"And I," said the Editor, replacing in his vest-pocket the folding-scissors which he nervously fingered by force of professional habit. "'Tis done, then," said the Statesman, "she will be at my house to-morrow evening and the winter through, but she is particularly handsome and graceful just now, and there's no time like the present, you know. Dine with me to-morrow evening: I'll give you a tip-top spread, but when you see _her_ you'll forget it all." "We will come!" shouted the Artist, the Scribbler and the Editor in chorus, and when twenty-four hours later the trio fulfilled their promise, they admitted that the half had not been told them. They exhibited however, none of that unseemly jealousy which would naturally be expected from a trio of admirers at sight of an almost phenomenal beauty, for the object of their admiration was a canoe, and accepted their attentions with an impartiality which would have been the envy of any society queen. She occupied the study of the Statesman, and covered almost as much space as if she were a lady with a train of the first magnitude; she was in every line the embodiment of grace, and her beauty was not entirely independent of paint and other cosmetics. But here the parallel ceased. In visiting a canoe the visitor enjoys certain liberties which are not admissible during an ordinary evening call. A gentleman may speak in most enthusiastic praise of a canoe, and right to her face, without being suspected of a desire to flirt; he may criticise freely without seeming unmannerly; he may even talk admiringly of other canoes without disturbing the outward or inward complacency of his fair entertainer. He may even unlock his wits with a good cigar without provoking a cough from the fair being, and without compelling her to send her finer adornments to the bleachery next day, or expose them on the family clothes-line, to the purifying breezes of heaven. One may look fixedly by the hour at a beautiful canoe without being guilty of ungentlemanly staring, and may thus call up all those finer sentiments which far transcend the powers of expression, and may thus elevate his own nature to a degree which is unattainable under the restrictions of a fashionable call. He may without offence or even discourtesy, touch her, though if he be a man of true character he can not do so without a struggle with natural timidity, and without a new sense of his own awkwardness.