long experience, that it is no use remonstrating with a
man who is head-over-ears in love. The tender passion affects us
differently, according to our constitutions. One set of fellows, who are
generally the pleasantest, seldom get beyond the length of flirtation.
They are always at it, but constantly changing, and therefore manage to
get through a tolerable catalogue of attachments before they are finally
brought to book. Such men are quite able to take care of themselves, and
require but little admonition. You no doubt hear them now and then
abused for trifling with the affections of young women--as if the latter
had themselves the slightest remorse in playing precisely the same
game!--but in most cases such censure is undeserved, for they are quite
as much in earnest as their neighbours, so long as the impulse lasts.
The true explanation is, that they have survived their first passion,
and that their faith is somewhat shaken in the boyish creed of the
absolute perfectibility of woman. The great disappointment of life does
not make them misanthropes--but it forces them to caution, and to a
closer appreciation of character than is usually undertaken in the first
instance. They have become, perhaps, more selfish--certainly more
suspicious, and though often on the verge of a proposal, they never
commit themselves without an extreme degree of deliberation.

Another set seem designed by nature to be the absolute victims of woman.
Whenever they fall in love, they do it with an earnestness and an
obstinacy which is actually appalling. The adored object of their
affections can twine them round her finger, quarrel with them, cheat
them, caricature them, or flirt with others, without the least risk of
severing the triple cord of attachment. They become as tame as
poodle-dogs, will submit patiently to any manner of cruelty or caprice,
and in fact seem rather to be grateful for such treatment than
otherwise. Clever women usually contrive to secure a captive of this
kind. He is useful to them in a hundred ways, never interferes with
their schemes, and, if the worst comes to the worst, they can always
fall back upon him as a _pis-aller_.

My friend Tom Strachan belonged decidedly to this latter section. Mary
Rivers, a remarkably clever and very showy girl, but as arrant a flirt
as ever wore rosebud in her bosom, had engrossed the whole of his heart
before he reached the reflecting age of twenty, and kept him for nearly
five years