rofessor's wife.

"Neither did we," said the Professor. "We supposed that there had never
been anything equal to those hoops and white muslins."

"Thank you, my dear," said his wife, tapping him between the shoulders
with her fan. "Now don't go any further."

"Do you mean about our first meeting here on Class Day?" asked her
husband.

"They'll think so now," said Mrs. Saintsbury patiently, with a playful
threat of consequences in her tone.

"When I first saw the present Mrs. Saintsbury," pursued the
Professor--it was his joking way, of describing her, as if there had
been several other Mrs. Saintsburys--"she was dancing on the green
here."

"Ah, they don't dance on the green any more, I hear," sighed Mrs.
Pasmer.

"No, they don't," said the other lady; "and I think it's just as well.
It was always a ridiculous affectation of simplicity."

"It must have been rather public," said young Mavering, in a low voice,
to Miss Pasmer.

"It doesn't seem as if it could ever have been in character quite," she
answered.

"We're a thoroughly indoors people," said the Professor. "And it seems
as if we hadn't really begun to get well as a race till we had come in
out of the weather."

"How can you say that on a day like this?" cried Mrs. Pasmer. "I didn't
suppose any one could be so unromantic."

"Don't flatter him," cried his wife.

"Does he consider that a compliment?"

"Not personally," he answered: "But it's the first duty of a Professor
of Comparative Literature to be unromantic."

"I don't understand," faltered Mrs. Pasmer.

"He will be happy to explain, at the greatest possible length," said
Mrs. Saintsbury. "But you shan't spoil our pleasure now, John."

They all laughed, and the Professor looked proud of the wit at his
expense; the American husband is so, and the public attitude of the
American husband and wife toward each other is apt to be amiably
satirical; their relation seems never to have lost its novelty, or to
lack droll and surprising contrasts for them.

Besides these passages with her husband, Mrs. Saintsbury kept up a full
flow of talk with the elder Mavering, which Mrs. Pasmer did her best to
overhear, for it related largely to his son, whom, it seemed, from the
father's expressions, the Saintsburys had been especially kind to.

"No, I assure you," Mrs. Pasmer heard her protest, "Mr. Saintsbury has,
been very much interested in him. I hope he has not put any troublesome
ideas into his head