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seldom happened. Is it not so?" asked the lawyer of the two merchants,
evidently trying to drag them into the conversation.
Just then the train started, and the old man, without answering, took
off his cap, and crossed himself three times while muttering a prayer.
When he had finished, he clapped his cap far down on his head, and said:
"Yes, sir, that happened in former times also, but not as often. In the
present day it is bound to happen more frequently. People have become
too learned."
The lawyer made some reply to the old man, but the train, ever
increasing its speed, made such a clatter upon the rails that I could
no longer hear distinctly. As I was interested in what the old man was
saying, I drew nearer. My neighbor, the nervous gentleman, was evidently
interested also, and, without changing his seat, he lent an ear.
"But what harm is there in education?" asked the lady, with a smile that
was scarcely perceptible. "Would it be better to marry as in the old
days, when the bride and bridegroom did not even see each other before
marriage?" she continued, answering, as is the habit of our ladies, not
the words that her interlocutor had spoken, but the words she believed
he was going to speak. "Women did not know whether they would love or
would be loved, and they were married to the first comer, and suffered
all their lives. Then you think it was better so?" she continued,
evidently addressing the lawyer and myself, and not at all the old man.
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