bably--there is the speculation. It might one day respond, while
certainly if it repaid warmly my love now, one day it would not. Nothing
lasts in this world. You have told me so yourself."

The Sage was nettled.

"Yes, there is one thing that lasts, that is friendship," he said.

"Friendship!" exclaimed the Damsel; "but that is not made up of
caresses. It does not make the heart beat."

"We were not talking of beating hearts," said the Sage, sententiously.

"Very well. Good-bye, then, Sage," laughed the Damsel. "You must think
of more stories for me before I come again."

And, continuing to caress the falcon, she walked away, stately and fair,
into the setting sun.

When she had gone the Sage wondered why there was no twilight that
evening, and why it had suddenly become night.

* * * * *

_Most men prefer to possess something that the other men want._

* * * * *

It would be a peaceful world if we could only realize that the fever of
love is like other fevers. It comes to a crisis, and the patient either
dies or is cured. It cannot last at the same point forever.

* * * * *

The Damsel came back again next day. She had remarked, the day she spent
with him in the rain, that the Sage was not so old or so uncomely as she
had at first supposed. "If he were to shave off his beard and wear a
velvet doublet, he would look as well as many a cavalier of the Court,"
she mused. And she called out before she reached the door:

"Sage, I have come back because I want to ask you just another question.
Will you not come out and sit in the sun while you answer?"

So the Sage advanced in a recalcitrant manner, but he would not sit
down beside her.

Then the Damsel began:

"A woman once possessed a ball of silk. It was of so fine and rare a
kind that, although of many thousand yards, it took up no space, and she
unwound it daily for her pleasure without any appreciable difference in
the size of the ball. At last she suddenly fancied she perceived some
alteration. It came upon her as a shock, but still she continued to use
the silk with the casual idea that a thing she had employed so long
_must_ go on forever. Then again, in about a week, there came another
shock. The ball was certainly smaller, and felt cold and hard and firm.
The thought came to her, 'What if it should not be silk all through and
I have come to the end of m