The old lady tapped the arm of her chair and turned her sightless eyes upon the Bible, as if Solomon in person stood there awaiting judgment. "I always liked that verse, brother," she remarked, "though I am not sure that I consider it entirely proper reading for the young. Aren't you tired walking, Lila?" "Oh, no, mother." "Well, we mustn't take the Scriptures literally, you know, my child; if we did, I fear a great deal of trouble would come of it--and surely it is a pity to magnify the passion of love when so very many estimable persons get along quite comfortably without it. You remember my remarking how happy Miss Belinda Morrison always appeared to be, and so far as I know she never had a suitor in her life, though she lived to be upward of eighty." "Oh, mother! and yet you were so madly in love with father--you remember the fancy ball." "The fancy ball occupied only one night, my dear, and I've had almost seventy years. I married for love, as you certainly know--at my age, I suppose I might as well admit it--but the marriage happened to be also entirely suitable, and I hope that I should never have been guilty of anything so indelicate as to fall in love with a gentleman who wasn't a desirable match." Lila flushed and bit her lip. "I don't care about stations in life, nor blood, nor anything like that," she protested. The old lady sighed. "We won't have any more of Solomon, Tucker, "she observed. "I fear he will put notions into the child's head. Not care about blood, indeed! What are we coming to, I wonder? Well, well, I suppose it is what I deserve for allowing myself to fall so madly in love with your father. When I look back now it seems to me that I could have achieved quite as much with a great deal less expenditure of emotion." "Now, now, Lucy, " said Tucker, closing the gilt clasps of the Bible, "you're not yet seventy, and by the time you reach eighty you will see things clearer. I'm a good deal younger than you, but I'm two-thirds in the grave already, which makes a difference. My life's been long and pleasant as it is, but when I glance back upon it now I tell you the things I regret least in it are my youthful follies. A man must be very far in his dotage, indeed, when he begins to wear a long face over the sharp breaths that he drew in youth. I came very near ruining myself for a woman once, and the fact that I was ready to do it--even though I didn't--is what in the past I like best to recall to-day. It makes it all easier and better, somehow, and it seems to put a zest into the hours I spend now on my old bench. To have had one emotion that was bigger than you or your universe is to have had life, my dear." The old lady wiped her eyes. "It may be so, brother, it may be so," she admitted; "but not before Lila. Is that you, Christopher?"