“You may see,” I said, “that even these Puritan girls had their troubles. It is on the first of May that sister Esther writes: ‘The time draws near when I must determine which of the two gentlemen to proceed with.’ _Which of the two_ gentlemen. Even in those days girls met with an embarrassment of riches. What strikes me is that they were very grateful. Her ‘considerable sense of spiritual things,’ in September, is followed by this declaration: ‘I was also in the evening stirred up to thankfulness by a new garment.’ Probably I never shall see your diary, Miss Velrose, but if I should it would be with no expectation of finding any thankfulness for the new garment. You modern girls take things dreadfully for granted.” “I didn’t understand that you were to preach a sermon,” murmured Miss Velrose. “You have labelled me Philosophy, and Philosophy must expound. Listen again: ‘Thanked the Lord for more than usual comeliness of countenance.’ Imagine your expressing thanks for gifts in that direction! You take _them_ for granted, too. But here is an important point. I think I shall pigeonhole it for an essay on ‘The Antiquity of Feminine Skepticism.’ It was in 1739 that Miss Edwards wrote: ‘Mr. Hopkins praised me and I began to think that I was a clever creature and was much elated, but rejected all as coming from Satan.’ No flattery for sister Esther! Ah, Hopkins! you were almost clever enough! She ‘began to think’! If you had been a little more adroit she might have believed altogether,—and what a comfort it might have been to her! Probably, Hopkins, you didn’t give sufficient attention to the little accessories. Maybe there was no romantic balcony handy,—or an arbor on the edge of a grove; perhaps not even a rustic seat on a wooded point overlooking a lovely violet lake.” “The trouble is,” said Miss Velrose, “that men are so poor in invention. They are very dependent on accessories.” “But their dependence on accessories, on a correct setting for the scene, is the result, first, of a becoming diffidence; second, of an evolved delicacy. Let us suppose, for a moment, that a fellow is proposing to a girl.” “How droll!” said Miss Velrose, still keeping her profile in position. “In other words, fancy the most delicate situation in the processes of civilization. He has a certain thing to ask; she has a certain thing to answer. When it has gone so far, it is not so much what he asks as how he asks it. It is like lighting a Welsbach lamp. Sometimes it blazes up in a yellow, smoky flame. Then you have to turn it out and start again. You never can tell why the flame acts so. The flame has its own reasons for coquetting with the match.” Miss Velrose gave a little snort.