They went up to Hagar at the end of June, and spent the blue-and-green summer together in the widow's house behind the militant church. Thaddeus came every Saturday, invented new paradoxes, to watch them fall helplessly on the widow's comprehension, and went down the hill after tea in the wide sunset--an immaculate gentleman, with eye-glass, cane, and smooth-shouldered coat--to talk with Mr. Paulus. "Ain't goin' to get married again, are ye?" "To whom, Peter? To whom?" "Mrs. M--Mav--the one that looks like she cost a dollar an inch." "Mrs. Mavering is, unfortunately, not as yet a widow." "He gone to the war? 'Tain't any more'n reasonable she might get to be. Fine-lookin' woman--looks expensive. Well, I done it three times, an' then guessed I'd quit. I got too fat--don't figure as well at weddin's as I once did. But--Well, I don' no'--the women's got in the habit of marryin' me." "Pete," said Thaddeus, softly, "was not the first time, in fact, the best? When one is young!" "Umm--She was--well, I'll tell ye. Old Parson Gerry was here then, an' the candidest man in Hamilton County, an' I went to him. 'Who is she?' says he. I says, 'Hilda Armitage.' 'Shucks!' says he, 'she won't have you.' 'She will, too,' says I, pretty mad. 'Well, well, I'll marry you, but she ought've done a sight better'n that.' But by-and-by the parson and me was both widowers, an' I went to him again. 'Who is she?' says he. 'Esther Allen.' 'Good land alive!' says he, 'I was going to ask her myself next week!' An' he appeared to think Essie's bad luck was odd--remarkable odd." "I was asking, Peter, for reminiscences of your young romance, tending on to your--a--doctrine of practical matrimony, and so to your theory of--of woman. We were at the point of young romance. May I suggest--the clergyman appears to take up too much room. Hilda Armitage--" "Well, she was roomy, too. She began to lay on flesh after we was married on credit of a hundred acres of Wyantenaug Valley land, came to her from Patton Armitage, till she took a six-by-four coffin, she did, by--" "Pass on, Pete, pass on. Esther Allen--a--the minister's preference would seem to have argued in her a certain superior attractiveness, a certain--" "Jus' so. She argued it that way. She'd never believe but what I knew the week the parson had his eye on, an' sort of hurried up and got in underhand. 'Twan't so," said Mr. Paulus, earnestly. "'Twan't so. Didn't know a thing about it till he--" Thaddeus raised a white hand. "I beg of you, no more." In the matter of light on the "subtle sex," what opportunities for study had not Pete Paulus thrown away! Mr. Paulus's drooping left eyelid drooped lower. He heaved with a rumbling chuckle. * * * * *