ve her breath, an' always
wore white gowns with a silk kerchief a-folded placidly aroun' her
neck.' 'Them was awful different kind o' people,' I says to him, 'I
wonder how they ever come to be married.' 'They never was married,' says
he. 'Never married!' I hollers, a-jumpin' up from my chair, 'and you sit
there carmly an' look me in the eye.' 'Yes,' says he, 'they was never
married. They never met; one was my mother's father, and the other one
my father's mother. 'Twas well they did not wed.' 'I should think so,'
said I, 'an' now, what's the good of tellin' me a thing like that?'

"'It's about as near the mark as most of the stories of people's lives,
I reckon,' says he, 'an' besides I'd only jus' begun it.'

"'Well, I don't want no more,' says I, an' I jus' tell this story of his
to show what kind of stories he told about that time. He said they was
pleasant fictions, but I told him that if he didn't look out he'd hear
'em called by a good deal of a worse kind of a name than that. The nex'
mornin' he asked me what was my dream, an' I told him I didn't have
exactly no dream about it, but my idea was to have somethin' real
romantic for the rest of our bridal days.

"'Well,' says he, 'what would you like? I had a dream, but it wasn't no
ways romantic, and I'll jus' fall in with whatever you'd like best.'

"'All right,' says I, 'an' the most romantic-est thing that I can
think of is for us to make-believe for the rest of this trip. We can
make-believe we're anything we please, an' if we think so in real
earnest it will be pretty much the same thing as if we really was. We
aint likely to have no chance ag'in of being jus' what we've a mind to,
an' so let's try it now.'

"'What would you have a mind to be?' says he.

"'Well,' says I, 'let's be an earl an' a earl-ess.'

"'Earl-ess'? says he, 'there's no such a person.'

"'Why, yes there is, of course,' I says to him. 'What's a she-earl if
she isn't a earl-ess?'

"'Well, I don't know,' says he, 'never havin' lived with any of 'em, but
we'll let it go at that. An' how do you want to work the thing out?'

"'This way,' says I. 'You, Miguel--'

"'Jiguel,' says he.

"'The earl,' says I, not mindin' his interruption, 'an' me, your noble
earl-ess, will go to some good place or other--it don't matter much jus'
where, and whatever house we live in we'll call our castle an' we'll
consider it's got draw-bridges an' portcullises an' moats an' secrit
dungeons, an' we'll remem