"Chloris is wedded, and Ettarre Forgets; Yolande loves otherwhere, And worms long since made bold to mar The lips of Dorothy and fare Mid Florimel's bright ruined hair; And Time obscures that roseate haze Which glorified hushed woodland ways When Phyllis came, as Time obscures That faith which once was Phyllida's,-- Yet love for each loved lass endures. "That boy is dead as Schariar, Tiglath-pileser, or Clotaire, Who once of love got many a scar. And his loved lasses past compare?-- None is alive now anywhere. Each is transmuted nowadays Into a stranger, and displays No whit of love's investitures. I let these women go their ways, Yet love for each loved lass endures. "Heart o' My Heart, thine be the praise If aught of good in me betrays Thy tutelage--whose love matures Unmarred in these more wistful days,-- Yet love for each loved lass endures." For this was the year that I graduated, and Chloris--I violate no confidence in stating that her actual name was Aurelia Minns, and that she had been, for a greater number of years than it would be courteous to remember, the undisputed belle of Fairhaven,--had that very afternoon married a promising young doctor; and I was draining the cup of my misery to the last delicious drop, and was of course inspired thereby to the perpetration of such melancholy bathos as only a care-free youth of twenty is capable of evolving. 5 "Dear boy," said Bettie, when I had made an end of reading, "and are you very miserable?" Her fingers were interlocked behind her small black head; and the sympathy with which she regarded me was tenderly flavored with amusement. This much I noticed as I glanced upward from my manuscript, and mustered a Spartan smile. "If misery loves company, then am I the least unhappy soul alive. For I don't want anybody but just you, and I believe I never will." "Oh--? But I don't count." The girl continued, with composure: "Or rather, I have always counted your affairs, so that I know precisely what it all amounts to." "Sum total?" "A lot of imitation emotions." She added hastily: "Oh, quite a good imitation, dear; you are smooth enough to see to that. Why, I remember once--when you read me that first sonnet, sitting all hunched up on the little stool, and pretending you didn't know I knew who you meant me to know it was for, and ending with a really very effective, breathless sob--and caught my hand and pressed it to your forehead for a moment--Why, that time I was thoroughly rattled and almost believed--even I--that--" She shrugged. "And if I had been younger--!" she said, half regretfully, for at this time Bettie was very nearly twenty-two. "Yes." The effective breathless sob responded to what had virtually been an encore. "I have not forgotten."