t be there long without taking notice of her. About mid-day
there was usually a brief interval between the ten-pin bowling and the
informal dance; and during one of these pauses he perceived on the
smoking-piazza where ladies seldom ventured, a well-dressed and rather
handsome woman smoking a cigarette, and surrounded by a group of beaux
of all sizes, from men like White and Sumner to the little huge-cravated
boys in their teens. She numbered in her train at least half-a-dozen of
these cavaliers, and was playing them off against one another and
managing them all at once, as a circus-rider does his four horses, or a
juggler his four balls. In a country where beauty is the rule rather
than the exception, she was not a remarkable beauty--at least, she did
not appear such to Ashburner, from that distance; nor was her dress,
though sufficiently elegant and becoming, quite so artistically put on
as that of Mrs. Benson and the other belles of the set; still there was
clearly something very attractive and striking about her, and he was
immediately induced to inquire her name, and, on learning that she was a
real lady (though not of "our set" of ladies), to request an
introduction to her. But Benson, to whom he first applied, instead of
jumping at the opportunity with his usual readiness to execute or
anticipate his friend's wishes, boggled exceedingly, and put off the
introduction under frivolous and evidently feigned pretences. It was so
uncommon for Benson to show any diffidence in such matters, and his
whole air said so plainly, "I will do this out of friendship for you if
you wish it, but for my own part I would rather not," that Ashburner
saw there was something in the wind, and let the subject drop. Ludlow,
to whom he next had recourse, told him, with the utmost politeness but
in very decided terms, that "his family" (he was careful not to insist
on his own personality in the affair) "had not the honor of Mrs.
Harrison's acquaintance." The next man who happened to come along was
Mr. Simpson, and to him Ashburner made application, thinking that,
perhaps, the fair smoker might more properly belong to the "second set,"
though so surrounded by the beaux of the first. But even Simpson, though
the last man in the world to be guilty of any superfluous delicacy,
hesitated very much, and made some allusion to Mrs. Simpson; and then
Ashburner began to comprehend the real state of the case,--that most of
the married women had declared