Naturally that was rather a blow to me, but it seemed best to have it over, so I explained boldly, "I mean Mrs. Gladys Underbunk." "Oh," said he laughing, "not the present Mrs. Underbunk, then. I should like very much to have you meet her. But how is----" He hesitated, and seeing that he was at loss how to designate delicately his relation to my delightful friend, I promptly interposed: "She is very well. A charming woman." "A charming woman!" cried Mr. Underbunk, without a trace of insincerity. "I heard that she was in this country. She has been living at San Moritz, but I believe she ran over to see our eldest boy at Harvard." My mind tumbled back to typhoid time. This was the cold plunge that failed to reduce my fever. The eldest boy at Harvard! Joshua Underbunk's tone indicated a half-dozen more somewhere else, yet I found myself actually making excuses for the woman. Calmly, with no emotion whatever, I said, "She did not mention the children, that I remember." "They are a delightful lot," said Mr. Underbunk nonchalantly. "I am sorry I cannot see more of them, but her lawyers send me quarterly reports of their health and financial needs." His expression "a delightful lot" would more than have justified me in calling off the theatre-party that evening and pleading severe illness, and as I walked homeward I seriously contemplated such a step, but the end of an hour found me despatching my man Jangle to the Holland House with a note reminding Mrs. Underbunk of the engagement. Moreover, "the delightful lot" were entirely forgotten when later I stood before her, before the simple little woman, the woman of that most attractive of all ages, the undefinable; the frank, the demure, the vivacious soul; and, most of all, calling especially for my sympathy, the neglected. That Mrs. Underbunk had suffered, that she had children, that she had been forsaken, made her trebly attractive to me in my highly sensitive state. She is thoroughly conventional without being wooden; pious, but not priggish. I do like to see a regard for the outward forms of life, and that she insisted that her maid chaperon us to the theatre, a few blocks away, served to raise her higher in my estimation. To some it might seem that she was a trifle over-particular, but a once-married woman has to be very careful.