ked up from my writing, and saw her
seated opposite, I would lean back in my chair, and think how queer it
was that there we were, alone together as a matter of course--nobody's
business any more--all the romance of our engagement put away upon a
shelf, to rust--no one to please but one another--one another to please,
for life.

When there was a debate, and I was kept out very late, it seemed so
strange to me, as I was walking home, to think that Dora was at home! It
was such a wonderful thing, at first, to have her coming softly down to
talk to me as I ate my supper. It was such a stupendous thing to know
for certain that she put her hair in papers. It was altogether such an
astonishing event to see her do it!

I doubt whether two young birds could have known less about keeping
house, than I and my pretty Dora did. We had a servant, of course. She
kept house for us. I have still a latent belief that she must have been
Mrs. Crupp's daughter in disguise, we had such an awful time of it with
Mary Anne.

Her name was Paragon. Her nature was represented to us, when we engaged
her, as being feebly expressed in her name. She had a written character,
as large as a proclamation; and, according to this document, could do
everything of a domestic nature that ever I heard of, and a great many
things that I never did hear of. She was a woman in the prime of life;
of a severe countenance; and subject (particularly in the arms) to
a sort of perpetual measles or fiery rash. She had a cousin in the
Life-Guards, with such long legs that he looked like the afternoon
shadow of somebody else. His shell-jacket was as much too little for him
as he was too big for the premises. He made the cottage smaller than it
need have been, by being so very much out of proportion to it. Besides
which, the walls were not thick, and, whenever he passed the evening at
our house, we always knew of it by hearing one continual growl in the
kitchen.

Our treasure was warranted sober and honest. I am therefore willing to
believe that she was in a fit when we found her under the boiler; and
that the deficient tea-spoons were attributable to the dustman.

But she preyed upon our minds dreadfully. We felt our inexperience, and
were unable to help ourselves. We should have been at her mercy, if she
had had any; but she was a remorseless woman, and had none. She was the
cause of our first little quarrel.

'My dearest life,' I said one day to Dora, 'do you thin