higher class."

"This quite reconciles me to having been given to Sir George
Templemore, by the world of New-York," said Eve, smiling.

"And well it may, for they who have prattled of your engagement, have
done so principally because they are incapable of maintaining a
conversation on any thing else. But, all this time, I fear I stand
accused in your mind, of having given advice unasked, and of feeling
an alarm in an affair that affected others, instead of myself, which
is the very sin that we lay at the door of our worthy Manhattanese.
In common with all around me, then, I fancied Sir George Templemore
an accepted lover, and, by habit, had gotten to associate you
together in my pictures. Oh my arrival here, however, I will confess
that Mr. Powis, whom, you will remember, I had never seen before,
struck me as much the most dangerous man.--Shall I own all my
absurdity?"

"Even to the smallest shade."

"Well, then, I confess to having supposed that, while the excellent
father believed you were in a fair way to become Lady Templemore, the
equally excellent daughter thought the other suitor, infinitely the
most agreeable person."

"What! in contempt of a betrothal?"

"Of course I, at once, ascribed that part of the report to the usual
embellishments. We do not like to be deceived in our calculations, or
to discover that even our gossip has misled us. In pure resentment at
my own previous delusion, I began to criticise this Mr. Powis--"

"Criticise, Mrs. Bloomfield!"

"To find fault with him, my dear; to try to think he was not just the
handsomest and most engaging young man I had ever seen; to imagine
what he ought to be, in place of what he was; and among other things,
to inquire _who_ he was?"

"You did not think proper to ask that question of any of _us_," said
Eve, gravely.

"I did not; for I discovered by instinct, or intuition, or
conjecture--they mean pretty much the same thing, I believe--that
there was a mystery about him; something that even his Templeton
friends did not quite understand, and a lucky thought occurred of
making my inquiries of another person."

"They were answered satisfactorily," said Eve, looking up at her
friend, with the artless confidence that marks her sex, when the
affections have gotten the mastery of reason.

"_Cosi, cosi_. Bloomfield has a brother who is in the Navy, as you
know, and I happened to remember that he had once spoken of an
officer of the name of Powis, who ha