It had a dreary title-page, which she had enlivened with a fancy portrait of the author,--a face from memory, apparently,--one of those faces that small children loathe without knowing why, and which give them that inward disgust for heaven so many of the little wretches betray, when they hear that these are "good men," and that heaven is full of such .-- The gentleman with the diamond--the Koh-i-noor, so called by us--was not encouraged, I think, by the reception of his packet of perfumed soap.

He pulls his purple moustache and looks appreciatingly at Iris, who never sees him, as it should seem.

The young Marylander, who I thought would have been in love with her before this time, sometimes looks from his corner across the long diagonal of the table, as much as to say, I wish you were up here by me, or I were down there by you,--which would, perhaps, be a more natural arrangement than the present one.

But nothing comes of all this,--and nothing has come of my sagacious idea of finding out the girl's fancies by looking into her locked drawing-book.
Not to give up all the questions I was determined to solve, I made an attempt also to work into the Little Gentleman's chamber.

For this purpose, I kept him in conversation, one morning, until he was just ready to go up-stairs, and then, as if to continue the talk, followed him as he toiled back to his room.