and that his vogue was buried with his youth. He would bow with depth and majesty as of yore, but with rather more of rheumatism; he would toast Venus just as often and sigh as profoundly as he did so; yet he never took the red wine to his shrivelled lips with quite that gusto that was his wont when he had blood and a pulse to grow inflamed in the pious ceremony. But he would tell a stranger confidentially that though people said his age was forty-eight, 'twas very wrong of 'em to talk like that, as his proper age was fifty. And I, who really am at times a tender-hearted wretch, would melt visibly every evening at his decrepit compliments and his senile quizzing glasses. What a fine, unsubduable old gentleman he was till the hour his wicked soul and his corrupt old carcase were consigned to the eternal care of that other fine old gentleman to whom he had as it were in many ways a sort of family resemblance.
"Prue," says I, the moment we conspirators were assembled in my chamber, "this evening you have to undergo an Ordeal. We must prepare you for it, both in the body and the spirit, with great care."
I hinted of its nature, and lightly, and not unlovingly touched in the character of that gallant heathen, my papa.
"La! the naughty old gentleman," pouts Miss Prue. "I must be careful of him."
She assumed a face of copy-book propriety that is invariably worn with a pinafore and plaited hair
