"We buried him on the hillside overlooking the lake, and the little girls put a slab up over him, which says:
"Prince of the house of Clay
Who saved our mother's life,
Lies here in peace, and lives
In grateful memory in our hearts."
There was a silence, in which each man's mind went back to the one overwhelming thought—that bound them so close together.
Then the young doctor said slowly: "If what you say is true, I envy
Prince—and would gladly change places with him."
The old man recovered himself in a moment: "You take things too seriously, Clay," he said quickly: "be glad you are not married. A wife and children clutter up a man's affairs at a time like this—you are quite free from family ties, I believe?"
"Quite free," the young man replied, "all my relatives live in the East, all able to look after themselves. I have no person depending on me—financially, I mean."
"Marriage," began the old doctor, in his most professional tone, as one who reads from a manuscript, "is one-fourth joy and three-fourths disappointment. There is no love strong enough to stand the grind of domestic life. Marriage would be highly successful were it not for the fearful bore of living together. Two houses, and a complete set of servants would make marriage practically free from disappointments. I think Saint Paul was right when he advised men to remain single if they had serious work to do. Women, the best of them, grow tiresome and double-chinned in time."
The young doctor laughed his own big, hearty laugh, the laugh which his devoted patients said did them more good than his medicine.
"I like that," he said, "a man with a forty-two waist measure, wearing an eighteen inch collar, finding fault with a woman's double chin. You are not such a raving beauty yourself."
The old man interrupted him: