good family, finely educated, and a great many more things, but all
that goes for nothing beside the fact that for over five years she has
been the landlady of a little hotel."

"I do not care a snap for that!" I exclaimed. "I like her all the
better for it. I--"

"That makes it worse," she interrupted, and as she spoke I could not
but recollect that a similar remark had been made to me before. "I
have not the slightest doubt that you would have been perfectly
willing to settle down as the landlord of a little hotel. But if you
had not--even if you had gone on in the course which father has
marked out for you, and you ought to hear him talk about you--you
might have become famous, rich, nobody knows what, perhaps President
of a college, but still everybody would have known that your wife was
the young woman who used to keep the Holly Sprig Inn, and asked the
people who came there if they objected to a back room, and if they
wanted tea or coffee for their breakfast. Of course Mrs. Chester
thought too much of you to let you consider any such foolishness."

I made no answer to this remark. I thought the young woman was taking
a great deal upon herself.

"Of course," she continued, "it would have been a great thing for Mrs.
Chester, and I honor her that she stood up stiffly and did the thing
she ought to do. I do not know what she said when she gave you her
final answer, but whatever it was it was the finest compliment she
could have paid you."

I smiled grimly. "She likened me to a bear," I said. "Do you call that
a compliment?"

Edith Larramie looked at me, her eyes sparkling. "Tell me one thing,"
she said. "When she spoke to you in that way weren't you trying to
find out how she felt about the matter exclusive of the inn?"

I could not help smiling again as I assented.

"There!" she exclaimed. "I am beginning to have the highest respect
for my abilities as a forecaster of human probabilities. It was like
you to try to find out that, and it was like her to snub you. But
let's walk on. Would you like me to give you some advice."

"I am afraid your advice is not worth very much," I answered, "but I
will hear it."

"Well, then," she said, "I advise you to fall in love with somebody
else just as soon as you can. That is the best way to get this affair
out of your mind, and until you do that you won't be worth anything."

I felt that I now knew this girl so well that I could say anything to
her. "Very well, the