0*3 H24 if / of a EVOLUTION qf~a GIRL'S IDEAL ittle record of the ripening ofthe affections to the timeof Loves com- ing. 6y Clara E.Laughlin way of/i/&is wonc/er/ul, Itisbv abandonment" CHICAGO-NEW YORK-TORONTO Fleming H'ReveU Company LONDON-EDINBURGH IQO2. Copyright 1902, by Charles Scribner's Son* Copyright 1901, by Fleming H. Rerell Company August a dtrl's "The way of life is wonder- ful; it is by abandonment. " SOMETIME, somewhere, long ago, that sentence caught my uncomprehend- ing eye and fastened its literal outlines, but not its spiritual significance, on my recollection. At a later day, when I could not remember when or where I had read it, or from whose pen it came or by what con- text it was surrounded, it flashed into the forefront of my consciousness, with a haunt- A striking sentence Ube Evolution of a Girl'5 focal We live to Itarn ing power and illuminating suggestiveness. "The way of life is wonderful; it is by abandonment." I began to wish for commentaries on my text, to think that if we could know at what point and by what process any soul came to this realization, we should know the most profoundly interesting thing that soul could tell us. We begin by believing that the way of life is by acquisi- tion, by what the world reckons progress. We live to learn that it is by abandonment, by the ability to do without rather than by the capability to gain, Ube Evolution of a (BW's local by the growing away from ideals rather than by fulfil- ment of them, and this not necessarily by a ruthless de- cree, but most often by a specially benignant one. I wish biography, even auto- biography, were more explicit on this point. And so wish- ing, so thinking, I began to put down the poor, bare, utterly commonplace little out- lines I knew "best of all," as Mrs. Burnett says; and look- ing backward as best I could, my recollection flew, straight as a magnetic needle to the north, to the time when I 13 How to give up TTbe Evolution of a (Sirl's Uoeal First fprebod ings used, as a little girl, to look forward with a chill agony of foreboding to the inevitable days when I should be "too big" to play with dolls. I felt sure that when such a time came to me I should want to die; life would hold no further incentives to go on living. I really suffered in this antici- pation, imagining that some day, in the full flush of my passionate love for my dolls, someone would come to me and make me put my treas- ures away from me forever, and my heart would surely break in one great ache of 14 Evolution of a <3W's local agony. But I can't even remember how or when I stopped playing with dolls. My interest in them, my pas- sion for them, their power to absorb and satisfy me, faded so gradually, so gently, into other interests, other passions, that there was no wrench in the transition; it was evolu- tion, and as quiet as the growth of grass, the unfolding of buds, as the creeping by of time. I never "gave up" my dolls; they keep their place in "the part of me" that belongs to doll days; it is part of me 15 Touching my dolls Ube Evolution of a etrl's foeal "Inch by inch." ' yet, for we do not grow away from our beginnings, nor from any of our successive stages of growth; we simply keep adding, inch by inch, to our mental and spiritual as well as to our physical stature, but we never grow away from any part of it we can only "add on." I "added on" to my doll days the inevitable next stage of schoolgirl friendships; only, instead of adding as bricks are added to bricks, separate entity to separate entity, with necessity of mortar to hold them together, I added, by the blessing of Providence, I sup- 16 Ube Evolution ot a Girl's Uoeal pose, as color is added to color in the marvellous blend of the rainbow, or as theme is added to theme in the softest, smoothest harmony. It used to seem to me that if there ever came a time when I could not see daily, or thrice-daily, those school- chums who so thoroughly sup- planted dolls in my affections, that life would be stark, intol- erable. But I never see them now, of course; I can hardly even remember their names. Nor do I remember that, with one or two exceptions when some girl-chum was taken 17 The blend of the rainbow ttbe Evolution of a Girl's local / learn, that a bird in the hand Is not always better than two in the bush of prospect ruthlessly from me by removal from the neighborhood or city, I suffered much as these interests gradually gave place to others. And so it has been all along, with my passions and my pleasures. Always I have thought that no kind of hap- piness could ever be possible for me except the present kind; and always, without jar or hurt, somehow, there has come another and better kind to supersede it. And thinking along this line, I fell into retrospection on the evolving of my ideal of love. 18 'Cfoe Evolution of a Girl's floeal I had a few "affairs of the heart" before I was ten, but they were very slight. I recol- lect that once I actually went to house-keeping with a boy, in a large empty packing-case in his back yard; but unless my memory plays me false, I was very much more in love with the packing-case than with the boy, and merely accepted him because he "came with it," so I don't count that a real love-affair. None of my fan- cies were very real, as I say, until I was ten. Then I loved a boy who sat next to me in the little private school I went to. 19 The love of the packing- case Ube Evolution ot a Girl's ffceal A firs t "affair' He was a nice, quiet boy, several classes above me in "learning," and a little supe- rior, I'm afraid, in his manner toward me. But that didn't matter; I adored him, humbly, and rather liked the quiet splendidness of his superiority. I tried very hard to be worthy of him, because I meant to marry him when I was grown up say at fourteen or sixteen. I recollect that in writing he always made the letter after p like this <^- , whereas the copy-books and the teacher insisted that it should be made like this ^f ; but although Evolution of a Girl's loeal I had always, previously, made both my p's and q's according to authority, I began, for love's sake, to make them the way the boy did, and I have made my q's thus ever since. The boy was good enough to walk in the park with me, sometimes. The park was across the street from the little school, and we were sent thither at recess. I planned (secretly; I never told the boy) to buy the park when we were married (it is a very large park), and build a high stone wall all around it. We should live in a very 21 p's and q's Evolution ot a Ofrl's floeal I plan an "estate' fine house in the exact mid- dle of the park, and spend a great deal of our time riding in the "swan-boats" on the lake. On Sundays we would allow the public to file respect- fully through our grounds, attended by our troop of mounted park police who would see that the said public deflected not from the narrow path of meekness and straight- forwardness, and would, above all, exercise over said public a rigorous restraint from "touching anything." The boy and I would rise early in the morning, and ourselves attend Evolution ot a Girl's I Deal to the ecstatic duty of feeding the wild animals in the Zoo; and with our own hands we would pick flowers by the bushel just for the joy of rioting in what, now, we durst not touch. In every way would we enjoy complete free- dom from all the restrictions of the present and, oh! the joy of those swan-boats! I entertained this particular dream of happiness for about two years, during which time it somehow became borne in upon me that the park was not for sale. I do not seem to have suffered in giving up The emanci- pation from "DcnT When genius died Ube Evolution ot a (Birrs Uoeal Authors who pointed tht way this heavenly prospect, how- ever. No, not even though, as I can now see, at that time genius died in me. Andrew Lang says children are all geniuses until by edu- cation the practical is made to outweigh the imaginative and fancy is put in curb by probability. Somewhere be- tween the age of ten and the age of twelve it dawned on me that in all probability I should never own the park. Then, I say, the genius in me died, but I cannot remember that it gave me any pain. I read a great deal in those days, 24 ZTbe Evolution of a Girl's IDeal chiefly the immortal works of Bertha M. Clay and May Agnes Fleming. I lived in an atmosphere of princes, duch- esses, and noble lords, of "estates" and "town houses" and "Mediterranean villas," of "tiaras" and "the sheen of silks" and "the odor of rare exotics." Poor and lovely maid- ens never purchased public parks, I came to learn, though they frequently became duch- esses and went to live on "broad, ancestral acres," in "stately, turreted halls." I would be a duchess, I decided. There was a boy I 25 To a new kind of vision Ube Evolution ot a Girl's UDeal One way to a coronet knew whose father was cousin to an English lord, and I decided that this boy (who was the youngest of three sons, and removed by about twenty lusty prior claimants from the lord's successorship) was he by whom I should rise. I believed (perhaps gen- ius did not die in me all at one gasp) that this boy would, by a truly miraculous succes- sion of casualties almost as sweeping as a second great flood, become a lord, pres- ently, in his father's cousin's stead, and that I, ergo, would be a duchess! No, I knew 26 Ube Evolution of a <5lrl's local that to be a duchess one must have a duke for hus- band, but perhaps, I argued hopefully, there was a duke somewhere to whom this lord was heir; perhaps by more casualties still we might come to wear the famed strawberry- leaved coronet of my favorite heroines. But in any event, a lord was not so bad, and I pinned my faith sturdily to this imminent rise in the world. My mind had begun to dwell on attire by that time thanks, no doubt, to the detailed and unrestrained mil- 27 But a remorse- less one Ube Evolution of a Girl's loeal Gingham dreams of plush linery descriptions of the Misses Clay and Fleming. I "thought out" the gowns I should wear in my new estate, and I remember that my reg- ulation costumes were of white satin, thick white satin, em- broidered in a blaze of gems, and further embellished by an enormously long "court train" of plush! Sometimes the train was to be of sap- phire plush, and then the embroidery of the gown proper was of sapphires, and some- times rubies or emeralds were used in similar harmonies of quiet taste and elegance. For 23 ttbe Evolution of a Ctrt'0 floeal really "swell" occasions the embroidery was done in dia- monds, and the train was of white plush always there was plush, a now unheard-of fabric, which then represented stupen- dous elegance at five dollars a yard. These dainty toilettes I wore, in my prospect, on all polite occasions. In the free and easy atmosphere of my own castle at breakfast-time, I wore a trailing (all my dream- gowns trailed yards/] confection of pale pink satin, with "bil- lowy cascades" of lace. "Bil- lowy cascades of lace" was a 29 Embroid- f P J s diamonds Evolution of a Girl's local The flaxen favorite term in my novels, and suffered not at all in my mind from the natural lack of harmony between billows and cascades. But one day I walked to school with a girl a lovely, pink-cheeked, blue-eyed, flaxen- haired, doll-featured girl, two years older than I who got mad at me, sad to relate, and by way of offensive (or was it defensive ?) warfare, asked me how it felt to be as ugly as I was. I had never thought much about my looks nothing, in fact, except to regret that my 30 Ube Evolution of a em's local hair was not yellow and my eyes blue; in my favorite nov- els all the lovely heroines had "hair like spun gold," and . "eyes like purple violets," and All heroines are blond the mean women who worked all the mischief were invaria- bly brunette. I was sorry to be brunette, but I did not mean to let it divert me into a career of villainy. I aspired to be a heroine, and some- how, vaguely, trustingly, I had an undefined hope that per- haps my hair would turn gold some day, and my eyes grow violet-blue. 31 TEbe Evolution ot a Oirl's local I try to supple- ment nature CHAPTER II The thrust of the Flaxen Girl was almost mortal. After a miserable day at school, I hurried home and sat me down before my mirror for a minute recapitulation. The re- sult came near being tragedy. I recollect that one item of the result was that in my zeal to overcome Fortune's niggardly treatment of me in the matter of beauty, I dis- carded mere soap in favor of one of the gritty scouring compounds for face-washing purposes, with consequences 32 ZTbe Evolution ot a Girl's loeal that were hard to bear till the skin grew on again. I invested in a famous com- plexion cream then, and raised a miraculously heavy crop of pimples; I went without the necessaries of school-girl life to buy a tooth-powder that "no lady should be without," and I regularly "helped out" my eyebrows with the burnt end of a match. A girl told ( me that arsenic was good for the complexion, but somehow I mistrusted it; also the advice of another girl who said bel- ladonna would "make your eyes bigger." If these sugges- 33 With discour- results Evolution ot a <3W0 loeal Losing faith in "beauti- ficrs" tions had come to me earlier, I would in all probability have tried them, but by the time they were offered me my faith in the reconstructive powers of cosmetics had grown faint, and I had fallen back into a sort of happy notion that when I was bigger I should be . better-looking, and that, anyway, fine feathers had a deal to do with helping on the appearance of a bird or a duchess ! I cannot remember that I ever contemplated for more than a passing moment at most, any of the phases of 34 Evolution of a Girl's local being a duchess except the millinery phase. It was the phase in all my favorite liter- ature which most interested and absorbed me. Not to tell what "she" had on, to the minutest detail, was to fall fatally short of the high call- ing of a real novelist; but all my novelists did tell, in each chapter, and so my mind was very clear as to the habits or habiliments of duchesses. All this time the duke was very hazy in my mind. He existed chiefly as a means to an end, although I always rather liked the idea of his 35 The high calling of a nov- elist The "dukt' Evolution of a Girl's UDeal being on hand to admire me (as of course he would !) in all my splendor. Poor little me! I'm afraid I hadn't got so very far away from the "packing-case" order of affec- tion, even yet. Before I was fifteen the last hope of being a duchess had faded from me; I could no longer wrestle with the im- probability of it. But its going cost me no pang; it slipped from me, like my passion for swan-boats, while I was una- ware; it was not ejected, but supplanted. I had "graduated" without an intermediary step, 36 ttbe Evolution of a Gfrrs loeal and without at all feeling the tremendous chasm bridged, from "Dora Thorne" to "Van- ity Fair," from "Wee Wine" to "Dombey and Son" and "David Copperfield," from "Tempest and Sunshine" to "Jane Eyre"; and, strangely enough, with the transition from most romantic trash to realistic fiction, it was either in that transition or coincident with it that some notion of romantic love first began to filter into my consciousness. Moreover, I began to see some experiences of it. The older sisters of girls I knew 37 A change in au- thors And a change in ideals Evolution of a <3trl's loeal got engaged, and married. They were ecstatically happy; they had pretty new clothes (always the millinery factor!); they were married in a big church, to organ music, and preceded to the altar by trains of bridesmaids. Afterward they went to live in a lovely little house or flat with everything in it new and "bridey," and there they had cosey parties at which they exhibited all their fine possessions to admir- ing and envious friends. And by and by they had a baby. Oh, delight of delights a baby ! And they were very, very, 38 ttbe Evolution of a Girl's foeal very happy of course! Who wouldn't be, with a new home and pretty "things," and a baby and a husband ? . I liked "the looks" of this kind of happiness. It was better than being a duchess in one important respect, at any rate. To be a duchess one had, presumably, to live in Europe, and there none of one's relatives and old-time friends would be by to look and envy. And who cares to dazzle mere strangers, if they are titled ? Perhaps I had, too, by that time, a suspicion that happiness does not always 39 Better than being a due ness Happi- ness and the peer- age Ube Evolution of a Oirl's floeal go in direct ratio with ascend- ing scales in the peerage. Perhaps, oh, well ! I don't know what the reason may have been, but I relinquished my dream of marble halls and plush court-trains without a pang and came blissfully to a new ideal, based on a "nice," good young man, of undeniably brilliant prospects, of course; a church wedding, with a particularly voluminous veil; a pretty house, with a parlor equipped with gilt chairs; and a baby ultimately, several babies ! I had marked my man, too. 40 Ube Evolution ot a Girl's Uoeal Of course, the state of being grown up and married and possessed of gilt parlor chairs and tea-gowns with trains to .'em, and bonnets with strings, absorbed me more, even yet, than the man. It was still, in a way, of the packing-case order, but not altogether. There was only one boy who had a packing-case in his yard, and to become mistress of the packing-case one must accept, perforce, the boy who went with it. But though there were many young men of my acquaintance who were equally likely to provide gilt chairs 41 I mark my man From among several Evolution or a Girl's Ifoeal And pi an an early marriage and the necessary factor for a church wedding, there was only one I ever considered for the purpose. I was nearly sixteen then, and looked forward to my wedding as not very far off. "He" was a tall, bronzed, ath- letic collegian a rare scholar, a great favorite, a knightly soul. I thought we should be married immediately after his graduation; I was looking for- ward to my own graduation just about the same time, only mine was to be from the high school and his was to be from the professional 42 tlbe Evolution of a Girl's Uoeal school of his college. He was very learned, and that he would be able to enter at once into a lucrative practice .of his profession I did not for a moment doubt. I remember how I planned to make him happy; I had actually got as far as that ! I remember that he liked chocolate cake, and that I resolved NEVER to let the supply of fresh, delicious chocolate cake run low in our house. I planned, too, to help him in his scholarly pursuits. I had bookish tastes, myself, and was noted in school for writing excellent "composi- 43 Chocolate cake as a mark of progress Evolution of a em's floeal My nu- merous family tions," so I had no doubt that we should enjoy a very companionable existence. More- over, I planned to become a writer a very, very celebrated and much-revered writer, of course, and our home would be a rallying-place for all the literary notabilities of the day. I decided that we would have seven children, to be called, respectively, Philip, David, Helen, Beatrice, Jack, Elizabeth, and Lily. These little cherubs, I thought, would "play" all day with their "col- ored nurse," while I sat in the library, radiant in a pale-gray 44 Ube Evolution of a (Birrs local morning gown and a huge bunch of violets, and wrote great novels, stopping now and then to assist my husband turn a particularly elegant phrase, or mayhap going occa- sionally to the kitchen to see if the supply of chocolate cake was up to standard. The more I contemplated this well-planned future the more ecstatically certain I felt of its complete fulfilment. I almost swelled with pride when I foresaw how my husband's relatives would adore me, how I should be admired and wor- shipped by the community as 45 A well- planned Juture Ube Evolution of a Girl's local Enter, a shade of doubt an "unspoiled" celebrity, and how, wherever I went, people would turn to look after me and say, "There she goes. Isn't she lovely?" I meant to be very, very lovely irreproachable in man- ner and in modes, in inner purity and outer complexion in character and in costume complete. And, of course, my husband would be no less per- fect. Being so perfect severally and so happy mutually, what in all the world could happen to vex us, to give us occasion for unlovely attributes? Yet I knew, in a vague way, even 4 6 TTbc Evolution of a Girl'0 floeal then, that people do not live and die without sorrow. I had read a really great deal of good literature, and fool of hope though I was, I knew that the world was full of sadness, and that it would be odd if I were marked for complete immunity. This mis- giving took a firm hold on me, I remember, and would not be put aside. So, after think- ing over all the calamities that could possibly befall "him and me," I came to the con- clusion that one of our chil- dren would die. I hated the thought, for I was a maternal 47 Which will not be put aside Evolution of a Girl's loeal Facing the reck- oning little thing from my babyhood, and I loved my "dream chil- dren," even from afar off. But it seemed as if Sorrow came and sat down before me, and said, "I am inescapable; sooner or later you have got to reckon with me and pay the reckoning; everyone has to. Now, what shall it be?" And because I could not get the gaunt, gray creature out of my house of dreams, I made with her the best bargain that I could, I delayed my day of payment to the last moment I dared; I decided that when she was about five years old, 4 8 TTbe Evolution ot a Girl's focal Lily would die. This put the evil hour off for a number of years, and somehow, after I had made this compromise with my too optimistic self, I felt more certain than ever that all the rest would come true. So early do we clutch at the queer notion that, hav- ing paid tribute to Fate, having bent our necks in submissive recognition of her power, she should hold no further tyranny over us, but be a gracious conqueror. 49 And parting with Lt ly tTbe Evolution or a Girl's loeal My ived- ding post- . ponea CHAPTER III When "he" graduated he went to Europe to study for two years, and our wedding was necessarily postponed - which was just as well, for my family would doubtless have considered me "ower young to marry yet," and he, poor man, had had no inti- mation of what was expected of him, at all. If he had stayed at home during those two years I might have found it difficult to maintain my house of 50 Ube Evolution of a (BM'0 focal dreams in the face of his complete ignorance of my intentions, his apparent indif- ference to my existence on .the face of the earth. But he was so far away he was easy to "manipulate," and though I "grew up" very considerably in those two years, this dream had been so long with me, had entered so thoroughly into every root and fibre of my dream life, that it began to seem impossible that so com- plete, so stoutly woven a fabric should have no thread of fact in it. Almost, with my sober senses of eighteen years, I 51 But the dream remains Sobtr senses of eighteen Evolution of a Girl's local believed in this as my ulti- mate destiny. I shall never forget my excitement when I knew he was coming home, my terrible anxiety about my dress for that season, so that he make no mistake about my "grown- upness" and fitness for matri- mony and gilt chairs. I had a really long-trained dress for the first time in my life, trains being then in fashion for street wear; I had a hat which fairly screamed maturity at the pass- er-by. And I trembled with nervous ecstasy as I planned the delicious, the dramatic 52 Evolution of a Otrl'g floeal moment of our meeting and his recognition of the fact that I was grown up. Of course, he couldn't regard me seri- ously as a probable wife when he went away. He had two years to study before he could marry, and in any event, who could entertain any notion of matrimony in connection with a sixteen-year old miss, with skirts reaching only to her ankles ? When he saw my train, I reflected, proudly, there would be no mistake ! Woe is me ! how well I remember, as 'twere yester- night, the warm, sweet, starlit 53 Skirt- lengths and mat- rimony "W re- turns Evolution ot a Girl's local summer evening when I crept home in my trained gown and mature hat, and sat in a little, huddled heap on our porch, and would not, could not speak when spoken to by my mother. Poor, wee bit lassie ! I was a stricken thing that night. I had received what seemed a mortal blow, nor could I tell just where the wound was. Only I knew that the foundations of my house of dreams were crum- bling, and that nothing could save them, nor the super- structure. I was widowed and deprived of seven children, all 54 TTbe Evolution of a Girl's loeal in one stroke of calamity; indeed, so completely was my outlook swept clear of things to hope for, to live for, that though I laugh now at the plight of that night, it is through tears, for the memory of that feeling of awful, awful desolation, is with me still; I can feel, even yet, the rain of hot, hot tears that poured down my face, the utter, utter desolateness with which I sat in the midst of tender kindred and abundance of the good things of life, and wept over the ruin of my hopes, the grave of my girlish dreams. 55 The fall of my house of dreams Desola- 'mid tion. abun- dance Ube Evolution of a Girl's local The angel with the flaming sword A pleasant look of recogni- tion, a hearty hand-shake, a word of greeting and absorp- tion in the next comer! This was what broke away all the props of my dream-fabric. Another girl, perhaps, would not have given up so easily; another would have put by idle dreams for a while and tried to exercise active charms over the obdurate. I could not; I could only give up, and suffer, for the first time in my life, the angel with the flam- ing sword to take his stand before the barred gates of my Paradise. 56 TTbe Evolution of a (Sirl's foeal CHAPTER IV After this point I am afraid I cannot write a very coher- ent memory of the evolution of my girlish ideal. All the rest, up to date, is so fresh to me that I have no per- spective on it, even though some of it dates back through a good many years. I know that in the very early years of my evolving ideal I passed from one dream of happiness into another with- out waking, as 'twere one dream just merging into another in an unbroken con- 57 After many years Hbe Evolution ot a <3irt'0 local WMle Sorrow respected me tinuity of blissful expectations. But what time I, even in my childish ignorance, looked up from my bright beads of fancy- weaving, and recognized Sor- row as a factor in human life, she claimed me for her sub- ject on the strength of that recognition, and would thence- forth for no reason let me go. While I believed in the power of my desire to create its own fulfilment, Sorrow respected me as immune, divinely immune, but when I recognized her as an enemy to my dreams and tried to make compromise with her, 58 Evolution of a <3irFs foeal then I lost my shield against her, and ever since I have grappled with her in conflict, trying to save this treasure, .that hope, from her merci- lessly exhaustive reckoning. But ever since I wrestled with her for the immunity of my household of seven chil- dren and all the accompani- ments thereof, trying to hold her at bay for years by the offer of Lily as a sacrifice, and she exulted to show her victory over me by taking not Lily alone, but all the seven, and "him," and all that I had in my house of dreams, I 59 Losing my shield Ube Evolution of a (Sirl's foeal Sorrow takes But pays good exchange have had to contest my right to every hope, every fancy, every aspiration; and as I recount, in memory, these con- tests, it seems to me as if I had almost never won, as if always I had given up, until one would think there must be nothing left for me to cher- ish, to hope; yet I am richer, immeasurably, to-day than ever in the day of my fullest dreams, for never has been wrested from me one dear anticipa- tion, one loved ideal, but to me has come in its stead either a better joy or a richer sense of the joys remaining. 60 Evolution of a Girl's ffceal CHAPTER V I cannot measure the suc- cessive steps of my ideal's evolution after the collapse of the dream last described I can only measure what joy now means to me by what, one time, I thought it could only be. I know that once I swore I would love only a big man, "a mightye man of valor," like Guy of Warwick, one strong to defend and sturdy to lean upon, and now I love only the weakest of men, the frailest, the neediest of care and devo- tion and love's patience. I 61 Hbe Evolution ot a otri'a local My Bene dick Wears y know that the knight of my childish dreams was attired like a combination of circus rider and Shakespearian Bene- dick, in pale-blue silk doublet and hose, and cloak of pale- blue velvet, with a blue- feathered cap on his golden curls and a deliciously clanking sword by his side and that my knight to-day is not even "well-groomed," just a most wraith-like, stooping figure, in the most ill-fitting of baggy clothes; sartorially, he might al- most be taken at some distance for one of the gaunt things farmers erect to scare crows. 62 TTbc Evolution ot a Girl's loeal Later, when my mind had got away from the physical and on to the mental and spiritual equipment of my ideal, I remember that I stipulated with myself that "he" should be of a joy-loving temperament, kin to mine and lo ! he is a son of the Puritans, mistrusting gladness, always, as ominous; and fear- ful of happiness lest it stand for the absence of sensitive- ness, the arrest of develop- ment. I hoped that he would be a gallant man, a cavalier, if not a chevalier; I had a beau- tiful theory that Love was, 63 Evolution ot a Girl's focal Alas, my poor "knight"' Twang ing heart- chords very properly, dependent on the sweet and gracious little expressions which, all told, go to make up chivalry. Alas, my poor "knight" ! He has a fatality for doing the wrong thing. Instead of making my heart flutter hourly with some exquisite courtesy, he twangs the poor, taut chords thereof, hourly, in sharp discord, and hourly I have to summon all my love to forgive him. I used to dream that my knight would bring me flowers vio- lets, and now and then a great red rose or a handful of hya- cinths but he has never given 64 Evolution of a <$irt'8 me so much as a pansy "for thoughts," or a four-leaved clover to put between the pages of my book "for luck." I used to hope that he would come for me in a fine coach, with prancing, dashing horses, and take me to festivi- ties, all in a flutter of excite- ment, but when he comes he gets wearily off a jangling cable car, and instead of whisking me off to ball or theatre, he puts his head down on my shoulder and says, "I am so tired." I used to think in all my moments of anguish, that some day I should have 65 "So tired" ttbe Evolution of a Girl's focal Taking account of sac- rifice a broad bosom to creep to and there weep out all my heart's bitterness, but it is never so with me; if I am sad, he is always sadder and must needs be comforted. As I have given up one cherished hope after another, with regard to my ideal, I have tried to ask myself each time, since consciousness came upon me with that first sur- render to Sorrow, whether this sacrifice were not the last sus- taining prop of my house of dreams, whether I was not a fool of fools to try longer to dwell in so tottering a fabric. 66 ttbe Evolution of a Girl's foeal Face to face have I wrestled with the conviction that at some certain point sacrifice becomes mere weakness to resist rather than strength to overcome, and strenuously have I striven with myself that I feed not the flame on my altar of love with some sacri- fice that instead of replenishing my fire would quench it. I know that one can pay too dear for anything, even for love, and I have tried not to let myself be willing to pay the price that maketh poor and impoverisheth. I know, too, that love of the highest 67 Tke price that im- P