particularly pretty nor
brilliant and fascinating, and all that; but she's just the kind of a
girl a man ought to marry."

"And never does!" finished the bachelor triumphantly, backing water and
turning the canoe for mid-stream. "Of all kinds of women a man
detests----"

"How many kinds of women are there?" cried the widow suddenly.

"How many women are there?" retorted the bachelor. "The variety is only
limited by the number of feminine individuals. But fundamentally they
can be divided into two classes, just as automobiles can be divided into
gasoline and electric. There is the woman a man wants to marry, the kind
that is stamped from birth for wifehood, the even-tempered,
steady-going, comfortable kind of girl that you would like to tie to for
life and with whom you know you would be perfectly contented--and
utterly stupid. Every man has in mind his ideal wife; and nearly every
man's ideal is of the calm, domestic, wholly good, wholly sweet sort,
the sort that seems like a harbor away from the storm. But so often,
just about as he has found this ideal, or before he has found her and
before the sun of his summer day dream has risen the storm comes
along----"

"The--what?"

"The tumultuous, impossible, adorable, unfathomable woman--the woman who
may be good or bad, ugly or beautiful, but is always fascinating,
alluring and irresistible. And she wrecks his little summer day dream
and turns his snug harbor into a roaring whirlpool and carries him off
in a tempest. Sometimes he marries her and sometimes he doesn't; but
whether he does or does not, he is always spoiled for the other kind
afterward."

"And if he does marry her," added the widow, trailing her fingers
thoughtfully in the water, "he is always sorry and wishing he had
married the other kind."

"Well," the bachelor laid his paddle across his knee, "what's the
difference? If he had married the other kind he would always have been
wishing he hadn't. Now if a man could only be allowed two wives----"

"One for week days and one for--holidays?" inquired the widow
sarcastically.

"Yes," acquiesced the bachelor, "one for each side of him, the tame side
and the untamed side. One to serve as a harbor and make him a home and
fulfill his domestic longings and bring up his children and keep him
sane and moral; and the other to amuse him and entertain him and inspire
him and put the trimmings on life and the spice and flavor in the
matrimonial dish."

"A seda