Chapter XXII - Page 2

could not support you. We have no
foolish ideas about wealth, but comfort is another matter, and our
daughter should at least marry a man who can give her that - and
not a penniless adventurer, a sailor, a cowboy, a smuggler, and
Heaven knows what else, who, in addition to everything, is hare-
brained and irresponsible."

Ruth was silent. Every word she recognized as true.

"He wastes his time over his writing, trying to accomplish what
geniuses and rare men with college educations sometimes accomplish.
A man thinking of marriage should be preparing for marriage. But
not he. As I have said, and I know you agree with me, he is
irresponsible. And why should he not be? It is the way of
sailors. He has never learned to be economical or temperate. The
spendthrift years have marked him. It is not his fault, of course,
but that does not alter his nature. And have you thought of the
years of licentiousness he inevitably has lived? Have you thought
of that, daughter? You know what marriage means."

Ruth shuddered and clung close to her mother.

"I have thought." Ruth waited a long time for the thought to frame
itself. "And it is terrible. It sickens me to think of it. I
told you it was a dreadful accident, my loving him; but I can't
help myself. Could you help loving father? Then it is the same
with me. There is something in me, in him - I never knew it was
there until to-day - but it is there, and it makes me love him. I
never thought to love him, but, you see, I do," she concluded, a
certain faint triumph in her voice.

They talked long, and to little purpose, in conclusion agreeing to
wait an indeterminate time without doing anything.

The same conclusion was reached, a little later that night, between
Mrs. Morse and her husband, after she had made due confession of
the miscarriage of her plans.

"It could hardly have come otherwise," was Mr. Morse's judgment.
"This sailor-fellow has been the only man she was in touch with.
Sooner or later she was going to awaken anyway; and she did awaken,
and lo! here was this sailor-fellow, the only accessible man at the
moment, and of course she promptly loved him, or thought she did,
which amounts to the same thing."

Mrs. Morse took it upon herself to work slowly and indirectly upon
Ruth, rather than to combat her. There would be plenty of time for
this, for Martin was not in position to marry.

"Let her see all she wants of him," was Mr. Morse's advice. "The
more she knows him, the less she'll love him, I wager. And give
her plenty of contrast. Make a point of having young people at the
house. Young women and young men, all sorts of young men, clever
men, men who have done something or who are doing things, men of