house as much as possible, and damaged their characters, if
anything, by over-indulgence. My dear, it never caught even a
curate! I am not one of those women to run down men; I think them
delightful creatures, and in a general way I find them very
intelligent. But where their hearts are concerned it is the girl
with the frizzy hair, who wants two people to help her over the
stile, that is their idea of an angel. No man could fall in love
with me; he couldn't if he tried. That I can understand; but"--
Miss Ramsbotham sunk her voice to a more confidential tone--"what I
cannot understand is that I have never fallen in love with any man,
because I like them all."

"You have given the explanation yourself," suggested the bosom
friend--one Susan Fossett, the "Aunt Emma" of The Ladies' Journal,
a nice woman, but talkative. "You are too sensible."

Miss Ramsbotham shook her head, "I should just love to fall in
love. When I think about it, I feel quite ashamed of myself for
not having done so."

Whether it was this idea, namely, that it was her duty, or whether
it was that passion came to her, unsought, somewhat late in life,
and therefore all the stronger, she herself would perhaps have been
unable to declare. Certain only it is that at over thirty years of
age this clever, sensible, clear-seeing woman fell to sighing and
blushing, starting and stammering at the sounding of a name, as
though for all the world she had been a love-sick girl in her
teens.

Susan Fossett, her bosom friend, brought the strange tidings to