heir arms tenderly
round each other's waists on a _causeuse_ in Mrs. Follingsbee's
dressing-room.

"You don't know, _mignonne_," said Mrs. Follingsbee, "how perfectly
_ravissante_ these apartments are! I'm so glad poor Charlie did them
so well for you. I laid my commands on him, poor fellow!"

"Pray, how does your affair with him get on?" said Lillie.

"O dearest! you've no conception what a trial it is to me to keep him
in the bounds of reason. He has such struggles of mind about that
stupid wife of his. Think of it, my dear! a man like Charlie Ferrola,
all poetry, romance, ideality, tied to a woman who thinks of nothing
but her children's teeth and bowels, and turns the whole house into a
nursery! Oh, I've no patience with such people."

"Well, poor fellow! it's a pity he ever got married," said Lillie.

"Well, it would be all well enough if this sort of woman ever would
be reasonable; but they won't. They don't in the least comprehend the
necessities of genius. They want to yoke Pegasus to a cart, you see.
Now, I understand Charlie perfectly. I could give him that which he
needs. I appreciate him. I make a bower of peace and enjoyment for
him, where his artistic nature finds the repose it craves."

"And she pitches into him about you," said Lillie, not slow to
perceive the true literal rendering of all this.

"Of course, _ma chere_,--tears him, rends him, lacerates his soul;
sometimes he comes to me in the most dreadful states. Really, dear, I
have apprehended something quite awful! I shouldn't in the least be
surprised if he should blow his brains out!"

And Mrs. Follingsbee sighed deeply, gave a glance at herself in an
opposite mirror, and smoothed down a bow pensively, as the prima donna
at the grand opera generally does when her lover is getting ready to
stab himself.

"Oh! I don't think he's going to kill himself," said Mrs. Lillie, who,
it must be understood, was secretly somewhat sceptical about the power
of her friend's charms, and looked on this little French romance with
the eye of an outsider: "never you believe that, dearest. These men
make dreadful tearings, and shocking eyes and mouths; but they take
pretty good care to keep in the world, after all. You see, if a man's
dead, there's an end of all things; and I fancy they think of that
before they quite come to any thing decisive."

"_Chere etourdie_," said Mrs. Follingsbee, regarding Lillie with a
pensive smile: "you are just your old self,