t held all the love of our courtship and something besides that I had
never seen in his face before.

"For God's sake, never say that to me again!" he cried. "Embarrassed
me! I am proud of you--you never can know how proud. I was sitting here
trying to think how to tell you something my mother said about you, and
just what it means."

His mother! My heart dropped. His mother had never said anything about
me, excepting criticism. I had been a bitter disappointment to her.
Whatever she said would be politely cruel--at best, a damning with faint
praise.

"She said," my husband went on, "that she is very happy in our marriage,
completely satisfied, and that she has come to be proud of you. I don't
know how to tell you just what that means."

I knew. I knew his mother could have given me no higher praise. I had
learned what to her were the essentials; I had cultivated the manner she
placed above price. But the realization brought self-distrust. Had I
lost my honesty and sincerity?

Tom went on to tell me that his mother had particularly admired my
attitude toward my own mother, and the manner in which I met every
little failing of hers. She felt I had a sense of true values in
people, and that the simplicity and sureness with which I had met this
situation was the essence of good breeding.

I had not thought it possible that Tom's mother could understand my
feeling for my mother and my honest pride in her real worth. Perhaps,
I reflected, I had been unjust to my mother-in-law. I knew what a shock
I had been to her in the early days of our marriage, and I knew only too
well that even Tom had often regretted my ignorance of social usages.

They are simple customs, and should be taught in every school in
America, but I had not learned them. I was happy that night and for
days afterward.

Then we went back to Europe. Tom knew people on the steamer to whom I
took a dislike. They were bold and even vulgar, and Tom admitted that
he did not admire them. I made up my mind we should avoid them. The
next afternoon I found Tom and that group walking the deck arm in arm,
chatting affably. When we were alone, I asked Tom how he could do it.
I know now that a man cannot hold an official position like Tom's and
ignore politically important people. But he only said rather
carelessly, and with a laugh, that it was one of the prices a man pays
for public office.

After that I noticed that my husband was known t