"A career in a pastry shop seems droll enough," smiled her mother, "but--"

"I think I might influence the club to take a good deal of her stuff.

We've a miserable pastry cook now," said Avery. "That would help her to get a start, and the start is always the hard part, I suppose, in a thing like that."

"That would be a splendid chance. If the members liked her things, perhaps they would get their wives to patronize her, too," said Gertrude, gaily. "I'm so glad you thought of that, but then you always think of the right thing," she added, tenderly. They all three laughed a little, and Avery slipped his arm about her.

"Do I?" he asked in a voice tremulous with happiness. "Do I, Darling?

I'm so glad you said that, for I've just been thinking that--that I don't want to go back to Albany without you, and--and the new session begins in ten weeks. Darling, will you go with me? May she, my mother?"

he asked, catching Mrs. Foster's hand in his own. The two young people were facing her. She sat alone on the back seat of the closed carriage.

The street lights were beginning to blossom and flicker. The rays fell upon the mother's face as they drove. Her eyes were closed, and tears were on her cheeks.

"Forgive me, mother," said Avery, tenderly. "Forgive me! You have gone through so much to-day. I should have waited; but--but I love her so. I need her so--I need her to help me think right. Can you understand?"

Mrs. Foster moved to one side and held out both arms to her daughter.

"Sit by me," she said, huskily, and Gertrude gathered her in her young, strong arms.

"Can I understand?" half sobbed Katherine from her daughter's shoulder.

"Can I understand? Oh, I do! I do! and I am so happy for you both; but she--she is _my_ daughter, and it is so hard to let her go--even to you!

It is so hard!"

Gertrude could not speak. She tried to look at her lover, but tears filled her eyes. She was holding her mother's hand to her lips.

"Dear little mamma," she whispered; "dear little mamma, I shall never go if it makes you unhappy--never, if it breaks my heart. But mamma, I love you more because I love him; and--"

"I know, I know," said Katherine, trying to struggle out of her heartache which held back and beyond itself a tender joy for these two.

"But love is so selfish. I _am_ glad. I am glad for you both--but--oh, my daughter, I love you, _I_ love you!" she said, and choked down a sob to smile in the girl's eyes.

Mr. Foster was waiting for them in the library. They were late. He had been thinking.

"Well, I'm tremendously glad you're back," he said brightly, kissing his wife, and then he took Gertrude in his arms. "Sweetheart," he said, smiling down into her eyes, "if I seemed harsh to-day, I'm sorry. I only did it because I thought it was for your own good. You know that."

"Why, papa," she said, with her cheek against his own; "of course I know. Of course I understand. We all did. You don't mind if we did not see your way? You--"

"The girl is dead, dear," said Mrs. Foster, touching her husband's arm, "and--let us not talk of that now, to--to these, our children. They want your--they want to ask--they are going to be married in ten weeks?"

"The d.i.c.kens!" exclaimed her father, and held Gertrude at arm's length.

"Is that so, Sweetheart?" There was a twinkle in his eyes, and he lifted her chin with one finger and then kissed her. "The d.i.c.kens! Well, all I've got to say is, I'm sorry for old Martin and the rest of us," and he grasped Selden Avery's hand. "I hope you'll give up that legislative foolishness pretty soon and come back to town and live with civilized people in a civilized way. It'll be horribly lonely in New York without Gertrude, but--oh, well, its nature's way. We're all a lot of robbers.

I stole this little woman away from her father, and I'm an unrepentent thief yet, am I not?" and he kissed his wife with the air of a man who feels that life is well worth living, no matter what its penalties, so long as she might be not the least of them.