t asked her to marry you, then?" she said soberly. "Oh good
Lord," cried Donald, "'marry!' How could I marry anyone when I haven't
even graduated from high school and with college and all that to come?"

"That is what I have been trying to tell you," said his mother evenly.
"I don't believe you have been thinking about marriage and I am
absolutely certain that Linda has not, but she is going to be made to
think about it long before you will be in such financial position that
you dare. That is the reason I am suggesting that you think about these
things seriously and question yourself as to whether you would be doing
the fair thing by Linda if you tried to tie her up in an arrangement
that would ask her to wait six or eight years yet before you would be
ready."

"Well, I can get around faster than that," said Donald belligerently.

"Of course you can," agreed his mother. "I made that estimate fully a
year too long. But even in seven years Linda could do an awful lot of
waiting; and there are some very wonderful girls that will be coming up
six or seven years from now here at home. You know that hereafter all
the girls in the world are going to be very much more Linda's kind of
girls than they have been heretofore. The girls who have lived through
the war and who have been intimate with its sorrow and its suffering
and its terrible results to humanity, are not going to be such heedless,
thoughtless, not nearly such selfish, girls as the world has known in
the decade just past. And there is going to be more outdoor life,
more nature study. There are going to be stronger bodies, better food,
better-cared-for young people; and every year educational advantages are
going to be greater. If you can bring yourself to think about giving up
the idea of there ever existing any extremely personal thing between you
and Linda, I am very sure I could guarantee to introduce you to a girl
who would be quite her counterpart, and undoubtedly we could meet one
who would be handsomer."

Donald punched his pillow viciously.

"That's nice talk," he said, "and it may be true talk. But in the first
place I wish that Peter Morrison would let my girl alone, and in the
second place I don't care if there are a thousand just as nice girls
or even better-looking girls than Linda, though any girl would be going
some if she were nicer and better looking than Linda. But I am telling
you that when my foot gets better I am going to Lilac Valley and tel