"She loved things like this--music, laughter, gayety. I abhorred them. I remember how bored I was that night here--till I saw her." "And did you fall in love with her right away?" I just couldn't help asking that question. Oh, I do so adore love stories! A queer little smile came to Father's lips. "Well, yes, I think I did, Mary. There'd been dozens and dozens of young ladies that had flitted by in their airy frocks--and I never looked twice at them. I never looked twice at your mother, for that matter, Mary." (A funny little twinkle came into Father's eyes. I _love_ him with that twinkle!) "I just looked at her once--and then kept on looking till it seemed as if I just couldn't take my eyes off her. And after a little her glance met mine--and the whole throng melted away, and there wasn't another soul in the room but just us two. Then she looked away, and the throng came back. But I still looked at her." "Was she so awfully pretty, Father?" I could feel the little thrills tingling all over me. _Now_ I was getting a love story! "She was, my dear. She was very lovely. But it wasn't just that--it was a joyous something that I could not describe. It was as if she were a bird, poised for flight. I know it now for what it was--the very incarnation of the spirit of youth. And she _was_ young. Why, Mary, she was not so many years older than you yourself, now." I nodded, and I guess I sighed. "I know--where the brook and river meet," I said; "only they won't let _me_ have any lovers at all." "Eh? What?" Father had turned and was looking at me so funny. "Well, no, I should say not," he said then. "You aren't sixteen yet. And your mother--I suspect _she_ was too young. If she hadn't been quite so young--" He stopped, and stared again straight ahead at the dancers--without seeing one of them, I knew. Then he drew a great deep sigh that seemed to come from the very bottom of his boots. "But it was my fault, my fault, every bit of it," he muttered, still staring straight ahead. "If I hadn't been so thoughtless--As if I could imprison that bright spirit of youth in a great dull cage of conventionality, and not expect it to bruise its wings by fluttering against the bars!" I thought that was perfectly beautiful--that sentence. I said it right over to myself two or three times so I wouldn't forget how to write it down here. So I didn't quite hear the next things that Father said. But when I did notice, I found he was still talking--and it was about Mother, and him, and their marriage, and their first days at the old house. I knew it was that, even if he did mix it all up about the spirit of youth beating its wings against the bars. And over and over again he kept repeating that it was his fault, it was his fault; and if he could only live it over again he'd do differently.