“They remind me of more than one pair of mismated bipeds I have met,” said Mrs. McAlpin. The Captain stood at the horses’ heads till the last of the jolting and complaining wagons had safely passed the perilous bit of roadway. Then, guiding the team back to the road, he resumed his seat in the carriage, his lips compressed like a trap. “Don’t you think Mr. Burns is a wonderful man?” asked Mrs. McAlpin, in a desperate effort to rekindle a conversation. “He’s a fellow of considerable genius in some ways, but a mighty poor ox-driver.” “He reminds me of many a woman I have seen,” continued Mrs. McAlpin, “who has failed to get fitted into her proper niche. His mind isn’t fitted to his work. I have seen women chained by circumstances to the kitchen sink, the wash-tub, the churn-dash, and the ironing-board, who never could make a success of any one of these lines of effort, though they might have made excellent astronomers, first-class architects, capable lawyers, good preachers, capital teachers, or splendid financiers. It is a pity to spoil a natural statesman or stateswoman to make a poor ox-driver or an indifferent housekeeper.” “You seem to take great interest in Scotty,” remarked the Captain. “I do. We have travelled extensively through the same lands, though we had never met until our orbits chanced to coincide on this journey. He has a retentive memory, a wide experience, and a keen appreciation of the beautiful, both in nature and art, and so have I. He is as much out of place as an ox-driver as I should be in a cotton-field. He’s a perfect mine of information, though, about a lot of things.” “Then why not take counsel of him, instead o’ me?” “He would hardly be a disinterested adviser.” “Ah, I see!” Mrs. McAlpin blushed. “He has not spoken to me one word of love, Captain,—if that is what you mean. I am not an eligible party,” and the lady used her handkerchief to wipe away a tear. “I want your opinion about getting a divorce from a union that I detested long before I ever met Mr. Burns. It is unbearable now.” “Hush, Daphne! Not another word,” interposed her mother. “Strangers have no right to an insight into our family affairs.” “But I must speak to somebody. Stay, Captain!” laying her hand upon his arm as he was about to leave the carriage. “Are you running away from your husband, madam?” he asked, resuming his seat. “You guess correctly, sir.” “I suspected it all along; but it was none of my business in the beginning, nor is it now. But I confess that it looks as if I were making it my business to conduct a caravan of grass widows to Oregon, judging from the present aspect of affairs.”