A person less amiable than the good Mr. DIBBLE would have borrowed the
name of an appurtenance of a mill, at least once, as a suitable
expression of his feelings upon such a trying occasion; but, instead of
this, when Mr. BLADAMS, excitedly crying "fire!" lifted the overturned
table from off himself and young guest, he merely arose to a sitting
position on the littered carpet, and said to EDWIN, with a smile and a
rub: "Pray, am I at all near the mark in my picture?"

"I should say, sir," responded EDWIN, with a very strange expression of
countenance, also rubbing the back of his head, "that you are rather
hard upon the feelings of the unluckly lover. He may not show _all_ that
he feels--"

There he paused so long to feel his nose and ascertain about its being
broken, that Mr. DIBBLE limped to his feet and ended that part of the
discussion by hobbling to an open iron safe across the office.

Taking from a private drawer in this repository a small paper parcel,
containing a pasteboard box, and opening the latter, the old lawyer
produced what looked like a long, flat white cord, with shining tips at
either end.

"This, Mr. EDWIN," said he, with marked emotion, "is a stay-lace, with
golden tags, which belonged to Miss FLORA'S mother. It was handed to me,
in the abstraction of his grief, by Miss FLORA'S father, on the day of
the funeral; be saying that he could never bear to look upon it again.
To you, as Miss FLORA'S future husband, I now give it."

"A stay-lace!" echoed EDWIN, coming forward as quickly as his lameness