ce.

"Because I thought you were a good fellow, as well as a clever one."

"A good fellow!" repeated Longueville. "I don't understand your
confounded scientific nomenclature. But excuse me; I won't laugh. I am
not a clever fellow; but I am a good one." He paused a moment, and then
laid his hand on his companion's shoulder. "My dear Gordon, it 's no
use; you are in love."

"Well, I don't want to be," said Wright.

"Heavens, what a horrible sentiment!"

"I want to marry with my eyes open. I want to know my wife. You don't
know people when you are in love with them. Your impressions are
colored."

"They are supposed to be, slightly. And you object to color?"

"Well, as I say, I want to know the woman I marry, as I should know any
one else. I want to see her as clearly."

"Depend upon it, you have too great an appetite for knowledge; you set
too high an esteem upon the dry light of science."

"Ah!" said Gordon promptly; "of course I want to be fond of her."

Bernard, in spite of his protest, began to laugh again.

"My dear Gordon, you are better than your theories. Your passionate
heart contradicts your frigid intellect. I repeat it--you are in love."

"Please don't repeat it again," said Wright.

Bernard took his arm, and they walked along.

"What shall I call it, then? You are engaged in making studies for
matrimony."

"I don't in the least object to your calling it that. My studies are of
extreme interest."

"And one of those young ladies is the fair volume that contains the
precious lesson," said Longueville. "Or perhaps your text-book is in two
volumes?"

"No; there is one of them I am not studying at all. I never could do two
things at once."

"That proves you are in love. One can't be in love with two women
at once, but one may perfectly have two of them--or as many as you
please--up for a competitive examination. However, as I asked you
before, which of these young ladies is it that you have selected?"

Gordon Wright stopped abruptly, eying his friend.

"Which should you say?"

"Ah, that 's not a fair question," Bernard urged. "It would be invidious
for me to name one rather than the other, and if I were to mention the
wrong one, I should feel as if I had been guilty of a rudeness towards
the other. Don't you see?"

Gordon saw, perhaps, but he held to his idea of making his companion
commit himself.

"Never mind the rudeness. I will do the same by you some day, to make it
up. Which of