“’Marriage would mean the cares of a house—­food, fuel, the mending of clothes, a family—­all the hard material conditions of life.  No, sir!  My love soars far above all that.  If it were possible that Laura should ever be mine I could not love her as I do.  She is apart from me; she is above me.  I worship her, and for her I pour out my soul in song.  Listen to this,’ and he read me some lines of an unfinished sonnet to Laura in the sunlight.  ’She was just coming from a shaded street into an open place I saw her, and this poem came into my heart.’

“About a week after this I was very much surprised to see Petrarch walking with his Laura, who was accompanied by her husband.  The three were very amicably conversing.  I joined the party, and was made acquainted with M. de Sade, and after that, from time to time, I met them together, sometimes taking a meal with them in the evening.

“I discovered that Laura’s husband looked upon Petrarch very much as any ordinary husband would look upon an artist who wished to paint portraits of his wife.

“I lived for more than a year in Avignon with these good people, and I am not ashamed to say that I never ceased my endeavors to persuade Petrarch to give up his strange and abnormal attentions to a woman who would never be anything to him but a vision in the distance, and who would prevent him from living a true and natural life with one who would be all his own.  But it was of no use; he went on in his own way, and everybody knows the results.

“Now, just think of it,” continued Mr. Crowder.  “Suppose I had succeeded in my honest efforts to do good; think of what the world would have lost.  Suppose I had induced Petrarch not to come back to Avignon after his travels; suppose he had not settled down at Vaucluse, and had not spent three long years writing sonnets to Laura while she was occupied with the care of her large family of children; suppose, in a word, that I had been successful in my good work, and that Petrarch had shut his eyes and his heart to Laura; suppose—­”

“I don’t choose to suppose anything of the kind,” said Mrs. Crowder.  “Thee tried to do right, but I am glad thee did not deprive the world of any of Petrarch’s poetry.  But now I want thee to tell us something about ancient Egypt, and those wonderfully cultivated people who built pyramids and carved hieroglyphics.  Perhaps thee saw them building the Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis.”

Mr. Crowder shook his head.  “That was before my time,” said he.

This was like an electric shock to both of us.  If we had been more conversant with ancient chronology we might have understood, but we were not so conversant.

“Abraham!  Isaac!  Moses!” ejaculated Mrs. Crowder.  “Thee knew them all, and yet Egypt was civilized before thy time!  Does thee mean that?”

“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Crowder.  “I am of the time of Abraham, and when he was born the glories of Egypt were at their height.”