Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/162

 should I repeat them. We were great friends, but she has not spoken to me for a week.'

"When, acting on a hint from my mother, I returned after an absence of nine years, and saw Ulmene in the pride of her beauty, her opinion of me was no longer a matter of amusement, but of most serious moment. Fortunately for me, she had not, as she has since acknowledged, outgrown her chidish liking: she even thought the man of twenty-seven improved beyond the youth of eighteen.

"If a young man is rejected, even when the disappointment is most severe, he is expected to take the matter quietly. He merely anticipates the usual term of expatriation, and departs at once on the course of public duty and education that intervenes between seventeen and twenty-five.

"Even if successful in inducing the object of his preference to bind up for him her locks, he is still only on probation. For two months he is allowed to enjoy as much of her society as is consistent with the entirely probationary nature of their relation. Within doors their interviews always take place in the presence, though not necessarily within earshot, of the mother, or else some one entitled to take her place. He may also take her out every day for a ride on the high-road in his curricle. At this stage of courtship, no familiarities whatever are permissible; for the maiden may at any time break off the matter by re-appearing with tresses free and unrestrained.

"By the end of the two months, the maiden has had time to make up her mind as to whether she will enter