could never run past 'Breaking Home Ties.' You had to work your way
through the crowd in front of that just as you have to do at a fire, or a
news office during a football game. The American people could never get
enough of that mother kissing her boy goodbye, while the wagon waits at
the open door to take him away from her upon his first journey into the
world. The idea held a daily pathos for them. Many had themselves been
through such leave takings; and no word so stirs the general heart as the
word 'mother'. Song writers know this; and the artist knew it when he
decided to paint 'Breaking Home Ties.' And 'Mother' is the title of my
story to-night."

"Mother!" This was Ethel's bewildered echo, "Whose Mother?" she softly
murmured to herself.

Richard continued. "It concerns the circumstances under which I became
engaged to my wife."

There was a movement from Ethel as she sat by the sofa.

"Not all the circumstances, of course," the narrator continued, with a
certain guarded candour in his tone. "There are certain circumstances
which naturally attend every engagement between happy and--and devoted--
young people that they keep to themselves quite carefully, in spite of
the fact that any one who has been through the experience of being
engaged two or three times--"

There was another movement from Ethel by the sofa.

"--or even only once, as is my case," the narrator went on, "any body, I
say, who has been through the experience of being engaged only once, can