as another young lady of about her own
age, and of a very similar appearance as to dress and station. Still, a
first glance discovered an essential difference in character. This
companion, who was addressed as Mary, and whose family name was Warren,
had none of the uneasiness of demeanor that belonged to her friend, and
obviously cared less what others thought of every thing she said or
did. When the handkerchiefs were laid on the counter, Julia Monson
seized on one with avidity, while Mary Warren regarded us all with a
look of cold indifference, if not one of downright displeasure.

"What beauties!" exclaimed the first, the clerk at that moment quitting
them to hand some gloves to another customer--"What delightful
needle-work! Mary, do YOU purchase one to keep me in countenance, and I
will purchase another. I know your mother gave you the money this very
morning."

"Not for that object, Julia. My dear mother little thinks I shall do
any such thing."

"And why not? A rich pocket-handkerchief is a stylish thing!"

"I question if style, as you call it, is just the thing for a young
woman, under any circumstances; but, to confess the truth, I think a
pocket-handkerchief that is to be LOOKED at and which is not to be
USED, vulgar."

"Not in Sir Walter Scott's signification, my dear," answered Julia
laughing, "for it is not so very COMMON. Every body cannot have a
worked French pocket-handkerchief."

{Sir Walter Scott = British novelist and poet (1771-1832), often
compared with Cooper--I have not located his definition of "vulgar"}

"Sir Walter Scott's definition of what is vulgar is open to criticism,
I fancy. The word comes from the common mind, or common practices,
beyond a question, but it now means what is common as opposed to what
is cultivated and refined. It is an absurdity, too, to make a thing
respectable because it is common. A fib is one of the commonest things
in the world, and yet it is scarcely respectable."

"Oh! Every one says you are a philosopherESS, Mary, and I ought to have
expected some such answer. But a handkerchief I am determined to have,
and it shall be the very handsomest I can find."

"And the DEAREST? Well, you will have a very lady-like wardrobe with
one pocket-handkerchief in it! I wonder you do not purchase a single
shoe."

"Because I have TWO feet," replied Julia with spirit, though she
laughed good-naturedly--"but here is the clerk, and he must not hear
our quarrels. Have the