“I regret,” said Mr. J.S., “that you should refuse to be Mrs. JOHN SMITH.” (ANGELINA shuddered.) “Might I ask you why?”

“No,” said she.  “Say, my age.”

“But I don’t object to that,” said J.S.

“Well, I won’t,” said ANGELINA, “that’s all!”

J.S. rubbed the fur on his hat the wrong way, pulled up his shirt collar, looked mournfully at the idol of his heart, and departed.

Why did she refuse him?  Listen!

About a thousand or two years ago—­well, perhaps we had better not go so far back—­anyhow, Miss VAVASOUR had ancestors, and she was proud of them; she had a name, and she gloried in it; she had $100,000, and therefore insisted on keeping her aristocratic name; she had kept it for forty years, and was willing to take a contract for the rest of the job, though she did feel that she needed a man to slide down the hill of time with her, and she was rather fond of SMITH.

Mr. JOHN SMITH wanted to marry her for herself alone, though he had made inquiries and knew all about that $100,000.

Thus it was.

II.

“That’s all!” Miss VAVASOUR had said.

But was it all?  She thought it was matrimony; J.S. thought it was matter o’ money, and J.S. had a long head—­an awfully long head.

Mr. JOHN SMITH sat before the grate.  His auburn locks, his Roman nose, his little grey eyes, his thin lips, his big ears, and each particular hair of his red whiskers, expressed intense disgust.

He was day-dreaming, seeing visions in the fire.  There he saw Miss ANGELINA VAVASOUR.  Her eyes were ten dollar gold pieces, her nose a little pile of ducats, each cheek seemed swelled out by large quantities of dollars, every tooth in her head was a double-eagle, and her hair was a mass of ingots.  He heaved a sigh and took a fresh chew.

The tobacco seemed to refresh him; he walked the floor for a while, and then sat in his chair.  Suddenly his countenance was irradiated, like a ripening squash at early morn, and he sprang to his feet, crying out, “Eureka!  I’ll do it.”

III.

Eureka!  How?  What?  Thus.

One month afterwards our hero presented himself at the house of Miss VAVASOUR, carrying under his arm a large volume, bound in calf.

“Miss VAVASOUR,” said he, “I come to repeat my proposition to you.  Will you reconsider?”

“Sir?” said she.

“Things have changed,” said our hero.

“Changed!” echoed she.  “What do you mean, Mr. JOHN SMITH?”

“Call me not by that vile cognomen,” quoth he.  “Look!” and he opened the Session Laws at page 1004.

She read: 

“STATE OF NEW YORK, COUNTY OF BLANK.

I, JONATHAN JERUSALEM, Clerk of said County, do hereby certify that the following change of name has been made by the County Court of this County, viz.: