"Our loves," said John, "are always very strange. Love is the rummest
miracle of them all. It is even more difficult to account for than the
formation of clouds on the hillside."

"We love the things that give us pleasure," said Annunziata.

"And the people, sometimes, who give us pain," said John.

"We love the people, first of all, who are related to us," said
Annunziata, "and then the people we see a great deal of--just as I love,
first of all, my uncle, and then you and Marcella the cook."

"Who brings in the inevitable veal," said John. "Thank you, Honeymouth."
He bowed and laughed, while Annunziata's grave eyes wondered what he was
laughing at. "But it isn't every one," he pointed out, "who has your
solid and well-balanced little head-piece. It isn't every one who keeps
his love so neatly docketed, or so sanely submitted to the sway of
reason. Some of us love first of all people who aren't related to us in
the remotest degree, and people we've seen hardly anything of and know
next to nothing about."

Annunziata deprecatingly shook her head.

"It is foolish to love people we know nothing about," she declared, in
her deep voice, and looked a very sage delivering judgment.

"True enough," said John. "But what would you have? Some of us are born
to folly, as the sparks fly upward. You see, there's a mighty difference
between love and love. There's the love which is affection, there's the