"Can't help that," said MARGERINE cheerfully; "he loves _me_." This was the folded-lamb's point of view. "Girl, have you no shame?" This was the other woman's. "Rather I blush for _you_," said the unfinished creature. "You couldn't make him love you, _you_ couldn't; you're the hankering feminine counterpart of the man in the other book, the _Yellow Plaster_ book. Now it is too late. We love each other. The matter is taken out of our hands. We are merely impassive, irresponsible, agents. Do try and look at the case as I do, from an unbiassed, impersonal, point of view; and see that the fault is utterly your own." The girl's regard for her lover had suffered no transitional throwing-back at the news of his deception. She was overwhelming with her palpabilities. Ah! it is these that men love--palpabilities. "And have I none?" moaned the unhappy wife. "If I could blush, could only blush! He would have loved me then. But stay, he is colour-blind; I forgot." [Illustration: Worth re-tailing.] "I said just now I would blush _for_ you," replied the other, who had been under the eaves overhearing her thoughts. "And to think of the chances you have missed, and with a gown like that! Why, if you are his wife, you must often have met him about, and not had to make arrangements at a trout-stream like me. Conceivably he has even kissed you. I read once of a married man who kissed his wife." She suddenly stopped; not that one of her intoxicating gutturals had come loose; but an odd flood of pathos was playing on the other's brow as she caught sight of CHAMOIS whistling aloofly behind a sycamore, and went in thought all over that first kiss, complicated, perhaps, perhaps rather billiardy, but still a thing to remember. Like a cloud the stigma lifted, and MARGERINE guessed her horrid secret. "_You_ love him too? I never thought of that. How forgetful of me! But if _you_ love him and _I_ love him, why, we _both_ love him! This is too much!" For a moment both of them, pulsated even as one tuning-fork. Though sundered by the estranging ocean of the past that had closed its lid between them, leaving them like shuttlecocks, sick with strong doses of womanhood and experience, now that CHAMOIS, steadied by his breeding, was rapidly joining the party, the two women leaned against one another (how seldom women do this!), and waited, containedly restless. But the man, as I said before, comes into the next chapter, if we ever get as far. * * * * * TRUE GLORY. ["For assisting in destroying a legend, the Rev. Dr. NICHOLSON, who pulverised IGNATIUS DONNELLY'S celebrated cryptogram, is to be presented with an illuminated address."--_Daily Telegraph_, Nov. 28.] [Illustration] I've always been courageous, in a modest sort of way, And sought an opportunity my valour to display, There's nothing I'd like better than to lead a conquering host, If STEVENSON or CONAN DOYLE would offer me a post.