anyone ever put you in charge of a high school? Will anyone give you a responsible post in any of the spheres where women can prove that they are the equals, and more than the equals, of men? It is very doubtful. You know much, but you have no influence. Ten years ago to-day, Regina Brown, you told yourself that your mode of existence was a waste of life. Well, you are wasting your life still. The best thing you can do, Regina Brown, is to get yourself married.”

So Regina Brown got herself married.

Now, to put such an action in those words is not a romantic way of describing the most—or what should be the most—romantic episode of a woman’s life; but I use Regina’s own words, and I say that she got herself married.

She was not wholly unattractive. She had a pinky skin and frank grey eyes, but her figure was of the pincushion order, and much study had done away with that lissomness which is one of the most attractive attributes of womenkind. Her hands were white, strong, determined; white because they were mostly occupied about books and papers, strong because she herself was strong, and determined because it was her nature to be so. Her feet, frankly speaking, were large. She was a young woman who sat solidly on a solid chair, and looked thoroughly in place. Her features otherwise were neither bad nor good, and I think she was probably one of the worst dressers that the world has ever seen. It was no uncommon thing for Regina Brown to wear a salmon-pink ribbon twisted about her ample waist and to crown her toilet with a covering of turquoise blue.

It was about this time that Regina received a valentine—the first in her life. She held it sacred from any eye but her own, in fact she put it into the fire before any of the family had time to see it. The words ran thus:—

I cannot truthfully say that the valentine did Regina the smallest amount of good. You know, my gentle reader, if we only look at things the right way, we can find good in everything. As some poet has beautifully put it in a couplet about sermons in stones and running brooks—“And good in everything,” Regina might even have found good out of that malicious and spiteful valentine with its excellent likeness, done in water colors, of herself clad in weird and wonderful garments, the like of which even she had never attempted. But Regina consigned it to the flames, and went on her way precisely as she had done before, for Regina was a woman of strong nature and settled convictions. I give you this piece of information because you will find by the story which I shall tell and you will read, that this curious dominance of nature proved to be one of the mainsprings of this remarkable character.

So Regina went on her way and she got married. I don’t say that it was a brilliant alliance—by no means. The man was young, younger than Regina. He was weak-looking and pretty, of a pink-and-white, wax-doll type, with shining fair hair and rather watery blue eyes. To his weakness Regina’s dominant nature strongly appealed; perhaps, also, in some measure the fact that she was the sole child of her father’s house, and that her father lived upon his means, and described himself as “gentleman” in the various papers connected with the politics of his country which from time to time reached him. Be that as it may, an engagement came about between Regina Brown and this young man, who was “something in the city” and who rejoiced in the name of Alfred Whittaker.

I must confess that it was somewhat of a shock to Regina when she found that among his fellows—young, vapid, rather raffish young men—he was known by the abbreviative of “Alf.”

“Dearest,” she said to him one day, after this unpalatable information had come to her, “I noticed that your friend, Mr. Fitzsimmons, called you ‘Alf’ last night.”

“Yes, the fellows mostly do,” he replied.

“But you were not called Alf at home, dearest,” said Regina.

She laid her substantial hand upon his arm and looked at him yearningly.

“My mother and my sisters always called me Alfie,” said he, returning the gaze with interest, for he admired Regina with an admiration which was wholly genuine.

“I really couldn’t call you Alfie,” she said.

“I don’t see why you couldn’t, Regina,” he replied. “It seems to me such an awful thing for people who love one another to be saying ‘Regina’ and ‘Alfred.’ There is something so chilly about it. Did your people never call you by a pet name?”

“Never,” said Regina.

“I should like to,” said Alfred, still more yearningly.

“If you can think of a pet name that will not be derogatory to my dignity—” Regina began, when the weak and weedy Alfred insinuated an arm about her ample waist and drew her nearer to him.

Without some effort on the part of Regina Brown, I doubt if his intention could have been carried into effect, but Regina yielded herself to his tenderness with a shy coyness which was sufficiently marked to have merited even the pet name of Tiny.

“What would you like me to call you—Alfred?” she asked, with the faintest possible pause before the last word.

“Call me Alfie,” said he in manly and imperative tones.

“Dear Alfie!” said Regina.

“Darling!” said Alfie.

“You couldn’t call me darling as a name,” said Regina, coyly.

“I shall always call you darling,” he gurgled. “But I should like, as a name, to call you Queenie.”

“You shall call me Anna Maria Stubbs if you like,” said Regina, with a sudden surrender of her dignity.

And forthwith, from that moment, between themselves she was known no longer by her real name, but sank into a state of hopeless adoration, and was called Queenie.

CHAPTER II

MRS. ALFRED WHITTAKER

In due course Regina Brown merged her identity into that of Mrs. Alfred Whittaker.

They were not married in a hurry. Regina had come of old-fashioned people, who held firmly to the belief that courting time is the sweetest of a woman’s life; that it is good for man to look and long for the woman of his heart, and for woman to be coy and to hold him who will eventually become her liege lord at arm’s length for a suitable period. To people of the Brown, and indeed of the Whittaker class, there is something in a short engagement and a hurried-on marriage which borders almost upon immodesty.

“We won’t be engaged very long,” said Alfred, when he had been made the happiest man in the world for nearly six weeks.

“No, not long,” returned Regina. “My father and mother were engaged for seven years.”

“Good God!” exclaimed Alfred, who was somewhat given to strong language, as many weak men are. “Good God, Regina, you have taken