“Yes, my dear; but you were a girl. I said a man. I meant a young man with red hair. There is all the latitudes and longitudes in life between the one and the other. If you were a red-haired young man, I should think twice before I’d give a daughter of mine in marriage to you. But you will recall that I had black hair,” he concluded, laughing. A father who would traduce his own son for inheriting hair the color of his mother’s and without cause--well, she could not understand such a father. Whereupon she left the room in high dudgeon, but really to go and look for this son. Her confidence in him had not been shaken, but she was anxious without reason, which is the keenest anxiety from which women suffer. She found him pacing back and forth in the vegetable garden, arms folded, face lifted like a yowling puppy’s to the moon; not that this simile occurred to her. He appeared to her a potentially great man, breathing his thoughts in this quiet place. He was annoyed at this interruption. Was he never to have a moment alone to think this thing out! He really thought he was thinking, you understand, when he was only visualizing a girl in a white dress, with a blue sash, blue eyes and blue cornflowers on her hat; blue was the most entrancing color in the world, and so on and so forth. He was trying to imagine what she would say if she said anything, when he saw his mother approaching. He repressed his impatience. They walked together between the bald-headed cabbage and the young, curled-up, green lettuce. She thought she was sharing his thoughts. Something had been said about his experiences in the bank. Many a mother and some fathers would leap with amazement, if they really knew the thoughts they do not share with their sons and daughters at such times. Still this was an innocent young man, as men go, a good son, as sons are reckoned. He was well within his rights to be pursuing his love fancies. And for a long period of this time he remained in a state of legal innocence of which any man or husband might boast. Mrs. Cutter was entirely justified in despising the opinion Mr. Cutter had given that night of this excellent young man. Sometimes more than twenty years are required to fulfill a paternal prophecy. Mrs. Adams remained seated on the porch. She supposed Helen had gone to her room to take off her hat and would return presently. It was much cooler out here, and the street was interesting at this hour of the late afternoon, like watching a very good human play, where all the characters are decent. She saw Mrs. Shaw bustling in and out, herding her numerous family. This meant that they were having early supper, probably cold supper, and that they would go to the band concert afterwards. The Shaws spent a good deal on amusements. She hoped they could afford it.