not referring to me, my love, I hope?' Mr Sparkler humbly
interrupted.

'Edmund, Edmund, you would wear out a Saint. Am I not expressly speaking
of my poor uncle?'

'You looked with so much expression at myself, my dear girl,' said Mr
Sparkler, 'that I felt a little uncomfortable. Thank you, my love.'

'Now you have put me out,' observed Fanny with a resigned toss of her
fan, 'and I had better go to bed.'

'Don't do that, my love,' urged Mr Sparkler. 'Take time.'

Fanny took a good deal of time: lying back with her eyes shut, and her
eyebrows raised with a hopeless expression as if she had utterly given
up all terrestrial affairs. At length, without the slightest notice, she
opened her eyes again, and recommenced in a short, sharp manner:

'What happens then, I ask! What happens? Why, I find myself at the very
period when I might shine most in society, and should most like for
very momentous reasons to shine in society--I find myself in a situation
which to a certain extent disqualifies me for going into society. It's
too bad, really!'

'My dear,' said Mr Sparkler. 'I don't think it need keep you at
home.' 'Edmund, you ridiculous creature,' returned Fanny, with great
indignation; 'do you suppose that a woman in the bloom of youth and not
wholly devoid of personal attractions, can put herself, at such a
time, in competition as to figure with a woman in every other way her
inferior? If you do suppose such a thing, your folly is boundless.'

Mr Sparkler submitted that he had thought 'it might be got over.' 'Got
over!' repeated Fanny, with immeasurable scorn.

'For a time,' Mr Sparkler submitted.

Honouring the last feeble suggestion with no notice, Mrs Sparkler
declared with bitterness that it really was too bad, and that positively
it was enough to make one wish one was dead!

'However,' she said, when she had in some measure recovered from her
sense of personal ill-usage; 'provoking as it is, and cruel as it seems,
I suppose it must be submitted to.'

'Especially as it was to be expected,' said Mr Sparkler.

'Edmund,' returned his wife, 'if you have nothing more becoming to do
than to attempt to insult the woman who has honoured you with her hand,
when she finds herself in adversity, I think YOU had better go to bed!'

Mr Sparkler was much afflicted by the charge, and offered a most
tender and earnest apology. His apology was accepted; but Mrs Sparkler
requested him to go round to the other side of the s