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Chapter VI


For a few days the most engrossing topic in A.P. was what shall I wear,
and what will you wear. There was an amount of shopping to be done, and
dressmakers to be consulted and employed before the great event of the
season came off. At length the important evening arrived and in the home
of Mr. Glossop, a wealthy and retired whiskey dealer, there was a
brilliant array of wealth and fashion. Could all the misery his liquor
had caused been turned into blood, there would have been enough to have
oozed in great drops from every marble ornament or beautiful piece of
frescoe that adorned his home, for that home with its beautiful
surroundings and costly furniture was the price of blood, but the glamor
of his wealth was in the eyes of his guests; and they came to be amused
and entertained and not to moralize on his ill-gotten wealth.

The wine flowed out in unstinted measures and some of the women so
forgot themselves as to attempt to rival the men in drinking. The
barrier being thrown down Charles drank freely, till his tones began to
thicken, and his eye to grow muddled, and he sat down near Jeanette and
tried to converse; but he was too much under the influence of liquor to
hold a sensible and coherent conversation.

"Oh! Charley you naughty boy, that wine has got into your head and you
don't know what you are talking about."