with my
weak ones. Unhappily I can figure out my age to a day. Alas, I am
forty-eight, and Phyllis is not yet twenty-three. The difference
is positively ghastly from a sentimental standpoint, but if I
love her, and she is not hopelessly indifferent to me, I think
that even that difficulty can be bridged. You know my position,
my character, my general reputation. Neither of us knows what
Phyllis really thinks or what she will say or do in the matter. I
do not ask either for your opposition or your good offices. I
have come to you as an old friend and the girl's nearest
relative to tell you exactly how I feel and what I wish to gain.
And I ask only that I may have the same chance to win her
affection that you might grant to a younger man."

Mary's voice was gentler when she spoke again. "John," she said,
"Phyllis is all I have in the world. It is my one idea to have
her happily married to a worthy man whom she honestly loves.
Providence, in inscrutable wisdom, may have decreed that you are
that man, but," she continued with a sudden return of Yankee
caution, "I have my doubts, considering your age. However, you
have acted honorably in coming to me, and while I think Phyllis
would be a better daughter than wife to you, I cannot speak for
her. Remember that she is very young and very inexperienced. Her
acquaintance with men has been slight. You are a man of the world
and with enough of the surface polish--I don't say it stops with
that--to dazzle any girl accustomed to such surroundings as we
have here. Undoubtedly an offer from you would flatter her; it
might induce her to accept you, thinking that she loved you. Be
careful. Be sure of your ground before it is too late."

As I walked back to the village I mused on what Mary had said,
but I felt no apprehension. Most lovers are alike in this--in
youth, in middle age, in senility. Perhaps the advantage of
middle life is that a man is more the master of himself, more in
possession of the faculties necessary to carry him through a
crisis. Without the impetuous desire of youth, or the deadened
sensibilities of old age, he has a certain serene confidence that
is a mixture of love and philosophy. It disturbed me somewhat to
find with what equanimity I faced a situation which promised
nothing. It really annoyed me to note that I was picking out
mentally the place to which I should conduct Phyllis in order to
have the harmonious environment adapted to a sentimental
proposition