It amazed me to see how Ada took Peggy’s engagement, and when young Henry Goward came to visit, I made up my mind that he should not go away again without our finding out a little, at any rate, of what his surroundings had been, and what his own principles were.  As we grow older we see more and more that character is the main thing in life, and I would rather have a child of mine marry a young man of sound principles whom she respected than one of undisciplined character and lax ideas whom she loved.  When I said things like this to Ada, she replied: 

“I’m afraid you’re prejudiced against that poor boy because he and Peggy happened to meet at college.”

I answered:  “I am not prejudiced at all, Ada, but I feel that all of us, you especially, should keep our eyes and ears open.  Wait! is all I say.”

I know my own faults, for I have always believed that one is never too old for character-building, and I know that being prejudiced is not one of them.  I realize too keenly that as women advance in years they are very apt to get set in their ways unless they take care, and I am naturally too fair-minded to judge a man before I have seen him.  Maria and Alice were prejudiced, if you like.  Maria, indeed, had so much to say to Ada that I interfered, though it is contrary to my custom.

“I should think, Maria,” I said, “that however old you are, you would realize that your father and mother are even better able to judge than you as to their children’s affairs.”  I cannot imagine where Maria gets her dominant disposition.  It is very unlike the women of our family.

When he came, however, Mr. Goward’s manners and appearance impressed me favorably.  Neither Ada nor Cyrus, as far as I could see, tried in the least to draw him out.  I sat quiet for a while, but at last for Peggy’s sake I felt I would do what I could to find out his views on important things.  I was considerably relieved to hear that his mother was a Van Horn, a very good Troy family and distant connection of mother’s.

When I asked him what he was, “My people are Episcopalians,” he replied.

“I suppose that means you are something else?” I asked him.

“I’m afraid it means I’m nothing else,” he answered; and while I was glad he was so honest, I couldn’t help feeling anxious at having Peggy engaged to a man so unformed in his beliefs.  I do not care so much what people believe, for I am not bigoted, as that they should believe something, and that with their whole hearts.  There are a great many young men like Henry Goward, to-day, who have no fixed beliefs and no established principles beyond a vague desire to be what they call “decent fellows.”  One needs more than that in this world.