“Thank you,” rejoined she; “and I should like it very much if you could leave orders to engage lodgings for the summer somewhere distant from Boston, that we might go and take possession as soon as we return.”

He promised compliance with her wishes; but the thought flitted through his mind, “Can it be possible the young man fascinates her, that she wants to fly from him?”

“I am going to Eulalia now,” said she, with one of her sweet smiles.  “It will be pleasanter for the dear child when we get out of this whirl of society, which so much disturbs our domestic companionship.”

As she kissed her hand to him at the door, he thought to himself, “Whatever this inward struggle may be, she will remain true to her pure and noble character.”

Mrs. Fitzgerald, meanwhile, quite unconscious that the flowery surface she had witnessed covered such agitated depths, hastened to keep her promise of describing the party to Mrs. Delano and her daughter.

“I assure you,” said she, “La Senorita looked quite as handsome in the ball-room as she did on the stage.  She is stouter than she was then, but not so; ‘fat and forty’ as I am.  Large proportions suit her stately figure.  As for her dress, I wish you could have seen it.  It was splendid, and wonderfully becoming to her rich complexion.  It was completely Spanish, from the mantilla on her head to the black satin slippers with red bows and brilliants.  She was all cherry-colored satin, black lace, and diamonds.”

“How I should like to have seen her!” exclaimed Mrs. Blumenthal, whose fancy was at once taken by the bright color and strong contrast of the costume.

But Mrs. Delano remarked:  “I should think her style of dress rather too prononce and theatrical; too suggestive of Fanny Elsler and the Bolero.”

“Doubtless it would be so for you or I,” rejoined Mrs. Fitzgerald.  “Mother used to say you had a poet lover, who called you the twilight cloud, violet dissolving into lilac.  And when I was a young lady, some of my admirers compared me to the new moon, which must, of course, appear in azure and silver.  But I assure you Mrs. King’s conspicuous dress was extremely becoming to her style of face and figure.  I wish I had counted how many gentlemen quoted, ’She walks in beauty like the night’ It became really ridiculous at last.  Gerald and I called upon her this morning, and we found her handsome in the parlor by daylight, which is a trying test to the forties, you know.  We were introduced to their only daughter, Eulalia,—­a very peculiar-looking young miss, with sky-blue eyes and black eyelashes, like some of the Circassian beauties I have read off.  Gerald thinks her almost as handsome as her mother.  What a fortune that girl will be!  But I have promised ever so many people to tell them about the party; so I must bid you good by.”

When the door closed after her, Flora remarked, “I never heard of anybody but my Mamita who was named Eulalia.”