“Listen, love; I am going to make a confession; but say nothing of it to any living soul, for men would laugh at me. For them supreme wisdom consists in never changing an opinion or turning again to any faith, although nature changes its course every day, and progress itself is but a negation of what has happened yesterday. Before knowing you I believed in nothing, but now the idea that we could not meet again in heaven is unsupportable, and I hope————” “My treasure, if you hope you are halfway on the road which leads to faith.” “And with you and for you who knows but I may gain it some day. To-day leave me halfway on the road.” ⁂ She put her arms round his neck and kissed him anew, and with more length than before. The kiss, however, this time made no sound, and nothing was heard in the deep surrounding stillness, but the breeze amongst the palm leaves and the ebb and flow of the waves on the shore. _Printed from American Plates_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. _London & Edinburgh_ ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Transcriber's Note: │ │ │ │ The original spelling, hyphenation, and punctuation have been │ │ retained, with the exception of apparent typographical errors │ │ which have been corrected without note. │ │ │ │ Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained. │ │ │ │ Italicized words are surrounded by underline characters, _like │ │ this_. │ │ │ │ Other corrections: │ │ • Pages 44, 45 and 97: fonder changed to foudre. (coup de │ │ foudre.) │ │ │ │ • Page 69: The ♂ and ♀ symbols should be reversed. │ │ │ │ • Page 111 footnote 3: Geschlechter changed to Geschlechter. │ │ ("Der Kampf der Geschlechter.) │ │ │ │ • Page 156: chaupette-bleue changed to choupette-bleue (much │ │ less a <i>choupette-bleue</i>.) │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ End of Project Gutenberg's The art of taking a wife, by Paolo Mantegazza