ays say to
folks, If you can live and get along without gettin' married--don't!"

"Don't get married?"

"Just so," said Mrs. Marx. "Don't get married; not if you can live
without."

"You to speak so!" said Tom. "I never should have thought, Mrs. Marx,
you were one of that sort."

"What sort?"

"The sort that talk against marriage."

"I don't!--only against marryin' the wrong one; and unless it's
somebody that you can't live without, you may be sure it ain't the
right one."

"How many people in the world do you suppose are married on that
principle?"

"Everybody that has any business to be married at all," responded the
lady with great decision.

"Well, honestly, I don't feel as if I could live without Miss Lothrop.
I've been thinking about it for months."

"I wouldn't stay much longer in that state," said Mrs. Marx, "if I was
you. When people don' know whether they're goin' to live or die, their
existence ain't much good to 'em."

"Then you think I may ask her?"

"Tell me first, what would happen if you did--that is, supposin' she
said yes to you, about which I don't know anything, no more'n the
people that lived in these old cellars. What would happen if you did?
and if she did?"

"I would make her happy, Mrs. Marx!"

"Yes," said the lady slowly--"I guess you would; for Lois won't say yes
to anybody _she_ can live without; and I've a good opinion of your
disposition; but what would happen to other people?"

"My mother and sister, you mean?"

"Them, or anybody else that's concerned."

"There is nobody else concerned," said Tom, idly defacing the rocks in
his neighbourhood by tearing the lichen from them. And Mrs. Marx
watched him, and patiently waited.

"There is no sense in it!" he broke out at last. "It is all folly. Mrs.
Marx, what is life good for, but to be happy?"

"Just so," assented Mrs. Marx.

"And haven't I a right to be happy in my own way?"

"If you can."

"So I think! I will ask Miss Lothrop if she will have me, this very
day. I'm determined."

"But I said, _if you can_. Happiness is somethin' besides sugar and
water. What else'll go in?"

"What do you mean?" asked Tom, looking at her.

"Suppose you're satisfied, and suppose _she's_ satisfied. Will
everybody else be?"

Tom went at the rocks again.

"It's my affair--and hers," he said then.

"And what will your mother and sister say?"

"Julia has chosen for herself."

"I should say, she has chosen very well. Does s