Page:Ethel Churchill 3.pdf/88

86 " Yes," cried the lady, "l'amour propre." After all, a story I have heard my grandmother tell of the last but half-a-dozen Lord and Lady Pomfret's courtship, is not so far removed from the ordinary course either. "Do you love buttered toast?" was the gentleman's question. "Yes I do," was the lady's reply. "Buttered on both sides?" "Oh, dear, Yes!" "Well, then, we will be married." "How very nice! Yes!" Now half what are called love affairs have no higher ground of sympathy than the poor mutual liking for buttered toast. There are some people who ought never to dream of commonplacing the ideal with themselves. The world of the heart is essentially ideal: it collects all poetry,—innate and acquired; it is fastidious, dreaming, and delicate; and is a question of taste as well as of feeling; and it is to this world that love belongs. It should be kept as far apart from lower life as that mysterious world of stars and