Miss Grace Plumer had scarcely mentally installed Mr. Sligo Moultrie as first flirter in her corps, when a face she remembered looked up at the window from the street, more dangerous even than when she had seen it in the spring.  It was the face of Abel Newt, who raised his hat and bowed to her with an admiration which he concealed that he took care to show.

The next moment he was in the room, perfectly comme il faut, sparkling, resistless.

“My dear Miss Plumer, I knew spring was coming.  I felt it as I approached Bunker’s.  I said to Herbert Octoyne (he’s off with the Shrimp; Papa Shrimp was too much, he was so old that he was rank)—­I said, either I smell the grass sprouting in the Battery or I have a sensation of spring.  I raise my eyes—­I see that it is not grass, but flowers.  I recognize the dear, delicious spring.  I bow to Miss Plumer.”

He tossed it airily off.  It was audacious.  It would have been outrageous, except that the manner made it seem persiflage, and therefore allowable.  Grace Plumer blushed, bowed, smiled, and met his offered hand half-way.  Abel Newt knew perfectly what he was doing, and raised it respectfully, bowed over it, kissed it.

“Moultrie, glad to see you.  Miss Plumer, ’tis astonishing how this man always knows the pleasant places.  If I want to know where the best fruits and the earliest flowers are, I ask Sligo Moultrie.”

Mr. Moultrie bowed.

“The first rose of the year blooms in Mr. Moultrie’s button-hole,” continued Abel, who galloped on, laughing, and seating himself upon an ottoman, so that his eyes were lower than the level of Grace Plumer’s.

She smiled, and joined the hunt.

“He talks nothing but ‘ladies’ delights,’” said she.

“Yes—­two other things, please, Miss Grace,” said Moultrie.

“What, Mr. Moultrie, two other cases?  You always have two more.”

“Better two more than too much,” struck in Abel, who saw that Miss Plumer had put out her darling little foot from beneath her dress, and therefore had fixed his eyes upon it, with an admiration which was not lost upon the lady.

“Heavens!” cried Moultrie, laughing and looking at them.  “You are both two more and too much for me.”

“Good, good, good for Moultrie!” applauded Abel; “and now, Miss Plumer, I submit that he has the floor.”

“Very well, Mr. Moultrie.  What are the two other things that you talk?”

“Pansies and rosemary,” said the young man, rising and bowing himself out.

“Miss Plumer, you have been the inspiration of my friend Sligo, who was never so brilliant in his life before.  How generous in you to rise and shine on this wretched town!  It is Sahara.  Miss Plumer descends upon it like dew.  Where have you been?”

“At home, in Louisiana.”

“Ah! yes.  Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle—­I have never been there; but it comes to me here when you come, Miss Plumer.”