for this
purpose the birds were sold in the Athenian public market, the token
lost its chief charm--secrecy. The Romans had a better--the ring,
which, as the symbol of eternity, like the Egyptian snake touching its
mouth with its tail, was the ideal emblem of love, which, too, should
be, even if it seldom is, eternal.

Of course there were times, ages ago, when the love token had no
place. When man was universally polygamous, and when the form of
marriage was by capture, it can scarcely have existed. Nor could it
have known the days when the _jeunesse doree_ of Babylonia and Assyria
assembled before the temple where twice a year all marriageable girls
were brought together to be sold. Probably, also, the bride of early
Britain never heard of one. As she was not permitted to refuse an
offer of marriage, how could she ever have given a token of love?--at
least to the man that became her husband.

But in time even the British maiden knew the love token. An ancient
manuscript found in the Harleian library says that it was decreed that
when lovers parted their gifts were to be returned intact or in an
equivalent value, "unless the lover should have had a kiss when his
gift was presented, in which case he can only claim half the value of
his gift; the lady, on the contrary, kiss or no kiss, may claim her
gift again!" Surely the first part of this was needless; was a love
token, given in person, ever unaccompanied by a kiss? "However,"
continues this ordinarily quite sensible decree, "this extends only to
gloves, rings, bracelets and such like small wares."

I protest against "wares" in such association. It sounds something too
commercial for so fragile and fleeting a thing as love. And, too, it
is an error to speak of a glove as though it were of less value than
an automobile. In a lover's eyes the merest trifle is the most
cherished token of love. Her _carte des dances_, for instance--for has
not that dainty program and its tiny pencil been suspended by its
silken cord from her soft, white arm? Or--but certainly this is no
trifle--a satin slipper, absurdly small and with adorable curves.

Above all others, however, the miniature is the typical token of love.
There lives no woman whose breath comes more quickly at the sound of
some man's voice, or whose fingers tremble with happiness as they open
his longed-for letters; no man whose hand, at a word lightly spoken of
the one most dear to him, would instantly seek, were it