d a word she
said. The strain on him had been very great and he was more shaken than
he wanted her to see. But from the depths of her heart she understood
and pressed closer to him as she gave him a long silence in which to
recover himself. Twilight was coming in the windows and a fragrant
night breeze was ruffling her hair against his cheek before she stirred
in his arms.

"We've got to ask--to ask Mother before--before," she was venturing to
suggest in the smallest of voices in which was both mirth and
tenderness, when a low laugh answered her from the doorway.

"Oh, no you don't," said Mother Mayberry, as she beamed upon them with
the most manifest joy. "I had done picked you out before you had been
here more'n a week, honey-bird. You can have him and welcome if you can
put up with him. He's like Mis' Peavey always says of her own jam;
'Plenty of it such as it is and good enough what they is of it.' A real
slow-horse love can be rid far and long at a steady gate. He ain't
pretty, but middling smart." And the handsome young Doctor's mother
eyed him with a well-assumed tolerance covering her positive rapture.

"Are you sure, sure you're not disappointed about--about that
peony-girl?" demanded the singer lady, as she came into the circle of
Mother Mayberry's arm and nozzled her little nose under the white lawn
tie.

"Le'me see," answered Mother Mayberry in a puzzled tone of voice. "I
seem to understand you, but not to know what you are talking about."

"The girl to whom he gave the graduating bouquet with Mrs. Peavey's
peony in it," she whispered, but not so low that the Doctor, who had
come over and put a long arm around them both, couldn't hear.

"Well," answered Mother Mayberry in a judicial tone of voice as she
bestowed a quizzical glance on the Doctor, who blushed to the roots of
his hair at this revelation of the fact of his Mother's indulgence in
personal reminiscence, "I reckon Miss Alford'll be mighty disappointed
to lose him, but I don't know nothing about her riz biscuits. Happiness
and good cooking lie like peas in a pod in a man's life and I reckon
I'll have to give Tom Mayberry, prize, to you."

"Mother!" exclaimed the Doctor.

"Thank you," murmured Miss Wingate with a wicked glance at him from his
Mother's shoulder that brought a hurried embrace down upon them both.

"Children," said Mother Mayberry, as she suddenly reached put her
strong arms and took them both close to her breast, "looks like