“Of course she does!” I said.  He stopped short.  “I’ve been wanting a set of red puffs for three years, and I can hardly walk past Mrs. Yost’s window down in the village.  They’ve got some that match my hair and I fairly yearn for them.  But if I got ’em I dare say I’d put them in a box and go after wanting something else.  It’s the same way with Miss Patty.  She’ll get her prince, and because it isn’t real love, but only the same as me with the puffs, she’ll go after wanting something else.  Only she can’t put him away in a box.  She’ll have to put him on and wear him for better, for worse.”

“Lord help her!” he said solemnly, and went over to the window and stood there looking out.

I went over beside him.  From the window we could see the three rows of yellow lights that marked the house, and somebody with a lantern was going down the path toward the stables.  Mr. Pierce leaned forward, his hands at the top of the window-sash, and put his forehead against the glass.

“Why is it that a lighted window in a snow-storm always makes a fellow homesick?” he said in his half-mocking way.  “If he hasn’t got a home it makes him want one.”

“Well, why don’t you get one?” I asked.

“On nothing a year?” he said.  “Not even prospects!  And set up housekeeping in the shelter-house with my good friend Minnie carrying us food and wearing herself to a shadow, not to mention bringing trashy books to my bride.”

“She isn’t that kind,” I broke in, and got red.  I’d been thinking of Miss Patty.  But he went over to the table and picked up his glass of spring water, only to set it down untasted.

“No, she’s not that kind!” he agreed, and never noticed the slip.

“You know, Minnie, women aren’t all alike, but they’re not all different.  An English writer has them classified to a T—­there’s the mother woman—­that’s you.  You’re always mothering somebody with that maternal spirit of yours.  It’s a pity it’s vicarious.”

I didn’t say anything, not knowing just what he meant.  But I’ve looked it up since and I guess he was about right.

“And there’s the mistress woman—­Mrs. Dicky, for example, or—­” he saw Miss Cobb’s curler on the mantel and picked it up—­“or even Miss Cobb,” he said.  “Coquetry and selfishness without maternal instinct.  How much of Miss Cobb’s virtue is training and environment, Minnie, not to mention lack of temptation, and how much was born in her?”

“She’s a preacher’s daughter,” I remarked.  I could understand about Mrs. Dicky, but I thought he was wrong about Miss Cobb.

“Exactly,” he said.  “And the third kind of woman is the mistress-mother kind, and they’re the salt of the earth, Minnie.”  He began to walk up and down by the spring with his hands in his pockets and a far-away look in his eyes.  “The man who marries that kind of woman is headed straight for paradise.”

“That’s the way!” I snapped.  “You men have women divided into classes and catalogued like horses on sale.”