He flushed. "I didn't mean that. I mean that Mary is not to sacrifice herself to an idea, to a condition, if I can help it. I'm with her in all this work for the old place. I love it. I've tried to prove it in more than words, and I would not ask her to give it up entirely. A home can always be kept here, but another sort of home is meant for Mary. And it's the one I want to make for her." "Your mother's?" John's steady eyes looked in the stormy ones. "No--not my mother's. When Mary is my wife she goes to the home of which she is to be the mistress. Like you, my mother--" "Objects to matrimony. I understand Mrs. Maxwell is as much opposed to your marriage as I am to Mary's. That should be a stimulus to both of you. Opposition is a great incentive, but in this case the trouble is with Mary herself. Would you marry her, anyhow?" "I would." He smiled. "I'd take Mary any way I could get her. Oh, I used to have theories of my own about such things, but love knocks theories into nothingness. It makes us do things we never thought we would, doesn't it?" Miss Gibbie turned her head away from his understanding eyes, and tapped the porch impatiently with her foot. "It makes fools of most people. But as long as we've mentioned it we might as well have this out, Mary doesn't want to marry anybody. She is happy, and you are not to be coming down here trying to make her change her mind, trying to take her away!" "Who is going to stop it?" They were her words, and at remembrance of them her face changed and over it swept sudden understanding, and her hand went helplessly toward him. "John," she said, "I'm an old woman and she's all I've got. Don't take her from me! Don't take her away!" He frowned slightly, but he took the hand which he had never before seen tremble, and smoothed it gently. "Not from you, Miss Gibbie. I wouldn't take her out of your life. She would let nothing or nobody do that, but for years I have been waiting--" "How old are you?" "Twenty-seven in October."