“Most young people think marriage is going to set them free to do what they like. It doesn’t. It ties them up to do what they like. “There ain’t any harm in being tied up, providing you like what you’re tied up to, and go on liking it. “If you don’t marry you get tied up sooner or later, to your business, or your habits, or maybe to a dog. “But they ain’t quite so incessant. Nothing is so incessant as marriage. Even parents die sooner or later, and children grow up. “It’s not so easy to get rid of a contemporary, bar murder, and there’s nothing, not even in the new divorce laws, to justify the murder of one married person by the other. “Now don’t run away with the idea that I’m against marriage. If there is a place where you can go most wrong, you can bank on it that it’s the place where you can go most right. “All I say is choose your partner and then look out for squalls. You get to know which way the wind’s blowing and act according. “Now you take Elise. Naturally she has to see her sister sometimes. And _that’s_ what’s going to be the matter with your marriage. “Hermione is her mother all over again. She’s just full of nervous energy. You haven’t met her but you will; and she won’t like Elise’s marrying. First thing she don’t want Elise _to_ marry—and second she’s got a grudge against marriage. Well, when Hermione don’t like things they very seldom happen.” John laughed reassuringly. “I knew there would be a good many solid reasons against my marrying Elise, Sir,” he said, “but I don’t think I need worry about the influence of a sister-in-law. If Elise loves me, and I would never have dared to come to you if I hadn’t hoped she did, the Princess Girla won’t stand in my way.” Mr. Brett smoked in silence for a few minutes. He made no reply to this jaunty forecast; but he said, after a pause: “Well, John—nothing else does. I like you. I trust you. It don’t matter to me a row of pebbles whether you have money or not, or who your great-grandparents thought they were. “I’ve got enough money for anything any of my family are likely to want this side of Judgment; and it’s this generation I keep my eye on—not family vaults. “You’ve got the kind of grit I’d like in Elise’s husband. You have horse sense and you’ll be gentle with her. “But mind, Theodora and Hermione could get ill and recover conveniently to suit themselves. It won’t be so with Elise. “If she gets ill, it’ll be because she can’t help it, and she’ll not be able to get better to suit either you or herself.” “I don’t see why she should get ill,” said John sturdily. “She got ill before,” said Mr. Brett, withdrawing his cigar and speaking slowly and impressively, “because her mother and Hermione couldn’t get on. They pulled two ways and Elise loved them both—she was one of the ways they pulled. They all but tore her life out. I got her away and kept her away for four years, the doctors helping me; then mercifully Hermione married, and started in on that Roumanian Prince.