they'd ever once been taken with it spontaneously. And if you don't mind, I think I'd better draw out of the social racket. I've seen enough; this Dinsmore affair is a little too much; and I can make more of my time spending it with men than with girls.—I'm afraid I'm disappointing you, Grandmother."
"No, Floyd," she answered. "You may sometimes puzzle me—and surprise me—but I don't fear that you will ever disappoint me."
"That is very handsome of you," he said, and he kissed her.
"But, Floyd," she continued, "let me urge one thing. I'm sorry—you will believe how sorry—for the way you must feel—over Lydia. But—don't get too sorry for yourself. Don't get to the point where you take a melancholy pleasure in your disappointment and your faithfulness. Don't keep thinking of your one true love. If some spring day you should suddenly find a shy tiny green sprout in some corner of you, don't pounce on it and yell, 'Why, what a miserable little sprout you are compared to that lovely palm-garden that I had to transplant awhile ago! How did you sneak in! Away with you!' No, don't treat it like that, Floyd. Be hospitable to the faintest little inclination toward love—if it's just the vaguest, that comes from hearing the birds sing and being outdoors in spring. It's good for the spirit, Floyd—and if something in a girl's voice or eyes comes to you and asks for admittance to the place of pleasant feelings, let it in; don't try to hold the door against it. And some time, perhaps, you'll find some girl whose voice you've let in—and then, first thing you know, you'll have to let in that look she has in her eyes—and next her laugh—and then, it's funny, but you had n't noticed before what pretty hands she has, and of course there must be a place set aside for them—and when you've admitted eyes and voice and laugh and hands to the place of pleasant feelings, you've just about taken in the girl."
