My two brothers drift into their office at any time between nine and ten in the morning and yet control a fairly successful commercial enterprise; whereas, if my husband arrived at his eight-o’clock classroom only one minute late there would be no class there to teach.  For it is an unwritten law among our engaging young friends the undergraduates that when the “prof” is not on hand before the bell stops ringing they can “cut”—­thus avoiding what they were sent to college for and achieving one of the pleasantest triumphs of a university course.

My confessions!  Dear me!  What have I, a college professor’s wife, to confess?  At least three things: 

    1—­That I love my husband so well that I wish I had never married
    him.

    2—­That I have been such a good wife that he does not know he ought
    never to have had one.

3—­That if I had to do it all over again I would do the same thing all over again!  This is indeed a confession, though whether it be of weakness of will or strength of faith you may decide if you read the rest.

The first time I saw the man who became my husband was at the Casino in Newport.  And what was a poor professor doing at Newport?  He was not a professor—­he was a prince; a proud prince of the most royal realm of sport.  Carl, as some of you might recall if that were his real name, had been the intercollegiate tennis champion a few years before, and now, with the kings of the court, had come to try his luck in the annual national tournament.  He lasted until the finals this time and then was put out.  That was as high as he ever got in the game.

Alas for the romance of love at first sight!  He paid not the slightest attention to me, though he sat beside me for ten minutes; for, despite his defeat, he was as enthusiastically absorbed in the runner-up and the dashing defender of the title as—­well, as the splendid sportsman I have since found him to be in disappointments far more grim.

As for me, I fear I hardly noticed him either, except to remark that he was very good-looking; for this was my first visit to Newport—­the last too—­and the pageantry of wealth and fashion was bewilderingly interesting to me.  I was quite young then.  I am older now.  But such unintellectual exhibitions might, I fancy, still interest me—­a shocking confession for a college professor’s wife!

I did not see Carl again for two years, and then it was in another kind of pageant, amid pomp and circumstance of such a different sort; and, instead of white flannel trousers, he now wore a black silk gown.  It had large flowing sleeves and a hood of loud colors hanging down behind; and he was blandly marching along in the academic procession at the inaugural ceremonies of the new president of the university.