To my great delight Zee avoided me, and evidently sought to excite my jealousy by marked attentions to a very handsome young An, who (though, as is the modest custom of the males when addressed by females, he answered with downcast eyes and blushing cheeks, and was demure and shy as young ladies new to the world are in most civilised countries, except England and America) was evidently much charmed by the tall Gy, and ready to falter a bashful “Yes” if she had actually proposed.  Fervently hoping that she would, and more and more averse to the idea of reduction to a cinder after I had seen the rapidity with which a human body can be hurried into a pinch of dust, I amused myself by watching the manners of the other young people.  I had the satisfaction of observing that Zee was no singular assertor of a female’s most valued rights.  Wherever I turned my eyes, or lent my ears, it seemed to me that the Gy was the wooing party, and the An the coy and reluctant one.  The pretty innocent airs which an An gave himself on being thus courted, the dexterity with which he evaded direct answers to professions of attachment, or turned into jest the flattering compliments addressed to him, would have done honour to the most accomplished coquette.  Both my male chaperons were subjected greatly to these seductive influences, and both acquitted themselves with wonderful honour to their tact and self-control.

I said to the elder son, who preferred mechanical employments to the management of a great property, and who was of an eminently philosophical temperament,—­“I find it difficult to conceive how at your age, and with all the intoxicating effects on the senses, of music and lights and perfumes, you can be so cold to that impassioned young Gy who has just left you with tears in her eyes at your cruelty.”

The young An replied with a sigh, “Gentle Tish, the greatest misfortune in life is to marry one Gy if you are in love with another.”

“Oh!  You are in love with another?”

“Alas!  Yes.”

“And she does not return your love?”

“I don’t know.  Sometimes a look, a tone, makes me hope so; but she has never plainly told me that she loves me.”

“Have you not whispered in her own ear that you love her?”

“Fie!  What are you thinking of?  What world do you come from?  Could I so betray the dignity of my sex?  Could I be so un-Anly—­so lost to shame, as to own love to a Gy who has not first owned hers to me?”

“Pardon:  I was not quite aware that you pushed the modesty of your sex so far.  But does no An ever say to a Gy, ‘I love you,’ till she says it first to him?”

“I can’t say that no An has ever done so, but if he ever does, he is disgraced in the eyes of the Ana, and secretly despised by the Gy-ei.  No Gy, well brought up, would listen to him; she would consider that he audaciously infringed on the rights of her sex, while outraging the modesty which dignifies his own.  It is very provoking,” continued the An, “for she whom I love has certainly courted no one else, and I cannot but think she likes me.  Sometimes I suspect that she does not court me because she fears I would ask some unreasonable settlement as to the surrender of her rights.  But if so, she cannot really love me, for where a Gy really loves she forgoes all rights.”