as his sixth, may come to see

'The God of Love, ah! benedicite,
How mighty and how great a lord is he'

in the thirteenth Miss Simpkins.

But this is to write as an outsider: for that thirteenth, by a mystical
process which has given to each of its series in its day the same primal
quality, is, of course, not only the last, but the first. And, indeed,
with little casuistry, that thirteenth may be truly held to be the
first, for it is a fact determined not so much by the chosen maid as by
him who chooses, though he himself is persuaded quite otherwise. To him
his amorous career has been hitherto an unsuccessful pursuit, because
each followed fair in turn, when at length he has caught her flying
skirts, and looked into her face, has proved not that 'ideal'--

'That not impossible she
That shall command my heart and me'--

but another, to be shaken free again in disappointment. In truth,
however, the lack has been in himself all this time. He had yet to learn
what loving indeed meant: and he loves the thirteenth, not because she
is pre-eminent beyond the rest, but because she has come to him at the
moment when that 'lore of loving' has been revealed. Had any of those
earlier maidens fallen on the happy conjunction, they would, doubtless,
have proved no less loveworthy, and seemed no less that 'ideal' which
they have since become, one may be sure, for some other illuminated
soul.