January - Page 2

end of April they have been so severely revised that there
are none left."

"There, you see I am right; if you were not an old bottle your new
contents would gradually arrange themselves amiably as a part of you,
and the practice of your resolutions would lose its bitterness
by becoming a habit."

She shook her head. "Such things never lose their bitterness," she said,
"and that is why I don't let them cling to me right into the summer.
When May comes, I give myself up to jollity with all the rest of the world,
and am too busy being happy to bother about anything I may have resolved
when the days were cold and dark."

"And that is just why I love you," I thought.
She often says what I feel.

"I wonder," she went on after a pause, "whether men
ever make resolutions?"

"I don't think they do. Only women indulge in such luxuries.
It is a nice sort of feeling, when you have nothing else to do,
giving way to endless grief and penitence, and steeping yourself to the eyes
in contrition; but it is silly. Why cry over things that are done?
Why do naughty things at all, if you are going to repent afterward?
Nobody is naughty unless they like being naughty; and nobody ever really
repents unless they are afraid they are going to be found out."

"By 'nobody' of course you mean women, said Irais.

"Naturally; the terms are synonymous. Besides, men generally
have the courage of their opinions."

"I hope you are listening, Miss Minora," said Irais in the amiably
polite tone she assumes whenever she speaks to that young person.

It was getting on towards midnight, and we were sitting
round the fire, waiting for the New Year, and sipping Glubwein,
prepared at a small table by the Man of Wrath. It was hot, and sweet,
and rather nasty, but it is proper to drink it on this one night,
so of course we did.

Minora does not like either Irais or myself. We very soon
discovered that, and laugh about it when we are alone together.
I can understand her disliking Irais, but she must be a perverse
creature not to like me. Irais has poked fun at her, and I have been,
I hope, very kind; yet we are bracketed together in her black books.
It is also apparent that she looks upon the Man of Wrath as an interesting
example of an ill-used and misunderstood husband, and she is disposed
to take him under her wing, and defend him on all occasions against us.
He never speaks to her; he is at all times a man of few words, but,
as far as Minora is concerned, he might have no tongue at all,
and sits sphinx-like and impenetrable while she takes us to task
about some remark of a profane nature that we