supped together--you and your father and I--I remember
taking note of you, and telling myself, 'She will be married before I
return next year.' Why haven't you married?"

It was the essence of Hester Marvin's charm that she dealt straightly with
all people.

"It takes two to make even that quarrel," she answered frankly and gaily.
"Will you believe that nobody has ever asked me?"

"Make light of it if you will, but I bid you to beware. You were a
good-looking missie, and you have grown--yes, one can say it without
making you simper--into a more than good-looking woman. But the days slip
by, child, and your looks will slip away with them. You are wasting your
life in worrying over other folk's children. Those eyes of yours were
meant for children of your own. What's more, you are muddling the world's
work. Which do you teach now--boys or girls?"

"Girls for the most part; but I have a class of small boys."

"And what do you teach 'em--I mean, as the first and most important
thing?"

Hester knit her brows for a moment before answering. "Well, I suppose, to
be honourable to one another and gentle to their sisters."

"Just so. In other words, you relieve a mother of her proper duty. Who
but a mother ought to teach a boy those things, if he's ever to learn 'em?
That's what I call muddling the world's work. By the time a boy gets to
school he ought to be ripe for a harder lesson, and learn that life's a
fight in which brains and toil bring a man to the top. As for girls,
one-half of present-day teaching is time and money thrown away. Teach
'em to be wives and mothers--to sew and cook."--

"Does your supper displease you, Mr. Rosewarne?"

He set down knife and fork with a comical stare around the board.

"Eh? No--but did you really--?"

Their eyes met, and they both broke into a laugh.

"I should very much like to know," said Hester, resting her elbows on the
table and gazing at him over her folded hands, "if _you_ have treated life
as a fight in which men get the better of their neighbours."

He eyed her with sudden, sharp suspicion.

"You have at any rate a woman's curiosity," said he. "When you wrote to
me that your father was dead, but that I might have, for the last time, my
usual lodging here, had you any reason to suppose me a rich man?"

"I think," answered Hester slowly, after a pause, "that I must have spoken
so as to hurt you somehow. If so, I am sorry; but you must hear now just
why