e in the certainty
of a gracious reception, and conscious of power to please. A happy
word to the two or three who made way for him, and he stood bowing and
smiling, and turning and bowing to each with the nice discriminating
tact that rendered to all their due.

Mrs. Ford graciously extended her hand, which he took, and bowed very
low over; she was nearest him. Mrs. Markham, in a pleased surprise,
gave him hers, and its reception was, to her nice perception, even
more profoundly acknowledged. To Miss Markham and Miss Walters
precisely the same, with a little of the chivalrous devotion of a
knight to acknowledged beauty.

"The fall and _winter_ style prevails, I presume," he said, in gay
banter, as if anticipating that their gloved hands were not to be
touched.

"Your memory is good, Mr. Ridgeley," said Julia, with a little laugh
and a little flush.

"Forgetfulness is not my weakness," he replied.

"I was not aware you knew Mrs. Ford," said Mrs. Markham, observing the
little flutter in Julia's cheeks, and thinking there was a meaning in
Bart's _persiflage_.

"Mrs. Ford and General Ford," he answered with much warmth, "have
been so very, very kind to me, that I have presumed to claim her
acquaintance, even here; but then, they have only known me three
months," with affected despair.

"Well," said Mrs. Ford, "what of that?"

"I find you with those who have known me all my life," with a
deprecating look towards Mrs. Markham.

"Well, Mr. Ridgeley, you are not deserving of forbearance at my hands,
if I only knew of anything bad to say of you."

"What exquisite irony! May I be permitted to know which of my thousand
faults is now specially remembered against me?"

"You have not permitted me, until this moment, even to speak to you
since your return last summer."

"May I ask that you will permit that to stand with my other
misdemeanors until some rare fortune enables me to atone for all at
once?"

"And when will that be?"

"Oh!

In that blissful never,
When the Sundays come together,
When the sun and glorious weather
Wrap the earth in spring forever;
As in that past time olden,
Which poets call the golden."

Laughing.

"And so I have poetry, and inspire it myself--that is some
compensation, certainly," said Mrs. Markham, smiling.

"I fear my verses have deepened my offence," said Bart, with affected
gravity.

Kate Fisher intervened here: "Mr. Ridgeley, I have more cause for
offence th