trained nurse after she learns to "keep
house." "For you know that every woman should be a good housekeeper,"
she says demurely.

He doesn't exactly like "that trained nurse business," but he admits
to himself that, if he were ill, he should like to have Miss Practical
smooth his pillow and take care of him.

And so the time goes on, and he is often the companion of the girl. At
times, she fairly scintillates with merriment, but she is so
dignified, and so womanly--so very careful to keep him at his proper
distance--that, well, "she is a type!"

In due course of time, he plans to return to the city, and to the
theatres and parties he used to find so pleasant. All his friends are
there. No, Miss Practical is not in the city; she is right here. Like
a flash a revelation comes over him, and he paces the veranda angrily.
Well, there's only one thing to be done--he must tell her about it.
Perhaps--and he sees a flash of blue through the shrubbery, which he
seeks with the air of a man who has an object in view.

* * * * *

His circle of friends are very much surprised when he introduces Mrs.
Ideal, for she is surely different from the ideal woman about whom
they have heard so much. They naturally think he is inconsistent, but
he isn't, for some subtle alchemy has transfigured the homely little
girl into the dearest, best, and altogether most beautiful woman Mr.
Ideal has ever seen.

She is domestic in her tastes now, and has abandoned the professional
nurse idea. She knows a great deal about Greek and Latin, and still
more about Shakespeare and Browning and other authors.

But she neglects neither her books nor her housekeeping, and her
husband spends his evenings at home, not because Mrs. Ideal would cry
and make a fuss if he didn't, but because his heart is in her keeping,
and because his own fireside, with its sweet-faced guardian angel, is
to him the most beautiful place on earth, and he has sense enough to
appreciate what a noble wife is to him.

* * * * *

The plain truth is, when "any whatsoever" Mr. Ideal loves a woman, he
immediately finds her perfect, and transfers to her the attributes
which only exist in his imagination. His heart and happiness are
there--not with the creatures of his dreams, but the warm, living,
loving human being beside him, and to him, henceforth, the ideal is
the real.

For "the ideal woman is as gentle as she is stro