had come to her, upon leaving her convent school three years before,
with a pleasant little income of her own--had come to her by an
arrangement made previously to her mother's death--and her manner of
life, her reasonableness, her adaptability, her presentableness had
reassured the old lady considerably as to the tolerableness of the
Roman Catholic religion. Indeed, once she had hoped that Laurie and
Maggie might come to an understanding that would prevent all possible
difficulty as to the future of his house and estate; but the fourth
volcanic storm had once more sent the world flying in pieces about
Mrs. Baxter's delicate ears; and, during the last three months she had
had to face the prospect of Laurie's bringing home as a bride the
rather underbred, pretty, stammering, pink and white daughter of a
Baptist grocer of the village.

This had been a terrible affair altogether; Laurie, as is the custom
of a certain kind of young male, had met, spoken to, and ultimately
kissed this Amy Nugent, on a certain summer evening as the stars came
out; but, with a chivalry not so common in such cases, had also
sincerely and simply fallen in love with her, with a romance usually
reserved for better-matched affections. It seemed, from Laurie's
conversation, that Amy was possessed of every grace of body, mind, and
soul required in one who was to be mistress of the great house; it was
not, so Laurie explained, at all a milkmaid kind of affair; he was not
the man, he said, to make a fool of himself over a pretty face. No,
Amy was a rare soul, a flower growing on stony soil--sandy perhaps
would be the better word--and it was his deliberate intention to make
her his wife.

Then had followed every argument known to mothers, for it was not
likely that even Mrs. Baxter would accept without a struggle a