e? I'm glad you think so, darling."

"We are so much alike, you see, that it is natural to feel sure that we
should think alike. Do you not think that her face is much like mine?
What happiness! I am glad it is not a day of rain for our happiness."
And she then added, "I hope we may be married."

"Why, we are to be married, dear child," Gregory said, smiling at her.
"There is no 'may' about it, since you love me."

"Only one," said Karen, who still looked at her mother's face. "And
perhaps it will be well not to speak much of our love till we can know.
But I feel sure that she will say this happiness is for me."

"She?" Gregory repeated. For a moment he imagined that she meant some
superstition connected with her mother.

Karen, slipping the ribbon over her head, had returned the locket to its
place. "Yes; Tante," she said, still with the locket in her hand.

"Tante?" Gregory repeated.

At his tone, its change, she lifted startled eyes to his.

"What has she to do with it?" Gregory asked after a moment in which she
continued to gaze at him.

"What has Tante to do with it?" said Karen in a wondering voice. "Do you
think I could marry without Tante's consent?"

"But you love me?"

"I do not understand you. Was it wrong of me to have said so before I
had her consent? Was that not right? Not fair to you?"

"Since you love me you ought to be willing to marry me whether you have
your guardian's consent or not." His voice strove to control its
bitterness; but the day had darkened; all his happiness was blurred. He
felt as if a great injury had been done him.

Karen continued to gaze at him in astonishment. "Would you have expected
me to marry you without my mother's consent? She is in my mother's
place."

"If you loved me I should certainly expect you to say that you would
marry me whether your mother consented or not. You are of age. There is
nothing against me. Those aren't English ideas at all, Karen."

"But I am not English," said Karen, "my guardian is not English. They
are our ideas."

"You mean, you seriously mean, that, loving me, you would give me up if
she told you to?"

"Yes," said Karen, now with the heaviness of their recognized division.
"She would not refuse her consent unless it were right that I should
give you up."

For some moments after this Gregory, in silence, looked down at the
grass between them, clasping his knees; for he now sat upright. Then,
controlling his anger to argumentat