No one was in the alcove she entered.  After a while she found her book and seated herself in a nook of the walls with her face turned in the one direction from which she could be discovered by any one passing.  While she read, she wished to watch:  might he not pass?

It was a very old volume, thumbed by generations of readers.  Pages were gone, the halves of pages worn away or tattered.  It was printed in an old style of uncertain spelling so that the period of its authorship could in this way be but doubtfully indicated.  Ostensibly it came down from the ruder, plainer speech of old English times, which may have found leisure for such “A Booke of Folly.”

Marguerite’s eyes settled first on the complete title:  “Lady Bluefields’ First Principles of Courting for Ye Use of Ye Ladies; but Plainly Set Down for Ye Good of Ye Beginners.”

“I am not a beginner,” thought Marguerite, who had been in love three days; and she began to read: 

“Now of all artes ye most ancient is ye lovely arte of courting.  It is ye earliest form of ye chase.  It is older than hawking or hunting ye wilde bore.  It is older than ye flint age or ye stone aye, being as old as ye bones in ye man his body and in ye woman her body.  It began in ye Garden of Eden and is as old as ye old devil himself.”

Marguerite laughed:  she thought Lady Bluefields delightful.

“Now ye only purpose in all God His world of ye arte of courting is to create love where love is not, or to make it grow where it has begun.  But whether ye wish to create love or to blow ye little coal into ye big blaze, ye principles are ye same; for ye bellows that will fan nothing into something will easily roast ye spark into ye roaring fire; and ye grander ye fire, ye grander ye arte.”

Marguerite laughed again.  Then she stopped reading and tested the passage in the light of her experience.  A bellows and—­nothing to begin.  Then something.  Then a spark.  Then a name.  She returned to the book with the conclusion that Lady Bluefields was a woman of experience.

“This little booke will not contain any but ye first principles:  if is enough for ye stingy price ye pay.  But ye woman who buys ye first principles and fails, must then get ye larger work on ye Last Principles of Courting, with ye true account of ye mysteries which set ye principles to going:  it is ye infallible guide to ye irresistible love.  Ye pay more for ye Big Booke, and God knows it is worth ye price:  it is written for ye women who are ye difficult cases—­ye floating derelicts in ye ocean of love, ye hidden snags, terror of ye seafaring men.”

This did not so much interest Marguerite.  She skipped two or three pages which seemed to go unnecessarily into the subject of derelicts and snags.  “I am not quite sure as to what a derelict is:  I do not think I am one; out certainly I am not a snag.”

“Now ye only reason for ye lovely arts of courtinge is ye purpose to marry.  If ye do not expect to marry, positively ye must not court:  flirting is ye dishonest arte.  Courting is ye honest arte; if ye woman knows in ye woman her heart that she will not make ye man a good wife, let her not try to Cage ye man:  let her keep ye cat or cage ye canary:  that is enough for her.”