“I presume you are not often at dinners of this kind, Mr. Newt?”

“No,” replied Abel; “I usually dine on veal and spring chickens.”

“Oh!” said Mr. Dinks, who thought Abel meant that he generally ate that food.

“I mean that men of my years usually feed with younger and softer people than I see around me here,” explained the young man.

“Yes, of course, I understand,” replied Mr. Dinks, loftily, who had not the least idea what Abel meant; “young men must expect to begin at women’s dinners.”

“They must, indeed,” replied Abel.  “Now, Mr. Dinks, one of the pleasantest I remember was this last winter, under the auspices of your wife.  Let me see, there were Mr. Moultrie there, Mr. Whitloe and Miss Magot, Mr. Bowdoin Beacon and Miss Amy Waring—­and who else?  Oh!  I beg pardon, your son Alfred and my sister Fanny.”

As he spoke the young gentleman filled a glass of wine, and looked over the rim at Mr. Dinks as he drained it.

“Yes,” returned the Honorable Mr. Dinks, “I don’t go to women’s dinners.”

He seemed entirely unconscious that he was conversing with the brother of the young lady with whom his son had eloped.  Abel smiled to himself.

“I suppose,” said he, “we ought to congratulate each other, Mr. Dinks.”

The honorable gentleman looked at Abel, paused a moment, then said: 

“My son marries at his own risk.  Sir.  He is of years of discretion, I believe, and having an income of only six hundred dollars a year, which I allow him, I presume he would not marry without some security upon the other side.  However, Sir, as that is his affair, and as I do not find it very interesting—­no offense, Sir, for I shall always be happy to see my daughter-in-law—­we had better, perhaps, find some other topic.  The art of life, my young friend, is to avoid what is disagreeable.  Don’t you think Mr. Ele quite a remarkable man?  I regard him as an honor to your State, Sir.”

“A very great honor, Sir, and all the gentlemen at this charming dinner are honors to the States from which they come, and to our common country, Mr. Dinks.  We younger men are content to dine upon veal and spring chickens so long as we know that such intellects have the guidance of public affairs.”

Mr. Abel Newt bowed to Mr. Dinks as he spoke, while that gentleman listened with the stately gravity with which a President of the United States hears the Latin oration in which he is made a Doctor of Laws.  He bowed in reply to the little speech of Abel’s, as if he desired to return thanks for the combined intellects that had been complimented.

“And yet, Sir,” continued Abel, “if my father should unhappily conceive a prejudice in regard to this elopement, and decline to know any thing of the happy pair, six hundred dollars, in the present liberal style of life incumbent upon a man who has moved in the circles to which your son has been accustomed, would be a very limited income for your son and daughter-in-law—­very limited.”