ing lightly to and fro, with the
undulations of the lily-stem against which she more perceptibly
rested. It is well for Root and Collins and Plumbe that the royal
daguerreotyper was laid up in a cowslip, with a broken skylight which
he had received in a rough-and-tumble with a gnat, about the ownership
of a particular ray of light, at last sunsetting.

But if the lady Dewbell were queen of the ball, the noble knight Sir
Timothy Lawn was as undisputedly worthy of the post of honor among her
gallant train of admirers. Indeed, it was universally known, of course
as a profound secret among the gossips of the palace, that Sir Timothy
was the declared lover of the proud Dewbell, and it was even whispered
that she had actually been seen hanging around his neck one bright
June morning, in a sweet clover-nook by the brook-side, while he bent
tenderly over her, his eyes filled with tears of rapture. But as this
story could only be traced to a rough beetleherd, who said he saw the
lovers thus as he was driving his herd of black cattle to water, it
was not generally believed. At any rate, all the ladies were decidedly
of opinion that Sir Timothy was in every way a match for the haughty
beauty, and that if she did not accept him while he was in the humor
she would be very likely to go farther and fare worse. In fact,
several old maids and bluestockings, over their dishes of scandal and
marsh-fog, (both of which they made uncommonly strong,) openly avowed
it as their opinion, that he was a great deal too good for her, and
that, if the truth must be told, the princess was an impertinent,
saucy and irreverent creature, who hadn't the slightest respect for
her superiors. "As to her beauty," said one of these crones, whose
little face was very much of the size and complexion of a dried
camomile-flower, and who was shrewdly suspected of qualifying her
marsh-fog with pale pink-brandy--"As for her beauty, that is all in my
eye. I have seen plenty of your plump, smooth-skinned pieces of paint
and affectation fade in my time, little as I have yet seen of life.
Mark my words--before we have reached our prime, my great lady
princess will be as ugly as--"

"As ugly as yourself, granny! Ha, ha, ha! ho, ho, ho! haw, haw, haw!"
shouted a mirthful voice, while an indescribably comic face, half cat
and half baby, appeared for a single glimpse above the burdock leaf
behind which the spinsters were holding their _conversazione_.

"There's that imp P