Are you yet more miserable than before?  Turn then to yonder sober-looking gentleman, who certainly seems sufficiently composed to perform the difficult manoeuvre.  He has the advantage of a table to be sure; but that is not every thing.  He begins right, by deliberately removing the woolly skin.  Now he lays the slippery peach in his plate, and makes a plunge at it with his knife.  A sharp, prolonged screech across his plate salutes the ears of all the bystanders, and a fine slice of juicy pulp is flung unceremoniously into the face of the gentleman opposite, who certainly does not look very grateful for the unexpected gift.

Every one, of course, has seen the awkward accident.  O no!  That pretty, animated girl upon the sofa is much too pleasantly engaged, that is evident, to be watching her neighbors.  Playing carelessly with her fan, and casting many sparkling glances upward at the two gentlemen who are vying with each other in their gallant attentions, she has enough to do without noticing other people.  She is happily unconscious of the mortification which is in store for her, or wilfully shuts her eyes to the peril.  Alas!  Her hand is resting, even now, upon the destroyer of all her present enjoyment, the beautiful, fragrant, treacherous peach.  With a nonchalance really shocking to the anxious beholder, she raises it, and breaks it open, talking the while, and scarcely bestowing a thought upon what she is about.  Dexterously done; but—­O luckless maiden!—­the fruit is ripe, and rich, and juicy, and the running drops fall, not into her plate, but upon the delicate folds of her dress.

The merry repartee dies away upon her lips, as she becomes conscious of the catastrophe.  It is with a forced smile that she declares, “It is nothing; O, not of the slightest consequence!” That unlucky peach!  How many blunders, how many pauses, how many absent-minded remarks it occasions!  She makes the most frenzied attempts to regain her former gayety, but in vain.  Her gloves are stained and sticky with the flowing juice, and she is oppressed by the conviction that all her partners for the rest of the evening will hate her most heartily.  An expression of real vexation steals over her pretty face, and she gives up her plate to one of the attendant beaux, with not so much as a wish that he will return to her.  Where are the arch smiles, the lively tones, the quick and ready responses now?  Her spirit is quenched.  Her manner has become subdued, depressed,—­shall I say it?—­yes, even sulky.

Ah!  I see your courage will not brave laughter.  You steal to the table, half ashamed of yourself as you set down your untasted peach.  Your sudden zeal to relieve those ladies of their plates serves as a very good excuse for the relinquishment of your own.  You have rescued yourself very well from your dilemma this time.  Remember my advice for the future.  Never accept a peach in company.

MISERIES.