We walked for an hour in the pine
wood and talked. Betty was brilliant, witty, self-possessed,
altogether charming. I thought her perfect and yet my heart
ached. What a glorious young thing she was, in that splendid
youth of hers! What a prize for some lucky man--confound the
obtrusive thought! No doubt we should soon be overrun at Glenby
with lovers. I should stumble over some forlorn youth at every
step! Well, what of it? Betty would marry, of course. It would
be my duty to see that she got a good husband, worthy of her as
men go. I thought I preferred the old duty of superintending her
studies. But there, it was all the same thing--merely a
post-graduate course in applied knowledge. When she began to
learn life's greatest lesson of love, I, the tried and true old
family friend and mentor, must be on hand to see that the teacher
was what I would have him be, even as I had formerly selected her
instructor in French and botany. Then, and not until then, would
Betty's education be complete.
I rode home very soberly. When I reached The Maples I did what I
had not done for years...looked critically at myself in the
mirror. The realization that I had grown older came home to me
with a new and unpleasant force. There were marked lines on my
lean face, and silver glints in the dark hair over my temples.
When Betty was ten she had thought me "an old person." Now, at
eighteen, she probably thought me a veritable ancient of days.
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