cerely for the moment to all: but with more permanent earnestness,
more constant return, to me than to any other. If I had met him with
equal earnestness, if I could have said or implied to him in any way,
'Take me while you may, or think of me no more,' I am persuaded I should
not now write myself spinster. But I wrapped myself up in reserve. I
thought it fitting that all advances should come from him: that I
should at most show nothing more than willingness to hear, not even the
semblance of anxiety to receive them. So nothing came of our love but
remembrance and regret. Another girl, whom I am sure he loved less, but
who understood him better, acted towards him as I ought to have done,
and became his wife. Therefore, my dear, I applaud your moral courage,
and regret that I had it not when the occasion required it.

_Miss Gryll._ My lover, if I may so call him, differs from yours in
this: that he is not wandering in his habits, nor versatile in his
affections.

_Miss Ilex._ The peculiar system of domestic affection in which he
was brought up, and which his maturer years have confirmed, presents a
greater obstacle to you than any which my lover's versatility presented
to me, if I had known how to deal with it.

_Miss Gryll._ But how was it, that, having so many admirers as you must
have had, you still remained single?

_Miss Ilex._ Because I had fixed my heart on one who was not like any
one else. If he had been one of a class, such as most persons in this
world are, I might have replaced the first idea by another; but his soul
was like a star, and dwelt apart.

....Indi va mansueto alia donzella,
Con umile sembiante e gesto umano:
Come intorno al padrone il can saltella,
Che sia due giorni o tre stato lontano.
Bajardo ancora avea memoria d' ella,
Che in Albracca il servia gia di sua mano.
--Orlando Furioso, c. i. s. 75.

_Miss Gryll._ A very erratic star, apparently. A comet, rather.

_Miss Ilex._ No, For the qualities which he loved and admired in the
object of his temporary affection existed more in his imagination than
in her. She was only the framework of the picture of his fancy. He
was true to his idea, though not to the exterior semblance on which
he appended it, and to or from which he so readily transferred it.
Unhappily for myself, he was more of a reality to me than I was to him.

_Miss Gryll._ His marriage could scarcely have b