l the rich
people in the church will ask us out to dinner. Of course, in a church
like that, the minister's wife is always at the top of things, and I
shall help along your work by making people like me and be willing to
listen to your sermons because you are my husband."

And then the two young egotists fell silent, each one of them lost in
outlining a future in which he himself was the central point, the
guiding principle of all things. Between the two of them, however,
there was this one essential difference: Scott's forecastings were
vague and rosy dreams, Catie's were concrete plans.

None the less and despite that difference, from that time onward, it
was tacitly agreed between the children that Scott would one day be a
minister, with Catie for his wife. To be sure, it was Catie herself who
supplied the latter clause, not Scott.

"You'll have to have some sort of a wife," she argued superbly.
"Ministers always do. It might as well be me. You like me better than
any of the other girls, and I am used to having you around." And, upon
this rocky basis of practicality, their young romance was built.

Mrs. Brenton, meanwhile, looked on them with contented eyes, smiling a
little now and then at the downright fashion in which the
thirteen-year-old Catie made known her matrimonial plans. Mrs. Brenton
liked Catie well enough, but not too well. She could have dreamed of
another sort of wife for her boy, for Catie's crudeness occasionally
irritated her, Catie's self-centred ambition, her intervals of density
sometimes came upon Mrs. Brenton's nerves. However, girls were scarce
upon the horizon of the Brentons. Catie was not perfect; but, at least,
she might be infinitely worse. And Scott would be sure to need a
practical wife, to counteract his habitual disregard of concrete
things. Catie would see to it that his wristbands were not frayed and
that his buttons were in their proper places. She might not enter into
his ideals, but she would mend his socks and insist upon his changing
them when he had wet his feet. Socks were more important to a man than
mere ideals, any day, more important, that is, as concerned his
conjugal relations. Scott could make up his ideals to suit himself. His
socks must be prepared for him by wifely hands.

Of course, they were only children now, only little children, too young
to be thinking about such things as marriage. And yet--And Mrs. Brenton
shook her head. And yet, were not the happiest