, you
risk the friendly ultimate intervention of the police. And then the
favors! Why should I present several gentlemen with pearl stick pins,
when I have none myself? To be sure I might give my best man the
ticket for mine, and he could redeem it whenever he had four dollars,
but generally speaking, the answer is in the interrogative."

"On the whole, then," said his bride, "you ought to be reconciled for
the loss of your twilight reflections."

"When I look into your eyes I am repaid for everything! There!" he
turned to Helen, "could any one have said a perfect thing more
perfectly?" And Miss Maitland agreed that, although his grammar might
have been criticized, his sentiment and delivery were flawless.

"Well, it's over now, so I'm glad you accept it gracefully," she said.
"You're committed, temporarily at least--unless you wish to start for
Nevada at once."

"Really, Helen, I think it's most indelicate of you to refer to such a
possibility," the other girl remarked. "I've only been married fifteen
minutes, and to be deserted by one's husband even within a week or two
is not considered flattering."

"No, I think I'll stay," Wilkinson replied. "But if I were to start
West at all, I should say the sooner the better to avert the wrath of
your esteemed but irascible parent."

"I think father has said all he has to say; he expressed himself most
thoroughly," Isabel rejoined thoughtfully.

"I should say he did!" her husband agreed. "With elaborate precision,
if I may so express it. He told me enough about my family and
antecedents to make me wholly ashamed to belong to them. His
presentation of myself was simply masterful; it would have moved one of
his own trolley cars; I didn't wonder a bit that he objected to me as a
son-in-law. In fact, I told him that had I known all these things I
should have sought a fitting helpmate from the State Reformatory, but
that I could not withdraw--my word was pledged."

"What did he say to that?" Helen asked, with amusement.

"He intimated that, as I seemed susceptible to reason, perhaps his
daughter also might be. But I assured him that he failed to calculate
correctly my undeniable personal charm--that I was an acquired taste,
but one for which there was no cure."

"An odd one, but mine own?" suggested Isabel.

"That was not quite the idea I intended to convey, but I am bound to
admit it was just about the way it seemed to strike your respected
parent. That i