to urge her probable inconstancy as an excuse for not marrying a man who asked her, was only to make him more ardent in his suit. Then, again Mrs. Willoweed would tell me quite frankly that to be engaged to me would make her uninteresting in the eyes of all her other male acquaintances, while her women friends would cease to be jealous of her. Perhaps this latter reason was not very complimentary to me, but it had the intended effect, it made me still more demonstrative in my devotion. Little Mrs. Willoweed has the science of flirtation at her finger-tips, she has reduced the teasing of hearts to a mathematical system, and she sets herself problems merely for the pleasure of solving them, and judging the effect upon her own vanity. Her flirtation is as different from that of the _ingénue_, or the experienced spinster, or even the flighty married woman, as a complex algebraical equation is from a simple rule-of-three sum. With all the experience of married life she has the sense of perfect freedom and irresponsibility; consequently her flights in flirtation are as daring as they are without fear or reproach. But let it not be thought that Mrs. Willoweed has ever flown defiantly into the face of Mrs. Grundy, though that estimable lady keeps her hawk-eyes wide open and constantly fixed upon Mrs. Willoweed’s movements. Naturally the unfettered and unchaperoned conditions of her life invite gossip, but nobody has ever been able to say a word against her morality. They certainly whisper, here and there, that a little more circumspection might be advisable, but then whose life would be worth living encased in cast-iron conventionalities and pinioned by prudery? Mrs. Willoweed enjoys her life, she revels in her freedom, and captures as many heart-slaves as she can; but she never trips. She can always look society in the face without a blush, she can always laugh in the face of propriety without offence. Though I no longer want to marry Mrs. Willoweed, having lived to learn all her little ways through watching her practise her experiments on those others whom I had once thought my rivals, I will yet yield to none in my admiration for her, and I am prepared to champion her through thick and thin. She is a delightful little creature, and it is not her fault if men will fall in love with her; she only helps them to do it pleasantly. And there is a great charm in loving a woman who is versed in the lore of love, and who is practised in all the sleight-of-heart tricks of it. The woman who merely subjects herself to a man’s love, and adds no fresh fuel from her own sentimental activity, soon wearies him so that the flame dies out; but the woman who employs her arts in feeding the love of a man, who knows by instinct and experience when to tease and when to coax, when to starve and when to feast, may keep that love as long as she cares to.