"Engaged people are a bore to outsiders, but for themselves it must be a good time. To be able to speak out, after bottling it all in; to be left alone in peace, instead of living on odd snatches of conversation in the midst of crowds; to feel _sure_; to be done with `I',--and become for ever `We.'--It must feel so warm, and restful, and rich! It isn't so much the mere happiness that impresses me; it's the _rest_. I wish it were possible to get engaged without being married, then I should arrange it with indecent haste, with an orphan, with a motor car, and we _would_ be happy! He should be clean shaven, and rather plain, but it must be just my special fad in the way of plainness--a trim, slim, sinewy sort. Nothing flabby, an' you love me! "I've thought of his name sometimes; names count for a good deal. There are moods when I dream of Ralph and feel a fascination for Peter; moods when I have a secret hankering for Guy; moods again when he could not possibly be any one but Jack. People say that if you really love a man, his name does not matter. I've known a woman to settle down with `Percy,' and live happily ever after. I've heard of another who espoused a `Samuel,' and was apparently content. It is conceivable that I might do the same, but `Alfred' gives me a crawl. It is settled, firm, as the everlasting hills, that I can never belong to Alfred! "If there is one thing more than another for which I bless my parents, and praise them in the gate, it is that they called me by a durable Christian name. Katherine! It is not beautiful; it is not poetic, but it is at least seemly and discreet. You may take liberties with Katherine, and it will never disgrace you. When you are small and curly-headed you can pose as `Kitty Clover' with beguiling effect. I did myself, for quite a long run. Later on, dropping the Clover, you may be known to schoolmates as Kitty or Kate. There's a snap about Kate which keeps Pearls and Rubies in their place. Katrine is, as you observe, quite attractive for the days of youth; Katherine is a refuge for old age. Can you imagine anything more appropriate for a spinster lady in a country town? "The only married couple whom I have studied from the _inside_ was my brother and his wife during that little six months. It seemed quite a perfect thing at the time, but looking back from the sober height of twenty-six, it seems more like a play, than real, serious life. She was only nineteen; a pretty thing; such a babe; poor little, happy Juliet! and Martin was a boy with her. Now, as you say, he is a man. I wonder sometimes--