t it is a queer notion."

"What is that?" John asked, only half attentively, for he was listening
to the sounds in the kitchen below and picturing Tilly at work.

"Why"--the old man stared gravely as he answered--"it is a fact that I
don't miss Mandy at all--hardly at all, and it has set me
wondering--wondering. I know I love her, you see; that fact is as solid
and plain to me as that brush you've got in your hand, and why I don't
miss her more I don't know. I lay in bed awake between four and five
this morning, turning it over in my mind, but to no effect. However, it
may be this way: a man and a woman may actually be--well, almost too
well suited to each other, if such a thing is possible."

"You are getting tangled up." John laughed as he tied afresh a new
cravat he had just bought and thrust a cheap, gaudy pin into its folds.

"You may think so, but I hain't," Cavanaugh denied. "I mean this, John.
A couple may live together so long and become so near alike that nothing
exciting happens to either one of 'em, and along with that may come a
sort of strain of marriage responsibility. Down at Ridgeville somehow I
was always wondering what Mandy would want done and what not, but up
here when my day's work is over I can slap on a clean shirt and my best
suit, brush my shoes, light my pipe, and sit around till bedtime and
have a good free evening of it. And I sleep--I'll admit it--I even sleep
sounder and seem to get more out of it. At home I lie with one eye open,
you might say. If Mandy has a bad cold, I can hear her sniffling, and if
she has an attack of rheumatism I can smell the liniment she rubs on. I
don't mind it, you understand, oh no, not one bit! but the--the very
worry about her upsets me. She's the same about me. I know it is a fair
deal between us, for she takes it powerful hard even if I come home with
a cut or any little injury. I said that it was a fair deal on both
sides, but I'll take that back. It is not. The woman gets the worst of
married life, and I reckon that's what is bothering my conscience. I
sent mine off once for a week at a big camp-meeting over in Canton. She
sewed and fixed and packed and cooked for three weeks to get ready, and
was gone just two days and a night. She hired a special team to fetch
her back, and come acting like she'd been off for a year and had escaped
from ten thousand ills and misfortunes. You see, she just couldn't live
without her pans and pots and chickens and the cow