under its
load of red hair, and her figure, which we had lately noticed flitting
in and out, as with a shy consciousness of being stared at on account of
her engagement, was as light as his was heavy on its feet.

I said, "Naturally," and he seemed glad of the chance to laugh again.

"Well, of course! And her being away at school made it all the more so.
If we'd had her under our eye, here--Well, we shouldn't have had her
under our eye if she had BEEN here; or if we had, we shouldn't have seen
what was going on; at least _I_ shouldn't; maybe her mother would. So
it's just as well it happened as it did happen, I guess. We shouldn't
have been any the wiser if we'd known all about it." I joined him in his
laugh at his paradox, and he began again. "What's that about being the
unexpected that happens? I guess what happens is what ought to have
been expected. We might have known when we let her go to a coeducational
college that we were taking a risk of losing her; but we lost our other
daughter that way, and SHE never went to ANY kind of college. I guess we
counted the chances before we let her go. What's the use? Of course
we did, and I remember saying to my wife, who's more anxious than I am
about most things--women are, I guess--that if the worst came to the
worst, it might not be such a bad thing. I always thought it wasn't
such an objectionable feature, in the coeducational system, if the young
people did get acquainted under it, and maybe so well acquainted that
they didn't want to part enemies in the end. I said to my wife that I
didn't see how, if a girl was going to get married, she could have a
better basis than knowing the fellow through three or four years' hard
work together. When you think of the sort of hit-or-miss affairs most
marriages are that young people make after a few parties and picnics,
coeducation as a preliminary to domestic happiness doesn't seem a bad
notion."

"There's something in what you say," I assented.

"Of course there is," my neighbor insisted. "I couldn't help laughing,
though," and he laughed, as if to show how helpless he had been, "at
what my wife said. She said she guessed if it came to that they would
get to know more of each other's looks than they did of their minds. She
had me there, but I don't think my girl has made out so very poorly even
as far as books are concerned."

Upon this invitation to praise her, I ventured to say, "A young lady of
Miss Talbert's looks doesn't