Snow. "who will assure you of the purity of my in-" Shaky. "tentions. Your charms are a sufficient pledge Snow. "ternal love." That's all. Bones. What is the villain's name? Old. There is no signature. Wise (aside). That was sensible, at least. Old. Without doubt my granddaughter knows. Hen. No, dear grandmama, I do not know. Old. Last night she talked at the garden gate to an Old. If only it had been a man of mature and discreet years! But no, it was a young fellow. Bones. A young fellow-that's worse still! Old. And she stretched out her hand through the fence. All. Her hand? Old. And he kissed it. I saw it all with my own eyes. Now we must decide, my friends, what is to be done. Snow. Without a glove? Hen. Yes. Anc. And why did you do it? Hen. To pick a flower that was growing there. Old. And why did you withdraw your hand so quickly when you saw me? Hen. There was a spider on the flower. Snow. And while you were trying to pluck the said flower, your hand was kissed? Hen. I believe so. Shaky. And what did you feel? Hen. A soft touch. Shaky. Touch? Snow. Emotion, rather? Anc. And did the said emotion confine itself to the hand, or did it ascend to the heart? Hen. I believe it ascended. Shaky. And did your heart beat noticeably? Hen. Very noticeably. Shaky. The symptoms are complete. Snow. Entirely! Entirely! Old. You perceive, ladies and gentlemen, that this person, whom we hitherto considered a child, has now fallen a prey to the follies and misfortunes of youth, and must therefore be removed, as soon as possible, from our honorable circle. Bones. Yes, she must be removed. Limp. As soon as possible. Palsy. The sooner Hen. The better!" Respectable Society." J. P. F. Richter-" Jean Paul" The Calico Dress FIRMIAN SIEBENKÄS finished his critique in the forenoon, and sent it to Pelzstiefel, his chief, who wrote back that he would bring the money for it himself in the evening, for he now seized upon every possible opportunity of paying a visit. At dinner, Firmian (in whose head the sultry, fetid vapor of ill-temper would not dissolve and fall) said to Lenette, "I can't understand how you come to care so very little about cleanliness and order. It would be better even if you rather overdid your cleanliness than otherwise. People say, What a pity it is such an orderly man as Siebenkäs should have such a slovenly kind of wife!" To irony of this sort, though she knew quite well it was irony, she always opposed regular formal arguments. He could never get her to enjoy these little jests instead of arguing about them, or join him in laughing at the masculine view of the question. The fact is, a woman abandons her opinion as soon as her husband adopts it. Even in church, the women sing the tunes an octave higher than the men, that they may differ from them in all things. In the afternoon the great, the momentous hour approached in which the ostracism, the banishment from house and home, of the checked calico gown was at last to be carried outthe last and greatest deed of the year 1785. Of this signal for fight, this Timur's and Mohammed's red battle-flag, this Ziska's hide, which always set them by the ears, his very soul was sick; he would have been delighted if somebody : had stolen it, simply to be quit of the wearisome, threadbare idea of the wretched rag for good and all. He did not hurry himself, but introduced his petition with all the wordy prolixity of a parliamentarian addressing the house (at home). He asked his wife to guess what might be the greatest kindness, the most signal favor, which she could do him on this last day of the old year. He said he had an hereditary enemy, an Antichrist, a dragon, living under his roof; tares sown among his wheat by an enemy, which she could pull up if she chose; and at last he took the checked calico gown out of the drawer, with a kind of twilight sorrow. "This," he said, "is the bird of prey which pursues me; the net which Satan sets to catch me; his sheepskin, my martyr-robe, my Cassim's slipper. Dearest, do me but this one favor-send it to the pawn-shop!" "Don't answer just yet," he continued, gently laying his hand on Lenette's lips; "let me just remind you what a stupid parish did when the only blacksmith there was in it was going to be hanged in the village. This parish thought it preferable to condemn an innocent master tailor or two to the gallows, because they could be better spared. Now, a woman of your good sense must surely see how much easier and better it would be to let me take away this mere piece of tailor's patchwork, than metal things which we eat out of every day. The mourning calico won't be wanted, you know, as long as I'm alive." "I've seen quite clearly for a long while past," she said, "that you've made up your mind to carry off my mourning dress from me, by hook or by crook, whether I will or no. But I'm not going to let you have it. Suppose I were to say to you, 'Pawn your watch,' how would you like that?" Perhaps the reason why husbands get into the way of issuing their orders in a needlessly dictatorial manner is, that they generally have little effect, but rather confirm opposition than overcome it. "Damnation!" he cried; "that'll do, that's quite enough! I'm not a turkey-cock, nor a bonassus neither, to be continually driven into a frenzy by a piece of colored rag. It goes to the pawn-shop to-day, as sure as my name's Siebenkäs." "Your name is Leibgeber as well," said she. "Devil fly away with me, if that calico remains in this house!" said he. On which she began to cry, and lament the bitter fortune which left her nothing now, not even the very clothes for her back. When thoughtless tears fall into a seething masculine heart, they often have the effect which drops of water have when they fall upon bubbling molten copper; the fluid mass bursts asunder with a great explosion. "Heavenly, kind, gentle devil," said Firmian, "do please come and break my neck for me! May God have pity on a woman like this! Very well, then, keep your calico; keep this Lenten altar-cloth of yours to yourself. But may the devil fly away with me, if I don't cock the old deer's horns that belonged to my father on to my head this very day, like a poacher on the pillory, and hawk them about the streets for sale in broad daylight! Yes, I give you my word of honor it shall be done, for all the fun it may afford every soul in the place. And I shall simply say that it is your doing. I'll do it, as sure as there's a devil in hell." Pelzstiefel entered with all solemnity of deportment, and with a church-visitation countenance full of inspectionsermons. Lenette scarcely turned her swollen eyes toward the windward side of her husband as he came in at the |