ual. If with her I
should not be ecstatically happy--if our _menage_ would not quite
rival that of Adam and Eve in the garden of Paradise--yet a certain
amount of modern bliss might be extracted from the companionship of an
agreeable woman who could appreciate and sympathize with my tastes and
be my friend through life.

I employed my second summer in looking for a sympathetic woman, with the
intention of making her my wife. May I never see such a hard-working,
distracting season again! Not that such women were hard to find--they
were only too plenty: at one time I had six who were devoted to me. One
sympathized with my love of music; we sang duets together in the
evening; it was delightful, for I need hardly say that I sing as I do
everything else--remarkably well. Another sympathized with my sketching
propensities. We rambled in the woods together with boxes and colors. I
found it charming. "Nothing amateurish" about my style, Miss Pinklake
said. A third sympathized with my taste for horses: my restive Nero was
the "sweetest pet" she ever saw. (My groom says, "He's the divvil
hisself, Muster Charley.") With her I rode in the afternoon. She told
me--Miss Vernon, you know her? brunette, deuced pretty--she said one
day, when we were taking a canter together, "I can believe those
wonderful stories of the Centaurs when I see _you_ ride, Mr.
Highrank." She had a pleasant voice, and such a figure! I had almost
decided to propose to her one day, and was even thinking of the words I
should use, when the pale Miss Anabel Lee came walking along the road by
us, looking like a fairy, her hat hanging on her arm filled with wild
flowers, and her dress looped with ferns. As she passed she raised her
beautiful blue eyes to mine, and at the same time--it might have been
chance--she pressed a bunch of forget-me-nots to her lips. I remembered
I had an engagement to walk with Miss Lee on the beach that night: there
was a lovely moon--we talked poetry. It was Miss Annie Darling who said
I "waltzed divinely." Miss Annie laid her hand on one's sleeve when she
talked to one, mutilated her fan with various tappings on a fellow's
shoulder for being naughty, as she called it ("naughty" meant giving her
a kiss in a dark corner of the verandah), said saucy things to the
snobs, and used her eyes. She walked with the Grecian bend. When I had a
serious fit there was young Miss Carenaught, who was plain and read the
reviews, spoke sharply against fash