The question somehow put to flight all his mental manoeuvres. "She is more than a lady, mother. She is the dearest--" He stopped, hesitated for an instant, and slipping his arm around his mother's neck drew her close to him. Then, in a torrent of words--his cheeks against hers--the whole story came out. He was a boy again now; that quality in him that would last all his life. She listened with her eyes on the floor, her heart torn with varying emotions. She was disturbed, but not alarmed. One phase of the situation stood out clearly in her practical mind--his poverty and the impossibility of any immediate marriage. Before that obstacle could be removed she felt sure his natural vacillation regarding women would save him. He would forget her as he had Sue. "And you say her brother works in the fields and that her father and mother permitted this girl to leave home and sit night after night with you young men with no other protection than that of a common Irishwoman?" There was a tone of censure now in her voice that roused a slight antagonism in Oliver. "Why not? What could harm her? There was no other place for her to go where she could learn anything." Mrs. Horn kept still for a moment, looking on the floor. Oliver sat watching her face. "And your family, my son," she protested with a certain patient disapproval in her tones. "Do they count for nothing? I, of course, would love anybody you would make your wife, but you have others about you. No man has a right to marry beneath him. Do not be in a hurry over this matter. Come home for your wife when you are ready to marry. Give yourself time to compare this girl, who seems to have fascinated you, with--Sue, for instance, or any of the others you have been brought up with." Oliver shrugged his shoulders at the mention of Sue's name. He had compared her.