t that all the girls are in love with you."

"I know it, Dick," I said in a complaining voice--"I know it. It always
happens just so. Think it's the coat? I would take it off in a minute if
I thought it was." Then I added with a burst of confidence, "Dick, 'tis
the same with everything I wear: the fascination is in myself. I would
do anything to lessen it, but I can't."

"You are a jolly joker," replied Dick with a tremendous slap on my back,
as if I had said something very funny. I am often witty when I don't
mean to be.

But why continue a history which was the same thing day after day? I
stayed in the country more than three weeks. Though doubting, I was
conscientious, and left nothing undone to gain my end. The task bored me
far more than my sympathizers did in the summer. Indeed, any of those
friends were bewitching in contrast to the girls I now met, and had one
of them dropped in on me during that tiresome period I think I should
have forgotten nice distinctions and made serious love to her, sure of
finding more pleasure in having a single taste in common than in having
none at all.

I believe country-people are even more egotistic than the dwellers in
cities. I sometimes found myself at the most isolated farm-houses
looking for my Rose. The men I met there invariably thought they knew
all about the weather and religion, politics and farming; the women were
convinced they had every kind of knowledge worth having, and that what
they did not know was "new-fangled" and not worth a pin; and their
daughters believed that they were beauties, or would be if they had fine
clothes to dress in. How people can be so mistaken as to their capacity
is a mystery to me.

During my stay I came to the conclusion that I would rather press a soft
hand than a hard one; that I would rather see a tasty toilette than
beauty unadorned; that shy manners are anything but graceful; that the
useful and the beautiful are not likely to be found in the same person;
and that girls, like _articles de luxe_, should be carefully kept.
I like to recall that well-bred, unconscious air of Miss Haughton; I
remember Miss Darling as a model of deportment: why, she could do the
naughtiest things in a less objectionable manner than that of these
girls when acting propriety.

I discovered some facts regarding wild roses. Their petals are few and
faded, and their thorns many and sharp. Their scanty green foliage will
always remind me of a calico gown.