sation in the next room; and as the conversation was loud and the partition thin, Kate could not help discovering that they belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Mantalini.
"If you will be odiously, demnebly, outrigeously jealous, my soul," said Mr. Mantalini, "you will be very miserable—horrid miserable—demnition miserable." And then there came a sound as though Mr. Mantalini were sipping his coffee.
"I am miserable," returned Madame Mantalini, evidently pouting.
"Then you are an ungrateful, unworthy, demd unthankful little fairy," said Mr. Mantalini.
"I am not," returned Madame, with a sob.
"Do not put itself out of humour," said Mr. Mantalini, breaking an egg. "It is a pretty bewitching little demd countenance, and it should not be out of humour, for it spoils its loveliness, and makes it cross and gloomy like a frightful, naughty, demd hobgoblin."
"I am not to be brought round in that way, always," rejoined Madame, sulkily.
"It shall be brought round in any way it likes best, and not brought round at all if it likes that better," retorted Mr. Mantalini, with his egg-spoon in his mouth.
"It's very easy to talk," said Mrs. Mantalini.
"Not so easy when one is eating a demnition egg" replied Mr. Mantalini; "for the yolk runs down the waistcoat, and yolk of egg does not match any waistcoat but a yellow waistcoat, demmit."
"You were flirting with her during the whole night," said Madame Mantalini, apparently desirous to lead the conversation back to the point from which it had strayed.
"No, no, my life."
"You were," said Madame; "I had my eye upon you all this time."
"Bless the little winking twinkling eye; was it on me all the time!" cried Mantalini, in a sort of lazy rapture. "Oh, demmit!"
"And I say once more," resumed Madame, "that you ought not to waltz with anybody but your own wife; and I will not bear it, Mantalini, if I take poison first."
"She will not take poison and have horrid pains, will she?" said Mantalini; who, by the altered sound of his voice, seemed to have moved his chair and taken up his position nearer to his wife. "She will not take poison, because she had a demd fine husband who might have married two countesses and a dowager——"
"Two countesses," interposed Madame. "You told me one before!"
"Two!" cried Mantalini. "Two demd fine women, real countesses and splendid fortunes, demmit."
"And why didn't you?" asked Madame, playfully.
"Why didn't I!" replied her husband. "Had I not seen at a morning concert the demdest little fascinator in all the world, and while that little fascinator is my wife, may not all the countesses and dowagers in England be"——
Mr. Mantalini did not finish the sentence, but he gave Madame Mantalini a very loud kiss, which Madame Mantalini returned; after
