s mouth, and didn't quite know what to do with them when they were put
there.

Then they, all three, out for a charming ride, and for a charming stroll
among heath in bloom, and there behold the identical Gruff and Glum with
his wooden legs horizontally disposed before him, apparently sitting
meditating on the vicissitudes of life! To whom said Bella, in her
light-hearted surprise: 'Oh! How do you do again? What a dear old
pensioner you are!' To which Gruff and Glum responded that he see her
married this morning, my Beauty, and that if it warn't a liberty he
wished her ji and the fairest of fair wind and weather; further, in a
general way requesting to know what cheer? and scrambling up on his two
wooden legs to salute, hat in hand, ship-shape, with the gallantry of a
man-of-warsman and a heart of oak.

It was a pleasant sight, in the midst of the golden bloom, to see this
salt old Gruff and Glum, waving his shovel hat at Bella, while his thin
white hair flowed free, as if she had once more launched him into blue
water again. 'You are a charming old pensioner,' said Bella, 'and I am
so happy that I wish I could make you happy, too.' Answered Gruff and
Glum, 'Give me leave to kiss your hand, my Lovely, and it's done!' So it
was done to the general contentment; and if Gruff and Glum didn't in the
course of the afternoon splice the main brace, it was not for want of
the means of inflicting that outrage on the feelings of the Infant Bands
of Hope.

But, the marriage dinner was the crowning success, for what had bride
and bridegroom plotted to do, but to have and to hold that dinner in the
very room of the very hotel where Pa and the lovely woman had once dined
together! Bella sat between Pa and John, and divided her attentions
pretty equally, but felt it necessary (in the waiter's absence before
dinner) to remind Pa that she was HIS lovely woman no longer.

'I am well aware of it, my dear,' returned the cherub, 'and I resign you
willingly.'

'Willingly, sir? You ought to be brokenhearted.'

'So I should be, my dear, if I thought that I was going to lose you.'

'But you know you are not; don't you, poor dear Pa? You know that you
have only made a new relation who will be as fond of you and as thankful
to you--for my sake and your own sake both--as I am; don't you, dear
little Pa? Look here, Pa!' Bella put her finger on her own lip, and then
on Pa's, and then on her own lip again, and then on her husband's. 'Now,
we a