"It is a winsome, fantastic, enchanting little being!" remarked Mr.
Chilton, in soliloquy at his dressing-table, the next evening. "I
hope she will enjoy the gathering to-night, as she hopes to do. Will
she miss me at the next she attends?"
Then--laughing at the sentimental visage portrayed upon the
mirror--"It would be the acme of ludicrous folly for me to disturb
myself on that score. We have had a pleasant time together--she and
I--and tomorrow it will be over. There is the whole story--except
that, in a month I shall cease to think of her, unless her name is
accidentally uttered in my hearing--I wish I could forget some
other things as easily!--and she will probably be the affianced
darling of one of the lumbering Honorables--the elder and homelier
of the brace, I fancy, since he is the wealthier, and the
humming-bird should have a fitting cage."
Expressing in his composed lineaments and firm stride nothing like
disconsolateness at the programme, he flung his cloak over his arm,
took his white gloves in his hand, cast a passing glance at the
glass to see that his whiskers and hair were in order, and ran down
the two flights of stairs lying between Bachelor's Hall and the
Masons' private parlor.
"Come in!" said a plaintive voice, in answer to his knock.
Rosa was alone in the cosy apartment. She was curled up in a great
padded chair, set upon the hearth-rug. Her dress was a plain black
silk; she wore a scarlet shawl, and her head-gear was some odd, but
distractingly pretty construction of white lace, a square folded in
two unequal triangles, and knotted loosely, handkerchief-wise, the
points in front, under her chin.
"Not ready!" exclaimed Frederic, in merry reproach. "You, the model
of punctual women!"
"I am not going!" sighed the humming-bird, dolorously. "I have had a
horrid sore throat all day--and--a--headache--and Aunt Mary got
frightened, and forbade me to put my head out of doors."
"That is a heart-rending affliction! And could you not send the
incomparable dress as your representative?"
"Don't laugh!" she said, jerking away her head. "I cannot bear it
to-night--not that I care the millionth part of a fig for all the
parties in christendom; and as for the dress, you think that I
haven't a soul above such frippery and gewgaws: but I wish I had
never seen it. I shall never wear it as long as I live!"
And out came the laced cambric to absorb the gathering dew.