She nodded, her lips closed.

“You bet I will!” he said.  “All there is of me goes into this.  Isn’t she a wonder, Mother?”

Mrs. Jardine looked closely at the big man who was all the world to her, so like her in mentality, so like his father with his dark hair and eyes and big, well-rounded frame; looked at him with the eyes of love, then as he left her to seek the girl she had learned to love, she shut her eyes and frankly and earnestly asked the Lord to help her son to marry Kate Bates.

One morning as Kate helped Mrs. Jardine into her coat and gloves, preparing for one of their delightful morning drives, she said to her:  “Mrs. Jardine, may I ask you a real question?”

“Of course you may,” said Mrs. Jardine, “and I shall give you a ‘real’ answer if it lies in my power.”

“You’ll be shocked,” warned Kate.

“Shock away,” laughed Mrs. Jardine.  “By now I flatter myself that I am so accustomed to you that you will have to try yourself to shock me.”

“It’s only this,” said Kate:  “If you were a perfect stranger, standing back and looking on, not acquainted with any of the parties, merely seeing things as they happen each day, would it be your honest opinion —­ would you say that I am being courted?”

Mrs. Jardine laughed until she was weak.  When she could talk, she said:  “Yes, my dear, under the conditions, and in the circumstances you mention, I would cheerfully go on oath and testify that you are being courted more openly, more vigorously, and as tenderly as I ever have seen woman courted in all my life.  I always thought that John’s father was a master hand at courting, but John has him beaten in many ways.  Yes, my dear, you certainly are being courted assiduously.”

“Now, then, on that basis,” said Kate, “just one more question and we’ll proceed with our drive.  From the same standpoint:  would you say from your observation and experience that the mother of the man had any insurmountable objection to the proceedings?”

Mrs. Jardine laughed again.  Finally she said:  “No, my dear.  It’s my firm conviction that the mother of the man in the case would be so delighted if you should love and marry her son that she would probably have a final attack of heart trouble and pass away from sheer joy.”

“Thank you,” said Kate.  “I wasn’t perfectly sure, having had no experience whatever, and I didn’t want to make a mistake.”

That drive was wonderful, over beautiful country roads, through dells, and across streams and hills.  They stopped where they pleased, gathering flowers and early apples, visiting with people they met, lunching wherever they happened to be.

“If it weren’t for wishing to hear John A. Logan to-night,” said Kate, “I’d move that we drive on all day.  I certainly am having the grandest time.”

She sat with her sailor hat filled with Early Harvest apples, a big bunch of Canadian anemones in her belt, a little stream at her feet, July drowsy fullness all around her, congenial companions; taking the “wings of morning” paid, after all.