pted Marquard with a
grave face. "Come, let's sit down on this very thin couch and permit me
to light one of my own cigars. I'm afraid I am not idealist enough, to
find yours endurable. And now let's see and hear what these four years
have made of you. You've not gained in flesh. Such a teacher of
mathematics ought occasionally to pass beyond the rudiments of straight
lines and angles. I, as you see, am approaching aldermanic proportions,
and as Adeline is like-wise comfortably enlarging her natural
boundaries, a consequence of our happy domestic life and the
undisturbed harmony of souls--"

"Have you married her at last?"

"Not exactly according to form, but in point of fact it amounts to
nearly the same thing. We've resolved never to part, unless it should
seem advisable. Isn't the legitimate civil marriage merely a contract
so long as the parties are suited, and doesn't Schiller say, 'beauty is
freedom in necessity?' Well, that beauty exists in our alliance. We're
both free but each finds it necessary to be with the other. The good
creature has retired from the stage and adorns my loneliness with her
housekeeping talents, besides secretly helping me in a scientific
work."

"So the nightingale has also a talent for medicine?"

"Only the practical part of it. We're writing a cook book together, or
rather a book on the art of eating. Brillat-Savarin is classical, it is
true, but only a child of his time."

"And will yours allow you to devote yourself to such grave studies in
another department? Certainly the words: 'How difficult it is even to
attain the means by which we ascend to the source of things!' do not
apply to you."

"Of course not; but just because, as a favorite women's doctor and
happening to be first in this specialty, my time is very much occupied;
I should not be able to finish the difficult task without the
assistance of a co-worker so tasteful as Adeline. Well, you'll come and
see us, it's high time. We'll take you into our laboratory, and you
must bear witness--but first of all, what brought you here without your
dear better-half?"

"Happy fellow," laughed Edwin, "who doesn't suspect what summer
vacations mean to a poor pedagogue! Hitherto, I've always spent them in
traveling with Leah, but this time mysterious and higher considerations
forced me--"

"Must I congratulate you, my old friend? No shame-faced evasions with
your physician! You'll make an excellent papa. It's a pity," he added
i