"Well," said Mr. Spring Fragrance, "it is this:
Than never to have loved at all."
"Ah!" responded the young man with an air of profound wisdom. "That, Mr. Spring Fragrance, means that it is a good thing to love anyway — even if we can't get what we love, or, as the poet tells us, lose what we love. Of course, one needs experience to feel the truth of this teaching."
The young man smiled pensively and reminiscently. More than a dozen young maidens "loved and lost" were passing before his mind's eye.
"The truth of the teaching!" echoed Mr. Spring Fragrance, a little testily. "There is no truth in it whatever. It is disobedient to reason. Is it not better to have what you do not love than to love what you do not have?"
"That depends," answered the young man, "upon temperament."
"I thank you. Good evening," said Mr. Spring Fragrance. He turned away to muse upon the unwisdom of the American way of looking at things.
Meanwhile, inside the house, Laura was refusing to be comforted.
"Ah, no! no!" cried she. "If I had not
