bright with merry thoughts; their voices soft and musical. They
were pleased, and they wanted to please. Some were married, some had
evidently reasonable expectations of being married; the rest hoped to
be. And we, myself, and some ten thousand other young men. I repeat
it--myself and some ten thousand other young men; for who among us ever
thinks of himself but as a young man? It is the world that ages, not we.
The children cease their playing and grow grave, the lasses' eyes are
dimmer. The hills are a little steeper, the milestones, surely, further
apart. The songs the young men sing are less merry than the songs we
used to sing. The days have grown a little colder, the wind a little
keener. The wine has lost its flavour somewhat; the new humour is not
like the old. The other boys are becoming dull and prosy; but we are not
changed. It is the world that is growing old. Therefore, I brave your
thoughtless laughter, youthful Reader, and repeat that we, myself and
some ten thousand other young men, walked among these sweet girls; and,
using our boyish eyes, were fascinated, charmed, and captivated. How
delightful to spend our lives with them, to do little services for them
that would call up these bright smiles. How pleasant to jest with them,
and hear their flute-like laughter, to console them and read their
grateful eyes. Really life is a pleasant thing, and the idea of marriage
undoubtedly originated in the brain of a kindly Providence.

We smiled back at them, and we made way for them; we rose from our
chairs with a polite, "Allow me, miss," "Don't mention it, I prefer
standing." "It is a delightful evening, is it not?" And perhaps--for
what harm was there?--we dropped into conversation with these chance
fellow-passengers upon the stream of life. There were those among
us--bold daring spirits--who even went to the length of mild flirtation.
Some of us knew some of them, and in such happy case there followed
interchange of pretty pleasantries. Your English middle-class young man
and woman are not adepts at the game of flirtation. I will confess that
our methods were, perhaps, elephantine, that we may have grown a trifle
noisy as the evening wore on. But we meant no evil; we did but our best
to enjoy ourselves, to give enjoyment, to make the too brief time, pass
gaily.

And then my thoughts travelled to small homes in distant suburbs,
and these bright lads and lasses round me came to look older and more
careworn. Bu