She wouldn't so drag such a man from his high estate as to think
of such a worldly relation in connection with him.
I have certainly collected some phenomena in the reaction of a woman's
heart this day. Did you choose me wisely for these experiments, Jane?
It takes a woman of nerve to go to housekeeping in a tinder-box, when
she isn't sure she even knows what flint is when she sees it, and might
strike out a spark without intending it at all.
CHAPTER IV
SWEETER WHEN TAMED?
I wonder if men ever melt suddenly into little boys, and try to squirm
and run back to hide their heads in their mothers' skirts. It is an open
secret that starchy, modern women often long to wilt back into droopy
musk roses, that climb over gates and things, but they don't let each
other. When I feel myself getting soluble, I write it out to Jane and I
get a bracing cold wave of a letter in reply. The one this morning was
on the subject of love, or, at least, that is what Jane would have said
it was on. She wrote:
Yes, it is gratifying to know that Mary Elizabeth is so happily engaged
to the young teacher who has been in her work with her. She writes that
she was encouraged by our resolution, at last to be her best self while
in his presence as she had not had the courage to do last year. You see,
Evelina? And also, you are right in your conclusion that there is not
enough abstract love in this world of brotherhood and sisterhood; that
the doctrine of divine love calls us to give more and more of it.
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