However, there are losses that do not trouble the subject of them, because they bring insensibility.  Just as Mrs. Follingsbee’s ear was not delicate enough to perceive that her rapid and confident French was not Parisian, so also her conscience and moral sense were not delicate enough to know that she had spent her labor for “that which was not bread.”  She had only succeeded in acquiring such an air that, on a careless survey, she might have been taken for one of the demi-monde of Paris; while secretly she imagined herself the fascinating heroine of a French romance.

The friendship between Mrs. Follingsbee and Lillie was of the most impassioned nature; though, as both of them were women of a good solid perception in regard to their own material interests, there were excellent reasons on both sides for this enthusiasm.

Notwithstanding the immense wealth of the Follingsbees, there were circles to which Mrs. Follingsbee found it difficult to be admitted.  With the usual human perversity, these, of course, became exactly the ones, and the only ones, she particularly cared for.  Her ambition was to pass beyond the ranks of the “shoddy” aristocracy to those of the old-established families.  Now, the Seymours, the Fergusons, and the Wilcoxes were families of this sort; and none of them had ever cared to conceal the fact, that they did not intend to know the Follingsbees.  The marriage of Lillie into the Seymour family was the opening of a door; and Mrs. Follingsbee had been at Lillie’s feet during her Newport campaign.  On the other hand, Lillie, having taken the sense of the situation at Springdale, had cast her thoughts forward like a discreet young woman, and perceived in advance of her a very dull domestic winter, enlivened only by reading-circles and such slow tea-parties as unsophisticated Springdale found agreeable.  The idea of a long visit to the New-York alhambra of the Follingsbees in the winter, with balls, parties, unlimited opera-boxes, was not a thing to be disregarded; and so, when Mrs. Follingsbee “ma chered” Lillie, Lillie “my deared” Mrs. Follingsbee:  and the pair are to be seen at this blessed moment sitting with their arms tenderly round each other’s waists on a causeuse in Mrs. Follingsbee’s dressing-room.

“You don’t know, mignonne,” said Mrs. Follingsbee, “how perfectly ravissante these apartments are!  I’m so glad poor Charlie did them so well for you.  I laid my commands on him, poor fellow!”

“Pray, how does your affair with him get on?” said Lillie.

“O dearest! you’ve no conception what a trial it is to me to keep him in the bounds of reason.  He has such struggles of mind about that stupid wife of his.  Think of it, my dear! a man like Charlie Ferrola, all poetry, romance, ideality, tied to a woman who thinks of nothing but her children’s teeth and bowels, and turns the whole house into a nursery!  Oh, I’ve no patience with such people.”