"You may not be aware, Miss Tazewell, that the lyric to which you

have reference is celebrated, both for its antiquity, and the

pleasing harmonies that must ever commend it to the taste of the

true lover of music; although I allow that to a disciple of the

modern and more flimsy school of this glorious art, it may seem

puerile and ridiculous," he remarked, in grandiose patronage. Then,

again to Mabel, "There were four of us--as I said--all students.

What is it, Clara?"

"I have dropped my bracelet upon the floor, between you and Miss

Tazewell," stooping to shake out Rosa's full skirts from which the

trinket fell with a clinking sound.

Three gentlemen darted forward to pick it up, but her husband noted

approvingly that while she accepted it graciously from the lucky

finder, and thanked the others for their kindly interest in the fate

of her "bauble," she held out her arm to her brother, that he might

clasp it again in its place. Affable always, winning whomsoever she

chose to admiration of her personal and mental endowments, she never

departed from matronly decorum. The company agreed silently, or in

guarded asides, that she was charming. No tongue--even the most

reckless or venomous--ever lisped the dread word, levity, in

connection with her name.

"Take care, my dear brother! you will pinch me!" those near heard

her say, and she twisted the golden circlet that the clasp might be

uppermost.

Rosa's alert ear caught the hurried murmur which succeeded, and was

muffled, so to speak, by her affectionate smile of gratitude.

"What were you about to say? Will you never learn prudence?"

"The dove has talons, then?" mused the eavesdropper, "But what was

he in danger of revealing?"

If the interdicted revelation had connection, close or remote, with

the famous quartette club, he kept well away from it after this

reminder, beginning, when he resumed his seat, to discourse upon the

comparative excellence of wood and coal fires, of open chimney-

places and stoves.

Mrs. Aylett smiled an engaging and regretful "au revoir" to the

circle, and passed on to look after the comfort and pleasure of her

elder visitors, and Rosa soon discovered that her awakened curiosity

would be in no wise appeased by listening to the steady, pattering

drone of Mr. Dorrance's oration. Oratorical he was to a degree that

excited the secret amusement of the facile Southern youths about

him. With them, the art of light conversation had been a study from

boyhood, the topics suitable for and pleasing to ladies' ears

carefully culled and adroitly handled. To amuse and entertain was

their main object. Erudite dissertations upon science and

literature; abstruse arguments--whatever resembled a moral thesis,

a political, religious, or philosophical lecture met with the sure

ban of ridicule from them, as from the fair whose devoted cavaliers

they were. If they laughed, when it was safe and not impolitic to do

so, at the ponderous elocution of the Northern barrister, they

marvelled exceedingly more at Mabel's indulgence of his attentions.

That a girl, who, in virtue of her snug fortune and attractive face,

her blood and her breeding, might, as they put it, have the "pick of

the county," if she wanted a husband, should lend a willing ear to

the pompous platitudes, the heavy rolling periods of this alien to

her native State--a man without grace of manner or beauty--in their

nomenclature, "a solemn prig," defied all ingenuity of explanation,

was an increasing wonder outlasting the prescribed nine days. He

rode with the ill assurance of one who, accustomed to the sawdust

floor, treadmill round, and enclosing walls of a city riding-school,

was bewildered by the unequal roads and free air of the breezy

country. He talked learnedly of hunting, quoting written authorities

upon this or that point, of whom the unenlightened Virginians had

never heard, much less read; equipped himself for the sport in a

bewildering arsenal of new-fangled guns, game-bags, shot-pouches,

and powder-horns, with numerous belts, diagonal, perpendicular, and

horizontal, and in the field carried his gun a la Winkle; never, by

any happy accident, brought down his bird, but was continually

outraging sporting rules by firing out of time, and flushing coveys

prematurely by unseasonable talking and precipitate strides in

advance of his disgusted companions.




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