re's a bit I don't
understand, to begin with: 'It may be observed generally that the law
considers marriage in the light of a Contract.' What does that mean?
I thought a contract was the sort of a thing a builder signs when he
promises to have the workmen out of the house in a given time, and when
the time comes (as my poor mother used to say) the workmen never go."

"Is there nothing about Love?" asked Neelie. "Look a little lower down."

"Not a word. He sticks to his confounded 'Contract' all the way
through."

"Then he's a brute! Go on to something else that's more in our way."

"Here's a bit that's more in our way: 'Incapacities. If any persons
under legal incapacities come together, it is a meretricious, and not a
matrimonial union.' (Blackstone's a good one at long words, isn't he?
I wonder what he means by meretricious?) 'The first of these legal
disabilities is a prior marriage, and having another husband or wife
living--'"

"Stop!" said Neelie; "I must make a note of that." She gravely made her
first entry on the page headed "Good," as follows: "I have no husband,
and Allan has no wife. We are both entirely unmarried at the present
time."

"All right, so far," remarked Allan, looking over her shoulder.

"Go on," said Neelie. "What next?"

"'The next disability,'" proceeded Allan, "'is want of age. The age
for consent to matrimony is, fourteen in males, and twelve in females.'
Come!" cried Allan, cheerfully, "Blackstone begins early enough, at any
rate!"

Neelie was too business-like to make any other remark, on her side, than
the necessary remark in the pocket-book. She made another entry under
the head of "Good": "I am old enough to consent, and so is Allan too. Go
on," resumed Neelie, looking over the reader's shoulder. "Never mind
all that prosing of Blackstone's, about the husband being of years of
discretion, and the wife under twelve. Abominable wretch! the wife under
twelve! Skip to the third incapacity, if there is one."

"'The third incapacity,'" Allan went on, "'is want of reason.'"

Neelie immediately made a third entry on the side of "Good": "Allan and
I are both perfectly reasonable. Skip to the next page."

Allan skipped. "'A fourth incapacity is in respect of proximity of
relationship.'"

A fourth entry followed instantly on the cheering side of the
pocket-book: "He loves me, and I love him--without our being in the
slightest degree related to each other. Any more?" asked Neelie,