between the acts of the drama of life; and no reasonable man can find
fault with me for trying to abridge them by useful occupation."

"And what is the upshot of this sensible talk? Simply this: you must get
married."

Pontius sighed, but Leukippe added eagerly:

"You have not far to look! The most respectable fathers and mothers are
running after you and would bring their prettiest daughters into your
door."

"A daughter whom I do not know, and who might perhaps spoil the pauses
between the acts, which at present I can at any rate turn to some
account."

"They say," the old woman went on, "that marriage is a cast of the dice.
One throws a high number, another a low one; one wins a wife who is a
match for the busy bee, another gets a tiresome gnat. No doubt there is
some truth in it; but I have grown grey with my eyes open and I have
often seen it happen, that how the marriage turned out depended on the
husband. A man like you makes a bee out of a gnat--a bee that brings
honey to the hive. Of course a man must choose carefully."

"How, pray?"

"First see the parents and then the child. A girl who has grown up
surrounded by good habits, in the house of a sensible father and a
virtuous mother--"