by her sweet disposition and charming ways, and she in turn was
captivated by my manly independence, strong good sense, and generous
impulses. I am not vain, but the truth is the truth; and, as I am
telling this story myself, I must set down the facts. We fell in love
right away, and it was not long before we were mutually convinced that
we were made expressly for each other and could never be happy apart.

So it happened that I had to do the courting with the mother. She was
the one to be won over, and it was not likely to be an easy task, for I
plainly saw that she did not quite approve of me. When I was first
introduced to her, she looked at me with her great, steady blue eyes, as
if analyzing me to the very boots, and evidently set me down as a
somewhat arrogant and self-sufficient young fellow who needed a
judicious course of discipline to teach him humility. I was generally
self-possessed and had no little confidence in myself, but I confess
that I was embarrassed in her presence. She was not at all like Bessie,
I thought. She had taught school in her youth, and had learned to
command and be obeyed. The late Mr. Pinkerton, I fancied, had found it
useless to contend against her authority, and this had increased her
disposition to carry things her own way; and her seven years' widowhood,
with its independence and self-reliance, had not prepared her to be
submissive to the wishes of others.

Still, she loved her daughter with tender devotion, and her chief
anxiety was to have her every wish gratified. Therein was my advantage,
for I knew that Bessie, gentle and trusting as she was, would never give
me up or allow her life to be happy without the gratification of her
first love. So I set to work confidently to make myself agreeable to the
widow and win her consent to our marriage.

"You must bring mamma around to approve of it," Bessie had said, on that
ever-to-be-remembered evening, when we were returning from a long drive,
and after an hour of sweet confidences she had surrendered herself
without reserve to my future keeping. "She is the best mother in the
world, and loves me very much, but she is peculiar in some ways, and I
am afraid she doesn't altogether like you. I would not for the world
displease her, that is, if I could help it," she added, glancing up, as
much as to say, "It is all settled now forever and forevermore, whatever
may befall, but do get my mother to consent to it with a good grace."

C