the last word! We understand ourselves intuitively, and we understand men
by study, yet we are made the receivers, not the givers; the chosen, not
the choosers. It really is an absurd dispensation when you view it apart
from sentiment, yet I, for one, would not have it changed. I should not
mind being Cupid for a while, though, and giving him a few ideas in the
mating line.

"I think women are often misjudged. Men seem to think that all we want is
to be loved. Now, it isn't all that I want. If I had to choose between
being loved by a man--_the_ man, let us say--and not loving him at all,
or loving him very dearly and not being loved by him, I would choose the
latter, for I think that more happiness comes from loving than from being
loved."

"Why _don't_ you marry somebody?" I asked in an agony of entreaty, for
fear all of this would be wasted on me, an Old Maid, rather than upon some
man. She shook her head.

"It needs a compelling, not a persuasive, power to win a woman. No man who
takes me like this," closing her thumb and forefinger as if holding a
butterfly, "can have me. The one who dares to take me like this,"
clenching her hand, "will get me. But he will not come."

Then I walked with her to the door, and she bent over me, and whispered
something about my being a "blessed comfort" to her, and went away. Ah,
Tabby, my dear, it is worth while being an Old Maid to be a blessed
comfort to anybody. But I would just like to ask you, as a cat of
intelligence, what in the world I did for her!

Imagine some man making that girl care for him so much. For, of course,
it is somebody. A girl does not say such things about the abstract man.

I was in an uplifted state of mind all day, as I am always after a talk
with Rachel, and when Percival came in the evening, I felt that I could
deluge him with my gathered sentiment, and he would be receptive. Besides,
Percival has a positive genius for understanding. I did not know it,
however, this morning. I seldom know as much in the morning as I do at
night.

Percival approves of sentiment. He said once that a life which had
principle and sentiment needed little else, for principle was to stand
upon, and sentiment was to beautify with. He said this after I had told
him rather apologetically that I wished there was more sentiment in the
world, because I liked it. Is it strange that I like Percival? You can't
help admiring people who approve of you.

Percival is a genius. Peo