She’ll not tell me if she love me,
Cruel little Lilian.”
They appeal to you. They touch a spot which seems not to be reached by even Oliver Optic or “The Gorilla Hunters.” You must have poetry, and you memorize them, and repeat them over and over to yourself, regardless of the fact that she, your inspiration, is neither airy, fairy, nor flitting, but of substantial, buxom proportions.
The Third Love, with her bold black eyes and her generous plumpness, is not so submissive as was that gentle Second Love. She flouts you. When the mood is upon her, she makes faces at you. At a party, when you stammer:
“The stars are shining bright;
May I see you home to-night?”
as like as not she turns up her nose, or else she tosses her head and snaps ungraciously: “Oh, I s’pose so!”
You never are sure of her; yet always you find yourself meekly at her apron-strings.
You willingly go to church (you conceive that your family does not know why, but in this you are much mistaken), because she sits in front of you. What a blissful, comfortable feeling you have, with her safely installed near at hand, twitching her short braids not more than three feet before your happy nose!
When the pew is filled to overflowing, then, sometimes, you are crowded out into her pew. Embarrassed of mien, you decorously slide into your new location, she receiving your presence with a shrug and a sniff, and you growing redder and redder as you imagine that all the congregation must be reading your secret.