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This had been a terrible affair altogether; Laurie, as is the custo ent, on a certain su as the stars came out; but, with a chivalry not so common in such cases, had also sincerely and simply fallen in love with her, with a romance usually reserved for better-matched affections It seemed, frorace of body, reat house; it was not, so Laurie explained, at all a milkmaid kind of affair; he was not the man, he said, to make a fool of hirowing on stony soil--sandy perhaps would be the better word--and it was his deliberate intention to ument known to mothers, for it was not likely that even Mrs Baxter would accept without a struggle a daughter-in-laho, five years before, had bobbed to her, wearing a pinafore, and carrying in a pair of rather large hands a basket of eggs to her back door Then she had consented to see the girl, and the interview in the garden had left her more distressed than ever (It was there that the aitch incident had taken place) And so the struggle had gone on; Laurie had protested, stornity alternately; and his entle persistence objected, held her peace, argued, and resisted, conflicting step by step against the inevitable, seeking to reconcile her son by pathos and her God by petition; and then in an instant, only four days ago, it seemed that the latter had prevailed; and today Laurie, in a black suit, rent by sorrow, at this very hour at which the two ladies sat and talked in the drawing-rooe churchyard, seeing the last of his love, under a pile of blossoms as pink and white as her own complexion, within four elm-boards with a brass plate upon the cover

Now, therefore, there was a new situation to face, and Mrs Baxter was regarding it with apprehension

It is true that mothers know sometimes more of their sons than their sons know of themselves, but there are certain elements of character that sometimes neither mothers nor sons appreciate It was one or two of those eleie Deronnais, with her hands behind her head, was now considering It seemed to her very odd that neither the boy himself nor Mrs Baxter in the least see selfishness of this very boy's actions