“Not all the circumstances, of course,” the narrator continued, with a certain guarded candour in his tone. “There are certain circumstances which naturally attend every engagement between happy and--and devoted--young people that they keep to themselves quite carefully, in spite of the fact that any one who has been through the experience of being engaged two or three times--” There was another movement from Ethel by the sofa. “--or even only once, as is my case,” the narrator went on, “any body, I say, who has been through the experience of being engaged only once, can form a very correct idea of the circumstances that attend the happy engagements of all young people. I imagine they prevail in all countries, just as the feeling about ‘mother’ prevails. Yes, ‘Mother’ is the right title for my story, as you shall see. Is it not strange that if you add ‘in-law’ to the word ‘mother,’ how immediately the sentiment of the term is altered?--as strongly indeed as when you prefix the word ‘step’ to it. But it is with neither of these composite forms of mother that any story deals. “Ethel has always maintained that if I had really understood her, it never would have happened. She says--” “Richard, I”-- “My dear, you shall tell your story afterwards, and I promise to listen without a word until you are finished. Mrs. Field says that if I had understood her nature as a man ought to understand the girl he has been thinking about for several years, I should have known she cared nothing about my income.” “I didn’t care! I’d have”--but Mr. Field checked her outburst. “She was going to say,” said Mr. Field, “that had I asked her to marry me when I became sure that I wished to marry her, she would have been willing to leave New York and go to the waste land in Michigan that was her inheritance from a grandfather, and there build a cabin and live in it with me; and that while I shot prairie chickens for dinner she would have milked the cow which some member of the family would have been willing to give us as a wedding present instead of a statue of the Winged Victory, or silver spoons and forks, had we so desired.” Richard made a pause here, and looked at his wife as if he expected her to correct him. But Ethel was plainly satisfied with his statement, and he therefore continued. “I think it is ideal when a girl is ready to do so much as that for a man. But I should not think it ideal in a man to allow the girl he loved to do it for him. Nor did I then know anything about the lands in Michigan--though this would have made no difference. Ethel had been accustomed to a house several stories high, with hot and cold water in most of them, and somebody to answer the door-bell.” “The door-bell!” exclaimed Ethel. “I could have gone without hearing that.”