Her answer was a slight scream, and she caught my arm as if for protection. At the moment I spoke a sudden turning in the lane brought us face to face with a large matronly cow that was quietly ruminating and switching away the flies. She turned upon us her large, mild, "Juno-like" eyes, in which one might imagine a faint expression of surprise, but nothing more. My companion was trembling, and she said hurriedly: "Please let us turn back, or go some other way." "Why, Miss Warren," I exclaimed, "what is the matter?" "That dreadful cow! Cows are my terror." I laughed outright as I said, "Now is the time for me to display courage, and prove than an editor can be the knight-errant of the age. Upon my soul, Miss Warren, I shall protect you whatever horn of this dilemma I may be impaled upon." Then advancing resolutely toward the cow, I added, "Madam, by your leave, we must pass this way." At my approach the "dreadful cow" turned and ran down the lane to the pasture field, in a gait peculiarly feminine. "Now you know what it is to have a protector," I said, returning. "I'm glad you're not afraid of cows," she replied complacently. "I shall never get over it. They are my terror." "There is one other beast," I said, "that I am sure would inspire you with equal dread." "I know you are going to say a mouse. Well, it may seem very silly to you, but I can't help it. I'm glad I wasn't afraid of Dapple, for you now can think me a coward only in streaks." "It does appear to me irresistibly funny that you, who, alone and single-handed, have mastered this great world so that it is under your foot, should have quailed before that inoffensive cow, which is harmless as the milk she gives." "A woman, Mr. Morton, is the mystery of mysteries--the one problem of the world that will never be solved. We even do not understand ourselves." "For which truth I am devoutly thankful. I imagine that instead of a week, as Mr. Yocomb said, it would require a lifetime to get acquainted with some women. I wish my mother had lived. I'm sure that she would have been a continuous revelation to me. I know that she had a great deal of sorrow, and yet my most distinct recollection of her is her laugh. No earthly sound ever had for me so much meaning as her laugh. I think she laughed when other people would have cried. There's a tone in your laugh that has recalled to me my mother again and again this afternoon." "I hope it is not a source of pain," she said gently. "Far from it," I replied. "Memories of my mother give me pleasure, but I rarely meet with one to whom I would even think of mentioning her name." "I do not remember my mother," she said sadly.