A HORNET'S WORK.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2847, 30 March 1878, Page 4

A HORNET'S WORK.

If anybody thinks he can engage in a dissipated life and escape punishment he is mistaken. Nature will vindicate her laws, tfo woman can dance half the night in a heated room, or sail on the water in the moonlight inadequately dressed, or feed on confectionary and pickles just before going to bed, without feeling the effects in due time. A sad case illustrating this, and being at the same time a warning against all kinds of dissipation, occurred at the picnic. A dashing young woman present was a thorn in the flesh to the other females, and a dazzling objecttosusceptible males. Her dress was exquisite, and made in the latest style. Her hat, a rustic affair, was perfectly lovely. She had over forty dollars' worth of hair on her head, held on by a diamondbacked fixture of some sort (name not known to the writer). She had a diamond ring, and a number of other kinds, so mauy that each finger stood out like a barrel. She wore diamonds in her ear, and a solid gold breast-pin. Resides this jewellery, she sported a very long chain, and a remarkably pretty watch. As a climax to this array of charm was her really pretty face, and graceful air, and coquettish eyes. She was beauliCul. The young men raved over her. And so did the other girls, although not quite in the same way. She drew the masculines as irresistibly as if Bho had been a forty horse-power loadstone and they but small scraps of iron. While she was at dinner, and seven young men were passing her cake, and seven other young men were ladling her out lemonade, and a third seven were pressing other things upon her attention, a hornet sailed down on her ! upper lip. Twenty-one young men made a dash at the awful beas^g when it fetched her a kick and sailed away again. There was a scream from the dashing young lady and great consternation among the twenty-one young men, who immediately suggested twenty-one remedies. It was but a little thing, anyway, the sting of a hornet, and would soon disappear, thought the young lady. She enjoyed the sympathy which engulfed her in a torrent of sweet sayings and glances. But she reckoned wrong. Here was an opportunity for nature to vindicate herself, and she did. The young lady wns a gay young lady, fond of balls, and late parties, and wine, nnd confectionery, and late eating, and her blood was, in consequence, in a very bad condition. So the wound continued to,rankle, and the upper lip, so fair' and tempting, began to bulge. And the bulge grew bo rapidly that the young lady felt as if she was carrying an old-fashioned valise under her nose, and her heart grew very sick. Still the swelling continued. The other girls smiled wickedly to themselves, and the twentyone young men began to appear uneasy, and to cast apprehensive glances upon the spectacle. And it was a spectacle calcuktfd to appal even the stouter hearts than those of a picnic. The lip stood out lika a snub-nosed man in an argument. The dimensions were frightful. It covered the end of her .nose, shutting it completely from view, and stood but so far beyond 'its fellow, as to. look positively repulsive. She was such a sight. And how bitterly she cried. All of the twenty - one young men ignominiously fled, and there, in her beautiful robes and brilliant jewellery she stood alone and forsaken, her fine feathers mocking her in her desolation. Finally, site was foredd to be driven "home by one of the party whom she had scorned to notice—a tow-lieaded youth, who stuttered and had warts.