n
his. I do not make that statement as a startling announcement of an
unusual occurrence, but simply as a matter of fact.

We had been conversing about the culinary and domestic arrangements of
our future home when matrimony had made us "one flesh;" or, to use
English, we had been wondering what under the canopy a good cooking
stove would cost, when he asked suddenly and irrelevantly,

"And you will love me, always?"

"Of course," said I, a little impatiently; for when one is deep in a
mathematical problem such a question is a little annoying.

"And you will honor me always?" he next inquired.

"As long as you deserve to be honored," I replied, with the habitual
good sense of my age and sex, mentally wondering if granite-ware
stewpans went with a cooking stove.

"And you will obey me?" he queried next, in a tone that plainly
indicated that I'd have to. I left the mathematical problem for future
solution and said, hesitatingly:

"Yes--if--I--can."

"If you can?" he said, in sternly questioning tones; and a cloud no
bigger than a man's hand appeared upon the heaven of our love.

"I don't believe a woman ever lived who ever obeyed any one--God,
angels, or men," I cried.

"You are a traitor. You slander your sex," he exclaimed, aghast.

"I deny the charge," I replied, springing to my feet, with all the
spirit of the above-mentioned age and sex. "By that assertion I only
add glory to their fame." He looked at me for a little while, too
surprised to speak, and then said, in sarcastic tones:

"Consider our wedding postponed until you have had a little time to
study your Bible. Good night."

"'Study your Bible!' That is what everybody says when they want to
prove any theory, creed, ism, or anything. I shall study my Bible
diligently. Good night," I replied, thinking it was not such very bad
advice after all; and then I hummed a gay little tune for his benefit
until I heard the hall door close.

And I have studied my Bible with the following result.

[Illustration: (Our first parents.)]

THE STORY OF EVE.

THE STORY OF EVE.

Away back when Adam was a young man--now I know that Adam is rather an
ancient subject, but you need not elevate your eyebrows in scorn, for
you will be ancient yourself sometime--he found himself in Eden one
day; he did not know why, but we do, don't we?

He was there because Eve was to come, and it was a foregone conclusion
even in that early age that when she d