direction of the party she had deserted so unceremoniously.

"I did not know it, bat I am glad to learn that you are to make a
long visit to the city. I have business that may detain me here for
a week--perhaps a fort-night," was his answer to the first question
she suffered him thus to honor.

Then the introduction to Mr. and Mrs. Mason, their married daughter,
Mrs. Cunningham, and her husband, was performed. The Member's wife
was a portly, good-natured Virginia matron, whose ruling desire to
make all about her comfortable as herself, sometimes led to
contretemps that were trying to the subjects of her kindness, and
would have been distressing to her, had she ever, by any chance,
guessed what she had done.

She opened the social game now, by saying, agreeably: "Your name is
not a strange one to us, Mr. Chilton. We have often heard you spoken
of in the most affectionate terms by our friends, but not near
neighbors, the Ayletts, of Ridgeley,----county. Is it long since you
met or heard from them?"

"Some months, madam. I hope they were in their usual health when you
last saw them?"

Receiving her affirmative reply with a courteous bow, and the
assurance that he was "happy to hear it," Mr. Chilton turned to
Rosa, and engaged her in conversation upon divers popular topics of
the day, all of which she was careful should conduct them in the
opposite direction from Ridgeley, and his affectionate intimates,
the Ayletts. He appreciated and was grateful for her tact and