ack or any other piece of household furniture would have
been.

The secret of this strange aversion might have been traced to Aurora's
maiden aunt Eliza, who had directed Aurora's education, and had from
her niece's early youth instilled into Aurora's mind very distinct
notions touching the masculine sex.

Aurora had numerous admirers among the young gentlemen who moved in the
same elevated social circle as herself and frequently called at her
father's house. Any one of them would gladly have made her his wife,
and many of them had expressed a tender yearning for her life
companionship. But Aurora was quick to recognize in each suitor some
objectionable trait or habit or feature which her aunt Eliza had told
about, and which imperatively prohibited a continuance of the young
gentleman's attentions.

Aurora's father could not understand why his daughter was so
hypercritical and fastidious in a matter which others of her sex were
so apt to accept with charitable eyes. "They are bright, honest
fellows," he urged, "worthy of any girl's love. Receive their advances
kindly, my child, and having chosen one among them, you will be the
happier for it."

"Never mind, Aurora," said Aunt Eliza. "Men are all alike. They show
their meanness in different ways, but the same spirit of evil is in 'em
all. I have lived in this world forty-six years, and during that time
I have found men to be the most unfeeling and most untrustworthy of
brutes."

So it was that at the age of twenty-five Aurora was found beautiful,
amiable, and accomplished, but thoroughly and hopelessly a man-hater.
And it was about this time that she became involved in that unhappy
affair which even to this day is talked of by those who knew her then.

On the evening of a certain day Aurora attended the opera with her
father and mother and Morgan Magnus, the young banker. Their box at
the opera was so close to the orchestra that by reaching out her hand
Aurora could have touched several of the instruments. Now it happened
that a bassoon was the instrument nearest the box in which Aurora sat,
and it was natural therefore that the bassoon attracted more of
Aurora's attention than any other instrument in the orchestra. If you
have never beheld or heard a bassoon you are to understand that it is
an instrument of wood, of considerable more length than breadth,
provided with numerous stops and keys, and capable of producing an
infinite variety of tones, rangi