meant to look like two tears for me upon the
paper, but I should not wonder though they were only artful drops of
water.

I sent her a stiff and tart reply, declining to hold any communication
with her.

IX. A Confirmed Spinster

I am in danger, I see, of being included among the whimsical fellows,
which I so little desire that I have got me into my writing-chair to
combat the charge, but, having sat for an unconscionable time with pen
poised, I am come agitatedly to the fear that there may be something in
it.

So long a time has elapsed, you must know, since I abated of the ardours
of self-inquiry that I revert in vain (through many rusty doors) for the
beginning of this change in me, if changed I am; I seem ever to see this
same man until I am back in those wonderful months which were half of
my life, when, indeed, I know that I was otherwise than I am now; no
whimsical fellow then, for that was one of the possibilities I put to
myself while seeking for the explanation of things, and found to be
inadmissible. Having failed in those days to discover why I was driven
from the garden, I suppose I ceased to be enamoured of myself, as of
some dull puzzle, and then perhaps the whimsicalities began to collect
unnoticed.

It is a painful thought to me to-night, that he could wake up glorious
once, this man in the elbow-chair by the fire, who is humorously known
at the club as a "confirmed spinster." I remember him well when his
years told four and twenty; on my soul the proudest subaltern of my
acquaintance, and with the most reason to be proud. There was nothing he
might not do in the future, having already done the biggest thing, this
toddler up club-steps to-day.

Not, indeed, that I am a knave; I am tolerably kind, I believe, and most
inoffensive, a gentleman, I trust, even in the eyes of the ladies who
smile at me as we converse; they are an ever-increasing number, or so it
seems to me to-night. Ah, ladies, I forget when I first began to notice
that smile and to be made uneasy by it. I think I understand it now, and
in some vague way it hurts me. I find that I watch for it nowadays, but
I hope I am still your loyal, obedient servant.

You will scarcely credit it, but I have just remembered that I once had
a fascinating smile of my own. What has become of my smile? I swear I
have not noticed that it was gone till now; I am like one who revisiting
his school feels suddenly for his old knife. I first heard o