The Separation

Parted without the least regret,
Except that they had ever met.
* * * *
Misses, the tale that I relate,
This lesson seems to carry:
Choose not alone a proper mate,
But proper time to marry!
COWPER, PAIRING TIME ANTICIPATED

'I will have it!'

'Thou shalt not have it!'

'Diane says it is mine.'

'Diane knows nothing about it.'

'Gentlemen always yield to ladies.'

'Wives ought to mind their husbands.'

'Then I will not be thy wife.'

'Thou canst not help it.'

'I will. I will tell my father what M. le Baron reads and sings,
and then I know he will.'

'And welcome.' Eustacie put out her lip, and began to cry.

The 'husband and wife,' now eight and seven years old, were in a
large room hung with tapestry, representing the history of Tobit.
A great state bed, curtained with piled velvet, stood on a sort of
dais at the further end; there was a toilet-table adorned with
curiously shaped boxes, and coloured Venetian glasses, and filagree
pouncet-boxes, and with a small mirror whose frame was inlaid with
gold and ivory.

A large coffer, likewise inlaid, stood against the
wall, and near it a cabinet, of Dutch workmanship, a combination of
ebony, ivory, wood, and looking-glass, the centre retreating, and
so arranged that by the help of most ingenious attention to
perspective and reflection, it appeared like the entrance to a
magnificent miniature cinque-cento palace, with steps up to a
vestibule paved in black and white lozenges, and with three endless
corridors diverging from it.