A girl, having given her heart, never recalls it not wholly: she may
regret; she never recoils. In other words,

To the man of her own free lawless choice a girl is always loyal; to
subsequent and subordinate attachments she is dutiful. So,

Even the renegade, if loved by a girl, will be upheld by that girl
through thick and thin--secretly, it may be, for often the girl,
nevertheless devotedly, and only under compulsion will he listen to the
detractor: he may desert her, or, if he sticks to her, he may beat her;
no matter: he holds her heart in the hollow of his hand. But, But,

Few things mystify poor law-abiding man than this, that the central, the
profoundest, the most portentous puzzle of the universe--the weal of woe
of two high-aspiring, much-enduring, youthful human souls, should be the
sport of what seems to him the veriest and merest chance.

* * *

The unconscious search of sweet sixteen is for (in mathematical language
which will not sophisticate her) the integral of love.--Yet

In the short years between sixteen and twenty a girl's love will undergo
rapid and startling developments.

* * *

A girl with lots of brothers has more chances of matrimony than a girl
with none: she knows more of men; especially of their weaknesses and