A gay _chanson_ at first, with a waltz refrain which sent even sedate pulses to beating the time. Presently The Bachelor’s geological intentions were being presented to the accompaniment of its measure tapped out by The Single Lady’s unconscious shoe-toe. And then came a little thing all about kisses and bliss. Such a silly little trifle it was, yet gradually it overcame the commonplace designs in The Bachelor’s mind with subtle suggestion of the delights it celebrated. To kiss now—might it not indeed be a pleasing experience? It had never occurred so strongly to him before. He found his imagination quite touched by the idea. His recollections furnished only kisses bestowed upon sisters and an aunt or two, and they were suddenly inadequate. It was a lilting lay, this, where lovers kissed and were glad, and it quite got into the blood and set pictures before the eye—vague, elusive and yet of singular vividness. And now the rhythm changed and The Girl sang of love that had lost and was sad. A tender cry of heart yearning—and this, too, was very sweet. Better, far better, the grave of love to hallow the past than the lean memory-spaces of one who had never loved. The Bachelor involuntarily cast about in his mind for scraps of verse which said this very well, but he had no storehouse of such things and he could only go on feeling the spirit of it all—intangibly, still with distinct longing and desire. And The Girl sang on—a varied repertoire. A song of home—and life in a single room and with meals at a crowded table was no longer satisfying. Home surely meant the place apart which was one’s own—small, even humble, as the heart-song of the world tells it—but one’s own, and—“cozy.” It was an admirably descriptive word, “cozy.” The early death of The Bachelor’s mother had deprived his heart of this rhythm of remembrance, too—but he knew quite well now how it should be. And he knew, too, that the center of it all should be a well-loved woman. Was not indeed the very spelling of home, woman? The Bachelor taught “math” and was not bothered by phonetics. His conviction became entire while The Girl sang a lullaby. Certainly, in the last analysis, home was the woman who was also mother. The whole picture was easily encompassed—the hearthfire and the keeper of it—a woman of tender eyes crooning to the wee bundle of life whose head rested in the hollow of her arm. It was so clear—so clearly to be seen, however strange a vision for bachelor fancy, and The Bachelor saw it in alluring detail—and—all at once—with personal application. He turned and looked long at The Single Lady, and the sight of her filled all these places—and more.