s angrier with me than ever. Mother, you know I'm right, and you
know it isn't fair."

Mrs. Wedmore looked with something like terror into her son's handsome,
excited face.

"But, my dear boy, don't you see that this would be ruin, to tie
yourself to a girl like that? Why, she told me herself that she didn't
belong to anywhere or anybody."

"And is that any reason why she should never belong to anywhere or to
anybody? If there was anything wrong about the girl herself, I would
listen to you--"

"Listen to us! You'll have to listen!" interrupted his father.

Max glanced at him, and went on:

"But there is not."

"And how do you know that? How long have you known her?"

Max was taken aback. It had not occurred to him to think how short his
acquaintance with Carrie had been.

"Long enough to find out all about her," he answered, soberly; "and to
make up my mind that I'll have her for my wife."

"Then that settles it," broke in Mr. Wedmore, whose ill-humor had not
been decreased by the fact that Max evidently considered it more
important to conciliate his mother than to try to convince him. "You
will go to the Cape next month; and if you choose to take this baggage
with you, you can do so. It won't much matter to us what sort of a wife
you introduce to your neighbors out there."

But Max strode across the room and stood face to face with his father,
eye to eye.

"No, sir," he said, in a dogged tone of voice, thrusting his hands deep
into his pockets and looking at him steadily. "I shall not go to the
Cape. You have a right to turn me out of your house if you please. In
fact, it's quite time I went, I know. It's time I did settle down. It's
time I did try to do something for myself. And I'm going to. I'm going
to try to earn my own living and to make enough to keep a wife--the wife
I want. And I shall do it somehow. But I'm not going to be packed off to
Africa, as if my marrying this girl were a thing to be ashamed of. I'm
going to stay in England. I sha'n't come near you. You needn't be afraid
of that. I shall be too proud of my wife to bring her among people who
would look down upon her. And perhaps you'd better not inquire where I
live or what I'm doing, for we sha'n't be able to live in a fashionable
neighborhood, nor to be too particular about what we turn our hands to."

While Max made this speech very slowly, very deliberately, his father
listened to him with ever-increasing anger and disgust, and his