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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by the punchinello publishing company, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
* * * * *
Man and wives.
A travesty.
By Mose Skinner.
CHAPTER SECOND.
Love.
The Hon. Michael ladle and Archibald BLINKSOP were interrupted in their conversation by Belinda, who sent off the former under pretence that the croquet players were waiting for him, or, as she expressed it, it was “his turn to mallet.”
As soon as he was fairly out of sight, she turned to Archibald, and said; “Come with me.”
“What for?” said Archibald, as she seized him by the arm and hurried him into the shrubbery. “Recollect,” he added, “that I am an orphan, with a constitution never robust.”
She made no reply till they were screened from observation.
“You needn’t be afraid, you little fool,” she said. “Sit down on that stump.”
Archibald tremblingly obeyed her.
She imprisoned his fluttering hand in hers, and smoothed his hair reassuringly.
“Archie,” she murmured; “dear Archie.”
“Oh, don’t, don’t talk that way,” said ARCHIBALD. “You make me afraid of you.”
“Afraid!” she returned. “And of me? Oh cruel, cruel ARCHIBALD. Is it for this that I have passed many a sleepless night, awaking unrefreshed with haggard orbs? Is it for this that I’ve pined away and refused meat victuals?”
She paused. Her heart was beating violently. She took from her pocket a copy of the Ledger, adjusted her eye-glasses, and continued:
“ARCHIBALD BLINKSOP, for weeks I have basked in the sunlight of your existence. Your celestial smile, shedding a tranquil calm o’er my perturbed spirit, has been my daily sustenance. Your ethereal form, beautiful as an houri, has, with its subtle fascination, enthralled and steeped in bliss my innermost soul, lifting me as it were into a purer, a holier existence. Your—”
