"They're all alike...." Are they? Does the same essential lurk beneath the surface? Supposing we could dissect Mrs. Peters, Alicia, Mizzi, Beatrice Blair, and a thousand Ermyntrudes or Sallies, should we find the same germ of woman? Take Lionel's evidence, if it were available. You might safely assert that to him Beatrice was different from and superior to any other woman you could produce. Henry Brown would as stoutly hold the same of his anonymous sweetheart. Mr. Peters and Mr. Hedderwick we may hope would take an identical line, or at least they would have once. But these are, or have been, lovers, the blindest of mortals, and their evidence is too partial to be trustworthy. A cynic like Pope would tell you that every woman is at heart a rake, and might find a score of others to support him. A Shaw might produce a monster like Ann Whitfield and brazenly say she was typical. A Chesterton would talk of women being sublime as individuals but horrible in a herd. A son might say that his mother was perfect, but he, too, would be partial. What is the truth about woman? Only a woman can say, and she would find it hard to take a detached view. Probably truth was partly expressed by the odd-job man in words--wholly expressed by his words and inflection. They are human and feminine if you probe deep enough, but there are variations, unimagined harmonies and discords for the seeker. "They're all alike"--with a difference, and no man can learn the whole truth from a text-book. The text-book can give him elementary rules which may serve him well, but he must be prepared to find plenty of exceptions. The student, however, need not fear monotony. But while we have been indulging in cheap philosophy Mr. Brown's sweetheart has got well down the road, following at a considerable distance the footsteps of Lionel. Evidently she is in a good humor with the world, for she hums an air that has a sprightly sound as of the boulevards or cabarets, and she stops to pick a wild rose. She is smiling at her thoughts--possibly at the lamentable lack of self-control exhibited by her lover, possibly at the remembrance of the grass still to be mown and neatly gathered. And as she is in a good humor, self-possessed, and the air is of the balmiest, is it wonderful that she should smile absently on a good-looking stranger sitting by the roadside, smoking a cigarette? Surely not, as the stranger is Tony Wild, who has left Mr. Hedderwick exhausted at The Happy Heart, while he strolls out to examine the lie of the land. "Good morning," says Tony courteously, raising his cap. He does not get up, for that might frighten her away. "Can you tell me which is the road to Hetton-le-Hole? Forgive me asking, but...." "I have never heard of it," says the lady, with a smile that shows she penetrates Tony's elementary artifice. "I am sorry.... Good morning." Tony deliberately flicks the ash from his cigarette.