"The Lord forbid!"
"Why, pray?"
"Because Love is a disease—a madness, coming between a man and his life's work. Love!" said I, "it is a calamity!"
"Never having been in love himself, our blacksmith, very naturally, knows all about it!" said Charmian to the moon.
"I speak only of such things as I have read—" I began.
"More books!" she sighed.
"—words of men, much wiser than I—poets and philosophers, written—"
"When they were old and gray-headed," Charmian broke in; "when they were quite incapable of judging the matter—though many a grave philosopher loved; now didn't he?"
"To be sure," said I, rather hipped, "Dionysius Lambienus, I think, says somewhere that a woman with a big mouth is infinitely sweeter in the kissing—and—"
"Do you suppose he read that in a book?" she inquired, glancing at me sideways.