Parted without the least regret,
Except that they had ever met.
* * * *
Misses, the tale that I relate,
This lesson seems to carry:
Choose not alone a proper mate,
But proper time to marry!
COWPER, PAIRING TIME ANTICIPATED
'I will have it!'
'Thou shalt not have it!'
'Diane says it is mine.'
'Diane knows nothing about it.'
'Gentlemen always yield to ladies.'
'Wives ought to mind their husbands.'
'Then I will not be thy wife.'
'Thou canst not help it.'
'I will. I will tell my father what M. le Baron reads and sings,
and then I know he will.'
'And welcome.' Eustacie put out her lip, and began to cry.
The 'husband and wife,' now eight and seven years old, were in a
large room hung with tapestry, representing the history of Tobit.
A great state bed, curtained with piled velvet, stood on a sort of
dais at the further end; there was a toilet-table adorned with
curiously shaped boxes, and coloured Venetian glasses, and filagree
pouncet-boxes, and with a small mirror whose frame was inlaid with
gold and ivory.
A large coffer, likewise inlaid, stood against the
wall, and near it a cabinet, of Dutch workmanship, a combination of
ebony, ivory, wood, and looking-glass, the centre retreating, and
so arranged that by the help of most ingenious attention to
perspective and reflection, it appeared like the entrance to a
magnificent miniature cinque-cento palace, with steps up to a
vestibule paved in black and white lozenges, and with three endless
corridors diverging from it.
So much for show; for use, this
palace was a bewildering complication of secret drawers and pigeon-
holes, all depending indeed upon one tiny gold key; but unless the
use of that key were well understood, all it led to was certain
outer receptacles of fragrant Spanish gloves, knots of ribbon, and
kerchiefs strewn over with rose leaves and lavender. However,
Eustacie had secured the key, and was now far beyond these mere
superficial matters. Her youthful lord had just discovered her
mounted on a chair, her small person decked out with a profusion of
necklaces, jewels, bracelets, chains, and rings; and her fingers,
as well as they could under their stiffening load, were opening the
very penetralia of the cabinet, the inner chamber of the hall,
where lay a case adorned with the Ribaumont arms and containing the
far-famed chaplet of pearls. It was almost beyond her reach, but
she had risen on tip-toe, and was stretching out her hand for it,
when he, springing behind her on the chair, availed himself of his
superior height and strength to shut the door of this Arcanum and
turn the key. His mortifying permission to his wife to absent
herself arose from pure love of teasing, but the next moment he
added, still holding his hand on the key--'As to telling what my
father reads, that would be treason. How shouldst thou know what
it is?' 'Does thou think every one is an infant but thyself?'