is the invariableness of Law.
Under like conditions a like result must follow, and upon this rock
is the faith of the Scientists built.

--_The Cosmos_

HUMBOLDT

The Baron and Baroness von Hollwede were not happily married.

The Baroness had intellect, spirit, aspiration, with an appreciation of
all that was best in art, music and the world of thought. As to the
Baron, he had drunk life's wine to the lees and pronounced the draft
bitter. He was a heavy dragoon with a soul for foxhounds. Later, when
gout got to twinging him, he contented himself with cards and cronies.

And then Destiny, like a novelist who does not know what to do with a
character, sent him on an excursion across the River Styx.

This was a good move all round, and the only accommodating action in
which the Baron ever had a part. He left a large estate, not being able
to take it along.

There are two kinds of widows, the bereaved and the relieved. In India
no widow is allowed to remarry. The canons of the Episcopal Church
forbid any widow or widower to remarry whose former partner is living. A
member of the Catholic Church who makes a marital mistake is not allowed
to rectify it. Yet Nature, sometimes, as if to prove the foolishness of
fearsome little man, justifies that of which man hotly disapproves.

To be a widow of thirty-six, fair of face and comely in form, to own a
beautiful home and have an income greater than you can spend, and still
not enough to burden you--what nobler ambition!

The Baroness had a little encumbrance--a son aged ten. I would like to
tell of his career, but alas, of him history is silent, save that he was
heir to some of his father's proclivities, grew up, became an army
officer and passed into obscurity in middle life, dishonored and unsung.

Such a widow as the Baroness von Hollwede is not apt to mourn for long.
She was courted by many, but it was Major Humboldt who found favor in
her heart. I assume that all of my gentle readers have in them some of
the saltness of time, so that details may safely be omitted--let
imagination bridge the interesting gap.

The Major was a few years younger than the lady, but like the gallant
gentleman that he was, he swore i' faith before the notary that they
were of the same age, just as Robert Browning did when officially
interrogated as to the age of Elizabeth Barrett. Thomas Brackett Reed
avowed that no gentleman ever weighed over two hundred pounds, and I
a