I had been told this a number of times; any one would suppose, to listen to some of these women, that I had but to put out my hand, and pluck a man from the nearest bush. “I don’t doubt you will marry some day, but I’m afraid you may not choose wisely”—here she lowered her voice again—“after a man reaches thirty-five he becomes very fixed in his ways, and I don’t think it’s safe for a maiden lady to try to manage him; it needs some one of more experience.” I knew she had Mr. Chance in mind, and I was so indignant at being warned against a man who had never shown the first symptom of any such folly as addressing me, that the blood mounted to my hair. Observing this, my elderly companion whispered: “I wasn’t thinking of any one, in particular, my dear;” upon which I grew more enraged, and the color in my face deepened until I must have resembled an irate old turkey gobbler—“not of any one in particular, my dear; but on general principles, I shouldn’t advise such a match. A widower would be just the thing for you, and there always are widowers, and every year the list grows—death makes inroads, you know.” This idea, this hope of a second crop, as I had passed beyond the first picking, was comforting. I knew perfectly well whom she had in mind for me—a nice fat little widower, about fifty years old, who had been held on the marital spit, until he was done to a turn. III The summer was ended, and I was not married. I am speaking now from the standpoint of my neighbors; to my mind life did not swing on this hinge. I had my occupations—there were a goodly number of needy folk to be looked after; there was my reading; my music; my friends, and other pleasures, and altogether I felt I was very well off. Not that I was cynically opposed to marriage; I intended to marry, if the right man called, but if he did not I was content to end life as I had begun it—in single blessedness. My neighbors, however, were of another mind—I must marry; and they kept making efforts to find some one who would fit, trying on one man after another, without his consent or mine, something as one would attempt to force clothes on a savage. But in spite of all such friendly offices the summer was ended, and I was not married. I was thinking of it on this particular day, as I stood gazing from the window—thinking of it with a sort of quiet wonder, for with an entire neighborhood intent upon this end, it was rather surprising that I was not double by this time. Had they succeeded I should now occupy a very different attitude. It is only old bachelors and old maids who speculate and theorize on marriage; when people are really about it, they say little, and (it would often appear) think less.