as your business, face and all, to
distrust appearances, and not me."

"Ap--pear--ances were so strong that not to look m--miserable would have
been to seem indifferent; there is no love where there is no jealousy."

"Oh," said Julia, "he has let that out at last, after denying it a
hundred times. Now I say there is no true love without respect and
confidence, and this doesn't exist where there is jealousy, and all about
a trumpery bracelet."

"Anything but tr--ump--ump--umpery; it came down from my ancestors."

"You never had any; your behavior shows that."

"I tell you it is an heirloom. It was given to my mother by--"

"Oh, we know all about that," said Julia. "'This bracelet did an Egyptian
to my mother give.' But you are not going to play Othello with me."

"I shouldn't have a very gentle Desdemona."

"No, you wouldn't, candidly. No man shall ever bully and insult me, and
then wake me out of my first sleep to smother me because my maid has lost
one of his handkerchiefs at the wash."

He burst out laughing at this, and tried to inveigle her into good-humor.

"Say no more about it," said he, "and I'll forgive you."

"Forgive me, you little wretch!" cried Julia. "Why, haven't you the
sense to see that it is serious this time, and my patience is exhausted,
and that our engagement is broken off, and I never mean to see you
again--except when you come to my wedding?"

"Your wedding!" cried Percy, turning pale. "With whom?"

"That's my business; you leave that to me, sir. Hold out your hand--both
hands; here is the ancestral bracelet--it shall pinch me no longer,
neither my wrist nor my heart; here's the brooch you gave me--I won't be
pinned to it any longer, nor to you neither; and there is your bunch of
charms; and there is your bundle of love-letters--stupid ones they are;"
and she crammed all the aforesaid treasures into his hands one after the
other. So this was what she went to her room for.

Percy looked down on his handful ruefully. "My very letters! There was no
jealousy in them; they were full of earnest love."

"Fuller of bad spelling," said the relentless girl. Then she went into
details: "You spell abominable with two m's--and that's abominable; you
spell ridiculous with a k--and that's ridicklous. So after this don't you
presume to speak to me, for I shall never speak to you again."

"Very well, then," said Percy. "I, too, will be silent forever."

"Oh, I dare say," said Julia; "a chatter-b