On the first morning at breakfast—I had arrived late the night before—there was much to talk about.
"It's a curious fact," said the Skeptic, stirring a cup of yellow-brown coffee with which his wife had just presented him, "as Hepatica and I discovered only the other day, that three of those girls who visited you that summer four years ago, when she and I were avoiding each other——"
"You—avoiding!" I interpolated.
"Well—I was trying to avoid being avoided by her," he explained. "Three of those girls are married and living in town."
"Yes, I know," said I. "At least I know Camellia and Althea are. Who else? Azalea lives across the river, doesn't she?"
"Yes. You haven't heard of the latest matrimonial alliance, then?" The Skeptic chuckled. Hepatica looked at him, and he looked at her, and then they both looked at me. "Dahlia was married yesterday," the Skeptic announced with relish, "in a manse study, with two witnesses."
I was astounded. I had just come from home, and Dahlia was my next neighbour. She had been away more or less all winter, but there had been no announcement of any engagement—nor sign of one.
The Skeptic, enjoying my stupefaction, proceeded to give what he considered an explanation. "I don't see why you should be so surprised," he said. "You knew Dahlia's methods. Her net was always spread, and though a certain wise man declares it in vain to spread it in the sight of any bird, humans are not always so wary. A man who chanced to be walking along with his head in the clouds might get his feet entangled in a cunningly laid net. And so it happened to the Professor."
"The Professor!" I ejaculated. "Not—our Professor?"
The Skeptic nodded solemnly.