that belongs, by prior claim, to me.  Don’t encourage any of those rustics, for I have somebody here so infinitely superior to any one whom I ever met before that I have decided that there is only one girl in the world worthy of him.  Now, if I have aroused your curiosity sufficiently to have you call for ‘more,’ I will change the subject, and give you a little of the gossip that I know will interest you.

“The last sensation is nothing else than the elopement of Melinda Brown with a curly-haired hotel waiter.  Imagine the scene when the fact became known to the disconsolate Brown mere.  The girl has found her level at last, my dear.  It was all time and trouble thrown away trying to make anything of her.  Melinda could not be a lady, because, as I always contended, it wasn’t in her.  She is now in her proper sphere.  I hear that her husband has set up in the same business in which his worthy papa-in-law began life.  Melinda lives in apartments over the grocery, and enjoys life hugely, as she never did in the elegant mansion she has left forever.

“I’ve still another wedding to chronicle.  You surely have not forgotten our fair Cynthia, the former confidante of Mrs. P. Crandall Crane, but now, alas! her friend no longer, but that lady’s deadliest foe.  But to ‘begin at the beginning:’ 

“Some months ago Mrs. Crane made the acquaintance of some new people, whom she hastened to describe and present to her dearest friend.  One of them was a young gentleman, of fair, effeminate beauty and manners, and extreme youth.  In fact, he had but just been emancipated from the strictest discipline of stern tutors.  This fortunate youth was the sole heir of a wealthy and indulgent step-father, who had followed the remains of a second ’dear departed’ to the grave, and was said to be inconsolable, living but to secure the happiness of this only son of his cherished and lost Amelia.  The gentleman, whose name was Townsend, purchased an elegant villa at a convenient distance from the city, and installed therein a faraway cousin as housekeeper.  This worthy person was immediately surrounded by the Crane clique, who made her long and oft-repeated visits, until, no doubt, she wondered greatly at the cause of her popularity.  Of course, being only a poor dependent on the bounty of her relative, she was naturally pleased and flattered at being the object of so much friendly regard, and she took every pains to make herself agreeable to her new-found friends.  Another fact proved the gratitude of her disposition, and that was the praises which were continually lavished upon the gentleman over whose mansion she presided.  In this poor woman’s estimation, Mr. Townsend was a model man.  It had been her valued privilege to visit him occasionally during the lifetime of the second Mrs. T., and nothing from her description could have been more beautiful than his devotion to the lady during her long and lingering illness.