ly do know
aught of women--"

"I did not say that I did."

"But if you do, you will perhaps have discovered that a woman may be
as changeable as the moon, and yet as true as the sun;--that she may
flit from flower to flower, quite unheeding while no passion exists,
but that a passion fixes her at once. Do you believe me?" Now she
looked into his eyes again, but did not smile and did not shake her
locks.

"Oh, yes;--that's true enough. And when they have a lot of children,
then they become steady as milestones."

"Children!" said Madalina, getting up and walking about the room.

"They do have them, you know," said Johnny.

"Do you mean to say, sir, that I should be a milestone?"

"A finger-post," said Johnny, "to show a fellow the way he ought to
go."

She walked twice across the room without speaking. Then she came and
stood opposite to him, still without speaking,--and then she walked
about again. "What could a woman better be, than a finger-post, as
you call it, with such a purpose?"

"Nothing better, of course;--though a milestone to tell a fellow his
distances, is very good."

"Psha!"

"You don't like the idea of being a milestone."

"No!"

"Then you can make up your mind to be a finger-post."

"John, shall I be finger-post for you?" She stood and looked at him
for a moment or two, with her eyes full of love, as though she were
going to throw herself into his arms. And she would have done so, no
doubt, instantly, had he risen to his legs. As it was, after having
gazed at him for the moment with her love-laden eyes, she flung
herself on the sofa, and hid her face among the cushions.

He had felt that it was coming for the last quarter of an hour,--and
he had felt, also, that he was quite unable to help himself. He
did not believe that he should ever be reduced to marrying Miss
Demolines, but he did see plainly enough that he was getting into
trouble; and yet, for his life, he could not help himself. The moth
who flutters round the light knows that he is being burned, and yet
he cannot fly away from it. When Madalina had begun to talk to him
about women in general, and then about herself, and had told him that
such a woman as herself,--even one so liable to the disturbance of
violent emotions,--might yet be as true and honest as the sun, he
knew that he ought to get up and make his escape. He did not exactly
know how the catastrophe would come, but he was quite sure that if he
remained there he w