as I have had at zoological gardens and menageries, from Dan to
Beersheba, just to see one; and ugly old lizards have been pointed out
to me, and scorpions, and every imaginable object but a dragon. But one
day I dug a splendid old manuscript--a perfect fossil--out of some old
library in Spezia, and opening it, by the merest chance came upon a most
lovely, illuminated, full-grown dragon, the very one, I suppose, that
Confucius couldn't find! I gazed in raptures, my dearest; he perfectly
sparkled with emeralds; his eyes were the most luminous opals. Dear,
happy old Indians, who had their dragons at the four corners of the
earth, and could go and look over at the lordly creatures whenever they
felt melancholy. And besides, I have a little private system of
dragonology of my own, that approaches the equator more nearly. I've
always worn opals since that day on every possible occasion; I mean to
be married in them.'

Hurra! _belle Henriette!_ thou hast a weakness. At the end of a long
aisle, shrouded in sumptuously colored perfumed light, stands an altar,
and white surplices gleam through the effulgence.--Thou queen! and that
thy crowning!

'Len,' said Fanny the next morning, as I sat, after breakfast, over the
paper, 'don't you think Harry is a little, just a little, satirical,
and--well--not _perfectly_ ladylike and kind, to talk so dreadfully of
one's friends?'

'Satirical!? Bless your little, tender heart, not the least mite in the
world; she's quite too straightforward for that. Unladylike! Why, my
dear Fanny, don't you know 'the wounds of a friend'? Did you never
think, little sister, that some girls are sent into the world to perform
the office of crumb-scrapers for your serene highnesses, and themselves
as well?'

'Like a lady, who gives a dinner party, jumping up and brushing off her
own table,' said Fanny with an amused laugh.

'Just so, dear; and as they go wandering about, not a fragment can be
omitted. Now, a little dwarf of a thing like you couldn't do that with
any grace; but Harry _could_, you know, and make everybody think it was
charming. So, if fragments of poor Snowe fall under her unsparing hand,
and she brushes them off carelessly, don't let anybody's tears go
rolling after, don't let anybody's heart ache, for such a trifle; think
of the dessert, Fanny, that is sure to follow.'

'Then you too, Len, you _want_ me to give up Landon?'

'Yes, my dear, let Landon--slide.'

Fanny here boxed my ear