"Ah, John! your vanity is so large it can include even your mother. I wish I had some of it; I might believe what my friends tell me. But maybe it's vanity in me not to think they know best." She let John press her hand upon his forehead. "I wish I could know," she continued. "I yearn for wise counsel. O son! why do we, both of us, so distrust and shun our one only common friend? He could tell us what to do, son; and, oh, how we need some one to tell us!" John dropped the hand. "I don't need Jeff-Jack. He's got to need me." "Oh, presumptuous boy! John, you might say Mr. Ravenel. He's old enough to be your father." "No, he's not! At any rate, that's one thing he'll never be!" The widow flared up. "I can say that, sir, without your prompting." "Why, mother! Why, I no more intended----" "John, spare me! Oh, no, you were brutal merely by accident! I thank you! I _must_ thank you for pointing your unfeeling hints at the most invincib--I mean inveterate--bachelor in the three counties." "Inveterate lover, you'd better say. He marries Fannie Halliday next March. The General's telling every Tom, Dick and Harry to-day." "John, I don't believe it! It can't be! I know better!" "I wish you did, but they told me themselves, away last July, standing hand in hand. Mother, he's got no more right to marry her----" "Than you have! And he knows it! For John, John! There never was a more pitiful or needless mismatch! Why, he could have--but it's none of my business, only--" she choked. "No, of course not," said the son, emotionally, "and it's none of mine, either, only--humph!" He rose and strode about. "Why she could just as easily----Oh, me!" He jostled a chair. Mrs. March flinched and burst into tears. "Oh, good heavens! mother, what have I done now? I know I'm coarse and irreverent and wilful and surly and healthy, and have got the big-head and the Lord knows what! But I swear I'll stop everything bad and be everything good if you'll just quit off sniv--weeping!" Strange to say, this reasonable and practicable proposition did not calm either of them. "I'll even go with you to Jeff-Jack and ask his advice--oh! Jane-Anne-Maria! _now_ what's broke?" "Only a mother's heart!" She looked up from her handkerchief. "Go seek his advice if you still covet it; I never trusted him; I only feared I might doubt him unjustly. But now I know his intelligence, no less than his integrity, is beneath the contempt of a Christian woman. I leave you to your books. My bed----" "O mother, I wasn't reading! Come, stay; I'll be as entertaining as a circus." "I can't; I'm all unstrung. Let me go while I can still drag----" John rose. A horse's tread sounded. "Now, who can that be?" He listened again, then rolled up his fists and growled between his teeth. "Cawnsound that foo'--mother, go on up stairs, I'll tell him you've retired."