tarver." Eventually, when the two arrive
hand-in-hand at Barbox Brothers' hotel, nobody there could make out
her name as she set it forth, "except one chambermaid, who said it was
Constantinople--which it wasn't."

No wonder Barbox feels bigger and heavier in person every minute when he
is being catechised by Polly! Asked by her if he knows any stories, and
compelled to answer, "No! What a dunce you must be, mustn't you?" says
Polly. Frightened nearly out of his wits at the dinner-table, when they
are feasting together, by her getting on her feet upon her chair to
reward him with a kiss, and then toppling forward among the dishes--he
himself crying out in dismay, "Gracious angels! Whew! I thought we were
in the fire, Polly!"--"What a coward you are, ain't you?" says Polly,
when replaced.

Upon the next morning, when brought down to breakfast, after a
comfortable night's sleep, passed by the child in a bed shared with "the
Constantinopolitan chambermaid," Polly, "by that time a mere heap of
dimples," poses poor, unwieldy Barbox by asking him, in a wheedling
manner, "What are we going to do, you dear old thing?" On his suggesting
their having a sight, at the Circus, of two long-tailed ponies, speckled
all over--"No, no, no!" cries Polly, in an ecstasy. When he afterwards
throws out a proposition that they shall also look in at the toy-shop,
and choose a doll--"Not dressed," ejaculates Polly; "No, no, no--not
dressed!" Barbox replying, "Full dressed; together with a house, and
all things necessary for housekeeping!" Polly gives a little scream, and
seems in danger of falling into a swoon of bliss. "What a darling you
are!" she languidly exclaims, leaning back in her chair: "Come and
be hugged." All this will indicate plainly enough the difficulties
investing every sentence of this Reading, capped as they all are by the
astounding _denouement_ of the plot--Polly turning out to be (sly
little thing!) the purposely-lost daughter of Barbox Brothers' old love,
Beatrice, and of her husband, Tresham, for whom Barbox had not only been
jilted, but by whom Barbox had been simultaneously and rather heavily
defrauded.

Perhaps the pleasantest recollection of the whole Reading is, not
Polly--the small puss turns out to be such a cunningly reticent little
emissary--but her Doll, a "lovely specimen of Circassian descent,
possessing as much boldness of beauty as was reconcileable with
extreme feebleness of mouth," and combining a sky-b