see you with a wife before I go."

There was no doubt that Jamie was blushing now.

"Do ye no love the lass enough?"

"I"--Jamie stopped himself. "I am too old, mither, and--and too
queer."

"Too old! too queer! There's not a better son than my Jamie in all the
town. I'd like to see a better, braver boy make claim! And if you seem
old, it's through tending of your old forbears. Whatever would the
lassie want, indeed!"

"Good heavens! I've never asked her, mither," said Jamie.

The old woman looked fondly at her boy. "Ask her, then, Jamie; ask
her, and give her the chance. She's a daft creature, but bonny; and
you love her, I see."

Jamie pinched up his rosy features and squirmed upon his chair. "Can I
do anything for ye, mither? Then I think I'll go out and take a bit o'
pipe in the streets with John Hughson."

"John Hughson, indeed!" snorted the old woman, and set her face to the
wall.

But Jamie did not go near John Hughson. He rambled alone about the
city streets, and it was late at night before he came back. Late as it
was, there was a light behind Mercedes' window-shade, and he walked
across the street and watched it, until a policeman, coming by,
stopped and asked him who he was.--But the virus took possession of
him and spread.

The Bowdoins, father and son, noted that their old clerk's dress was
sprucer. He was more than ever seen with Miss Mercedes, and she seemed
to like him better than before. Women who are to all men fascinating
must have a subtle instinct for perceiving it, a half-conscious liking
for it. Else why do not they stop it sooner?

But Jamie had never admitted it to himself. Perhaps because he loved
her better than himself. He judged his own pretensions solely from her
interest. Marriages were fewer did all men so.

Still a year went by, and no other man seemed near Mercedes. Then the
old mother died. To Mercedes, life seemed always going into mourning
for elderly people. They went on living, she and Jamie, as before. He
had got to be so completely accepted as her adoptive father that to no
one, not even the Bowdoins, had the situation raised a question; to
Mercedes least of all. With such natures as hers, there also goes
instinctive knowledge of how far male natures, most widely different,
may be trusted. But Jamie had thought it over many times.

Until one morning, James Bowdoin and his father, coming to the
counting-room, found Jamie with a face of circumstance. He had on his