he had not emptied the bag of his unexpected
confidences; I did not know why he was making them to me, but I liked
him the better for them, and tried to feel that I was worthy of them. He
began with a laugh, "They both paid it into me so," and now I knew that
he meant his eldest daughter as well as her grandmother, "that my wife
turned round and took my part, and said it was the very best thing that
could happen; and she used all the arguments that I had used with her,
when she had her misgivings about it, and she didn't leave them a word
to say. A curious thing about it was, that though my arguments seemed
to convince them, they didn't convince me. Ever notice, how when another
person repeats what you've said, it sounds kind of weak and foolish?" I
owned that my reasons had at times some such way of turning against me
from the mouths of others, and he went on: "But they seemed to silence
her own misgivings, and she's been enthusiastic for the engagement
ever since. What's the reason," he asked, "why a man, if he's any way
impetuous, wants to back out of a situation just about the time a woman
has got set in it like the everlasting hills? Is it because she feels
the need of holding fast for both, or is it because she knows she hasn't
the strength to keep to her conclusion, if she wavers at all, while a
man can let himself play back and forth, and still stay put."

"Well, in a question like that," I said, and I won my neighbor's easy
laugh, "I always like to give my own sex the benefit of the doubt, and
I haven't any question but man's inconsistency is always attributable to
his magnanimity."

"I guess I shall have to put that up on the doctor," my neighbor said,
as he lifted his arms from the fence at last, and backed away from it.
I knew that he was really going in-doors now, and that I must come out
with what was in my mind, if I meant to say it at all, and so I said,
"By-the-way, there's something. You know I don't go in much for what's
called society journalism, especially in the country press, where it
mostly takes the form of 'Miss Sadie Myers is visiting with Miss Mamie
Peters,' but I realize that a country paper nowadays must be a kind of
open letter to the neighborhood, and I suppose you have no objection to
my mentioning the engagement?"

This made Mr. Talbert look serious; and I fancy my proposition made
him realize the affair as he had not before, perhaps. After a moment's
pause, he said, "Well! That's so