The presumption is against the union of two persons under these circumstances.  Presumptions are strong obstacles against any result we wish to attain, but half our work in life is to overcome them.  A great many results look in the distance like six-foot walls, and when we get nearer prove to be only five-foot hurdles, to be leaped over or knocked down.  Twenty years from now she may be a vigorous and active old woman, and he a middle-aged, half-worn-out invalid, like so many overworked scholars.  Everything depends on the number of drops of the elixir vitae which Nature mingled in the nourishment she administered to the embryo before it tasted its mother’s milk.  Think of Cleopatra, the bewitching old mischief-maker; think of Ninon de L’Enclos, whose own son fell desperately in love with her, not knowing the relation in which she stood to him; think of Dr. Johnson’s friend, Mrs. Thrale, afterward Mrs. Piozzi, who at the age of eighty was full enough of life to be making love ardently and persistently to Conway, the handsome young actor.  I can readily believe that Number Five will outlive the Tutor, even if he is fortunate enough rather in winning his way into the fortress through gates that open to him of their own accord.  If he fails in his siege, I do really believe he will die early; not of a broken heart, exactly, but of a heart starved, with the food it was craving close to it, but unattainable.  I have, therefore, a deep interest in knowing how Number Five and the Tutor are getting along together.  Is there any danger of one or the other growing tired of the intimacy, and becoming willing to get rid of it, like a garment which has shrunk and grown too tight?  Is it likely that some other attraction may come into disturb the existing relation?  The problem is to my mind not only interesting, but exceptionally curious.  You remember the story of Cymon and Iphigenia as Dryden tells it.  The poor youth has the capacity of loving, but it lies hidden in his undeveloped nature.  All at once he comes upon the sleeping beauty, and is awakened by her charms to a hitherto unfelt consciousness.  With the advent of the new passion all his dormant faculties start into life, and the seeming simpleton becomes the bright and intelligent lover.  The case of Number Five is as different from that of Cymon as it could well be.  All her faculties are wide awake, but one emotional side of her nature has never been called into active exercise.  Why has she never been in love with any one of her suitors?  Because she liked too many of them.  Do you happen to remember a poem printed among these papers, entitled “I Like You and I Love You”