Page:Frank Stockton - Vizier of the two-horned Alexander.djvu/106

THE VIZIER OF THE her desire for knowledge that I taught her a great deal more than I would have dared to teach anybody else; and the more I taught, the more she wanted to learn.

"I soon became very much concerned about Rina. Some man of the neighborhood, old or young, would be sure to marry her before very long, and then there would be an end of the development of what I considered the brightest intellect of the day."

"So to keep that from happening to her, thee married her thyself?" asked Mrs. Crowder.

Her husband smiled. "Yes; that is what I did. You know," he said, addressing me, "that I believe that Mrs. Crowder takes more interest in my marriages than in anything else I have done in the course of my career."

"Certainly I do," she said, with a little flush. "Of course thee had to be married, and it is natural enough that I should want to know whom thee married, and all about it."

"Well," said Mr. Crowder, "we must get on with this. A priest with whom I was