_Helmer_ (_inside the door, rattling_). Hasn't my lark changed its dress yet? (NORA _unbolts door_.) What--so you are _not_ in fancy costume, after all? (_Enters with_ RANK.) Are there any letters for me in the box there?
_Nora_ (_voicelessly_). None--not even a postcard! Oh, TORVALD, don't, please, go and look--_promise_ me you won't! I do _assure_ you there isn't a letter! And I've forgotten the Tarantella you taught me--do let's run over it. I'm so afraid of breaking down--promise me not to look at the letter-box. I can't dance unless you do.
_Helmer_ (_standing still, on his way to the letter-box_). I am a man of strict business habits, and some powers of observation; my little squirrel's assurances that there is nothing in the box, combined with her obvious anxiety that I should not go and see for myself, satisfy me that it is indeed empty, in spite of the fact that I have not invariably found her a strictly truthful little dicky-bird. There--there. (_Sits down to piano._) Bang away on your tambourine, little squirrel--dance away, my own lark!
_Nora_ (_dancing, with a long gay shawl_). Just _won't_ the little squirrel! Faster--faster! Oh, I _do_ feel so gay! We will have some champagne for dinner, _won't_ we, TORVALD? [_Dances with more and more abandonment._
_Helmer_ (_after addressing frequent remarks in correction_). Come, come--not this awful wildness! I don't like to see _quite_ such a larky little lark as this ... Really it is time you stopped!
_Nora_ (_her hair coming down as she dances more wildly still, and swings the tambourine_). I can't ... I can't! (_To herself, as she dances._) I've only thirty-one hours left to be a bird in; and after that--(_shuddering_)--after _that_, KROGSTAD will let the cat out of the bag! [_Curtain._
N.B.--The final Act,--containing scenes of thrilling and realistic intensity, worked out with a masterly insight and command of psychology, the whole to conclude with a new and original _dénoûment_--unavoidably postponed to a future number. No money returned.
As I have but a limited holding in the Temple, and, moreover, slept on the evening of the 5th of April at Burmah Gardens, I considered it right and proper to fill in the paper left me by the "Appointed Enumerator" at the latter address. And here I may say that the title of the subordinate officer intrusted with the addition of my household to the compilation of the Census pleased me greatly--"Appointed Enumerator" was distinctly good. I should have been willing (of course for an appropriate _honorarium_) to have accepted so well-sounding an appointment myself. To continue, the general tone of the instructions "to the Occupier" was excellent. Such words as "erroneous," "specification," and the like, appeared frequently, and must have been pleasant strangers to the householder who was authorised to employ some person other than himself to write, "if unable to do so himself." To be captious, I might have been better pleased had the housemaid who handed me the schedule been spared the smile provoked by finding me addressed by the "Appointed Enumerator" as "Mr. BEEFLESS," instead of "Mr. BRIEFLESS." But this was a small matter.