'You alarm me,' exclaimed she; 'it can't be possible that the servants have let him have a looking-glass, contrary to my express instructions!'

'No, no,' said the master of Pont-Noir, 'he is at work over the World.'

'The World?' said Bella, inquiringly. 'Pray don't give me a headache.'

Roseton leaned over her shoulder, and placed in her lap a miniature Andrews and Stoddard's Lexicon, open at the eight hundredth page. 'You take?' he said: 'Mundus, the World.'

'Ah, Percy,' sighed Bella, 'why do you thus unnecessarily fatigue me? Have I not often told you that, faultless as you are in every other department of life, and how I love to dwell upon this fact, still, still, my Percy, your puns, or rather your attempts, are worse than those of a Yale College freshman? You are cruel, indeed you are, thus to disappoint and wound me. Be persuaded by me, and never try again.'

Roseton paused, irresolute—it was a great struggle; but what will not one do for the woman one loves? 'I promise,' said he, at last; and, bending over her, laid a kiss—like an egg—upon her brow. 'This will forever bind me.'

'Thank you, dear Percy,' said Bella; 'and I hope you'll keep your promise better than you did the last one you made about giving up smoking. You're sure you haven't tumbled my collar, and that you wiped the egg off your moustache before you came in; get me the toilet-glass, there's a good boy. You men are so careless, and I shouldn't like it to dry on my forehead.'

Let us approach, and gaze into the mirror. Can one describe that face—the lovely brown eyebrows; the eyes, like a spring sky, just as the light, fleecy clouds are leaving it after a shower; the perfect roses, dipped in milk, of the skin; the lips where good-nature, sprightliness, [pg 218] and love, lay mingled in ambush; the dewy teeth never quite concealed? It is, indeed, useless to attempt it. And, what is very remarkable, Bella knew it. 'There, Percy,' said she, 'your indiscretion is cleared away, and now upon my word I don't know which flatters me most, you or the glass.'

'Why, I haven't tried yet,' replied Roseton.

'That's only because you know you can't,' said she;' neither can this poor little mirror. But to think what Mundus said yesterday!'