"'Norah, I love you! Norah, I love you!'
"In the lunatic asylum of ——, may now be seen 'the Village Rosebud.' God forgive the careless hand that so rudely plucked its fresh beauty, but to blight its fair promise, and cast it aside as a withered thing.
"The world still takes by the hand, as an honorable man, the gay Harry Lee; but, in the still midnight hour, a gentle, tearful voice, slowly repeats to his ear alone, amid unquiet slumbers, the words,—'Norah, I love you!'"
XLIV.
SINGLE BLESSEDNESS.
What a cheerful, happy, self-congratulating old maid was lost when Fanny became a wife. Only read this extract:—
"'All articles of gentlemen's wearing apparel made—TO ORDER.'
"Saints and angels! only think of that! Well, thank a kind Providence I never was married. No tyrannical frock-coats, or 'dress-coats,' or Petershams, profane my closets. No vests, or stocks, or dickies crowd my nice laces, and ribbons, and muslins. No overbearing cane keeps company with my silken parasolette. No lumbering great boots tread on the toes of my little slippers and gaiters. Nobody kicks my spinster foot under the table to stop me in the middle of a sentence that I'm bent upon finishing. Nothing on the wide earth that's 'made to order,' finds admittance into my single-blessed territories. I should be all teeth and claws if there did!"
XLV.
THAT MRS. JONES.
We don't quite agree with Fanny in thinking women ought to bear all the blame. Eve never would have thought of stealing apples, if Adam hadn't been in a hurry for his supper. But in this instance Mrs. Jones was wrong. This is the story, as Fanny tells it:
"'Heaven be praised for Sunday,' said Mrs. Jones; 'when omnibus horses and women can rest from their labors. Mr. Jones? Bless my soul, the man has gone;' and she raised herself on her elbow, and pushed back the ruffled border of her nightcap, as if to make quite sure of her single blessedness. 'Tommy?' said she, to a little trundle-bed occupant; 'here, Tommy, you always know everything you ought not to; where's your father?'