Silly muddle, very sad."
"To be told that you are loved," said the Girton Girl, "is only the beginning of the theorem--its proposition, so to speak.""Or the argument of the poem," murmured the Old Maid.
"The interest," continued the Girton Girl, "lies in proving it--why does he love me?""I asked a man that once," said the Woman of the World."He said it was because he couldn't help it.It seemed such a foolish answer--the sort of thing your housemaid always tells you when she breaks your favourite teapot.And yet, I suppose it was as sensible as any other.""More so," commented the Philosopher."It is the only possible explanation.""I wish," said the Minor Poet, "it were a question one could ask of people without offence; I so often long to put it.Why do men marry viragoes, pimply girls with incipient moustaches? Why do beautiful heiresses choose thick-lipped, little men who bully them? Why are old bachelors, generally speaking, sympathetic, kind-hearted men;and old maids, so many of them, sweet-looking and amiable?""I think," said the Old Maid, "that perhaps--" But there she stopped.