not liable to any mistakes whatever, was enough to make her feel and look very foolish.
It was a good while before Smilax could command himself long enough to speak, but the moment he did, his wife leaped from the sofa, threw her arms around his neck, and, if there had been a piano in the room, she would have gone off with "Ah! non giunge!" in a manner that any prima donna might have envied.
To save the trouble of an explanation, we will give our readers a copy of the letter which caused this domestic emeute, and leave it to their own imaginations to do the rest.
[copy]
"Dear Madam:
"Though a stranger to you, I am not to your husband; and I do not flatter myself that he would confide to you the kind of transactions which such as I have with him; and I would not now intrude upon you, were it not for the peculiar circumstances in which I am placed. I am a mother; I believe that you are not, and you may not understand my feelings. But my offspring must be provided for. I am not mercenary, yet I can not afford to part with the 'Pledge of Affection' which I left with him yesterday, without pay. This I wish you to say to him. After a long and most satisfactory interview which I had with him, when I returned to say this much, and 'nothing more,' I was denied all access to him, and have ventured to request you to act as my mediator with him. If my presence is disagreeable to him, he has my address, and may drop me a line informing me of his decision. The 'Pledge' may be sent back if he declines to pay.
"Most truly yours,
"Pattie Passionflower.
"To Mrs. Smilax."
This little affair proved the straw which broke the camel's back. Smilax concluded the next morning that his martyrdom in the cause of literature had been endured long enough. The delusive idea of distinguishing himself by acting as a monthly nurse to other people's literary bantlings, and of elevating popular taste by any such means, was entirely dissipated. He sold out to some body as deluded as he
