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 endeavouring to find him a mate. She cannot, as the phrase aptly puts it, leave him “alone.”

In my own case, I protest there had been more matchmakers concerned than Briareus could have counted upon his fingers, and I was barely out of my ’teens when I learned to appreciate the force of the saying that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. And if this had been so when I was practically penniless, what had I not to fear now that I had a competency?

A surprising number of natural phenomena are enlisted in the matchmaker’s service. Moonlight, flowers, darkness, the woods, the sea, spring, music, poetry — all these, and many others, are her aids and accomplices. Her house is full of cushioned corners, and it is surrounded by piazzas, with vines and hammocks and I know not what other snares; and invariably there are girls visiting her with whom one is left alone at frequent intervals in the most surprising and disconcerting manner.