‘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, 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!’

‘What did he say?’

’He said—­he said—­he saw a pretty apple-girl in Wall Street, and I presume the wretch paid her some compliment or other while he was buying her apples, for he appeared very much pleased after he came home, and he hasn’t bestowed a compliment on me since the month after we were married.  Ah, fated word!  Ah, Percy, Percy!—­on that ill-omened day, what caused you to linger?  We might even then have retraced our steps, and been—­happy.’

’I was waiting—­at the dock—­for the news—­of the Heenan prize-fight, Bella,’ gasped Roseton, turning away to conceal his emotion, and to assuage the tears that fell from his manly eyes.  It is a mournful sight, a strong man, in the morning of life, weeping; but Roseton’s agony might well excuse it.  ’I know it was unpardonable, but my card of invitation had been tampered with, the date altered; and, Bella—­my Bella—­we were the victims of a base deception!’

‘Oh, yes, my Percy,’ faintly cried Bella, letting the book fall to the ground in her confusion; ’traitorous wiles, indeed, encompassed us, and the arts of a Mundus were too subtle for my girlish brain.  I sometimes fear that my poor frame will sink under the agonies I endure.’

Roseton raised the volume from the floor.  ‘I am told,’ said he, ’that this is a very ingenious work, and that no gentleman’s library is complete without it; but I never read.  My days, my nights, are filled, Bella, with thoughts of you.  Yes,’ continued he, seating himself upon the sofa by her side, and passing his arm about her throbbing waist, ’yes, you are my muse—­my only volume.  You are the inspiration of the poetical trifles that I send to the weekly newspapers, and which I may say, without vanity, are considered equal to Mrs. Sigourney’s.  Without you, life were indeed a dreary void; and without you, I should be dreadfully bored of a morning.’