she encourages all, it is because she prefers none. Her
heart has never been touched, and she knows that none of her admirers in
her own country can hope to touch it. Her rivals scornfully assert that
she has no heart; but as she is, after all, a woman, this assertion must
be incorrect. She is in love with an ideal, but that ideal has a title.
So soon as Mr. Briggs can dispose of his business, Miss Flora is to be
taken to Paris. Within two years afterwards she will be led to the altar
by a French duke, marquis, or count, who will fall in love with her
father's bank-book, and then she will figure as an ornament of the French
Court, or the _salons_ of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. This is her
ambition, and she will certainly accomplish it. The blood of the Van
Duysens and the money of Briggs can accomplish anything when united in
Miss Flora. With this end in view, the little lady is as inaccessible to
ordinary admirers as a princess. She is a duchess by anticipation, and
feels the pride of station in advance. There is no danger that she will
falter in the race through any womanly weakness, nor through any lack of
knowledge of the wiles of men. With the beauty of Venus and the chastity
of Diana, she also possesses qualities derived directly from Mother Eve.
An English matron would blush to know, and a French _mere_ would be
astonished to learn, secrets which Miss Flora has at her pretty
finger-ends. She has acquired her knowledge innocently, and she will use
it judiciously. Nothing escapes her quick eyes and keen ears, and under
that demure forehead is a faculty which enables her to 'put this and that
together,' and arrive at conclusions which would amaze her less acute
foreign sisters. You may not envy her this faculty, but do not accuse
her of employing it improperly. She will never disgrace herself nor the
coronet which she already feels pressing lightly upon her head. As she
trips out of sight, it may give any man a heart-pang to think that there
is at least one lovely woman who is impenetrable to love; but then, if
she were like those dear, soft, fond, impressible, confiding beauties of
a former age, she would not be herself--a Girl of the Period."

VI. FASHIONABLE ENTERTAINMENTS.

New York has long been celebrated for its magnificent social
entertainments. Its balls, dinner parties, receptions, private
theatricals, pic-nics, croquet parties, and similar gatherings are
unsurpassed in respect to sh