ry happy!' said Dora. 'But say you'll let me
stop, and see you write.'

'Why, what a sight for such bright eyes at midnight!' I replied.

'Are they bright, though?' returned Dora, laughing. 'I'm so glad they're
bright.' 'Little Vanity!' said I.

But it was not vanity; it was only harmless delight in my admiration. I
knew that very well, before she told me so.

'If you think them pretty, say I may always stop, and see you write!'
said Dora. 'Do you think them pretty?'

'Very pretty.'

'Then let me always stop and see you write.'

'I am afraid that won't improve their brightness, Dora.'

'Yes, it will! Because, you clever boy, you'll not forget me then, while
you are full of silent fancies. Will you mind it, if I say something
very, very silly?---more than usual?' inquired Dora, peeping over my
shoulder into my face.

'What wonderful thing is that?' said I.

'Please let me hold the pens,' said Dora. 'I want to have something to
do with all those many hours when you are so industrious. May I hold the
pens?'

The remembrance of her pretty joy when I said yes, brings tears into my
eyes. The next time I sat down to write, and regularly afterwards,
she sat in her old place, with a spare bundle of pens at her side. Her
triumph in this connexion with my work, and her delight when I wanted a
new pen--which I very often feigned to do--suggested to me a new way of
pleasing my child-wife. I occasionally made a pretence of wanting a
page or two of manuscript copied. Then Dora was in her glory. The
preparations she made for this great work, the aprons she put on, the
bibs she borrowed from the kitchen to keep off the ink, the time she
took, the innumerable stoppages she made to have a laugh with Jip as if
he understood it all, her conviction that her work was incomplete unless
she signed her name at the end, and the way in which she would bring it
to me, like a school-copy, and then, when I praised it, clasp me round
the neck, are touching recollections to me, simple as they might appear
to other men.

She took possession of the keys soon after this, and went jingling about
the house with the whole bunch in a little basket, tied to her slender
waist. I seldom found that the places to which they belonged were
locked, or that they were of any use except as a plaything for Jip--but
Dora was pleased, and that pleased me. She was quite satisfied that a
good deal was effected by this make-belief of housekeeping; and was as
m