e Arabian Nights. In Persia, by the
way, they put pepper in them."

"Oh dear! I don't think I should like that at all," exclaimed Aunt
Charlotte, naively. "And have you really been in Persia? You must have
enjoyed that very much. I suppose you saw some magnificent scenery in
your wanderings?"

"Oh, magnificent, magnificent," assented the great traveller.
"Mountains, forests, castles, glaciers, and everything you can think
of. But I've never got quite as far as Persia, you understand, and
just at present I feel more interested in England. I sometimes think
that I shall never leave English shores again."

"And you are not married?" ventured the lady, with a tremor of
hesitation in her voice. She had rushed on her destruction unawares.

"No--no," replied the man who had once wanted to marry her. "And at
this moment I'm very glad I'm not."

"Oh, are you? Why?" exclaimed the foolish woman. "Don't you believe in
marriage?"

"In the abstract--oh, yes," said Mr Ogilvie, with meaning. "But my
chance of married happiness escaped me years ago."

Aunt Charlotte blushed hotly. She felt angry with herself for having
given him an opening for such a remark, and annoyed with him for
taking advantage of it. "Let me give you some more tea," she said.

"Thank you so much, but I never exceed two cups," replied Mr Ogilvie,
who did not particularly care for tea. "And yet there comes a time,
you know, when the sight of so peaceful and attractive a home as this
makes one wish that one had one like it of one's own. Of course a man
has his tastes, his hobbies, his ambitions--every man, I mean, of
character. And I am a man of character. But indulgence in a hobby is
not incompatible with the love of a fireside, and the blessings of
_dulce domum_, to say nothing of the _placens uxor_, who is the only
true goddess of the hearth. Yes, dear friend, I confess that I should
like--that I positively long--to marry. That is why, paradoxical as it
may appear, I congratulate myself on not being married already. But,
of course, in all such cases, the man himself is not the only factor
to be reckoned with. The lady must be found, and the lady's consent
obtained. And there we have the rub."

"Dear me! how very unfortunate!" was all Aunt Charlotte could think of
to remark. "And can't you find the lady?"

"I thought I had found her once," said Mr Ogilvie.

Then he deliberately rose from his chair, brushed a few crumbs from his
coat, and took a few st