ther's duty to do everything she can to secure it for
her daughter. Yes, I go as far as that--in words," Mrs. Warrender added,
with a little laugh.

"But not for her son?"

"I don't say that: no, not at all. I should rejoice in Theo's marriage,
but for the complications, which I think he is not the right person to
get through, with comfort. You, now, I think," she added, cheerfully,
"might marry Lady----Anybody, with a family of children, and make it
succeed."

"Thank you very much for the compliment. I don't mean to try that mode
of success," he said quickly.

"Neither did Theo mean it until he was brought in contact with Lady
Markland: and who can tell but you too--Oh yes, marriage almost always
makes trouble; it breaks as well as unites; it is very serious; it is
like the measles when it gets into a family." Mrs. Warrender felt that
the conversation was getting much too significant, and broke off with a
laugh. "The evening is delightful, but I think we should turn homewards.
It will be quite late before we get back to town."

Dick obeyed without the protest he would have made half an hour before.
He resumed the talk when he was walking up with the ladies to the hotel,
where they had left their carriage. "One laughs, I don't know why," he
said, "but it is very serious in a number of ways. A man when he is in
love doesn't ask himself whether he's the sort of man to make a girl
happy. There are some things, you know, which a man has to give up too.
Generally, if he hesitates, it seems a sort of treason; and often he
cannot tell the reason why. Now Theo will have a number of sacrifices to
make."

"He is like Jacob, he will think nothing of them for the love he bears
to Rachel," said Theo's mother. "I wish that were all."

"But I wish I could make you see it from a man's point of view." Dick
did not himself know what he meant by this confused speech. He wanted to
make some sort of plea for himself, but how, or in what words, he did
not know. She paused for a moment expecting more, and Chatty, on the
other side of her mother, felt a little puncture of pain, she could
scarcely tell why. "There are some things which a man has to give up
too." What did he mean by that? A little vague offence which flew
away, a little pain which did not, a sort of needle point, which she
kept feeling all the rest of the evening, came to Chatty from this
conversation. And Mrs. Warrender paused, thinking he was going to
say more. But he