12 DAYS STOLEN FOR SPORT 



Fortified with this valuable recruit and my 

 father's wise advice I lost some dread of the dear, 

 good lady, who was only a little fuller of worldly 

 wisdom and proverbs to meet every event in life 

 than most mothers. She was always the most 

 upright-sitting lady I had ever seen, and, on this 

 occasion, she sat so stiff that there was only the 

 slightest movement of her head as she said : 

 "Well, Philip! Are you enjoying your holiday, 

 my boy ? " 



"Boy" shook my courage, and it was somewhat 

 falteringly that I replied : "Nell and I have been 

 thinking and and talking of being married." 



It took her breath and tilted her head much 

 beyond the perpendicular, but she recovered, and 

 talked and talked, while I listened with a deference 

 dad would have been proud of, and looked so con- 

 vinced that I believe she thought much of my 

 capacity for getting wisdom. Then I told her the 

 tale I had told her daughter, with variations, but 

 I only succeeded in getting her consent to see my 

 father. She thought much of my father's wisdom 

 and loved my mother for being the best listener 

 and the safest keeper of a secret in all the county. 



I heard there was much clatter in the camps 

 during that May time, but I had friends in each 

 that prevailed, and early in- June I married the little 

 maid, and I take some credit for remembering her 

 mother's last words to us at her kind send-off: 

 " I should have grave misgivings of the outcome of 

 this youthful marriage, were it not that I have faith 

 that you are calculated to make the very best of 

 each other. It is a lifelong partnership through- 

 out which the effects of every little speech and 



