part one
Chapter I. Ernestine

She had promised to marry a scientist! It was too overwhelming a thought to entertain standing there by the window. She sought the room‘s most comfortable chair and braced herself to the situation.

If, one month before, a gossiping daughter of Fate had come to her with--"Shall I tell you something?--You are going to marry a man of science!"--she would have smiled serenely at Fate‘s amusing mistake and responded--"My good friend, it is quite true that great uncertainty attends this subject. So much to be expected is the unexpected, that I am quite willing to admit I may marry the hurdy-gurdy man who plays beneath my window. I know life well enough to appreciate that I may marry a pawnbroker or the Sultan of Turkey. I assert but one thing. I shall not marry a ‘man of science.‘"

And now, not only had she promised to marry a man of science, but she had quite overlooked the fact of his being one! And the thing

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