e became
crimson.

"How--how criminal!" she ejaculated.

"That's what she said," returned Ben. "She asked if I hadn't a mother. I
told her I had a glorious one; and she just looked at me and said: 'And
you would do that to her just because I have nice eyes.'"

Mrs. Barry bit her lip and did not love the waif the more that she had
been able to defend her.

"What is the use of being a mother!" she ejaculated. "What is the use of
expending your whole heart's love on a boy for his lifetime, when he
will desert you at the first temptation!"

"Well, she wouldn't let me, dear," said Ben more gently, flushing and
feeling his first qualm. "I would stake my life that she is as beautiful
within as without and that you would have a treasure as well as I. It
wasn't deserting you. I was thinking of you. I felt she was worthy of
you and no one else is."

"This is raving, Ben," said his mother, quiet again. "He has escaped,"
she thought, "and now nothing will come of it." She raised her drooping
head and again regarded him deprecatingly. "Let us talk of something
else," she added.

"No," he returned firmly; "not until you understand that I am entirely
in earnest. You had your love-affair, now I am having mine, and I am
going through with it, openly and in the sight of all men. I urged her a
second time to marry me this afternoon, and she looked at me soberly
with those glorious eyes and her only answer was: 'I want your mother to
love me.'" Ben looked off reminiscently. "It encouraged me to hope that
she cares for me a little that your coldness bowled her over so
completely."

Mrs. Barry looked at him helplessly, and this time when she put up her
napkin she touched a corner of her eye.

"We stopped at the landing-field at Townley and had our talk," he went
on.

"And she seemed refined?" Mrs. Barry's voice was a little uncertain.

"Exquisite!" he exclaimed.

"You have standards, Ben," she said. "You couldn't be totally fooled by
beauty."

He smiled upon her for the first time and a very warming light shone in
his eyes. "The best," he replied, leaning toward her. "You."

She drew a long, quavering breath; but she scorned weeping women.

Ben watched her repressed emotion.

"Now you examine, Mother," he said gently. "Take your New England
magnifying-glass along, and when she will see you, put her to the test."

"When she will see me? What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Barry quickly.

"Well"--Ben shrugged his shoulders--"