I have asked no questions and formed
no conjectures; but I trust your baleful prognostications will find no
fulfilment in her case."

"Ulpian, I had some very fashionable visitors to-day, who manifested
an extraordinary interest in your past, present, and future. Mrs.
Channing and her two lovely daughters spent the morning here, and left
an invitation for you to attend a party at their house next Thursday
evening. Miss Adelaide went into ecstasies over that portrait in which
you wore your uniform, and asked numberless questions about you; among
others, whether you were still heart-whole, or whether you had
suffered some great disappointment early in life which kept you a
bachelor. What do you suppose she said when I told her that you had
never had a love-scrape in your life?"

"Of course she impugned the statement, which, to a young lady framed
for flirtations, must indeed have appeared incredible."

"On the contrary, she declared that the woman who succeeded in
captivating you would achieve a triumph more difficult and more
desirable than the victory of the Nile or of Trafalgar. I was tempted
to ask her if she might be considered the ambitious Nelson, but of
course politeness forbade. Ulpian, she is the prettiest creature I
ever looked at."

"Yes, as pretty as mere healthy flesh can be without the sublimation
and radiance of an indwelling soul. There is nothing which impresses
me so mournfully as the sight of a beautiful, frivolous, unscrupulous
woman, who immolates all that is truly feminine in her character upon
the shrine of swollen vanity; and whose career from cradle to grave is
as utterly aimless and useless as that of some gaudy, flaunting
ephemeron of the tropics. Such women act as extinguishers upon the
feeble, flickering flame of chivalry, which modern degeneracy in
manners and morals has almost smothered."

His tone and countenance evinced more contempt than Salome had known
him to express on any former occasion, and, glancing at his clear,
steady, grave blue eyes, she said to herself,--

"At least he will never strike his colors to Admiral Adelaide
Channing, and I should dislike to occupy her place in his estimation."

"My dear boy, you must not speak in such ungrateful terms of my
beautiful visitor, who certainly has some serious design on your
heart, if I may judge from the very extravagant praise she lavished
upon you. I daresay she is a very nice, sweet girl, and you know you
told me once that