"Thee never seemed to have any trouble in getting married," said Mrs.
Crowder. "Did thee ever stay an old bachelor any length of time?"

Crowder laughed. Such questions from his wife amused him very much.

"I was thinking of changing the subject," said he, "and was about to tell
you something which had not anything to do with wives and marriages.
I thought you might be tired of that sort of thing."

"Not at all," said she, quickly; "that's just what I want to hear."

"Very well," answered he; "I will give you a little instance of one of
my failures in love-making.

"It was long before my visit to Empress Woo; in fact, it was about eleven
hundred years before Christ, and I was living in Syria, where I was
teaching school in the little town of Timnath. I became very much
interested in one of the girls of my class. She was a good deal older
than any of the others; in fact, she was a young woman. She had a bright
mind, and was eager to learn, and I naturally became interested in her;
and in the course of time she pleased me so much that I determined to
marry her."

"It seems thee was in the habit of marrying thy scholars," said Mrs.
Crowder.

"There is nothing very strange in that," he replied; "a schoolmaster
usually becomes very well acquainted with some of his scholars, and if a
girl pleases him very much it is not surprising that he should prefer to
marry her, or, at least, to try to, than to go out among comparative