their happiness, both now and in the future.

With the Martians there is no false modesty about their courtships; all
is natural, proper, and dignified; every one may see and every one
enters into the true spirit of the thing. Mere flirtations, such as we
are so familiar with, are quite unknown, as they would be contrary to
all the natural instincts of the people. Everything upon Mars is honest,
true, and straightforward--open and above-board. This must necessarily
be so, in consequence of the Martians' powers of intuition, for any
attempt at imposition or deceit would at once be detected.

I had an illustration of this when I asked Merna, "How they dealt with
their criminals?"

"We have none to deal with," he replied, "and you will understand why,
when I tell you, that if any one committed a crime, however small, and
it was desired to find out the offender, it would be impossible to
escape detection. He might fly to the other side of our world, but the
intuitions of our experts would at once make them aware of his
hiding-place; besides, he could not conceal what was on his mind from
any one with whom he associated.

"In the earlier times when only a small proportion of the Martians were
endowed with these powers to any large extent, there were occasional
crimes; but as they were always detected, crime soon ceased to exist.

"Thus you will see that, quite apart from their high standard of
morality, the Martians soon found that crime was a folly."

* * * * *

There was another love affair apparently developing which did not afford
me so much satisfaction as that to which I have just alluded.

I noticed that John and Siloni were very frequently together; and,
whatever might be the case with the latter, I had very little doubt that
John was smitten with his companion's charms. It was, perhaps, nothing
to be wondered at, for Siloni was indeed a very nice girl, with
beautiful features, dark hair, and dark eyes; whilst John was
well-built, fully six feet in height, with black hair and moustache, and
very good-looking; altogether a fine and attractive man, and it had
often been a matter of surprise to me that he had never married.

Still, such a complication as this had never entered my mind when I came
to Mars, and I was rather perplexed to know how best to deal with the
situation. However, I thought it would be well to wait a little while
and see how the matter shaped itself before tak