"I see your surprise, sir," said she, with evident chagrin, "but it is all owing to you." "To _me_, madam! I presume you allude to the altered appearance of your face, but I cannot conceive what I can have had to do with the change." In brief, her beautiful nose was all over as red as scarlet, particularly the point of it, which exactly resembled a large red cherry, or ripe Siberian crab-apple. Now just think of it--a very fair woman with a blood-red nose! Faugh! it is enough to sicken the most devoted admirer of the sex. Suppose any gentleman going to be married, and full of love and admiration, should, on going to the house of his beloved bride on the appointed morning, to take her to church, humming to himself that sweet song, "She Wove a Wreath of Roses," finds her beautiful nose become a big rosy nosegay--would he not be apt to suppose she had over night been making pretty free sacrifices, not to the little god of love, but to jolly Bacchus? I did not do _my_ belle such an injustice--and yet what could I think? "How do you make out that I had any thing to do with such an important alteration, madam." "O, as easy as it is true. Did not your wo-begone terrors in the church-yard throw me into immoderate fits of laughter, as you well know? And did not your adventures, after you retired, when reported to me, throw me all but into convulsions--the more I thought, the more I laughed, until it brought on a nervous headache so intense, it felt as if my head would have split? To relieve so distressing a pain, I took a bottle of eau de cologne to bed with me, and pulling out the stopper, propped it up by the pillow, right under my nose. I quite forgot it, and fell asleep with the bottle in that position." "Ah!" said I, "I suspected _the bottle_ had something to do with it." "Quite true, quite true--but not the bottle you wickedly insinuate. How long I slept I know not, it must have been a long time; when I awoke, I was surprised to find my shoulder cold and wet--and then I recollected the bottle of cologne; but what was my horror, on getting up, to behold my face in this frightful condition, you may easily imagine." Poor, dear lady, if she laughed heartily at the scare she gave me in the church-yard, I now had my revenge, full and ample--for I could not refrain from laughing outright every time I looked in her face; and laughter, when it is hearty and hilarious, is catching, almost as much as yawning; and I fancy few will dispute how potent, how Mesmeric, or magnetic the effect of an outstretched arm and wide gaping oscitation is. I declare, I caught myself gaping the other night on seeing my wife's white cat stretch herself on the rug, and yawn. "I really should feel obliged if you would be polite enough to keep your eye off my face," said the lady.