itself is not half so criminal as one would think from the
animadversions visited upon it. Of course, a deliberate
setting yourself to work to make some one fall in love with
you, for the mere purpose of showing your power, is
abominable,--or would be, if anybody ever did it; but I do not
suppose it ever was done, except in fifth-rate novels. What
I mean is, that it is entertaining, harmless, and beneficial
for young people to amuse themselves with each other to the top
of their bent, if their bent is a natural and right one. A few
hearts may suffer accidental, transient injury; but hearts are
like limbs, all the stronger for being broken. Besides, where
one man or woman is injured by loving too much, nine hundred
and ninety-nine die the death from not loving enough. But
these Saratoga girls did neither one thing nor another. They
dressed themselves in their best, making a point of it, and
failed. They assembled themselves together of set purpose to
be lively, and they were infectiously dismal. They did not
dress well: one looked rustic; another was dowdyish; a third
was over-fine; a fourth was insignificant. Their bearing was
not good, in the main. They danced, and whispered, and
laughed, and looked like milkmaids. They had no style, no
figure. Their shoulders were high, and their chests were flat,
and they were one-sided, and they stooped,--all of which would
have been no account, if they had only been unconsciously
enjoying themselves: but they consciously were not. It is
possible that they thought they were happy, but I knew better.
You are never happy, unless you are master of the situation;
and they were not. They endeavored to appear at ease,--a thing
which people who are at ease never do. They looked as if they
had all their lives been meaning to go to Saratoga, and now they