No; let me believe that I know nothing of woman now, as I knew nothing then—how long ago? Is it years, months, weeks, days—what matter? Regret is for the failures of marriage, and time a matter for the Benedicts. I can dream a whole life’s happiness between waking and bedtime, and choose my bride from any age or clime I will. Helen of Troy or Guinevere of Camelot shall be she if I dream it so, and I’ll snap my fingers at Paris or Lancelot, and yet remain a free man, with an undisputed smile for the young lady who sells me my morning paper. So let me be a dreamer still, and woman a beautiful fantasy. But some memories are pleasant, so if you, my reader, care to listen, as we sit together in the hush of the twilight, I will sketch you portraits of some typical women I have known—not necessarily loved; and if I chance to dip my brush in cynicism, I pray you stop me, for I would not be a caricaturist, but if I happen to lay the tint of tenderness on my canvas a little too thickly, forgive it, since the subject is a woman. _THE LITTLE WIDOW_ A little widow is a dangerous thing; but is there not always a fascination in dangerous things? A little learning, for instance, gives a sparkling flavour to life, whereas much learning oppresses it. Now a little widow is perilously fascinating, as a great, tall widow rarely is; her very littleness constitutes an element of danger, since it coaxingly compels sympathy, and when one sympathises with a widow, when one says “Poor little woman!”—one is lost. Though one may not marry her, one is nevertheless her slave. Little Mrs. Willoweed is the most irresistible woman I ever met. I defy any man not to fall in love with her, be it for a day, a week, a year; and it must be always a sudden fall. He is heart-whole one day, and desperately in love the next. It is magnetic and mysterious.