saw it, too-but I knew he would tell us what was the
matter as soon as he had an opportunity. One, of the sweetest things
about Blakely is his perfect frankness. I couldn't love a man who
wasn't frank with me. That is, I suppose I could, but I should hate
to; it would break my heart. Well, after dinner, when Dad had
lighted his cigar, and Blakely his cigarette, it all came out.

"Tom!"

"Yes, my boy." (I think Dad loved to hear Blakely say Tom almost as
much as I loved to hear him say Elizabeth.)

"Tom, I've got you and Elizabeth into a deuce of an unpleasant
position. I've told you what a fine woman my mother is, and how
she'd welcome Elizabeth with open arms, and now I find I was all
wrong. My mother isn't a fine woman; she's an ancestor-worshiping,
heartless, selfish snob. I'm ashamed of her, Tom. She refuses to
meet Elizabeth."

Chapter Seven

I never was so sorry for anybody in my whole life as I was for
Blakely; I would have done anything to have saved him the bitterness
and humiliation of that moment. As for Dad, he couldn't understand
it at all. That Blakely's mother should refuse to meet his Elizabeth
was quite beyond his comprehension.

"This is very strange," he said, "very strange. There must be some
mistake. Why shouldn't she meet Elizabeth?"

"There is no reason in the world," Blakely answered.

"Then why--?"

"She probably has other plans for her son, Daddy dear," I said. "And
no doubt she has heard that we're fearfully vulgar."

"Well, we ain't," said Dad in a relieved voice; "and as for those
plans of hers, I reckon she'll have to outgrow them. Buck up, my
boy! One look at Elizabeth will show her she's mistaken."

"You don't know my mother," Blakely replied; "I feel that I haven't
known her till now. It's out of the question, our staying here after
what has happened. Let's go up to Del Monte, and let's not wait four
months for the wedding. Why can't we be married this week? I'm done
with my mother and with the whole tribe of Porters; they're not my
kind, and you and Elizabeth are."

"Tom, I never felt, that I had a father till I found you. Elizabeth,
girl, I never knew what happiness was till you told me you loved me.
My mother says she would never consent to her son's marrying the
daughter of a man who has kept a livery-stable. I say that I'm done
with a family that made its money out of whisky. My mother's father
was a distiller, her grandfather was a distiller, and if there's