and peeping up under the bachelor's hat brim.

The bachelor stared back at her through lowered lashes.

"It's got on a violet hat," he began, "and violet——"

"Is that a ship out there?" asked the widow, suddenly becoming interested in the sea.

"And violet——"

"Oh, dear!" she interrupted petulantly. "Of course, you've got ideals. All men have ideals—but they don't often marry them. The trouble is that when a man has the marrying fever he can clothe anything in curls and petticoats with the illusions he has built around that ideal, and put the ideal's halo on her head and imagine she is the real thing. He can look at a red-headed, pug-nosed girl from an angle that will make her hair seem pure gold and her pug look Greek. By some mental feat, he can transform a girl six feet tall with no waist line and an acute elbow into a kittenish, plump little thing that he has always had in mind—and marry her. Or, if his ideal is tall and willowy and ethereal, and he happens to meet a woman weighing 200 pounds whose first thought in the morning is her breakfast and whole last thought at night is her dinner, he will picture her merely attractively plump and a marvel of intellect and imagination. And," the widow sank her chin in her hand and gazed out to sea reflectively, "it is all so pitiful, when you think how happy men could make marriage, if they would only go about it scientifically!"

"Then what," inquired the bachelor flinging away his cigar and folding his arms dramatically, "is the science of choosing a wife?"

"Well," said the widow, counting off on the tips of her lilac silk gloves, "first of all a man should never choose a wife when he finds himself feeling lonesome and dreaming of furnished flats and stopping to talk to babies in the street. He has the marrying fever then, and is in no fit condition to pick out a wife and unless he is very careful he is liable to marry the first girl who smiles at him. He should shut his eyes tight and flee to the wilderness and not come back until he is prepared to see women in their proper lights and their right proportions."

"And then?" suggested the bachelor.

"Then," announced the widow oratorically, "he should choose a wife as he would a dish at the table—not because he finds her attractive or delicious or spicy, but—because he thinks she will agree with him."

"I see," added the bachelor, "and won't keep him awake nights," he added.

The widow nodded.

"Nor give him a bitter taste in the mouth in the morning. A good wife is like a dose of medicine—hard to swallow, but truly helpful. The girls who wear frills and high heels and curly pompadours are like the salad with the most dressing and garnishing, likely to be too rich and spicy, while the plain little thing in the serge skirt, who never powders her nose, may prove as sweet and wholesome—as—as home-made pudding."

"Or—home-made pickles," suggested the bachelor with wry face.

The widow shook her parasol at him admonishingly.

"Don't do that!" cried the bachelor.

"Do what?" inquired the widow in astonishment.

"Wave your frills in my eyes! I had just made up my mind to propose to Miss Gunning and——"

The widow sat up perfectly straight.

"Do you really admire—a marble slab, Mr. Travers?"

"And your frills," pursued the bachelor, unmoved, "like salad dressing——"

"I beg your pardon."

"Or garnishings——"

"Mr. Travers!"

"Might be merely a lure to make me take something which would disagree with me."

The widow rose and looked coolly out over the waves.

"I can't see," she said, "why you should fancy there could be any chance——"

"I don't," sighed the bachelor. "It isn't a matter of chance, but of choice."

The ice in the widow's eyes melted into sun in a moment. She turned to the bachelor impulsively.

"Why do you want to marry me?" she asked.

The bachelor rose and looked down at her critically.

"Well," he said, "for one thing, because you're just the woman I ought not to marry."

"What!"

"You're too highly spiced——"

"Billy!"

"And you'd be sure not to agree with me——"

"Billy Travers!"

"And because——"

"Well? Go on."

"Because——" The bachelor hesitated and gazed deep into the violet eyes.

"Please proceed, Mr. Travers."

"I won't!" The bachelor turned his back on her defiantly.

The widow came a little nearer and stooped around to peep under his hat-brim.

"Please—Billy!" she breathed softly.

"Well, then—because I'm in the marrying mood," he replied.

But the widow was half way to the hotel before he knew what had happened.

V

Money and Matrimony.