of adventure, never "settle down," intellectually at any rate.

Can you see my father's face that sunny March day,--Charter Day it
was,--when we told him we were engaged? (My father being the
conventional, traditional sort who had never let me have a real "caller"
even, lest I become interested in boys and think of matrimony too
young!) Carl Parker was the first male person who was ever allowed at my
home in the evening. He came seldom, since I was living in Berkeley most
of the time, and anyway, we much preferred prowling all over our end of
creation, servant-girl-and-policeman fashion. Also, when I married,
according to father it was to be some one, preferably an attorney of
parts, about to become a judge, with a large bank account. Instead, at
eighteen, I and this almost-unknown-to-him Senior stood before him and
said, "We are going to be married," or words to that general effect.
And--here is where I want you to think of the expression on my
conservative father's face.

Fairly early in the conversation he found breath to say, "And what, may
I ask, are your prospects?"

"None, just at present."

"And where, may I ask, are you planning to begin this married career you
seem to contemplate?"

"In Persia."

Can you see my father? "_Persia_?"

"Yes, Persia."

"And what, for goodness' sake, are you two going to do in _Persia_?"

"We don't know just yet, of course, but we'll find something."

I can see my father's point of view now, though I am not sure but that I
shall prefer a son-in-law for our daughter who would contemplate
absolute uncertainty in Persia in preference to an assured legal
profession in Oakland, California. It was two years before my father
became at all sympathetic, and that condition was far from enthusiastic.
So it was a great joy to me to have him say, a few months before his
death, "You know, Cornelia, I want you to understand that if I had had
the world to pick from I'd have chosen Carl Parker for your husband.
Your marriage is a constant source of satisfaction to me."

I saw Carl Parker lose his temper once, and once only. It was that first
year that we knew each other. Because there was such a difference
between his age and mine, the girls in my sorority house refused to
believe there could be anything serious about our going together so
much, and took great pains to assure me in private that of course Carl
meant nothing by his attentions,--to which I agreed volubly,--and they
scold