d Peregrine to himself, "no pure beam of love
penetrates thy distempered mind."--In this Peregrine again meant
something more than toys and sugar-plums.

Lemmerhirt approached Peregrine, and began to talk in an under-tone of
his Rose, elevating her, in the fulness of his heart, into a perfect
miracle. But what gave him the most delight was, that Rose had an
inclination for the noble art of bookbinding, and in the few weeks that
she had been with him had made uncommon advances in the decorative
parts, so that she was already much more dexterous than many an oaf of
an apprentice, who wasted gold and morocco for years, and set the
letters all awry, making them look like so many drunken peasants,
staggering out of an ale-house. In the exuberance of his delight, he
whispered to Peregrine quite confidentially, "It must out, Mr. Tyss, I
can't help it.--Do you know, that it was my Rose who gilded the
Ariosto?"

Upon hearing this, Peregrine hastily snatched up the book, as if
securing it before he was robbed of it by an enemy. Lemmerhirt took
this for a sign that Peregrine wished to go, and begged of him to stay
a few minutes longer, and this it was that reminded him at last of the
necessity of tearing himself away. He hastily paid his bill, and set
off home, dragging along the heavy quartos, as if they had been some
treasure.

On entering his house he was met by the old Alina, who pointed to
Swammerdamm's chamber with looks of fear and anxiety. The door was
open, and he saw Doertje Elverdink, sitting in an arm-chair, quite
stiff, with a face drawn up, as if it belonged to a corpse, already
laid in the grave. Just so stiff, so corpse-like sate before her
Pepusch, Swammerdamm, and Leuwenhock. The old woman exclaimed, "Is not
that a strange, ghastly spectacle? In this manner the three unhappy
beings have sate the whole day long, and eat nothing, and drink
nothing, and speak nothing, and scarcely fetch their breath."

Peregrine at first felt a slight degree of terror at this strange
spectacle, but, as he ascended the stairs, the spectral image was
completely swallowed up by the sea of pleasure, in which the delighted
Peregrine swam, since his seeing Rose. Wishes, dreams, hopes, were
agitating his mind, which he longed to unburthen to some friend; but
what friend had Peregrine besides the honest Master Flea? And to him he
wished to open his whole heart, to tell him all about Rose,--all in
fact that cannot very well be told. But