Her educational advantages had been far above the average, and she had improved them in a manner to gratify her friends and create for herself abundant mental resources. She had taken the full classical course at Harvard, carrying off several of the high prizes, had then enjoyed two years of post-graduate work at Clark, and finally spent two more years in foreign travel and study. As has been intimated, I had been over for her, and we were now on our way home, expecting to land on the morrow or the day after. If you imagine that Margaret had lost anything by her education or was less fitted to make a good home, it is because you never knew her. Instead of being stunted in her growth, broken in constitution, round-shouldered, pale-faced and weak-eyed, the development of her body had kept pace with the expansion of her mind, and she was now in the perfect flower of young womanhood, with body and soul both of generous mold. Her marvelous beauty had been refined and heightened by her intellectual culture, and even her manners, so charming before, were now more than ever the chaste and well-ordered adornments of a noble character. She was as vivacious and sparkling as if she had never known the restraints of school, but without extravagance of any kind to detract from her self-poise. In short, she was a symphony, a grand and harmonious composition, and still human enough to love a mortal like me. Such was the woman who was trying to instill into my wooing a little of the warmth and sympathy of her delightful nature. As for myself, it will be necessary to mention only a single characteristic. I had a remarkably good ear, as we say. Not only was my sense of hearing unusually acute, but I had an almost abnormal appreciation of musical sounds. Although without the ability to sing or play and without the habit of application necessary to learn these accomplishments, I was, from my earliest years, a great lover of music. People who are born without the power of nicely discriminating between sounds often say they enjoy music, but these excellent people do not begin to understand the intense pleasure with which one listens, whose auricular nerves are more highly developed. But this rare and soul-stirring enjoyment is many times accompanied, as in my case, with acute suffering whenever the tympanum is made to resound with the slightest discord. The most painful moments of my life, physically speaking, have been those in which I have been forced to listen to diabolical noises. A harsh, rasping sound has often given me a pang more severe than neuralgia, while even an uncultivated voice or an instrument out of tune has jarred on my sensitive nerves for hours.