"There is something in this I do not understand," said Frederic,

setting a chair for himself close to hers. "Are you really

suffering? I imagined that yours was a case of simple cold, and that

Mrs. Mason advised you to remain indoors chiefly on account of the

weather. It is raining hard!"

"I am glad it is!" she replied, with the manner of one bereft of

human sympathy, and extracting gloomy delight from the unison of

nature with her morbid broodings. "And my throat isn't nearly so

painful as I made Aunt Mary believe. I did not want to go out.

Parties are an awful bore when one is sad-hearted."

"You really must forgive me!" said Frederic, as she twitched her

face away again at the laugh he could not suppress. "But sadness and

you should not be thought of in the same week. Honestly, now! is not

the inimitable fabric you sported for five minutes last night, at

the bottom of what appears to you a fathomless abyss of woe? Have

you tried the efficacy of rational consolation in the thought of how

many more parties there will be this winter to which you can wear

it? The Secretary of State is to give one in ten days, which is to

be the sensation of the season. That of to-night is, in comparison,

as a caucus to a general convention."

"I shall never put on the hateful thing again. If Julia Cunningham

chooses to bedizen herself in it, she is welcome to it--flounces and

all. Yet I did like it! I had hoped--but no matter what! You had

better be going, Mr. Chilton. Aunt and the rest of them wenl

three-quarters of an hour ago."

"Does a dress go out of fashion in so short a time?" persisted

innocent Frederic, bent upon mitigating her sorrow. "If my memory

serves me aright, I have seen ladies wear the same ball-dress

several times in the same winter."

"You will never see this on me," snapped Rosa, her eyes ominously

fiery again. "Did you hear me advise you of the lateness of the

hour?"

"Suppose I decline appearing at all in the festal scene?" said the

gentleman. "I shall not be missed. I will just run down and dismiss

the carriage--then, with your permission, will return and spend the

evening here."

Her cheeks looked as if they had been touched with wet vermilion,

when he resumed his place near her, and the folds of the

handkerchief in her hand hung more limply.




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