"Well, you ought to think a good deal of me, then," the Ancient Maiden said, "for I was so crazy after the writer of those letters that I couldn't sleep. Love him! I thought he was different from any other man who ever lived, and I worshipped him; I made a god of him, and would have followed him to the end of the earth." There was more animation in Aunt Jane's voice than Annie had ever noticed before, and she waved the knitting needle at her niece as though she were to blame for getting her into a love mess. "He knew every string leading to my heart," the excited maid continued, "and he had more control over me than I ever had over myself. It was a fortunate thing that he was an honorable man. Now you know it all, and I feel ashamed of myself." Miss Jane applied herself to knitting again, though she missed a great many stitches because of her excitement. "But why didn't he marry you, since he loved you?" Annie inquired. "Well, since you _must_ know, he found a girl who suited him better," the Ancient Maiden replied. "But before that girl came in the way, he _thought_ he loved me, and I was so well satisfied with his mistaken notion that I worshipped him. And if his old fat wife should die now, I'd marry him were he to ask me to. After you have lived as long as I have, you'll find out that fickleness is not such a great fault, after all. Why, sometimes it bothers me to have your father around, and a man can as easily tire of his wife or sweetheart as that!" She snapped her fingers in such a manner that it sounded like the report of a toy pistol, and the girl looked at her in surprise. "We're all fickle; you and I as well as the rest of them," she continued. "Had the wives of this country pleasant homes to go back to; were their fathers all rich men, for example, who would be glad to receive them, half of them--more than that, two thirds of them--would leave their husbands, as they ought to do; but a wife usually has no other home than that her husband has made for her, and she gets along the best she can. The men are no worse than the women; we are all fickle, fickle, fickle. As sure as we are all selfish, we are all fickle. If I were married to a rich man who treated me well, I would be more apt to love him than one who was poor, and who treated me badly; sometimes we forget our own fickleness in our selfishness. Look at the widowers; how gay they are! Look at the widows; how gay _they_ are! I have known men and women so long that I feel like saying fiddlesticks when I think of it." "But father is a widower, Aunt Jane," the girl said, "and he is not gay." "Well, he had to run away with his wife, to get her," the Ancient Maiden replied, after some hesitation. "There seems to be a good deal in love, after all, in cases where people make a sacrifice for it. These runaway matches, if the parties to it are sensible, somehow turn out well." "Did father ever think any less of my mother because she ran away with him?" the girl asked.