"A pretty piece of work you have made of it," said Phelim, picking up the cork and pointing to the looking-glass.
"'Twas a good joke," said I, although my faith was somewhat staggered by Phelim's explanation.
"Troth, an' I'm glad you take it so asy," said Phelim, ramming the cork into the bottle; "you'll find it a dear one when the landlady brings in her bill for the lookin'-glass. But never mind it, sir, now. Go to bed and get sober."
I took Phelim's advice, and went to bed. To this day I am unable positively to decide whether his explanation was the true one or not. I incline, however, to the belief that I was not drunk, but that the illustrious Joke actually visited me in propriâ personâ. I am the more inclined to this belief from the remarkable coherency of his narrative, which I now leave, without a word of comment, to the consideration of the curious.
THE SECRET.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF M. PAUL DE KOCK.
Nathalie de Hauteville at the age of twenty-two had been for three years a widow. She was one of the most beautiful women in Paris; a brunette, with large black eyes, and one of those fascinating faces whose charm consists more in expression than in regularity of features, and in which are portrayed at once all the elegance of the Frenchwoman, all the vivacity of the Italian, and all the fire of a daughter of Spain.
When she married, at eighteen, a man of nearly three times her age, Nathalie, a mere child in character, had not bestowed a thought on any thing beyond her wedding dresses, her marriage presents, and the delight of being called Madame. Her husband was as generous to her as he was rich. Twelve months had passed in a continued round of gaiety and amusement, when M. de Hauteville was suddenly attacked by a disease which carried him off in a few days, and left his young widow to mourn for a husband as she would have mourned for the loss of a friend and protector.