“Take care, Maurice! I see hoofs and a tail upon that humility of yours,” said I. “You, who are so wise, do you not know that women and their tears are no more superlative than men and their doings? Did you think I meant the tender, heroical, sentimental tears of romance, for the sake of which the sublime knight might be content to die? No such thing. I meant only that there seems a kind of pathetic, homely justice in it, when the man who dies--especially the man who dies untimely--has a woman belonging to him, to be his true and faithful mourner; that is all--it is nothing superlative; the sublime men are no better loved than the homeliest ones. Alice, if you asked her, would give you the poetical youthful interpretation of it, but I mean no such thing, Maurice. We want no great deeds, we womenkind; we were born to like you, and to cry over you, troublesome creatures that you are!” “Ah! that is very well,” said Maurice, who in his heart was young enough to like the superlative idea best. “I wish I had a supreme right to somebody’s tears--but why should anybody cry over me? Am not I foredoomed to shrivel up into a College Don?” “If you please,” said I. “And if I don’t please?” cried Maurice, starting up, and seizing, after his usual fashion, a book off the table. He made a hurried march about the room, as usual, too; throwing that down; and picking up another to look at its title, then returned, and repeated, with some emphasis--“And what if I don’t please?” “Why then, please God, you will do something better,” said I; “I hope so sincerely--it will give me the greatest pleasure--but you don’t make any progress by talking of it; that is our woman’s province. _Do_, Maurice, _do_! don’t _say_!” The young man flashed with an angry and abashed color. “Thank you, I will, if it were to carry a hod. I have not forgotten,” he said, with a little bitter meaning, “that I am a widow’s son.” “A widow’s son should be the prince of sons,” said I. “You make me preach, you young people, though it is not my vocation. Carry a hod then, if you will, like a gentleman and a Christian, and I, for one, will bid you God speed.” Maurice put down his book, and came forward to me, holding out his hand. I suspect he liked me, though he had no great reason, and I confess, now-a-days, that I liked him. He held out his hand to say good-bye, and in saying good-bye opened his heart. “Mrs. Crofton, you preach very well, considering that it is not your vocation; but I begin to think I am coming to that big preacher, Life, whom you once told me of. _He_ is not a college don. Do you know,” said Maurice, with a frank, confused laugh, and rising color, “I’m in love?” “I suspected as much,” said I. “Is all well?” “All was ill, what with my own folly, and what with that spiteful little witch at the Rectory,” said Maurice; “but it’s coming right again. If I were to die to-morrow--little as I deserve them--I believe I should have these woman’s tears.”