"I don't see why you make so much of it," Witherspoon said to his wife. "Is there anything so strange in a young man's leaving town? Do you expect him to remain forever within calling distance? He told you that you should know in due time. What more can you ask? You are foolishly worried over him, and what is there to worry about?"
"I suppose I am," she answered, "but I'm so much afraid that he'll marry some girl that I shall not like."
"It's not only that, Caroline. You are simply afraid that he will marry some girl. The fear of not liking her is a secondary anxiety."
"But, father, you know"—
"Oh, yes, I know. But he is a man—presumably," he added to himself—"and your love cannot make him a child. It is true that we were robbed of the pleasure his infancy would have afforded us, but it's not true that there now exists any way by which that lost pleasure can be supplied. As for myself, I regret the necessity that compels me to say that he is far from being a comfort to me. What has he brought me? Nothing but an additional cause for worry."
"Father, don't say that!"
"But I am compelled to say it. I have pointed out a career to him and he simply bats his eyes at it. He is the most peculiar creature I ever saw. Oh, I know he has gone through enough to make him peculiar; I know all about that, but I don't see the sense of keeping up that peculiarity. He is aimless, and he doesn't want an aim urged upon him."
"But, father, he has made his newspaper a success."
"Ah, but what does it amount to? Within ten years he might make a hundred thousand dollars out of it, but"—
"Oh, surely more than that," she insisted.