anxiously inquired after, being nobody knows where, and to be
fetched by Mamma this evening. Wasn't I good, little Fleda, to
run away from Mr. Carleton, to come and spend a whole day in
social converse with you!"

"Carleton!" said Fleda.

"Yes? Oh, you don't know who he is! he's a new attraction;
there's been nothing like him this great while, and all New
York is topsy-turvy about him; the mothers are dying with
anxiety, and the daughters with admiration; and it's too
delightful to see the cool superiority with which he takes it
all; like a new star that all the people are pointing their
telescopes at, as Thorn said, spitefully, the other day. Oh,
he has turned my head! I have looked till I cannot look at
anything else. I can just manage to see a rose, but my dazzled
powers of vision are equal to nothing more."

"My dear Constance!"

"It's perfectly true! Why, as soon as we knew he was coming to
Montepoole, I wouldn't let Mamma rest till we all made a rush
after him; and when we got here first, and I was afraid he
wasn't coming, nothing can express the state of my feelings!
But he appeared the next morning, and then I was quite happy,"
said Constance, rising and falling in her chair, on what must
have been ecstatic springs, for wire ones it had none.

"Constance," said Fleda, with a miserable attempt at rebuke,
"how can you talk so!"