had never seen before. They were gathered around a cloud and tangle of
women's mysterious fabrics, whose names are as unknown to men as
their uses. Most of the young girls suspended their examinations and
rippling comments, and, with a little heightened color, awaited the
approach of the enemy. He came on, and gracefully bowed to each, was
permitted to take the hands of two or three, and greeted with a little
chorus of--"You have come back!" "Where have you been?" "How do you
do?" Julia greeted him with her eyes, as he entered, with a sweet
woman's way, that thrilled him, and which enabled him to approach her
so well. She had remained examining a bit of goods, as if unaware of
his immediate presence for a moment, and he had been introduced to
the strange lady by Kate Fisher as her cousin, Miss Walters, from
Pittsburgh.

Then Julia turned to him, and, with a charming manner, asked: "Mr.
Ridgeley"--she had not called him Bart, or Barton, since her return
from Boston--"Mr. Ridgeley, what do the girls mean? Have you really
been away?"

"Have I really been away? And if I really have, am I to be permitted
to take your hand, and asked how I really do? as if you really cared?"

"Really," was her answer, "you see we have just received our fall
fashions, and it is not the fall style this year to give and take
hands after an absence."

"A-h! how popular that will be with poor masculines! Is that to be
worn by all of you?"

"I don't know," said Kate; "it is not fall with some of us yet."