It's true, isn't it, that marriage really is 'not a bed of roses, but a field of battle'?
To get right down to it, a girl could fight it out with anybody, couldn't she?
One man as well as another ?" "Oh, my dear! I'm sure your father and I--" "Yes, yes," said Mary, indulgently.

"I don't mean you and papa.

But isn't it propinquity that makes marriages?
So many people say so, there must be something in it." "Mary, I can't bear for you to talk like that." And Mrs.Vertrees lifted pleading eyes to her daughter--eyes that begged to be spared.

"It sounds--almost reckless!" Mary caught the appeal, came to her, and kissed her gaily.

"Never fret, dear! I'm not likely to do anything I don't want to do--I've always been too thorough-going a little pig! And if it IS propinquity that does our choosing for us, well, at least no girl in the world could ask for more than THAT! How could there be any more propinquity than the very house next door ?" She gave her mother a final kiss and went gaily all the way to the door this time, pausing for her postscript with her hand on the knob.