LITMIR.BIZ

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takes a' the taste out of it.”

      Mrs. Morel laughed.

      “And so it knocks you up?” she said.

      “I dunno. I want to get married,” he blurted, twisting his fingers and looking down at his boots. There was a silence.

      “But,” she exclaimed, “I thought you said you'd wait another year.”

      “Yes, I did say so,” he replied stubbornly.

      Again she considered.

      “And you know,” she said, “Annie's a bit of a spendthrift. She's saved no more than eleven pounds. And I know, lad, you haven't had much chance.”

      He coloured up to the ears.

      “I've got thirty-three quid,” he said.

      “It doesn't go far,” she answered.

      He said nothing, but twisted his fingers.

      “And you know,” she said, “I've nothing—”

      “I didn't want, ma!” he cried, very red, suffering and remonstrating.

      “No, my lad, I know. I was only wishing I had. And take away five pounds for the wedding and things—it leaves twenty-nine pounds. You won't do much on that.”

      He twisted still, impotent, stubborn, not looking up.

      “But do you really want to get married?” she asked. “Do you feel as if you ought?”

      He gave her one straight look from his blue eyes.

      “Yes,” he said.

      “Then,” she replied, “we must all do the best we can for it, lad.”

      The next time he looked up there were tears in his eyes.

      “I don't want Annie to feel handicapped,” he said, struggling.

      “My lad,” she said, “you're steady—you've got a decent place. If a man had NEEDED me I'd have married him on his last week's wages. She may find it a bit hard to start humbly. Young girls ARE like that. They look forward to the fine home they think they'll have. But I had expensive furniture. It's not everything.”

      So the wedding took place almost immediately. Arthur came home, and was splendid in uniform. Annie looked nice in a dove-grey dress that she could take for Sundays. Morel called her a fool for getting married, and was cool with his son-in-law. Mrs. Morel had white tips in her bonnet, and some white on her blouse, and was teased by both her sons for fancying herself so grand. Leonard was jolly and cordial, and felt a fearful fool. Paul could not quite see what Annie wanted to get married for. He was fond of her, and she of him. Still, he hoped rather lugubriously that it would turn out all right. Arthur was astonishingly handsome in his scarlet and yellow, and he knew it well, but was secretly ashamed of the uniform. Annie cried her eyes up in the kitchen, on leaving her mother. Mrs. Morel cried a little, then patted her on the back and said:

      “But don't cry, child, he'll be good to you.”

      Morel stamped and said she was a fool to go and tie herself up. Leonard looked white and overwrought. Mrs. Morel said to him:

      “I s'll trust her to you, my lad, and hold you responsible for her.”

      “You can,” he said, nearly dead with the ordeal. And it was all over.

      When Morel and Arthur were in bed, Paul sat talking, as he often did, with his mother.

      “You're not sorry she's married, mother, are you?” he asked.

      “I'm not sorry she's married—but—it seems strange that she should go from me. It even seems to me hard that she can prefer to go with her Leonard. That's how mothers are—I know it's silly.”

      “And shall you be miserable about her?”

      “When I think of my own wedding day,” his mother answered, “I can only hope her life will be different.”

      “But you can trust him to be good to her?”

      “Yes, yes. They say he's not good enough for her. But I say if a man is GENUINE, as he is, and a girl is fond of him—then—it should be all right. He's as good as she.”

      “So you don't mind?”

      “I would NEVER have let a daughter of mine marry a man I didn't FEEL to be genuine through and through. And yet, there's a gap now she's gone.”

      They were both miserable, and wanted her back again. It seemed to Paul his mother looked lonely, in her new black silk blouse with its bit of white trimming.

      “At any rate, mother, I s'll never marry,” he said.

      “Ay, they all say that, my lad. You've not met the one yet. Only wait a year or two.”

      “But I shan't marry, mother. I shall live with you, and we'll have a servant.”

      “Ay, my lad, it's easy to talk. We'll see when the time comes.”

      “What time? I'm nearly twenty-three.”

      “Yes, you're not one that would marry young. But in three years' time—”

      “I shall be with you just the same.”

      “We'll see, my boy, we'll see.”

      “But you don't want me to marry?”

      “I shouldn't like to think of you going through your life without anybody to care for you and do—no.”

      “And you think I ought to marry?”

      “Sooner or later every man ought.”

      “But you'd rather it were later.”

      “It would be hard—and very hard. It's as they say:

      “'A son's my son till he takes him a wife,

       But my daughter's my daughter the whole of her life.'”

      “And you think I'd let a wife take me from you?”

      “Well, you wouldn't ask her to marry your mother as well as you,” Mrs. Morel smiled.

      “She could do what she liked; she wouldn't have to interfere.”

      “She wouldn't—till she'd got you—and then you'd see.”

      “I never will see. I'll never marry while I've got you—I won't.”

      “But I shouldn't like to leave you with nobody, my boy,” she cried.

      “You're not going to leave me. What are you? Fifty-three! I'll give you till seventy-five. There you are, I'm fat and forty-four. Then I'll marry a staid body. See!”

      His mother sat and laughed.

      “Go to bed,” she said—“go to bed.”

      “And we'll have a pretty house, you and me, and a servant, and it'll be just all right. I s'll perhaps be rich with my painting.”

      “Will you go to bed!”

      “And then you s'll have a pony-carriage. See yourself—a little Queen Victoria trotting round.”

      “I tell you to go to bed,” she laughed.

      He kissed her and went. His plans for the future were always the same.

      Mrs. Morel sat brooding—about her daughter, about Paul, about Arthur. She fretted at losing Annie. The family was very closely bound. And she felt she MUST live now, to be with her children. Life was so rich for her. Paul wanted her, and so did Arthur. Arthur never knew how deeply he loved her. He was a creature of the moment. Never yet had he been forced to realise himself. The army had disciplined his body, but not his soul. He was in perfect health and very handsome. His dark, vigorous hair sat close to his smallish head. There was something childish about his nose, something almost girlish about his dark blue eyes.

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