But suddenly I saw my wife leave the house and come down the garden without her bonnet to welcome me. Oh, how I wished that, just for once, she had been a shrew; I could have brazened out the matter then. But she smiled so sweetly at me! "Well," she exclaimed, heartily, putting her hands in mine, "you have had a splendid afternoon for your walk! Have you enjoyed it?" "Oh, yes," I said, "except for one thing." "What's that?" she asked; "no accident I hope. You've never, surely, been among the orchards again; I'm sure the grass swarms with adders and snakes." And she looked so anxiously and tenderly up into my face that I was forced to stoop and----. But this is weakness. "What was it? I saw you took out that divine Shelley." "Yes," I answered, jumping at any subject foreign to the one at my heart, "he _is_ divine. I'll never deny it again; the very god of sleep." "For shame!" she cried; "and I saw you took something else, too. But where is it?--the parasol, I mean?" I had forgotten it! I think I must have started and changed color, for she immediately proceeded: "Never mind, it's too late to go into the fields for it now. It will be quite destroyed, though, by the dew to-night--there's always so much in this weather. But, never mind--and yet how could you forget it?" "Oh, it's all right," I replied, somewhat pettishly; "we'll get it in the morning. I left it in a shop at the foot of the Côte de Grace." "Well, then, what was the drawback to your walk?" "Oh! never mind it just now," I exclaimed. "Dear Grace, do let me have some tea; I'll tell you by-and-by." And I bustled among the children towards the house, she following in some surprise. As soon as tea was over I dispatched the children into the garden and solemnly commenced my tale. Commenced? I plunged into it heels over head, as a timid bather plunges into the pool when he is the cynosure of the eyes of all swimmers in it, and by appearing on the brink in Nature's undress _uniform_, feels himself pledged to enter the liquid. Like him, too, when once in, I did not find the water so cold as I feared, after all. I had made my promise so strong by constantly referring to it, that Grace never even proposed my giving it up. My brother would arrive by to-morrow's boat, and so that the house would have a guardian she would not object--for once. I inwardly vowed not to put it in her power to refuse or grant such a favor again. II. So on the morrow, at the appointed time, I was comfortably seated at M. le Brun's mahogany; and while, "for this occasion only," I played my old _rôle_ of bachelor, I loosed the hymeneal reins, and actually told some ancient Cider-cellar stories--in French, too,--which produced explosion after explosion of laughter, though whether this was caused by the tales or the telling I cannot of course guess.