wanting to be left to him, and that he wanted me to feel independent, but to please let him do all that I would to help me, and not to feel that I was alone with nobody to love me. That he was always there, and would be forever and ever. And he did stay so late that Jasper had to send him home! There is such a thing as a man's being a father and mother and grown sister and brother and a college-chum and a preacher of the Gospel and a family physician to a woman--with no possibility of being her husband either. She wouldn't so drag such a man from his high estate as to think of such a worldly relation in connection with him. I have certainly collected some phenomena in the reaction of a woman's heart this day. Did you choose me wisely for these experiments, Jane? It takes a woman of nerve to go to housekeeping in a tinder-box, when she isn't sure she even knows what flint is when she sees it, and might strike out a spark without intending it at all. **CHAPTER IV** **SWEETER WHEN TAMED?** I wonder if men ever melt suddenly into little boys, and try to squirm and run back to hide their heads in their mothers' skirts. It is an open secret that starchy, modern women often long to wilt back into droopy musk roses, that climb over gates and things, but they don't let each other. When I feel myself getting soluble, I write it out to Jane and I get a bracing cold wave of a letter in reply. The one this morning was on the subject of love, or, at least, that is what Jane would have said it was on. She wrote: Yes, it is gratifying to know that Mary Elizabeth is so happily engaged to the young teacher who has been in her work with her. She writes that she was encouraged by our resolution, at last to be her best self while in his presence as she had not had the courage to do last year. You see, Evelina? And also, you are right in your conclusion that there is not enough abstract love in this world of brotherhood and sisterhood; that the doctrine of divine love calls us to give more and more of it. We cannot give too much! But also, considerations for the advancement of the world call for experiments by the more illuminated women along more definite and concrete lines. How old is this Mr. Hayes, on whom you have chosen to note the reactions of sisterly affection? Are you sure that he is not a fit subject for your consideration
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