wouldn't last forever! And the knowledge that it wouldn't would be such
an anaesthetic."

"Such a what!" the widow sat up so suddenly that both toes slipped from
the fender and her heels landed indignantly on the floor.

"It would be the lump of sugar," explained the bachelor, "that would
take away the bitter taste and make you able to swallow all the trials
more easily. It's the feeling that a painful operation won't last long
that makes it possible to grin and bear it. Besides, it would do away
with all sorts of crimes, like divorce and wife murder and ground glass
in the coffee. Knowing that the marriage was only temporary and that we
were only sort of house-party guests might make us more polite and
agreeable and entertaining, so as to leave a good impression behind us."

"I do believe," cried the widow, sitting up straight and looking at the
bachelor accusingly, "that you're arguing in favor of 'trial marriage.'"

"I'm not arguing in favor of marriage at all," protested the bachelor
plaintively. "But marrying for life is like putting the whole dinner on
the table at once. It takes away your appetite. Marrying on trial would
be more like serving it in courses."

"And changing the course would be such a strain," declared the widow.
"Why, when the contract was up how would you know how to divide
things--the children and--"

"The dog and the cat."

"And all the little mementos you had collected together and the things
you had shared in common and the favorite arm chair and the things you
had grown used to and fond of----"

"Oh, well, in that case," remarked the bachelor, "you might have grown
so used to and fond of one another that when it came to the parting of
the ways, you would not want to part them. After all," he went on
soberly, "if 'trial marriages' were put into effect, they would end nine
times out of ten in good old fashioned matrimony. A man can get as
accustomed to a woman as he does to a pipe or a chair----"

"What!"

"And a woman," pursued the bachelor, "can become as attached to a man
and as fond of him as she is of an old umbrella or a pair of old shoes
that have done good service. No matter how battered or worn they may
become, nor how many breaks there are in them, we can never find
anything to quite take their place. Matrimony, after all, is just a
habit; and husbands and wives become habits--habits that however
disagreeable they may be we don't want to part with. 'Trial marriages,'
eve