“Young heads,” remarked Becker, “are not always stored with sense.  A foolish pledge, given in a moment of thoughtlessness is often obstinately adhered to in spite of reason and argument.  The young idea delights in miraculous instances of fidelity.  What more charming to a young and ardent mind than the loves of Dante and Beatrix, of Eleonora and Tasso, of Petrarch and Laura, of Abelard and Heloise, or of Dean Swift and Stella?  Young people do not reflect that most of these stories are apocryphal, and that the men who figure in them sought to add to their renown the prestige of originality; they put on a passion as ordinary mortals put on a new dress, they yielded to imagination and not to the law of the heart, and almost all of them paid by a life of wretchedness the penalty of their dreams.”

“That is, I presume,” remarked Mrs. Wolston, “you do not object to any reasonable amount of constancy, but you object to its being carried to an unwarrantable excess.”

“Exactly so, madam,” replied Becker; “constancy, like every thing else when reasonable limits are exceeded, becomes a vice.”

“The merriments of the marriage breakfast,” continued Wolston “slightly interrupted by the arrival of the new guest, were resumed.  Fresh dishes were brought in, and, amongst others, a fine turbot was placed on the table.  The gentleman who was engaged in carving the turbot struck the fish-knife against a hard substance.”

“I know what!” exclaimed two or three voices.

“I rather think not,” said Wolston, drily.

“Oh, yes, the ring! the ring!”

“No, it was merely the bone that runs from the head to the tail of the fish.”

“Oh, father,” cried Sophia, “how can you tease us so?”

“If they had found the ring,” replied Wolston, laughing, “I should have no motive for concealing it.  Fruit was afterwards placed before Herbert, and, when nobody was looking, he pulled a clasped dagger out of his pocket.”

Here Sophia pressed her hands closely on her ears, in order to avoid hearing what followed.

“It was a very beautiful poignard,” continued Wolston, “and rather a bijou than a weapon; and, as the servants had neglected to hand him a fruit-knife, he made use of it in paring an apple.”

“Is it all over?” inquired Sophia, removing a hand from one ear.

“Alas! yes!” said Jack, lugubriously, “he has been and done it.”

“O the monster!”

“Travelling carriages having arrived at the door for the bridal party, Herbert quietly departed.”

“What!” exclaimed Sophia, “did they not arrest and drag him to prison?”

“Oh,” replied Jack, “the crime was not so atrocious as it appears.”

“Not atrocious!”