I had planned a sail by the moonlight, but an impulse to accept Colonel Staniels' invitation instantly seized me. I admired the colonel, was glad to know more of him, as this opportunity suggested, and I liked fine horses, and the colonel's were very fine. I accepted the invitation. When we went out the sun had just set, and a boy was holding the horses. As soon as he left their heads we sailed away. The animals were magnificent, wanting nothing but guiding. In town we went to the postoffice and bank, and then turned homewards. The colonel talked well. We touched briefly on a score of standard subjects, and momentarily my respect for the man beside me increased. He made many remarks worth recording, among these this: "It is a very common mistake among men that they must rule their wives." This was nearly four years ago, before the diffusion of the woman's rights question, now so generally discussed. The words, and his manner of saying them, gave me a clew to the track of his observations, if not his experience. I glanced at the stern contour of his face, the unquiet glance of his eye, and chose to believe the latter. Suddenly his manner changed. "Mr. Cathmor, I have a fancy to receive your congratulations first. I am to be married in a few days, and bring my wife to the Ocean House," he said. I expressed the pleasure his manner conveyed to me. "My little girl will like this place, I think," he said. The singular sweetness of his smile charmed me. After a moment he took a little oval miniature case from his breast and handed it to me. It contained a sweet, pure, earnest face--a sparkle in the modest eyes, too, that told of exuberant life. "That is what I call lovable," I exclaimed, in enthusiasm. My praise seemed to touch him to the quick. "I think so, too," he answered, quietly, putting the picture back in its hiding-place, with a moment's happy abstraction. We drove fleetly up to the door. A little knot of men gathered about the horses as usual. I went up to my room with a new item for thought. The next day Colonel Staniels took the boat for New York. In three days he was back with his wife. Brides are not generally to my taste, they are usually too suggestive of clothes, and plume themselves to a fatiguing extent. They are too demonstrative and important, too publicly tender, and too generally oppressive. But I liked Mrs. Staniels the moment I heard her glad laugh. It was a laugh, and her face was like a sunbeam. She was not overdressed or burdened with the consciousness of her position; she did not caress her husband in public, or betray any unusual excitement. She talked in an arch, merry little way with everybody she won to her side, telling of places, things, people, anybody but herself and the colonel. She had just returned from Europe. She was pretty, and an heiress, but she was not spoiled.