and strolled back to his room that
was little, his candle that was three-quarters consumed, and his
picture which might be admired when he was dead but which he would
never be praised for painting; and, after sticking his foot through the
canvas, he tugged himself to bed, agreeing to commence the following
morning just as he had the previous one, and the one before that, and
the one before that again.

ONE AND ONE

Do you hate me, you!
Sitting quietly there,
With the burnished hair
That frames the two
Deep eyes of your face
In a smooth embrace.

And you say naught,
And I never speak;
But you rest your cheek
On your hand, a thought
Showing plain as the brow
Goes wrinkling now.

Of what do you think,
Sitting opposite me,
As you stir the tea
That you do not drink,
And frown at nought
With those brows of thought.

THREE WOMEN WHO WEPT

He was one of those men who can call ladies by their Christian names.
One day he met twenty-four duchesses walking on a red carpet, and he
winked at them, and they were all delighted. It was so at first he
appeared to her. Has a mere girl any protection against a man of that
quality? and she was the very merest of girls--she knew it. It was not
that she was ignorant, for she had read widely about men, and she had
three brothers as to whom she knew divers intimate things.

The girl who has been reared among brothers has few defences against
other males. She has acquired two things--a belief in the divine right
of man, and a curiosity as to what those men are like who are not her
brothers. She may love her brothers, but she cannot believe that they
adequately represent the other sex. Does not every girl wish to marry
the antithesis of her brother? The feeling is that one should marry as
far outside of the family as is possible, and as far outside of one's
self as may be; but love has become subject to geography, and our
choice is often bounded by the tramline upon which we travel from our
houses to our businesses and back again.

While she loved and understood her brothers, she had not in the least
understood or believed in the stories she had read, and so, when the
Young Man out of a Book came to her, she was delighted but perplexed.

It was difficult to live up to him worthily. It was difficult to know
what he would do next, and it was exceedingly difficult to keep out of
his way; for, indeed, he seemed to pervade the par