And wasn’t it a triumph when all her old beaux came flocking round her, and her parlors became a daily resort and lounging-place for all the idle swains, both of her former acquaintance and of the newcomers, who drifted with the tide of fashion?  Never had she been so much the rage; never had she been declared so “stunning.”  The effect of all this good fortune on her health was immediate.  We all know how the spirits affect the bodily welfare; and hence, my dear gentlemen, we desire it to be solemnly impressed on you, that there is nothing so good for a woman’s health as to give her her own way.

Lillie now, from this simple cause, received enormous accessions of vigor.  While at home with plain, sober John, trying to walk in the quiet paths of domesticity, how did her spirits droop!  If you only could have had a vision of her brain and spinal system, you would have seen how there was no nervous fluid there, and how all the fine little cords and fibres that string the muscles were wilting like flowers out of water; but now she could bathe the longest and the strongest of any one, could ride on the beach half the day, and dance the German into the small hours of the night, with a degree of vigor which showed conclusively what a fine thing for her the Newport air was.  Her dancing-list was always over-crowded with applicants; bouquets were showered on her; and the most superb “turn-outs,” with their masters for charioteers, were at her daily disposal.

All this made talk.  The world doesn’t forgive success; and the ancients informed us that even the gods were envious of happy people.  It is astonishing to see the quantity of very proper and rational moral reflection that is excited in the breast of society, by any sort of success in life.  How it shows them the vanity of earthly enjoyments, the impropriety of setting one’s heart on it!  How does a successful married flirt impress all her friends with the gross impropriety of having one’s head set on gentlemen’s attentions!

“I must say,” said Belle Trevors, “that dear Lillie does astonish me.  Now, I shouldn’t want to have that dissipated Danforth lounging in my rooms every day, as he does in Lillie’s:  and then taking her out driving day after day; for my part, I don’t think it’s respectable.”

“Why don’t you speak to her?” said Lottie Cavers.

“Oh, my dear! she wouldn’t mind me.  Lillie always was the most imprudent creature; and, if she goes on so, she’ll certainly get awfully talked about.  That Danforth is a horrid creature; I know all about him.”

As Miss Belle had herself been driving with the “horrid creature” only the week before Lillie came, it must be confessed that her opportunities for observation were of an authentic kind.