s one with experience even
then--"better change your mind before it's too late afterwards."

Amiable, sweet-faced, broad-hearted Amy! most faithful of friends, but
oh! most faithless of lovers. Age has not withered nor custom staled her
liking for infinite variety. Butchers, bakers, soldiers, sailors, Jacks
of all trades! Does the sighing procession never pass before you, Amy,
pointing ghostly fingers of reproach! Still Amy is engaged. To whom at
the particular moment I cannot say, but I fancy to an early one who has
lately become a widower. After more exact knowledge I do not care to
enquire; for to confess ignorance on the subject, implying that one has
treated as a triviality and has forgotten the most important detail of
a matter that to her is of vital importance, is to hurt her feelings;
while to angle for information is but to entangle oneself. To speak of
Him as "Tom," when Tom has belonged for weeks to the dead and buried
past, to hastily correct oneself to "Dick" when there hasn't been a Dick
for years, clearly not to know that he is now Harry, annoys her even
more. In my mother's time we always referred to him as "Dearest." It was
the title with which she herself distinguished them all, and it avoided
confusion.

"Well, and how's Dearest?" my mother would enquire, opening the door to
Amy on the Sunday evening.

"Oh, very well indeed, mum, thank you, and he sends you his respects,"
or, "Well, not so nicely as I could wish. I'm a little anxious about
him, poor dear!"

"When you are married you will be able to take good care of him."

"That's really what he wants--some one to take care of him. It's what
they all want, the poor dears."

"And when is it coming off?"

"In the spring, mum." She always chose the spring when possible.

Amy was nice to all men, and to Amy all men were nice. Could she have
married a dozen, she might have settled down, with only occasional
regrets concerning those left without in the cold. But to ask her to
select only one out of so many "poor dears" was to suggest shameful
waste of affection.

We had meant to keep our grim secret to ourselves; but to hide one's
troubles long from Amy was like keeping cold hands from the fire. Very
soon she knew everything that was to be known, drawing it all from my
mother as from some overburdened child. Then she put my mother down into
a chair and stood over her.

"Now you leave the house and everything connected with it to me, mum,"
comm