“Poor man!”

Dan was going to say, “He’s very amiable, though,” but he was afraid of his mother’s retorting, “To you?” and he held his peace, looking chapfallen.

Whether his mother took pity on him or not, her next sally was consoling.  “But your Alice may not take after either of them.  Her father is the worst of his breed, it seems; the rest are useful people, from what your father knows, and there’s a great deal to be hoped for collaterally.  She had an uncle in college at the same time who was everything that her father was not.”

“One of her aunts is in one of those Protestant religious houses in England,” repeated Dan.

“Oh!” said his mother shortly, “I don’t know that I like that particularly.  But probably she isn’t useless there.  Is Alice very religious?”

“Well, I suppose,” said Dan, with a smile for the devotions that came into his thought, “she’s what would be called ’Piscopal pious.”

Mrs. Mavering referred to the photograph, which she still held in her hand.  “Well, she’s pure and good, at any rate.  I suppose you look forward to a long engagement?”

Dan was somewhat taken aback at a supposition so very contrary to what was in his mind.  “Well, I don’t know.  Why?”

“It might be said that you are very young.  How old is Agnes—­Alice, I mean?”

“Twenty-one.  But now, look here, mother!  It’s no use considering such a thing in the abstract, is it?”

“No,” said his mother, with a smile for what might be coming.

“This is the way I’ve been viewing it; I may say it’s the way Alice has been viewing it—­or Mrs. Pasmer, rather.”

“Decidedly Mrs. Pasmer, rather.  Better be honest, Dan.”

“I’ll do my best.  I was thinking, hoping, that is, that as I’m going right into the business—­have gone into it already, in fact—­and could begin life at once, that perhaps there wouldn’t be much sense in waiting a great while.”

“Yes?”

“That’s all.  That is, if you and father are agreed.”  He reflected upon this provision, and added, with a laugh of confusion and pleasure:  “It seems to be so very much more of a family affair than I used to think it was.”

“You thought it concerned just you and her?” said his mother, with arch sympathy.

“Well, yes.”

“Poor fellow!  She knew better than that, you may be sure.  At any rate, her mother did.”

“What Mrs. Pasmer doesn’t know isn’t probably worth knowing,” said Dan, with an amused sense of her omniscience.

“I thought so,” sighed his mother, smiling too.  “And now you begin to find out that it concerns the families in all their branches on both sides.”

“Oh, if it stopped at the families and their ramifications!  But it seems to take in society and the general public.”

“So it does—­more than you can realise.  You can’t get married to yourself alone, as young people think; and if you don’t marry happily, you sin against the peace and comfort of the whole community.”