muffled in a bathrobe, came back to the state-room from
his tub. His manner had the offensive jauntiness of the man who has had
a cold bath when he might just as easily have had a hot one. He looked
out of the porthole at the shimmering sea. He felt strong and happy and
exuberant.

It was not merely the spiritual pride induced by a cold bath that was
uplifting this young man. The fact was that, as he towelled his glowing
back, he had suddenly come to the decision that this very day he would
propose to Wilhelmina Bennett. Yes, he would put his fortune to the
test, to win or lose it all. True, he had only known her for four days,
but what of that?

Nothing in the way of modern progress is more remarkable than the manner
in which the attitude of your lover has changed concerning proposals of
marriage. When Samuel Marlowe's grandfather had convinced himself,
after about a year and a half of respectful aloofness, that the emotion
which he felt towards Samuel Marlowe's grandmother-to-be was love, the
fashion of the period compelled him to approach the matter in a
roundabout way. First, he spent an evening or two singing sentimental
ballads, she accompanying him on the piano and the rest of the family
sitting on the side-lines to see that no rough stuff was pulled. Having
noted that she drooped her eyelashes and turned faintly pink when he
came to the "Thee--only thee!" bit, he felt a mild sense of
encouragement, strong enough to justify him in taking her sister aside
next day and asking if the object of his affections ever happened to
mention his name in the course of conversation. Further _pour-parlers_
having passed with her aunt, two more sisters, and her little brother,
he felt that the moment had arrived when he might send her a volume of
Shelley, with some of the passages marked in pencil. A few weeks later,
he interviewed her father and obtained his consent to the paying of his
addresses. And finally, after writing her a letter which began "Madam,
you will not have been insensible to the fact that for some time past
you have inspired in my bosom feelings deeper than those of ordinary
friendship...." he waylaid her in the rose-garden and brought the thing
off.

How different is the behaviour of the modern young man. His courtship
can hardly be called a courtship at all. His methods are those of Sir
W. S. Gilbert's Alphonso.

"Alphonso, who for cool assurance all creation licks,
He up and said to Emily w