"Your most devoted servant, "MASTER FLEA." Now here would be an excellent opportunity for a genuine romance-writer to expatiate on the difference between lust and love, and, having handled it sufficiently in theory, to illustrate it practically in the person of Mr. Tyss. Much might be said of sensual desires, of the curse of the primal sin, and of the heavenly Promethean spark, which in love inflames that true community of spirit of the two sexes, which forms the actual necessary dualism of nature. Should now the aforesaid Promethean spark--but the reader will perhaps be glad to escape the rest of this dissertation, though he may rest assured there is much in it, whereby he might have been edified, had he been so inclined. It must be evident to all, that Peregrine only felt desire for Dörtje Elverdink, but that, when he saw Rose Lemmerhirt, the real heavenly love blazed in his bosom. Little thanks, however, would be due to the editor of this most wonderful of all wonderful tales, if, adhering to the stiff, formal pace of renowned romancers, he could not forbear in this place exciting the weariness essentially requisite to a legitimate romance.--No; let us go to the point at once: sighs, lamentations, joys, pains, kisses, blisses, are all united in the focus of the moment, when the lovely Rose, with the crimson of maiden modesty upon her cheeks, confesses to the enraptured Peregrine that she loves him--that she cannot express how much, how immeasurably she loves him,--that she lives in him only,--that he is her only thought, her only joy. But the crafty demon is wont to thrust his dark claws into the sunniest moments of life,--nay, to utterly obscure that sunshine by the shadow of his baleful presence. Thus it happened that evil doubts arose in Peregrine, and his breast was filled with suspicions. A voice seemed to whisper to him, "How! Dörtje Elverdink confessed her love, and yet it was mere selfishness, animated by which, she sought to tempt you into breaking your faith and becoming a traitor to your best friend, poor Master Flea! You are rich; they say too that a certain frankness and good-nature, by many called weakness, may procure you the doubtful love of men and even of women, and she, who now confesses a passion for you,"--He hastily snatched at the fate-fraught box, and was on the point of opening it to place the microscopic glass in the pupil of his eye, and thus reading the thoughts of Rose, but he looked up, and the pure blue of her bright eyes seemed to be reflected on his inmost soul. Rose saw and wondered at his emotion. He felt as if a sudden flash of lightning had quivered through him, and the feeling of his own unworthiness overwhelmed him.