beauty. It is indispensible that a belle
should have a beautiful nose; in fact, it is a question whether a
woman without an eye would not be preferable to one with--but I
anticipate.

"I see your surprise, sir," said she, with evident chagrin, "but it is
all owing to you."

"To _me_, madam! I presume you allude to the altered appearance of
your face, but I cannot conceive what I can have had to do with the
change."

In brief, her beautiful nose was all over as red as scarlet,
particularly the point of it, which exactly resembled a large red
cherry, or ripe Siberian crab-apple. Now just think of it--a very fair
woman with a blood-red nose! Faugh! it is enough to sicken the most
devoted admirer of the sex. Suppose any gentleman going to be married,
and full of love and admiration, should, on going to the house of his
beloved bride on the appointed morning, to take her to church, humming
to himself that sweet song, "She Wove a Wreath of Roses," finds her
beautiful nose become a big rosy nosegay--would he not be apt to
suppose she had over night been making pretty free sacrifices, not to
the little god of love, but to jolly Bacchus? I did not do _my_ belle
such an injustice--and yet what could I think?

"How do you make out that I had any thing to do with such an important
alteration, madam."

"O, as easy as it is true. Did not your wo-begone terrors in the
church-yard throw me into immoderate fits of laughter, as you well
know? And did not your adventures, after you retired, when reported to
me, throw me all but into convulsions--the more I thought, the more I
laughed, until it brought on a nervous headache so intense, it felt as
if my head would have split? To relieve so distressing a pain, I took
a bottle of eau de cologne to bed with me, and pulling out the
stopper, propped it up by the pillow, right under my nose. I quite
forgot it, and fell asleep with the bottle in that position."

"Ah!" said I, "I suspected _the bottle_ had something to do with it."

"Quite true, quite true--but not the bottle you wickedly insinuate.
How long I slept I know not, it must have been a long time; when I
awoke, I was surprised to find my shoulder cold and wet--and then I
recollected the bottle of cologne; but what was my horror, on getting
up, to behold my face in this frightful condition, you may easily
imagine."

Poor, dear lady, if she laughed heartily at the scare she gave me in
the church-yard, I now had my revenge, full