er arms, and held her close
for a long moment.

"You must do whatever you think best, my girl."

"Yes, Mother. I always do," said Jemima.

CHAPTER XXXIII

And so Mrs. Kildare had her second interview with a man who wanted, not
herself, but one of her children. It made her feel very old, as if she
were becoming a looker-on at life, almost an outsider.

Jemima had firmly led her choice to the door of the office and left him
there, with reassuring whispers that were quite audible to the mother
within. It was evident that she was bestowing counsel, and straightening
his tie, and otherwise preparing him for conquest.

"Well, old Jim?" Kate looked up as he entered with a tremulous smile
that drove from his mind irrevocably the fine speech he had prepared.

The professor was attired in new and dapper tweeds; the eye-glasses upon
his aristocratic nose had dependent from them a rather broad black
ribbon; and the shirtfront across which it dangled was of
peppermint-striped silk, its dominant color repeated in silk socks
appearing above patent-leather shoes. But dazzling raiment did not seem
to produce in the inner man that careless courage which, as a
psychologist, he had been led to expect.

"To think of coming to this house, to this room, and asking your
permission to--to marry some one else! Kate," he blurted out, "I never
felt such a fool in all my life!"

"And you never looked so handsome. Why, Jim, you're a boy again!" She
rose and put her two hands on his shoulders, studying his sensitive,
plain face, forcing his embarrassed eyes to meet hers. "My dear friend,
my dear friend--So after all I am able to give you your happiness," she
said softly, and kissed him for the first time in their acquaintance.

In such fashion was her consent to his marriage with Jemima asked and
granted; and with it full forgiveness for his treachery to a devotion of
over twenty years.

They turned their attention hastily away from sentiment to settlements.
Thorpe was astonished by the amount of the dower Kate spoke of settling
upon Jemima.

"Why, it is a small fortune! How did you make all this money?"

"Mules," she said. "Also hogs and dairy products, my three specialties.
Mustn't the old horse-breeding Kildares turn over in their graves out
there at the desecration? When I came into the property, I soon saw that
racing stock was a luxury we could not afford, so I used the grass lands
for mules instead. We have been lucky.