osity, of
impertinence, of malice, of love, leak out in this way. There is no need
of Mrs. Felix Lorraine's reflection in the mirror, to tell us that she
is plotting evil for us behind our backs. We know it, as we know by the
ominous stillness of a child that some mischief or other is going on. A
young girl betrays, in a moment, that her eyes have been feeding on the
face where you find them fixed, and not merely brushing over it with
their pencils of blue or brown light.

A certain involuntary adjustment assimilates us, you may also observe,
to that upon which we look. Roses redden the cheeks of her who stoops to
gather them, and buttercups turn little people's chins yellow. When we
look at a vast landscape, our chests expand as if we would enlarge to
fill it. When we examine a minute object, we naturally contract,
not only our foreheads, but all our dimensions. If I _see_ two
men wrestling, I wrestle too, with my limbs and features. When a
country-fellow comes upon the stage, you will see twenty faces in the
boxes putting on the bumpkin expression. There is no need of multiplying
instances to reach this generalization; every person and thing we look
upon puts its special mark upon us. If this is repeated often enough, we
get a permanent resemblance to it, or, at least, a fixed aspect which we
took from it. Husband and wife come to look alike at last, as has often
been noticed. It is a common saying of a jockey, that he is "all horse";
and I have often fancied that milkmen get a stiff, upright carriage,
and an angular movement of the arm, that remind one of a pump and the
working of its handle.

All this came in by accident, just because I happened to mention that
the little gentleman found that Iris had been looking at him with her
soul in her eyes, when his glance rested on her after wandering round
the company. What he thought, it is hard to say; but the shadow of
suspicion faded off from his face, and he looked calmly into the amber
eyes, resting his cheek upon the hand that wore the red jewel.

--If it were a possible thing,--women are such strange creatures! Is
there any trick that love and their own fancies do not play them? Just
see how they marry! A woman that gets hold of a bit of manhood is like
one of those Chinese wood-carvers who work on any odd, fantastic root
that comes to hand, and, if it is only bulbous above and bifurcated
below, will always contrive to make a man--such as he is--out of it. I
shou