'Not all the artist's pow'r can limn, Nor poet's grander verse disclose, The plaintive charm that ev'ning dim, Imparts unto the dying rose.'"
"How pretty!" said Libby.
"Yes, my dear," responded Mr. Peters, somewhat gloomily; "but because I used 'dim' to rhyme with 'limn,' all the papers credited it to General Morris."
Recollections of this flagrant piece of injustice so affected Mr. Bob Peters, that he smote his breast and called himself a miserable man. "I really don't know but I'd better stay here and be hung like a respectable patriot," murmured the desolated young man.
"How absurd!" exclaimed the young lady, "you will be glad enough to get away to-night. Remember, now, you are to start down stairs at quarter-past Twelve, precisely, and Jocko will open the front door for you. Then go straight to the bridge, where you will find my brother, who will get you by the guard."
"That reminds me," observed Mr. Peters, "what time is it? I must set my repeater."
Libby consulted her watch and answered that it was half-past eight, whereupon Mr. Bob Peters fished from his fob a vast silver conglomeration, and having wound it up with a noise like that of a distant coffee mill, and set it correctly, proceeded to hang it, for convenient reference, upon the gas-branch across the mirror.
"Dear Bob, good bye."
"Fare thee well, and if for ever, still remember me," responded Mr. Peters, with some vagueness.