Well, we will allow the proposition with which we started; but do you suppose its converse would hold equally good--that every woman could _love_ once if she wished it? Nine out of ten of them would, I dare say, answer boldly in the affirmative; but in a few rather sad and weary faces you might read something more than a doubt about this; and lips, not so red and full as they once were, on which the wintry smile comes but rarely, could tell perhaps a different story. The precise mould that will fit _some_ fancies is as hard to find as the slipper of Cendrillon; and so, in default of the fairy _chaussure_, the small white foot goes on its road unshod, and the stones and briers gall it cruelly. With men it does not so much matter. They have always the counteracting resources of bodily and mental exertion, against which the affections can make but little head. Indeed, some of the most distinguished in arts, in arms, if not in song, seem to have gone down to their graves without ever giving themselves time to indulge in any one of these. Perhaps they never missed a sentiment which would have been very much in their way if they had felt it. If all tales are true, mathematics are a very effectual Nenuphar. But with women it is different. _They_ can't be always clambering up unexplored peaks, or inventing improvements in gunnery, or commanding irregular corps, or bringing in faultless reform bills, or finding out constellations, or shooting big game, or resorting to any of _our_ thousand-and-one safety-valves to superfluous excitement. Are crochet, or crossed letters, or charity-schools, or even Cochins and _Creve-coeurs_, so entirely engrossing as to drown forever the reproaches of nature, that will make herself heard? If not, surely the most phlegmatically proper of her sex does sometimes feel sad and dissatisfied when she thinks that she has never been able to care for any one more than for her own brother. It must seem hard that, when the frost of old age comes on, she shall not have even a memory to look upon to warm her. But in the world here, such temptations to discontent abound; but the most guileless votary of the _Sacre Coeur_ might confess regrets and misgivings like these without meriting any extra allowance of fast and scourge.