Gabrielle could not be swayed from her devotion to the man whose simple ways and sturdy honor made their silent appeal to her. He was nobody's ideal man but hers, perhaps, and people who knew them wondered what she saw in him to match her ambitions. Well, there was her wisdom coming to the surface again in a way to confuse those who would have managed her affairs differently. Gabrielle had a firm faith in herself. Jim was the complementary type of man; he approached her with qualifications that met all the practical conditions the careful father had a right to demand, prompted by his love for his child--at least, this was true according to her conception--and beyond that the father could not enter to live her life for her. She was at once convinced of her father's folly and paid no further heed to his objections. She gave full liberty to others, and firmly but not excitedly demanded it for herself. This was a manifestation of love's controlling power in the stress of storm that I, as a theorist, knew not, but having gained the wisdom through the course it prescribes in the school--I might say the _Correspondence_ School of Hard Knocks, I think I am now qualified to have my name in the catalogue, if not as a member of the faculty, then as janitor--for no man was ever more ready than I to eat humble pie. Gabrielle Tescheron was a graduate of Vassar. When only twenty she had her degree and an ambition to progress farther in knowledge by direct contact with the world of business. The opportunity came on her Commencement Day, when John MacDonald, an old friend of her father, playfully suggested that she come into his law office and be a Portia. "Your black gown," he said, "makes me think you are a Justice of the Court of Appeals." He smiled, and she became very happy with this thought to carry home. Even then I believe she had the good sense not to feel badly because he had not praised her essay on "Constitutional Provisions Bearing Upon Our Federal Control of Inter-State Commerce." "Ten years from now, I'll tell you what I think about it," was all he had to say.