—­A woman of sense ought to be above flattering any man,—­said the Model.

[My reflection. Oh! oh! no wonder you didn’t get married.  Served you right.] My remark. Surely, Madam,—­if you mean by flattery telling people boldly to their faces that they are this or that, which they are not.  But a woman who does not carry a halo of good feeling and desire to make everybody contented about with her wherever she goes,—­an atmosphere of grace, mercy, and peace, of at least six feet radius, which wraps every human being upon whom she voluntarily bestows her presence, and so flatters him with the comfortable thought that she is rather glad he is alive than otherwise, isn’t worth the trouble of talking to, as a woman; she may do well enough to hold discussions with.

—­I don’t think the Model exactly liked this.  She said,—­a little spitefully, I thought,—­that a sensible man might stand a little praise, but would of course soon get sick of it, if he were in the habit of getting much.

Oh, yes,—­I replied,—­just as men get sick of tobacco.  It is notorious how apt they are to get tired of that vegetable.

—­That’s so!—­said the young fellow John.—­I’ve got tired of my cigars and burnt ’em all up.

I am heartily glad to hear it,—­said the Model.—­I wish they were all disposed of in the same way.

So do I,—­said the young fellow John.

Can’t you get your friends to unite with you in committing those odious instruments of debauchery to the flames in which you have consumed your own?

I wish I could,—­said the young fellow John.

It would be a noble sacrifice,—­said the Model,—­and every American woman would be grateful to you.  Let us burn them all in a heap out in the yard.

That a’n’t my way,—­said the young fellow John;—­I burn ’em one ‘t’ time,—­little end in my mouth and big end outside.

—­I watched for the effect of this sudden change of programme, when it should reach the calm stillness of the Model’s interior apprehension, as a boy watches for the splash of a stone which he has dropped into a well.  But before it had fairly reached the water, poor Iris, who had followed the conversation with a certain interest until it turned this sharp corner, (for she seems rather to fancy the young fellow John,) laughed out such a clear, loud laugh, that it started us all off, as the locust-cry of some full-throated soprano drags a multitudinous chorus after it.  It was plain that some dam or other had broken in the soul of this young girl, and she was squaring up old scores of laughter, out of which she had been cheated, with a grand flood of merriment that swept all before it.  So we had a great laugh all round, in which the Model—­who, if she had as many virtues as there are spokes to a wheel, all compacted with a personality as round and complete as its tire, yet wanted that one little addition of grace, which seems so small, and is as important as the linchpin in trundling over the rough ways of life—­had not the tact to join.  She seemed to be “stuffy” about it, as the young fellow John said.  In fact, I was afraid the joke would have cost us both our new lady-boarders.  It had no effect, however, except, perhaps, to hasten the departure of the elder of the two, who could, on the whole, be spared.