Having herself fought the hard fight against the ogres of Poverty and Adversity, she had no foolish illusions in the premises, and had long ago resolved that her daughter should be spared the grim heartaches that even love cannot wholly bar from the proverbial cottage. Her chief ambition was to see Grace established in a position commanding at the very outset all the amenities to which the girl had been accustomed from childhood, both of her children having come after Carter pere had achieved a substantial competence. There were many among the girl's suitors who offered this and more, and she felt a bitter impatience with the extravagance of youthful passion which now so perversely menaced all her plans. While cordially conceding the beauty of love in the abstract, the concreteness of wealth and social position appealed far more potently to the world-worn old woman, who temporarily forgot her own girlish exaltations of days long gone in her apprehensions for her daughter's future. Never was woman better qualified or disposed to appreciate youthful virility and sterling manliness; her personal esteem for Douglass was very high, and had it not been for the, to her, insuperable bar of his comparative poverty, she would have welcomed him with open arms. As it was, she was very indulgently disposed towards him. If his mines really developed into bonanza she would interpose no obstacle in his way. But in her wide experience she had known all too many just as promising prospects as his turn out miserable failures; when he had incontrovertibly established the value of his claims it would be time enough to consider his proposed alliance with her family. All this she said to him with frank candor in a letter answering his request for her sanction to his engagement to Grace. "I will give you two years," she concluded, "in which to demonstrate your ability to give her all the comforts to which she is accustomed. In the interim I shall take her abroad, and if at the expiration of that time you have 'made good,' and both of you are still of the same mind, I will give you my blessing with all my heart. "But it must be distinctly understood that until then I recognize no manner of bond between you; she must be free to change her mind if she so chooses. I have no objection to a friendly exchange of correspondence between you during our absence, relying upon your honor to use no undue coercion. Please regard these stipulations as imperative and final." He sent her a rather constrained acceptance and so it was arranged. Directly after the holidays Mrs. Carter and Grace sailed for Europe.