See!" quoth that gentle philosopher.
"'Here,' one of our women would say, 'am I to-day, unwed, as free of thought as yonder bird chasing the catkin down; tomorrow I shall be married, with a whole summer to make love in, relieved at one bound of all those uncertainties you acknowledge to, with nothing to do but lie about on sunny banks with him whom chance sends me, come to the goal of love without any travelling to get there.' Why, you must acknowledge this is the perfection of ease." "But supposing," I said, "chance dealt unkindly to you from your nuptial urn, supposing the man was not to your liking, or another coveted him ?" To which An answered, with some shrewdness-- "In the first case we should do what we might, being no worse off than those in your land who had played ill providence to themselves.

In the second, no maid would covet him whom fate had given to another, it were too fatiguing, or if such a thing DID happen, then one of them would waive his claims, for no man or woman ever born was worth a wrangle, and it is allowed us to barter and change a little." All this was strange enough.

I could not but laugh, while An laughed at the lightest invitation, and thus chatting and deriding each other's social arrangements we floated idly townwards and presently came out into the main waterway perhaps a mile wide and flowing rapidly, as streams will on the threshold of the spring, with brash or waste of distant beaches riding down it, and every now and then a broken branch or tree-stem glancing through waves whose crests a fresh wind lifted and sowed in golden showers in the intervening furrows.

The Martians seemed expert upon the water, steering nimbly between these floating dangers when they met them, but for the most part hugging the shore where a more placid stream better suited their fancies, and for a time all went well.
An, as we went along, was telling me more of her strange country, pointing out birds or flowers and naming them to me.

"Now that," she said, pointing to a small grey owl who sat reflective on a floating log we were approaching--"that is a bird of omen; cover your face and look away, for it is not well to watch it." Whereat I laughed.