O, bring again my heart’s content,
Thou Spirit of the Summer time!”
W. Allingham.
The following Wednesday, Pompilard returned rather earlier than usual from his diurnal visit to Wall Street. He brought home a printed copy of the Prospectus, and sent it up-stairs to the wounded author. Then taking from the bookcase a yellow-covered pamphlet, he composed himself in an arm-chair, and, resting his legs on an ottoman, began reading that most thrilling production of the season, “The Guerilla’s Bride, or the Temptation and the Triumph, by Carrie Cameron.”
Mrs. Pompilard glided into the room, and, putting her hands over his eyes from behind, said, “What’s the matter, my love?”
“Matter? Nothing, wife! Leave me to my novel.”
“Always of late,” she replied, “when I see you with one of these sensation novels, I know that something has gone wrong with you.”
“Nonsense, you silly woman! I know what you want. It’s a kiss. There! Take it and go.”
“You’ve lost money!” said Madam, receiving the kiss, then shaking her finger at him, and returning to her household tasks.
She was right in her surmise. Pompilard, hopeful of Union victories on the Peninsula of Virginia, had been selling gold in expectation of a fall. There had been a large rise, and his five hundred dollars had been swallowed up in the great maw of Wall Street like a straw in Niagara. He passed the rest of that day in the house, reading his novel, or playing backgammon with the Major.