if you leave it to their Eastridge correspondents--"

"That's true," he assented. "I'll speak to Mrs. Talbert--" He walked so
inconclusively away that I was not surprised to have him turn and come
back before I left my place. "Why, certainly! Make the announcement!
It's got to come out. It's a kind of a wrench, thinking of it as a
public affair; because a man's daughter is always a little girl to him,
and he can't realize--And this one--But of course!"

"Would you like to suggest any particular form of words?" I hesitated.

"Oh no! Leave that to you entirely. I know we can trust you not to make
any blare about it. Just say that they were fellow-students--I should
like that to be known, so that people sha'n't think I don't like to
have it known--and that he's looking forward to a professorship in the
same college--How queer it all seems!"

"Very well, then, I'll announce it in our next. There's time to send me
word if Mrs. Talbert has any suggestions."

"All right. But she won't have any. Well, good-evening."

"Good-evening," I said from my side of the fence; and when I had
watched him definitively in-doors, I turned and walked into my own
house.

The first thing my wife said was, "You haven't asked him to let you
announce it in the Banner?"

"But I have, though!"