. . .Then he sat torpid, and pleased, and bewildered; his misfortunes were then half forgotten; his mind considering, not without regret, this unsentimental return to his old love.

He was thus engaged when that bustling woman noiselessly re-entered.

“Have you eaten?” said she. “Then tell me all about it.”

It was a long and (as the reader knows) a pitiful story; but Flora heard it with compressed lips. She was lost in none of those questionings of human destiny that have, from time to time, arrested the flight of my own pen; for women, such as she, are no philosophers, and behold the concrete only. And women, such as she, are very hard on the imperfect man.

“Very well,” said she, when he had done; “then down upon your knees at once, and beg God’s forgiveness.”

And the great baby plumped upon his knees, and did as he was bid; and none the worse for that! But while he was heart. . . Read More