“I didn’t know it until last night—­Daddy wasn’t willing.  I—­I feel as if it couldn’t be really true—­that I am going to be married, Mrs. Connolly.”

There was a tremble of her lip and clasping of her little hands.

Mary Connolly laid down her work.  “I guess you miss your mother, blessed lamb.  I remember when she was married.  I was young, too, but I felt a lot older with my two babies, and Jim and I were so glad the Doctor had found a wife.  He needed one, if ever a man did—­for he liked his gay good time.”

“Daddy?” said Jean, incredulously.  It is hard for youth to visualize the adolescence of its elders.  Dr. McKenzie’s daughter beheld in him none of the elements of a Lothario.  He was beyond the pale of romance!  He was fifty, which settled at once all matters of sentiment!

“Indeed, he was gay, my dear, and he had broken half the hearts in the county, and then your mother came for a visit.  She didn’t look in the least like you, except that she was small and slender.  Her hair was dark and her eyes.  You have your father’s eyes and hair.

“But she was so pretty and so loving—­and you never saw such a honeymoon.  They were married in the spring, and the orchards were in bloom, and your father filled her room with apple blossoms, and the first day when Jim drove them up from the station, your father carried her in his arms over the threshold and up into that room, and when she came down, she said, ‘Mary Connolly, isn’t life—­wonderful?’”

“Did she say that, Mrs. Connolly, really?  Daddy always teases me when I go into raptures.  He says that I think everything is wonderful from a sunset to a chocolate soda.”

“Well, she did, too.  Her husband was the most wonderful man, and her baby was the most wonderful baby—­and her house was the most wonderful house.  You make me think of her in every way.  But you won’t have apple blossoms for your honeymoon, my dear.”

“No.  But, oh, Mrs. Connolly—­it won’t make any real difference.”

“Not a bit.  And if you’ll come up here, Jim and I will promise not to be in the way.  Your mother said we were never in the way.  And I’ll serve your meals in front of the sitting-room fire.  They used to have theirs out of doors.  But you’ll be just as much alone, with me and Jim eating in the kitchen.”

It was very easy after that to tell Mrs. Connolly all about it.  About Derry, and how he had fallen in love with her when he had thought she was just the girl in the Toy Shop.  But there were things which she did not tell, of the shabby old gentleman and of the shadow which had darkened Derry’s life.

Then when she had finished, Mary Connolly asked the thing which everybody asked—­“Why isn’t he fighting?”

Jean flushed.  “He—­he made a promise to his mother.”

“I’d never make my boys promise a thing like that.  And if I did, I’d hope they’d break it.”