"Really, Dr. Fenwick, your ideas are very old-fashioned. In that respect you resemble my dear, departed husband."

"Is it permitted to ask whether your husband has long been dead?"

"I have been a widow six years," said Mrs. Wyman, with an ostentatious sigh. "I was quite a girl when my dear husband died."

According to her own chronology, she was twenty-three. In all probability she became a widow at twenty-nine or thirty. But of course I could not insinuate any doubt of a lady's word.

[Pg 37]

[Pg 37]

"And you have never been tempted to marry again?" I essayed with great lack of prudence.

"Oh, Dr. Fenwick, do you think it would be right?" said the widow, leaning more heavily on my arm.

"If you should meet one who was congenial to you. I don't know why not."

"I have always thought that if I ever married again I would select a professional gentleman," murmured the widow.

I began to understand my danger and tried a diversion.

"I don't know if you would consider Prof. Poppendorf a 'professional gentleman'," I said.

"Oh, how horrid! Who would marry such an old fossil?"

"It is well that the Professor does not hear you."

Perhaps this conversation is hardly worth recording, but it throws some light on the character of the widow. Moreover it satisfied me that should I desire[Pg 38] to marry her there would be no violent opposition on her part. But, truth to tell, I would have preferred the young woman from Macy's, despite the criticism of Mrs. Wyman. One was artificial, the other was natural.

[Pg 38]

We reached Schiller Hall, after a long walk. It was a small hall, looking something like a college recitation room.

Prof. Poppendorf took his place behind a desk on the platform and looked about him. There were scarcely a hundred persons, all told, in the audience. The men, as a general thing, were shabbily dressed, and elderly. There were perhaps twenty women, with whom dress was a secondary consideration.

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