"Yes." The widow crossed the red kid toes and then drew them quickly under the ruffles of her skirts as she caught the bachelor staring at them.[140] "And—I've—forgotten what I was going to say," she finished, turning the color of her slippers.

[140]

"Oh, it doesn't matter," said the bachelor, consolingly.

"What!"

"It doesn't matter what you say," explained the bachelor, "it's the way you say it, and——"

"About soul-mates," broke in the widow, collecting herself, "there'd always be the chance," she pursued hurriedly, "that you'd have to take a second-hand one."

"Sometimes," remarked the bachelor, blowing a smoke ring and gazing through it at the place where the widow's toes had been, "second-hand goods are more attractive than cheap, new articles. For instance, widows——"[141]

[141]

"Oh, widows!" interrupted the widow impatiently, "They're different. They're like heirlooms—only parted with at death. But it would be different with a wife who was relinquished because she wasn't wanted. If anybody is anxious to get rid of something it is a pretty sure sign that it isn't worth having. It's nearly always got a flaw somewhere and it's seldom what it is represented to be. Besides, I've noticed that the woman who can't get along with one husband, usually finds it just as difficult to get along with another."

"There would always be the chance," protested the bachelor, "that you might get the party who had done the discarding."

"And who might want to do it again," objected the widow triumphantly.[142] "Just imagine," she added irrelevantly, "living with a person whom somebody else had trained!"

[142]

"Oh, that would have its advantages," declared the bachelor. "A horse broken to harness is always easier to handle."

"Perhaps," agreed the widow leaning back and thoughtlessly putting her red kid toes on the fender again, "but when two horses are going to travel together it is always best for them to get used to one another's gait from the first. Don't you look at it that way?"

"Which way?" asked the bachelor, squinting at the fender with his head on 

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