amusements. Dick worshipped at many shrines, but most faithfully at
that of a meek divinity, who returned charming answers to the ardent
epistles which he left in her father's garden wall, where, Pyramus
and Thisbe-like, they often chatted through a chink; and Dolly was
seldom seen without a staff of aids who would have "fought, bled,
and died" for her as cheerfully as the Little Corporal's Old Guard,
though she paid them only in words; for her Waterloo had not yet
come.

With the charming, perversity of her sex in such matters, no sooner
had Dolly declared that she didn't like Mr. Bopp, than she began to
discover that she did; and so far from desiring "to slap him," a
tendency to regard him with peculiar good-will and tenderness
developed itself, much to her own surprise; for with all her
coquetry and seeming coldness, Dolly had a right womanly heart of
her own, though she had never acknowledged the fact till August Bopp
looked at her with so much love and longing in his honest eyes. Then
she found a little fear mingling with her regard, felt a strong
desire to be respected by him, discovered a certain something which
she called conscience, restraining a reckless use of her power, and,
soon after her lofty denial to Dick, was forced to own that Mr. Bopp
had become her master in the finer species of gymnastics that came
in with Adam and Eve, and have kept all creation turning somersets
ever since. Of course these discoveries were unconfessed, even to
that best bosom friend which any of us can have; yet her mother
suspected them, and, with much anxiety, saw all, yet held her peace,
knowing that her little daughter would, sooner or later, give her a
fuller confidence than could be demanded; and remembering the
happiest moments of her own happy past, when an older Dick wooed
another Dolly, she left that flower, which never can be forced, to