“There you’ve hit it, mother!  I’d rather you would have said that than anything else.  But don’t you think she’s beautiful?  She’s the gentlest creature, when you come to know her!  I was awfully afraid of her at first.  I thought she was very haughty.  But she isn’t at all.  She’s really very self-depreciatory; she thinks she isn’t good enough for me.  You ought to hear her talk, mother, as I have.  She’s full of the noblest ideals—­of being of some use in the world, of being self-devoted, and—­all that kind of thing.  And you can see that she’s capable of it.  Her aunt’s in a Protestant sisterhood,” he said, with a solemnity which did not seem to communicate itself to his mother, for Mrs. Mavering smiled.  Dan smiled too, and said:  “But I can’t tell you about Alice, mother.  She’s perfect.”  His heart overflowed with proud delight in her, and he was fool enough to add, “She’s so affectionate!”

His mother kept herself from laughing.  “I dare say she is, Dan—­with you.”  Then she hid all but her eyes with the photograph, and gave way.

“What a donkey!” said Dan, meaning himself.  “If I go on, I shall disgust you with her.  What I mean is that she isn’t at all proud, as I used to think she was.”

“No girl is, under the circumstances.  She has all she can do to be proud of you.”

“Do you think so, mother?” he said, enraptured with the notion.  “I’ve done my best—­or my worst—­not to give her any reason to be so.”

“She doesn’t ’want any—­the less the better.  You silly boy!  Don’t you suppose she wants to make you out of whole cloth just as you do with her?  She doesn’t want any facts to start with; they’d be in the way.  Well, now, I can make out, with your help, what the young lady is; but what are the father and mother?  They’re rather important in these cases.”

“Oh, they’re the nicest kind of people,” said Dan, in optimistic generalisation.  “You’d like Mrs. Pasmer.  She’s awfully nice.”

“Do you say that because you think I wouldn’t?” asked his mother.  “Isn’t she rather sly and hum-bugging?”

“Well, yes, she is, to a certain extent,” Dan admitted, with a laugh.  “But she doesn’t mean any harm by it.  She’s extremely kind-hearted.”

“To you?  I dare say.  And Mr. Pasmer is rather under her thumb?”

“Well, yes, you might say thumb,” Dan consented, feeling it useless to defend the Pasmers against this analysis.

“We won’t say heel,” returned his mother; “we’re too polite.  And your father says he had the reputation in college of being one of the most selfish fellows in the world.  He’s never done anything since but lose most of his money.  He’s been absolutely idle and useless all his days.”  She turned her vivid blue eyes suddenly upon her son’s.

Dan winced.  “You know how hard father is upon people who haven’t done anything.  It’s a mania of his.  Of course Mr. Pasmer doesn’t show to advantage where there’s no—­no leisure class.”