on to your
perplexities, he is talking with a young, laughing girl, who is
watching his movements, with a merry twinkle in her bright eyes. He
evidently wishes to astonish her by his dexterity, and disappoint her
roguish expectations. He holds his plate firmly in his left hand, and
proceeds, at once, to cut his peach in halves. Deuce take the blunt
silver knife! The tough skin resists its pressure. The knife and plate
clash loudly together; the peach is bounding and rolling at the very
feet of the young lady, who is in an ecstasy of laughter. Ah! she
herself has no small resemblance to a peach, fair, beautiful, and
attractive without, and, I sadly fear, with a hard heart beneath.

Are you yet more miserable than before? Turn then to yonder
sober-looking gentleman, who certainly seems sufficiently composed to
perform the difficult manoeuvre. He has the advantage of a table to be
sure; but that is not every thing. He begins right, by deliberately
removing the woolly skin. Now he lays the slippery peach in his plate,
and makes a plunge at it with his knife. A sharp, prolonged screech
across his plate salutes the ears of all the bystanders, and a fine
slice of juicy pulp is flung unceremoniously into the face of the
gentleman opposite, who certainly does not look very grateful for the
unexpected gift.

Every one, of course, has seen the awkward accident. O no! That
pretty, animated girl upon the sofa is much too pleasantly engaged,
that is evident, to be watching her neighbors. Playing carelessly with
her fan, and casting many sparkling glances upward at the two
gentlemen who are vying with each other in their gallant attentions,
she has enough to do without noticing other people. She is happily
unconscious of the mortification which is in store for her, or
wilfully shuts her eyes to the peril. Alas! Her hand is resting, even
now, upon the destroyer of all her present enjoyment, the beautiful,
fragrant, treacherous peach. With a nonchalance really shocking to the
anxious beholder, she raises it, and breaks it open, talking the
while, and scarcely bestowing a thought upon what she is about.
Dexterously done; but--O luckless maiden!--the fruit is ripe, and
rich, and juicy, and the running drops fall, not into her plate, but
upon the delicate folds of her dress.

The merry repartee dies away upon her lips, as she becomes conscious
of the catastrophe. It is with a forced smile that she declares, "It
is nothing; O, not of th