“I ’d never try guessing such a problem as that!  She’s evidently one of the new women—­you can tell that by her looks.  And they never show their age, maybe because they don’t think about it.  This girl might be twenty, perhaps a year or two more, if you judge by her face.  But if you take her expression into account—­these women who do things always look as if they ’d had an experience of life that in former days they could n’t acquire under forty.  Well, you might split the difference and say she ’s thirty.”

“I don’t think so.  I ’d guess her under twenty-five.  And she probably won’t look a day older than she does now for the next fifteen years.”

“I don’t know about that, Adams.  If she’s a school-teacher she ’ll get more or less sharp-featured or anxious-faced and have wrinkles and crow’s-feet.  And those are things that do not aid and abet a woman in forgetting her birthdays.”

“But she is n’t a school-teacher, Wilson.  She has n’t got the unmistakable school-ma’am look.  I ’ve been wondering what she is, and I don’t make it out.  I don’t think she ’s a doctor, because she has n’t got the professional cast of countenance, and she ’s too carefully dressed.”

Wilson laughed and turned a bantering eye upon his companion.  “You must be getting interested, Adams!  Is it a case of love at first sight?”

“No, you know I ’m not given to that sort of thing.  But I don’t read much on the cars, on account of my eyes, and while you ’ve been reading I ’ve spent the time looking at the passengers.  And I found that girl and her roses by far the most pleasing items in the car.”

“But she is n’t beautiful,” Wilson objected.  “Her face is not pretty, and she ’s inclined to be raw-boned.”

“Yes, I ’ll admit her features are irregular, and there ’s fault to be found with each one.  But that does n’t matter.  No woman with that live, creamy skin, that clear red in her cheeks, and that intelligent expression, could be any less than handsome.  And she fairly glows with health and vitality.  She has made me just curious enough about her vocation to want to know what it is, and if she stays on the train long enough to make an opening possible I intend to try to find out.”

“Well,” said Wilson, yawning, “you ’re fortunate to be able to get up so much interest in your fellow-passengers.  It is n’t once in a dozen journeys that I find anybody on a railroad train who does n’t strike me as being an entirely superfluous person.”

“Oh, well,” responded Adams good-naturedly, “you must remember that you are ten years older than I am, and that you are married and settled down, while I ’m not.”

“It would be better for you if you were.”

“Yes, I know you are always preaching at me the advantages of double blessedness.  But I ’m not going to marry until I can’t help it.  When the girl comes along who can make me forget everything in the world but herself, I ’ll marry her, if she ’ll have me.”