on his pleasures, and in whose library are found some few volumes of
modern poetry--seeks his ideal in a woman of thirty.

It is clear that, by the very essence of her being, the young girl may
evoke no ideal but that of home; and home is in his eyes the antithesis
of freedom, desire, aspiration. He longs for mystery, deep and endless,
and he is tempted with a foolish little illusion--white dresses,
water-colour drawings and popular music. He dreams of Pleasure, and he
is offered Duty; for do not think that that sylph-like waist does not
suggest to him a yard of apron string, cries of children, and that most
odious word, "Papa." A young man of refined mind can look through the
glass of the years.

He has sat in the stalls, opera-glass in hand; he has met women of
thirty at balls, and has sat with them beneath shadowy curtains; he
knows that the world is full of beautiful women, all waiting to be loved
and amused, the circles of his immediate years are filled with feminine
faces, they cluster like flowers on this side and that, and they fade
into garden-like spaces of colour. How many may love him? The loveliest
may one day smile upon his knee! and shall he renounce all for that
little creature who has just finished singing and is handing round cups
of tea? Every bachelor contemplating marriage says, "I shall have to
give up all for one, one."

The young girl is often pretty but her prettiness is vague and
uncertain, it inspires a sort of pitying admiration, but it suggests
nothing; the very essence of the young girl's being is that she should
have nothing to suggest, therefore the beauty of the young face fails to
touch the imagination. No past lies hidden in those translucent eyes, no
story of hate, disappointment, or sin. Nor is there in nine hundred and