take me, and I think she will."

A dark frown contracted Anson English's brow.

"Edith Gilman?" he repeated; "why, that puny schoolma'm, with her baby
face and weak voice, 'll never help _you_ to get a livin', Ben. What are
you thinkin' of?"

"Of love, father, I guess. I love her, and that's all there is of it.
And I shall marry her, if she'll take me, and you can like it or lump
it, as you please. She's a good girl, and if she's treated well all
round, she'll make a good wife, and she's the only woman that can put
the check rein on me, when I get in my tempers. She'll make a man of me
yet."

"But she can't work," insisted the father. "She looks as white and puny
as 'Liz'beth did the year she died."

"She's overworked in the school-room. I mean to take her home, and give
her a rest. I don't ask any woman to marry me and be my drudge. I expect
my wife will keep help."

The old man groaned aloud. Ben's ideas were positively ruinous. If he
married this girl, it would add to, not decrease, the family expenses.
But it was useless to oppose. Ben would do as he pleased, the old man
saw that plainly, and he might as well submit.

He did submit, and Ben married Edith