abruptly, after a moment. I bowed my head submissively, and awaited the storm.

"I expected better things of you, Virginia," she continued. "I hoped you were too sensible to follow the herd, and waste the best years of your life in folly."

"Folly?" I echoed faintly.

"Yes, folly. What else is it but folly to sit up night after night, until the small hours of the morning, waltzing with brainless young men?"

"But, Aunty, my father wishes me to go into society."

"Pshaw! What does he know about balls and parties? He is under the thumb of your Aunt Helen. At your age he was working hard for his living, and learning to be of use in the world."

"But I have not to earn my living," said I.

"So much the worse for you. Humph! You have found that out, have you?"

I understood that she referred to what my father had told me. "Yes, I know my father is very rich. If I do not go to parties, how am I to learn anything about life?"

"Life! You are very simple, child, if you expect to learn what life is by dancing the German. The first thing we shall hear is, that you are engaged to some young dandy who is after your fortune. Then you will be snuffed out. You will become a fashionable simpleton, who goes to bed at four and gets up at noon. Life, indeed!"

This cruel insinuation, following so soon upon what I had lately heard, cut like a knife. I answered firmly,—

"My father has already warned me to be on my guard against insincere persons."

"Much good a warning would do, if you were to take it into your head to like anybody! Tell me! I may not understand girls" (this was a thrust at Aunt Helen), "but I know the dispositions of my own family. When a Harlan gets a fixed idea, it takes a deal of pounding to drive it out; and you're a Harlan, Virginia, if there ever was one."

This last reflection seemed to console her a little, or at least to suggest the futility of trying to alter my determination; for after speaking of other matters for a few moments she exclaimed,—

"Well! girls will be girls, I suppose, to the end of time,"—and rising she went to an escritoire and took out a small parcel, which it was evident she had intended to present to me from the first. "There, Virginia, if you are bent on being frivolous, is a bit of old lace that your Aunt Helen, or anybody else, would have to hunt a long time to equal. You will find a locket inside which I wore when your father was married. I shall never use such frippery again, and you might as well have them now as when I am dead."

Knowing that she meant to be gracious, I thanked her warmly. But having doubts regarding her taste, I abstained from opening the package until I reached home. Then I found that the lace even surpassed in exquisiteness the estimate Aunt Agnes had put upon it. Aunt Helen was fairly envious, and spent the evening in wondering "where on earth" her rival could have come into possession of such a treasure.

But the locket—a cameo, bizarre, and out of the run of ordinary personal ornaments—excited her contempt.

"It is fit for a woman of forty, and would make you look like a guy, Virginia."

The idea of looking different from other people did not disturb me. Indeed, I had resolved to be thoroughly independent. So, on the evening of Mrs. Dale's ball, I announced my intention of wearing the locket, and of reserving my necklace of pearls for some more brilliant occasion. Aunt Helen, who supervised my toilet, was greatly distressed at my obstinacy. Nevertheless I left the house with it on. But at the last moment my courage failed me; I slipped it off and put it in my pocket,—thus making a courtesy to conventionality on the threshold of society.

III.

My recollections of the first few parties I attended are confused. A great many young men were introduced to me, but I scarcely distinguished one from another. I was alternately dazed and dazzled by the attentions I received. There is no object in disguising the fact that I had become very handsome, and my brilliant financial prospects were of course well known.

My emotions were doubtless those of an average society belle, eager to drain the cup of pleasure to the dregs. I lived to dance, and cared little with whom I danced, provided he danced well. The mere physical satisfaction of waltzing, coupled with the glamor of a universal homage, contented me.

But this did not last long. I learned to make distinctions, and to generalize; and from this primary stage of development I began to entertain positive likes and dislikes.

It was not however until the winter was waning that Mr. Roger Dale occupied a different place in my thoughts from half-a-dozen others, although he had been polite to me from the time of my first ball at his mother's house. It would be difficult to say exactly what distinguished him from the rest of their admirers in the eyes of every girl with any pretensions to beauty or style; but he was undeniably considered at that time, in the circle of my acquaintance, as the most fascinating man in society. He was commonly spoken of as interesting, and there was a vague impression that he was lacking in constancy. It was not unnatural therefore that I should be flattered at his singling me out for assiduous attentions, especially when he possessed the art of letting me understand in a quiet, gentlemanly fashion, and without the aid of garish compliments, that I was the only girl in the room for whom he cared a straw. I did not believe him, but I was pleased, for that was the way in which I wished to be wooed by the one whom I wished to believe.

So in course of time I became willing to retire with him into conservatories and ante-rooms to avoid interruption. I was still fond of dancing, but I had recovered from the frenzy which blinded me to everything but the rapture of the moment. I liked to hear Mr. Dale talk, and without an affinity of ideas our intimacy must have died a natural death. But we found a common ground of sympathy in our revolt against the subserviency in modern life of romance to matter-of-fact considerations. He harped upon this string, and awoke a corresponding chord in my breast. His ideas were a correlation of the dreams of my girlhood. I felt that I was understood. There was such a thing as the love I had imagined; Mr. Dale had pondered over it, fathomed it, and could talk about it. Not that I considered myself in love with him, or him with me. We simply were friends,—that was all. But existence seemed nobler when illumined by his theories.

He declared that the Puritan fathers and their descendants lacked the power of expression. People were afraid to acknowledge they loved. The ardor that distinguished the passion of other races and made it beautiful was nowhere to be found, for if it ever dared to manifest itself the breath of ridicule wilted its growth. The expensive "floral offering" was more prized than the single dewy bud of the true lover, and the zeal and sentiment of chivalry had yielded to the blighting prose of a commercial age.

My Aunt Helen was the first of the family to comment on my intimacy with him.

"What does your friend Mr. Dale do?" she asked one day.

"Do?"

"Yes. I mean what is his business down town?"

"I don't know, Aunt Helen," I answered; and I spoke the truth. I had never thought to inquire.

"The Dale blood is not the very best in the world," she continued presently, with her head bent over her work almost as though soliloquizing. "As regards position they are well enough, but two of this