room and
dispel their fears. Oh, Mr. Harrison, I am so glad you resolved to stay
over."

Farnham gave way to the next comer, and said to Mr. Temple, who had
pressed his hand in silence:

"Did you want to see me for anything special to-day?"

Mrs. Temple looked up at the word, and her husband said:

"No; I merely wanted you to take a drive with me."

Another arrival claimed Mrs. Temple's attention, and as Farnham moved
away, Temple half-whispered in his ear, "Don't go away till I get a
chance to speak to you. There is merry and particular bloom of h---- to
pay."

The phrase, while vivid, was not descriptive, and Farnham could not
guess what it meant. Perhaps something had gone wrong in the jockey
club; perhaps Goldsmith Maid was off her feed; perhaps pig-iron had
gone up or down a dollar a ton. These were all subjects of profound
interest to Temple and much less to Farnham; so he waited patiently the
hour of revelation, and looked about the drawing-room to see who was
there.

It was the usual drawing-room of provincial cities. The sofas and
chairs were mostly occupied by married women, who drew a scanty
entertainment from gossip with each other, from watching the
proceedings of the spinsters, and chiefly, perhaps, from a
consciousness of good clothes. The married men stood grouped in corners
and talked of their every-day affairs. The young people clustered
together in little knots, governed more or less by natural selection--
only the veterans of several seasons pairing off into the discreet
retirement of stairs and hall angles. At the further end of the long
drawing-room, Farnham's eyes at last lighted upon the object of his
quest. Alice sat in the midst of a group of young girls who had
intrenched themselves in a corner of the room, and defied all the
efforts of skirmishing youths, intent upon flirtation, to dislodge
them. They seemed to be amusing themselves very well together, and the
correct young men in white cravats and pointed shoes came, chatted, and
drifted away. They were the brightest and gayest young girls of the
place; and it would have been hard to detect any local color in them.
Young as they were, they had all had seasons in Paris and in
Washington; some of them knew the life of that most foreign of all
capitals, New York. They nearly all spoke French and German better than
they did English, for their accent in those languages was very sweet
and winning in its incorrectness, while their English