A NIGHT'S PERIL. 129 



so I kept my own counsel as well as I could. But 

 I felt seriously unhappy, and repented for the moment 

 that I had obeyed the invitation. I will not detail 

 the history of the fete it passed with every advan- 

 tage of weather and sociability. The poor senti- 

 mentalists, if any there were besides myself, must 

 have felt themselves sadly out of their element. All 

 seemed as jovial as though no such thing as parting 

 existed as a human necessity. Amid all I grew 

 sadder and sadder, and blamed my own folly in 

 coming. Already I thought that many of the 

 damsels showed an unaccustomed disregard of my 

 presence, as though it were no longer worth while 

 to distinguish with attention a man who was on the 

 eve of leaving them for ever. Yirginie was un- 

 equivocally an exception to this rule. She was, as 

 she ever had been, kind, and made many inquiries 

 as to my future movements, even speculating on our 

 meeting again. But she seemed thoroughly content 

 that I should go, and as though no such dream had 

 ever entered her head as that I might, under any 

 circumstances, remain with her. Altogether I was so 

 far from entering into the spirit of the party, that I 

 suffered an access of misanthropy. In my own mind 

 I condemned her as having been utterly spoiled by 

 education and early associations. She had been 

 used to intimacy with so many, and such constantly 

 changing friends, that she was utterly incapable of 

 the stability of friendship. The devotion of love 



VOL. III. I 



