“I thought that and put the question to her, but from what she says, I guess he didn’t give her the chance. I think she’s vexed because he intends to stick to the farm and wagon shop and keep his stepbrother here, and I don’t blame her; a girl with her schooling and a father like you can look higher than a man who works with his hands, even if he has got a whole room full of books and goes down to read Shakespeare and nose out county history that had much better be forgotten with Martin Cortright. Eileen’s handsome, and she’s got a tongue in her head; there’s no knowing what may happen or who she may meet in travelling, or visiting some of her friends that are scattered all over the country.” “Nonsense; I know very well what I _don’t_ wish to have happen. Wray is worth ten of the pretty boys that lounge about nowadays, and haven’t enough grip either of body or brain to stick to anything.” Mrs. March, however, did not argue; she had no capacity for it, having had pretty much her own way through life by the mere force of inertia. She had cherished romantic ideals in her youth, but not to the extent of marrying one of them. In fact, she had named her only daughter for the heroine of a novel over which she had shed many comfortable tears, and fortunately, Eileen, of a slimness and fairness hitherto unknown on either side of the family, had grown into the name. Mrs. March was the typical American woman of a country town who has means enough to go to New York at intervals, who after forty regards Europe, indefinite and at large, as the one aim and end of life and needed rest, but who, owing to a limited intelligence, returns from _the_ tour sadder, much wearier, but in no way wiser than when she left, in spite of a miscellaneous collection of photographs and guide books. * * * * * Ernest Wray walked slowly uphill, his house being on the main road above the Marches’, while the acres belonging to it climbed one above the other, over the Ridge and down the other side. This road was the highway between Banbury and Bridgeton, and there was a cheerful amount of passing on it. As he pushed open the front gate, he looked about the yard for the Boy, but saw no signs of him. A pair of setter pups came from the porch to meet him, stumbling over their own great soft paws, and fastening their sharp first teeth in his trouser hems, pulling him backward at the same time that their shrill barks welcomed him. Aunt Louisa Taylor (so called because she had ushered Ernest, as well as most of the younger portion of the community, into the world) was setting the dinner table in the little room out of the summer kitchen, whose windows disclosed a view of both ranges of hills and the valley between.