t wasn't her real name, of
course, but she was one of the finest girls that ever attended a
bargain sale. She had a mind far above the ordinary. She could read
Schopenhauer at sight; understand Browning in a minute; her soul was as
big as her heart and her heart was two and a half sizes larger than the
universe. She was so strong-minded that although she could write poetry
she wouldn't, and in the last year of her single blessedness she was the
Queen-pin among the girls of her set. What she said was law, and
emancipation of her sex was her only vice. Well, what do you think
happened to Sallie Wiggins? After refusing every fine man in town,
including myself,--I must say I only asked her five times; no telling
what a sixth would have brought forth--she succumbed to the
blandishments of the first sapheaded young Lochinvar that came out of
the west, married him, and is now the smiling mother of nine children,
does all the family sewing, makes her own parlor bric-a-brac out of the
discarded utensils of the kitchen, dresses herself on ninety dollars a
decade, and is happy."

"But if she loved him--" began the Lawyer.

"Impossible," said the Idiot. "She pitied him. She knew that if she
didn't marry him, and take charge of him, another woman would, and that
the chances were ten to one that the other woman wouldn't do the thing
right and that Saphead's life would be ruined forever."

"But you say she is happy," persisted the Lawyer.

"Certainly she is," said the Idiot. "Because her life is an eternal
sacrifice to Saphead's needs, and if there is a luxury in this mundane
sphere that woman essentially craves it is the luxury of sacrifice.
There is something fanatic about it. Sallie Wiggins voluntarily turned
her back on seven men that I know of, one of whom is a Governor of his
state; two of whom are now in Congress; one of whom is a judge of a
state court; two of whom have become millionaire merchants; and the
seventh of whom is to-day, probably, the most brilliant ornament of the
penitentiary. Everyone of 'em turned down for Saphead, a man who parted
his hair in the middle, couldn't earn seven dollars a century on his
wits, is destined to remain hopelessly nothing, keeps her busy sewing
buttons on his clothes, and to save his life couldn't tell the
difference between Matthew Arnold and an automobile, and yet you tell me
that women don't care for idiots."

"Miss Wiggins--or Mrs. Saphead, to be more precise," said Mr. Brief,