“She is not worthy of your pity, Miss Hamilton; she is hardened to it all.  What a set we are dancing with, men and women, all heartless alike; but I want to know what magic wand has touched St. Eval.  I do believe it must be your eyes, Miss Hamilton.  He talks to his partner, and looks at you; tries to do two things at once, listen to her, and hear your voice.  You are the enchantress, depend upon it.”

A glow of triumph burned on the heart of Caroline at these words.  For though rather prejudiced against St. Eval by the arts of Annie, still, to make an impression on one whom she had heard was invulnerable to all, to make the calm, and some said, severely stoical, St. Eval bend beneath her power, was a triumph she determined to achieve.  That spirit of coquetry so fatal to her aunt, the ill-fated Eleanor, was as innate in the bosom of Caroline; no opportunity had yet offered to give it play, still the seeds were there, and she could not resist the temptation now presented.  Even in her childhood Mrs. Hamilton had marked this fatal propensity.  Every effort had been put in force to check it, every gentle counsel given, but arrested in its growth though it was, erased entirely it could not be.  The principles of virtue had been too carefully instilled, for coquetry to attain the same ascendancy and indulgence with Caroline as it had with her aunt, yet she felt she could no longer control the inclination which the present opportunity afforded her to use her power.

“Do you go to the Marchioness of Malvern’s fete, next week?” demanded Lord Henry.  Caroline answered in the affirmative.

“I am glad of it.  The Walking Cyclopaedia may make himself as agreeable there as he has so marvellously done to-night.  You will be in fairy land.  He has brought flowers from every country, and reared them for his mother, till they have become the admiration of all for miles around.  I told him he looked like a market gardener, collecting flowers from every place he went to.  I dragged him away several times, and told him he would certainly be taken for a country booby, and scolded him for demeaning his rank with such ignoble pleasures, and what wise answer do you think he made me?”

“A very excellent one, I have no doubt.”

“Or it would not come from such a learned personage, Miss Hamilton.  Really it was so philosophic, I was obliged to learn it as a lesson to retain it.  That he, superior as he deemed himself, and that wild flower which he tended with so much care, were alike the work of Infinite Wisdom, and as such, the study of the one could not demean the other.  I stared at him, and for the space of a week dubbed him the Preaching Pilgrim; but I was soon tired of that, and resumed his former one, which comprises all.  I wonder at what letter the walking volume will be opened at his mother’s fete?”

“I should imagine B,” said Caroline, smiling.

“B—­B—­what does B stand for?  I have forgotten how to spell—­let me see.  Ah!  I have it,—­excellent, admirable!  Miss Hamilton.  Lecture on Botany from the Walking Cyclopaedia—­bravo!  We had better scrape up all our learning, to prove we are not perfect ignoramuses on the subject.”