he might call and coax as long
as he pleased,--no Master Flea would show himself; he was up and away:
at last, in the folds of his neckcloth, where Master Flea had been wont
to lodge upon his going abroad, Peregrine found, after a more careful
search, a tiny box, whereon was written:

"In this is the microscopic glass. If you look steadfastly into the box
with your left eye, the glass will immediately be in its pupil; when
you want to be freed from the instrument, you have only to gently
squeeze the pupil, holding your eye over the box, and the glass will
drop into it. I am busy in your service, and risk no little by it, but
for so kind a protector I would hazard any thing, as

"Your most devoted servant,

"MASTER FLEA."

Now here would be an excellent opportunity for a genuine romance-writer
to expatiate on the difference between lust and love, and, having
handled it sufficiently in theory, to illustrate it practically in the
person of Mr. Tyss. Much might be said of sensual desires, of the curse
of the primal sin, and of the heavenly Promethean spark, which in love
inflames that true community of spirit of the two sexes, which forms
the actual necessary dualism of nature. Should now the aforesaid
Promethean spark--but the reader will perhaps be glad to escape the
rest of this dissertation, though he may rest assured there is much in
it, whereby he might have been edified, had he been so inclined.

It must be evident to all, that Peregrine only felt desire for Doertje
Elverdink, but that, when he saw Rose Lemmerhirt, the real heavenly
love blazed in his bosom. Little thanks, however, would be due to the
editor of this most wonderful of all wonderful tales, if, adhering to
the stiff, formal pace of renowned romancers, he could not forbear in
this place exciting the weariness essentially requisite to a legitimate
romance.--No; let us go to the point at once: sighs, lamentations,
joys, pains, kisses, blisses, are all united in the focus of the
moment, when the lovely Rose, with the crimson of maiden modesty
upon her cheeks, confesses to the enraptured Peregrine that she
loves him--that she cannot express how much, how immeasurably she loves
him,--that she lives in him only,--that he is her only thought, her
only joy.

But the crafty demon is wont to thrust his dark claws into the sunniest
moments of life,--nay, to utterly obscure that sunshine by