untrustworthy. It was some months before they found out that Musical Willie could sing. Then it was accident. Mrs. Silchester, turning over some music, came on a rough scrap of music and words which have got between the sheets. She mischievously handed it to Willie, saying, "I am sure you can sing this." Musical Willie looked round at his friends with a sly smile that seemed to say, “Well, ye've caught me," and then cast his eye over the paper. "Ah," he said, "Mrs. Silchester, I had forgotten the existence of this, for I made the words and jotted the notes twenty year syne, to laugh at myself for loving a girl who couldn't love me. It's to the tune of Antony Rowley." "I hope you will sing it, now we have found you out," said Mrs. Silchester. "After twenty years, these troubles fade." "Olim haec meminisse juvabit," murmured the Squire. Willie, after a brief pause, began. The poet would a-wooing go— Heigh-ho! says Willie ; Whether the Muses like it or no, Heigh-ho! says Musical Willie. The laughing servant-maid smelt a rat Sly at him glanced the lovely lass- And said, "Do look at yourself in the glass, He took up his hat, and he went away— Neither lips nor eyes invited his stay, That to tempt a man on are always alert": "It is not everybody,” said Squire Silchester, "who could throw off his annoyance with such humour. I think you have decidedly improved the metre of Froggy would a-wooing go,' a song which I believe contains political allusions, though I am unable to trace them. Antony Rowley was Charles II. probably." "Are young ladies never to flirt?" asked Joan Silchester. "I think," said Dr. Sterne," there are three modes of flirtation,-the scientific, the irregular, the Platonic. Do you agree with me, Mrs. Silchester?" 66 66 Yes, " she said, after slight deliberation. Well, won't you give us a lecture on them? Only a lady can do it." "If I must, I will be briefer than most lecturers. Irregular flirtation may be dismissed at once; it is merely the beginning of actual love-making." "An oak-sapling and a cucumber-plant come out of the ground about the same size," said the Squire. "The sooner irregular flirtation turns to real sweethearting, the better." "Scientific flirtation," continued the ladylecturer, "I take to be that relation between a sensible boy and girl of marriageable years who have not any idea of marrying each other, but who want to try the experiment of courting outside the verge of love-making. This is very nice, if kept within due bounds: it teaches the boy politeness, and makes the girl think. He learns the sensitive delicate nature of womanhood; she learns the thoughful vigorous nature of manhood. But there is a deal of danger in the matter; they may make a mistake, and fancy they have fallen in love, being entirely unfit for each other." "There's danger in most varieties of flirtation, Joan," said the Squire. "How about the Platonic?" "I think," she said, "it often occurs between a married woman of strong intellect and a young man, or between a man of wide nature and advanced years, and a young woman. It is very much the relation between tutor and pupil." "Which did not answer in the case of Abelard and Heloïse," said the Squire. "No," said Sterne. "But I hold Mrs. Silchester's views that a married woman, mature without meagreness, and intelligent without pedantry, may teach a boy ten years her junior lessons of life that no one else can teach him." "And how about the other side, of the question?" "I am still of Mrs. Silchester's opinion. There are girls unmarried, and unlikely to marry, who throw themselves into all manner of eccentricities because they have no one to teach them how to use their brains. If they know a man of strong intellect and wide culture, with leisure enough to talk to them or write to them half an hour in a month, it furnishes the tonic stimulus that keeps them healthy. Well, they have the Platonic affection |