Once upon a time in Ashcroft a very foolish young man married a very foolish young lady.  They were foolish in so far as they had entered a matrimonial partnership without the preliminary requisite of love.  He married because he wanted a wife, as all good men do; she married because she wanted a home, as all good women do.  But, as we have said, they married too hastily in their eagerness for those mere mundane pleasures.  Each had been known to lie awake many nights before their marriage summing up the situation, and putting two and two together; but, as they were both liberal in their political views, and had no conservative opposition, the two and two always made four without a decimal remainder, and the house voted for marriage with an overwhelming majority.  So they became legally united before they were morally mature for love, and before they had formal introduction to the great things of the world.  After the solemnization of their marriage they adjourned to a beautiful little home which had been made to order; and it was guarded by a beautiful garden of Eden.

For a short time everything went merry as the Ashcroft curlers’ ball.  Her happiness was all he lived for, and his comfort was the only excuse she could find for living.  Nothing was too good for his Maud; no man was like her Manfred.  They each congratulated themselves that they had hooked the best fish from the Thompson.  There was nothing in the world outside of their own sweet lives.  How others could live outside of their sphere was a mystery to them; and the hugs and kisses which they did not treat themselves to daily would be of no commercial value as a love asset.

For the first few weeks they spent their evenings with their tentacles wound around each other so tightly that they would have passed for one animal; but they had not been welded by that permanent binding quality which is essential to perpetual happiness.  Their natures seemed to blend, but it was only a case of superfluous friendship between them.  They had no reason to fall out, no excuse to quarrel.  They had one mind, one ambition, and they had agreed, mutually, to salt down a few “plunks” each payday for their anticipated gray days.  In fact, they seemed better “cut out” for each other than many who marry loving desperately and savagely.

In a few sweet years they had a few sweet children, and life was one sweet dream.  But they did not love each other, and without oxygen the lights ultimately became extinguished.  But this was only because the ironies of fate had discovered that they were too happy, and that something must be done to damage their heavenliness.