The sound of her own voice seemed to make her forget her fears, and
she warbled as naturally and freely as any young bird of a May morning.
Number Five came in while she was singing, and when she got through
caught her in her arms and kissed her, as if she were her sister, and
not Delilah, our table-maid. Number Five is apt to forget herself and
those social differences to which some of us attach so much importance.
This is the song in which the little maid took part:

TOO YOUNG FOR LOVE.

Too young for love?
Ah, say not so!
Tell reddening rose-buds not to blow!
Wait not for spring to pass away,
--Love's summer months begin with May!
Too young for love?
Ah, say not so!
Too young? Too young?
Ah, no! no! no!

Too young for love?
Ah, say not so,
While daisies bloom and tulips glow!
June soon will come with lengthened day
To practise all love learned in May.
Too young for love?
Ah, say not so!
Too young? Too young?
Ah, no! no! no!

IX

I often wish that our Number Seven could have known and corresponded
with the author of "The Budget of Paradoxes." I think Mr. De Morgan
would have found some of his vagaries and fancies not undeserving of
a place in his wonderful collection of eccentricities, absurdities,
ingenuities,--mental freaks of all sorts. But I think he would have now
and then recognized a sound idea, a just comparison, a suggestive hint,
a practical notion, which redeemed a page of extravagances and crotchety
whims. I confess that I am often pleased with fancies of his, and should
be willing to adopt them as my own. I think he has, in the midst of his
erratic and tangled conceptions, some perfectly clear and consistent
trains of thought.

So when Number Seven spoke of sending us a paper, I welcomed the
suggestion. I asked him whether he had any objection to my looking it
over before he read it. My proposal rather pleased him, I thought, for,
as was observed on a former occasion, he has in connection with a belief
in himself another side,--a curious self-distrust. I have no question
that he has an obscure sense of some mental deficiency. Thus you may
expect from him first a dogma, and presently a doubt. If you fight his
dogma, he will do battle for it stoutly; if you let him alone, he will
very probably explain its extravagances, if it has any, and tame it into
reasonable limits. Sometimes he is in one mood, som