"And so you are out of the San and keeping house again. A brand-new honeymoon, of course, and cooing doves, and chiming bells, and all the rest of it. When the rest of us back here write to each other, we say at the end, 'Carol is well and David is better.' It conveys the idea of a Thanksgiving service and a hallelujah chorus. It means Good night, God bless you, and Merry Christmas, all in one.
"By the way, do you remember William Canfield Brewer, the original advertiser who got moved out when I moved in? Well, between you and me, almost for a while I did begin to see some charms in matrimony. He came again, and was properly introduced. And took me for a drive,—it seems he had just collected his salary,—and he came again, and we went to the park, and he came again. And that was when I began to see the halo around the wedding bells. One night he was telling me his experiences in saving money,—uproariously funny, my dear, for he never could save more than five dollars a month, and ran in debt fifteen dollars to encompass it. He said:
"'My wife used to say it was harder work for me to carry my salary home from the office than to earn it right at the start.'
"I laughed,—I thought of course it was a joke. I guess the laugh was revealing, for he turned around suddenly and said:
"'You knew I was married, didn't you, Connie?' First time he ever called me Connie.
"Well, the halo vanished like a flash and hasn't got back yet.
"I said, 'No, I didn't know it.'
"'Why, everybody knows it,' he expostulated.
"'I did not.'
"'We are devoted to each other,' he said, laughing lightly, 'but we find our devotion wears better at long distance. So she lives wherever I do not, and we get along like birdies in their little nest. I haven't seen her for two years.'