Page:Romance & Reality 1.pdf/135

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ROMANCE AND REALITY.
129

who has hung a pendulum between temptation and prudence till the age of———but of all subjects, age is the one on which it is most invidious to descant.

The cloth was removed, and sudden commotion filled the passage:

"At once there rose so wild a yell
Within that dark and narrow dell;"
&c.&c.&c.

and in came Master Adolphus and Master Alfred in full cry, having disputed by the way which was to go first—also a baby, eloquent as infancy usually is, and, like most youthful orators, more easily heard than understood. The boys quartered themselves on the unfortunate strangers; and Mrs. Smithson took the infant, which Emily duly declared was the sweetest little creature she had ever seen. On going upstairs, Emily found Mlle. Hyacinthe shivering—for, with the usual inhumanity of friends, there was no fire; and it was one of those wet, miserable evenings, gratis copies distributed by November through the year.

Suicide and antipathy to fires in a bed-room seem to be among the national characteristics. Perhaps the same moral cause may originate both. We leave this question to the West-