impetuous, wants to back out of a situation just about the time a woman
has got set in it like the everlasting hills? Is it because she feels
the need of holding fast for both, or is it because she knows she
hasn't the strength to keep to her conclusion, if she wavers at all,
while a man can let himself play back and forth, and still stay put."

"Well, in a question like that," I said, and I won my neighbor's easy
laugh, "I always like to give my own sex the benefit of the doubt, and
I haven't any question but man's inconsistency is always attributable
to his magnanimity."

"I guess I shall have to put that up on the doctor," my neighbor said,
as he lifted his arms from the fence at last, and backed away from it.
I knew that he was really going in-doors now, and that I must come out
with what was in my mind, if I meant to say it at all, and so I said,
"By-the-way, there's something. You know I don't go in much for what's
called society journalism, especially in the country press, where it
mostly takes the form of 'Miss Sadie Myers is visiting with Miss Mamie
Peters,' but I realize that a country paper nowadays must be a kind of
open letter to the neighborhood, and I suppose you have no objection to
my mentioning the engagement?"

This made Mr. Talbert look serious; and I fancy my proposition made him
realize the affair as he had not before, perhaps. After a moment's
pause, he said, "Well! That's something I should like to talk with my
wife about."

"Do so!" I applauded. "I only suggest it--or chiefly, or
partly--because you can have it reach our public in just the form you
want, and the Rochester and Syracuse papers will copy my paragraph; but