"Oh, you have? So you are a confessed matchmaker, Miss Ri? May I know the name of my knight?"
"No, you may not; that would be enough to make you turn your back on him at once. It is entirely my secret."
"And the picked out person doesn't know he is picked out?"
"Not a bit of it; he hasn't the faintest suspicion. How good that dinner does smell. Phebe is the only thing I wanted that I didn't have, and now I have her."
"Do you really mean, Miss Ri, that you get everything you want in this world?"
"Why, yes; at least of late years it has been so. I found out the secret from Thoreau some ten or more years ago."
"A precious secret, I should say."
"A very simple one. It is easy enough to get what one wants, when one makes it a rule to want only what he can get. If you think you haven't enough for your wants, all you have to do is to reduce your wants."
"I'm afraid my philosophy isn't sufficient for such a state of things," said Linda with a sigh.
"Why isn't it? Now, let's face the question. What do you want that you can't get?"