flitting in and out, as with a shy consciousness of being stared at on
account of her engagement, was as light as his was heavy on its feet.

I said, "Naturally," and he seemed glad of the chance to laugh again.

"Well, of course! And her being away at school made it all the more so.
If we'd had her under our eye, here--Well, we shouldn't have had her
under our eye if she had BEEN here; or if we had, we shouldn't have
seen what was going on; at least _I_ shouldn't; maybe her mother would.
So it's just as well it happened as it did happen, I guess. We
shouldn't have been any the wiser if we'd known all about it." I joined
him in his laugh at his paradox, and he began again. "What's that about
being the unexpected that happens? I guess what happens is what ought
to have been expected. We might have known when we let her go to a
coeducational college that we were taking a risk of losing her; but we
lost our other daughter that way, and SHE never went to ANY kind of
college. I guess we counted the chances before we let her go. What's
the use? Of course we did, and I remember saying to my wife, who's more
anxious than I am about most things--women are, I guess--that if the
worst came to the worst, it might not be such a bad thing. I always
thought it wasn't such an objectionable feature, in the coeducational
system, if the young people did get acquainted under it, and maybe so
well acquainted that they didn't want to part enemies in the end. I
said to my wife that I didn't see how, if a girl was going to get
married, she could have a better basis than knowing the fellow through
three or four years' hard work together. When you think of the sort of
hit-or-miss affairs most marriages are that young people make after a
few parties and picnics, coeducation as a preliminary to domestic
happiness doesn't seem a bad notion."