or it is not a favorite city with
you?"

"There you are mistaken. It is my native place, and a city I love
dearly--with all its formalities and inhospitalities toward strangers.
Philadelphia is a prim matron, with a warm heart but a most frigid,
repulsive exterior, until you become acquainted with her--one of her
particular children."

"I have been told that there is a finer collection of works of art
here than in any other city in the Union."

"I believe you have been told correctly. We have more time in our
quiet way to look after and admire the productions of the great
masters. Our taste has wonderfully improved within a few years."

"I have not been in town long enough to visit any of your show places
yet."

"How I _should_ like to see that lovely water-fall and the whole of
that beautiful scene on canvas. Do you know I almost envied you a home
in that beautiful house with all its picturesque surroundings."

"I am truly thankful you had the kind grace to think of me at all."

"How could I help it? I had a feeling the first moment I saw you that
you and I were destined to be friends. Is there not a certain
mysterious something--call it magnetism or instinct--that either draws
us toward or repels us from every person we meet in either a greater
or less degree? With me this instinct is very strong, and I obey it
implicitly, never in one instance having found it to fail. I know at
once who to trust and who to love. And would know, by the same
unerring law of my nature, who to hate if ever I felt the least
inclination to hate. The only feeling of hate I ever experienced is a
strong desire to avoid all persons or things that are disagreeable to
me. I love harmony the most perfect, and discord is a thing for me to
flee from. I felt toward you a most decided drawing, and I felt a
conviction then, as I do now, that we are to be very near and dear
friends."

The little angel! I could have hugged and kissed her on the spot; but
I hugged her in my soul, and inwardly vowed to consecrate my life to
her, if the "drawing" she felt for me could be rendered sufficiently
strong to admit of such a thing. On a sudden I bethought me of the
whiskered incognito, her stage attendant. I mustered courage to ask
her in a half laughing way, if that fine-looking fellow she had called
Charles were her brother.

Instantly her manner changed from that of sweet and almost tender
seriousness to an arch, quizzical one that puzzled me.

"