FRIVOLOUS CUPID
BY
SIR ANTHONY HOPE HAWKINS
(ANTHONY HOPE, PSEUD.)
Cupid, I met thee yesterday With an empty quiver, Coming from Clarinda's house By the reedy river.
And I saw Clarinda stand Near the pansies, weeping, With her hands upon her breast All thine arrows keeping.
CONTENTS
| I. | RELUCTANCE |
| II. | WHY MEN DON'T MARRY |
| III. | A CHANGE OF HEART |
| IV. | A REPENTANT SINNER |
| V. | 'TWIXT WILL AND WILL NOT |
| VI. | WHICH SHALL IT BE? |
| VII. | MARRIAGE BY COMPULSION |
| VIII. | ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL |
FRIVOLOUS CUPID.
I.
RELUCTANCE.
I.
Neither life nor the lawn-tennis club was so full at Natterley that thenews of Harry Sterling's return had not some importance.
He came back, moreover, to assume a position very different from hisold one. He had left Harrow now, departing in the sweet aroma of along score against Eton at Lord's, and was to go up to Oxford inOctober. Now between a schoolboy and a University man there is a gulf,indicated unmistakably by the cigarette which adorned Harry's mouth ashe walked down the street with a newly acquiescent father, andthoroughly realized by his old playmates. The young men greeted him asan equal, the boys grudgingly accepted his superiority, and the girlsreceived him much as though they had never met him before in theirlives and were pressingly in need of an introduction. These featuresof his reappearance amused Mrs. Mortimer; she recollected him as anuntidy, shy, pretty boy; but mind, working on matter, had sotransformed him that she was doubtful enough about him to ask her