at the time when I was reading and loved that book.

The other day I found my nephew William swinging in the hammock
on the porch with his girl friend Celia; I saw that the young
people were reading Ovid. ``My children,'' said I, ``count this
day a happy one. In the years of after life neither of you will
speak or think of Ovid and his tender verses without recalling at
the same moment how of a gracious afternoon in distant time you
sat side by side contemplating the ineffably precious promises of
maturity and love.''

I am not sure that I do not approve that article in Judge
Methuen's creed which insists that in this life of ours woman
serves a probationary period for sins of omission or of
commission in a previous existence, and that woman's next step
upward toward the final eternity of bliss is a period of longer
or of shorter duration, in which her soul enters into a book to
be petted, fondled, beloved and cherished by some good man--like
the Judge, or like myself, for that matter.

This theory is not an unpleasant one; I regard it as much more
acceptable than those so-called scientific demonstrations which
would make us suppose that we are descended from tree-climbing
and bug-eating simians. However, it is far from my purpose to
enter upon any argument of these questions at this time, for
Judge Methuen himself is going to write a book upon the subject,
and the edition is to be limited to two numbered and signed
copies upon Japanese vellum, of which I am to have one and the
Judge the other.