ch fun being
an ideal woman."

"Who said you were?" demanded the bachelor suddenly.

The widow started and turned pink to her chin.

"Oh--nobody--that is, several people, Mr. Travers."

"Had you refused them?" asked the bachelor thoughtfully.

The widow blushed a deeper pink and bent over her pale green rose so low
that the bachelor could not see her eyes.

"Why--that is--I don't see what that has to do with it."

"It has everything to do with," replied the bachelor positively.

"And you haven't told me yet," continued the widow, suddenly changing
the subject, "whom you consider the ideal woman."

"Don't you know?" asked the bachelor insinuatingly.

The widow shook her head without lifting her eyes.

"Well, then, she is--but so many of them have told you."

"You haven't," persisted the widow.

The bachelor sighed and rose to go.

"The ideal woman," he said, as he slipped on his gloves, "is--the woman
you can't get. Is that the firelight playing on your pompadour?" he
added, looking down upon the widow through half-closed eyes. "Do you
know--for a moment--I thought it was a halo."

XII

NEW YEAR'S IRRESOLUTIONS.

"ISN'T it hard," said the widow, glancing ruefully at the holly-wreathed
clock above the mantel-piece, "to know where to begin reforming
yourself?"

"Great heavens!" exclaimed the bachelor, "you are not going to do
anything like that, are you?"

The widow pointed solemnly to the hands of the clock, which indicated
11.30, and then to the calendar, on which hung one fluttering leaf
marked December 31.

"It is time," she sighed, "to begin our mental housecleaning, to sweep
out our collection of last year's follies, and dust off our petty sins
and fling away our old vices and----"

"That's the trouble!" broke in the bachelor. "It's so hard to know just
what to throw away and what to keep. Making New Year's resolutions is
like doing the spring housecleaning or clearing out a drawer full of old
letters and sentimental rubbish. You know that there are lots of things
you ought to get rid of, and that are just in the way, and that you
would be better off without, but the minute you make up your mind to
part with anything, even a tiny, insignificant vice, it suddenly becomes
so dear and attractive that you repent and begin to take a new interest
in it. The only time I ever had to be taken home in a cab was the day
after I promised to sign the pledge," and the bachelor sighed
reminiscent