"There, dear Robert, don't be so absurd. You know you are going to leave us to-night, and I have brought you—" here Libby blushed with that exquisitely ingenuous emotion which is excited by the consciousness of benefiting one we love—"I have brought you some things that may be of use on your journey. You won't be angry with me for it, will you, dear Bob? There's a smoking cap, and a pair of crochet slippers, and some drawing pencils, and a volume of Tupper."
"My darling Libby!" remarked the deeply affected Robert, alighting on those tempting lips once more.
"But did you think, love—did you think to put a quart of ice-cream and a few hair-pins in the package?"
"Why, no."
"Ah, well," said Mr. Bob Peters, abstractedly, "I suppose I can buy them on the road."
Silence, disturbed only by the beating of those two hearts, reigned for a few seconds, then—
"Bob," said Libby, looking shyly up to him, "we shall be very happy when we are married and live North?"
"Yes, indeed," said Bob.
"We'll live in such a beautiful house on Fifth Avenue, dear, and have such nice things. Because, you know, you can make so much money by your writings."
"Millions! my love," said Mr. Bob Peters, with sudden and wonderful quietude of tone. "When I left New York prose was bringing two dollars for seven pounds in the heavy dailies, and philosophical poetry quoted at six shillings a yard, and no hexameters allowed except for Emerson and Homer. Ah!" said Mr. Peters, his melancholy deepening rapidly to bitterness, "my last poem sickened me. It was called 'Dirge: addressed to a lady after witnessing the Drama of the "Toodles,"' and commenced in this way: