"You know what I mean!" Winifred made a pretty moue, her chin upturned, showing clear against the leaping flame. As her companion noted her sweetness he almost longed for his bygone youth.
"I sometimes think I have missed a good deal by not marrying," mused the doctor, with seeming irrevelance. "But the rôle of husband was too exacting a one for me!"
Miss Blair gave his hand a gentle pressure which conveyed her disbelief.
"We bachelors are rather a forlorn class, when the years begin to count up; and as for the women who do not marry——" He left her to complete the observation.
"They are not all forlorn," defended Winifred. "But I will admit that the unsuspected longings of some of them are pathetic. Here is a case in point. I had a caller this very afternoon—a woman of middle age who used to work for us. She was in distress because she had received an offer of marriage. From a worldly standpoint she is foolish not to accept the man, for he is worthy of her, and could provide a home. When I ventured to say as much she cried, and showed me this clipping from some old paper. Shall I read it?"
The doctor assented, and Winifred rose and took a slip from the mantel.
"'There is an interesting old Chinese legend,'" she read, "'which relates how an angel sits with a long pole which he dips into the Sea of Love and lifts a drop of shining water. With an expert motion he turns one-half of this drop to the right, where it is immediately transformed into a soul; the other half to the left—a male and a female; and these two souls go seeking each other forever. The angel is so constantly occupied that he keeps no track of the souls that he separates, and they must depend upon their own intuition to recognize each other.'"
The old man reached for the paper as Winifred ceased. She was silent as he glanced it over.
"That old legend did not seem trite to her; it does not to me," said the girl, as the doctor looked up. "I asked her to leave it for me to copy."
"And the woman?" reminded the doctor.