in the woman who does the training and the making over. There
are some women who could spoil the finest masculine cloth in the world
by too much cutting and ripping and--and nagging; while there are others
who can give a man or a house or a frock just the touch that will
perfect them."

"How do they do it?" asked the bachelor enthusiastically. "Take 'em by
the nape of the neck and----"

[Illustration: "IF we're such a lot, why do you marry us?" _Page 126_]

"Mercy, no!" cried the widow. "They take them unawares. The well-trained
husband never knows what has happened to him. He only knows that, after
ten years of matrimony, he is ashamed to acknowledge his own youthful
picture. He has been literally re-formed in everything from his collars
and the way he parts his hair to his morals and the way he signs his
name. The best husbands aren't caught; they're made. And the luckiest
woman isn't the one who marries the best man, but the one who makes the
most out of the man she marries."

"But," protested the bachelor, "if we're such a lot and such a lottery,
why do you marry us at all?"

The widow looked up in surprise and stopped with her cup poised in
midair.

"Why do we wear frocks, Mr. Travers?" she asked witheringly. "Why do we
pompadour our hair or eat with forks or go to pink teas? Marriage is a
custom; and if a woman doesn't marry she is simply non--non----"

"Compos mentis?" inquired the bachelor, helpfully.

"Well, yes," said the widow, "but that wasn't what I meant. What is the
Latin for 'not in it'? Her father looks at her accusingly every time he
has to pay her dressmaker's bill and her mother looks at her
commiseratingly every time she comes home without being engaged and all
her friends look at her as if she were a curiosity or--or a failure. And
besides, she misses her mission in life. That was what the Lord put Eve
in the world for--to give the finishing touches to Adam."

"She finished him all right!" exclaimed the bachelor fervently.

"Making a living," went on the widow scorning the insinuation, "or
making a career or making fame or a fortune isn't the real forte of
woman. It's making a husband--out of a man."

"I should think," said the bachelor setting down his teacup and leaning
back comfortably in his chair, "that they would form a corporation and
set up a factory where they could turn 'em out by the dozen or the
crate--or---"

"Pooh!" cried the widow, "a husband is a work of art and has t