“Sally! You don’t know what you’re saying! You know I love you, that I’ve thought of nothing but you since we met on Carson’s farm. Of course I want to marry you, and will be proud and happy to do so, if your mother will consent.”
Sally’s face bloomed again. She seized her mother’s hands and held them hard against her breast as she pleaded: “You see, Mother? Oh, please let us go on with our marriage! David and I will love you always, be so grateful to you—Listen, Mother! You’ll have a son as well as a daughter—”
“Don’t be absurd, Sally!” Enid commanded brusquely. “When you were indeed a girl alone, with no family, no prospects, nothing, a marriage with David would undoubtedly have been the best thing for you. But now—it’s ridiculous! This boy has nothing. You would be a burden upon him, a yoke about his young neck that should not be bowed down by responsibility for several years. You’re both under a cloud. I understand that he cannot return to college or go back to his grandfather until this trouble is cleared up. What did you two children expect to do, once you were married?”
“I expected to work at anything I could get to do,” David answered with hurt young dignity. “I have brains, two years of college education, a strong body, and I love Sally.”
Enid Barr leaned across Sally and touched David’s clenched fist with the caressing tips of her fingers. “You’re a good boy, David and Sally, the orphan, the girl alone, would have been lucky to marry you. But you understand, don’t you? She’s my daughter, will be the legally adopted daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Courtney Barr. Anyone in New York could tell you what that means. She will have every advantage that money can offer her—finishing school or college, if she wants to go to college; travel, exquisite clothes, a place in society, a mother and father who will adore her, a girlhood rich with all the pleasures that every normal girl craves. Help me to give her these things, David, things you would give her if you could!”
“This is all nonsense!” Mrs. Stone spoke up sharply. “You know perfectly well, Mrs. Barr, that these two foolish children can’t get married without your consent. I, for one think you’re wasting your time. Simply put your foot down and take your daughter home with you.”
Sally flushed angrily and struggled to rise, but David held her back. “You’ll have to go with her, darling. Remember how you’ve always wanted a mother? You have one now, and she wants you with her, wants to make up to you for all you’ve missed.”
As only mute rebellion answered him, he wisely changed his tactics: “Do you think you could ever be really happy, darling, knowing that you had hurt your mother, cheated her of the child for whom she has grieved all these years? She’ll never have another child, Sally, and she needs you as much as you need her.”
When Sally’s mouth began to quiver with new tears, Enid Barr took the girl in her arms. At last Sally raised her head and searched her mother’s face with piteous intensity. “Do you really need me?” she cried. “You’ll love me—be a real mother to me? You don’t just want me because it’s your duty?”
Tears clouded the clear blue of Enid’s eyes as she answered softly: “I’ll be a mother to you, Sally, not because it’s my duty, but because I already love you and will love you more and more. If I had searched the whole world over for the girl I would have liked to have as my daughter, I could not have found one who is as sweet and pretty and dear as you are. I’m proud of my daughter, and I shall hope to make her proud of me.”