all in moderation; I must own,
It is not quite conducive to the truth
That we should paint the enamourment of youth
So bright, as if--ahem--it stood alone.
Love-making still a frail foundation is.
Only the snuggery of wedded bliss
Provides a rock where Love may builded be
In unassailable security.

MISS JAY.
There I entirely differ. In my view,
A free accord of lovers, heart with heart,
Who hold together, having leave to part,
Gives the best warrant that their love is true.

ANNA [warmly].
O no--Love's bound when it is fresh and young
Is of a stuff more precious and more strong.

LIND [thoughtfully].
Possibly the ideal flower may blow,
Even as that snowdrop,--hidden by the snow.

FALK [with a sudden outburst].
You fallen Adam! There a heart was cleft
With longing for the Eden it has left!

LIND.
What stuff!

MRS. HALM [offended, to FALK, rising].
'Tis not a very friendly act
To stir a quarrel where we've made a peace.
As for your friend's good fortune, be at ease--

SOME LADIES.
Nay that's assured--

OTHERS.
A very certain fact.

MRS. HALM.
The cooking-class at school, I must confess,
She did not take; but she shall learn it still.

MISS JAY.
With her own hands she's trimming her own dress.

AN AUNT [patting ANNA's hand].
And growing exquisitely sensible.

FALK [laughing aloud].
O parody of sense, that rives and rends
In mania dance upon the lips of friends!
Was it good sense he wanted? Or a she-
Professor of the lore of Cookery?
A joyous son of springtime he came here,
For the wild rosebud on the bush he burned.
You reared the rosebud for him; he returned--
And for his rose found what? The hip!

MISS JAY [offended].
You jeer!

FALK.
A useful household condiment, heaven knows!
But yet the hip was not his bridal rose.

MRS. HALM.
O, if it is a ball-room queen he wants,
I'm very sorry; these are not their haunts.

FALK.
O yes, I know the pretty coquetry
They carry on with "Domesticity."
It is a suckling of the mighty Lie
That, like hop-tendrils, spreads itself on high.
I, madam, reverently bare my head
To the ball queen; a child of beauty she--
And the ideal's golden woof is spread
In ball-rooms, hardly in the nursery.

MRS. HALM [with suppressed bitterness].
Your conduct, sir is easily explained;
A plighted lover cannot be a friend;
That is the kernel of the whole affair;
I have a very large exp