ene, brilliant and extravagant beyond anything we had ever witnessed,
and quite bewildering to minds like ours. Mrs. Dewey was dressed like a
queen, and radiant in pearls and diamonds. I questioned her good taste
in this, as hostess; and think she knew better--but the temptation to
astonish the good people of S----was too strong to be resisted.

After the curtain fell on this brilliant spectacle, Mrs. Dewey assumed a
stately air, showing, on all occasions, a conscious superiority that
was offensive to our really best people. There are in all communities
a class who toady to the rich; and we had a few of these in S----.
They flattered the Deweys, and basked in the sunshine of their inflated
grandeur.

I was not one towards whom Mrs. Dewey put on superior airs. My
profession brought me into a kind of relation to her that set aside
all pretence. Very soon after her removal to S----, my services were
required in the family, one of her two children having been attacked
with measles. On the occasion of my first call, I referred, naturally,
to the fact of her removal from New York, and asked how she liked the
change.

"I don't like it all, Doctor," she replied, in a dissatisfied tone.

"Could heart desire more of elegance and comfort than you possess?" I
glanced around the richly decorated apartment in which we were seated.

"Gilded misery, Doctor!" She emphasized her words.

I looked at her without speaking. She understood my expression of
surprise.

"I need not tell you, Doctor, that a fine house and fine furniture are
not everything in this world."

I thought her waking up to a better state of mind, through the
irrepressible yearnings of a soul that could find no sustenance amid the
husks of this outer life.

"They go but a little way towards making up the aggregate of human
happiness," said I.

"All well enough in their place. But, to my thinking, sadly out of place
here. We must have society, Doctor."

"True." My voice was a little rough. I had mistaken her.

"But there is no society here!" And she tossed her head a little
contemptuously.

"Not much fashionable society I will grant you, Delia."

She pursed up her lips and looked disagreeable.

"I shall die of ennui before six months. What am I to do with myself?"

"Act like a true woman," said I, firmly.

She lifted her eyes suddenly to my face as if I had presumed.

"Do your duty as a wife and mother," I added, "and there will be no
danger of your