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 But Mrs. Gilman, at first so cool, threatened now to become emotional; she fixed sober eyes on George and lifting both her hands to his shoulders, held him at arm's length, looking as levelly into his eyes as she could manage.

"George Judson! Do you realize what it means when a mother gives her daughter into a man's keeping?" she demanded soberly, while dark, piercing eyes searched his significantly.

"I suppose not," stammered George, breaking under that gaze; "but I can try to."

"You will have to tame Fay," she conceded rather surprisingly, and remarked it with some conviction.

"Mamma!" reproved that young lady laughingly.

"But see that you do it gently," the mother urged with the mists of maternal love in her eyes. "Don't hurt her. Don't break her spirit."

It was on this same great day that George drove Fay out to call upon his father and mother. Malachi Judson, sitting in his invalid chair with stubby gray hair sticking straight up and stubby old-fashioned beard bristling straight down, with the elevated eyebrows which gave him a habitually alert expression, gazed with solemn, assaying glance upon the sparkling beauty of Fay Gilman, whose first presence had brightened the house like the entry of a flood of sunshine, and unhesitatingly approved her.