Mrs. Bartlett Glow had the whim to devote herself to Mrs. Benson, and was repaid by the acquisition of a great deal of information concerning the social and domestic, life in Cyrusville, Ohio, and the maternal ambition for Irene.  Stanhope and Irene sat a little apart from the others, and gave themselves up to the witchery of the hour.  It would not be easy to reproduce in type all that they said; and what was most important to them, and would be most interesting to the reader, are the things they did not say—­the half exclamations, the delightful silences, the tones, the looks that are the sign language of lovers.  It was Irene who first broke the spell of this delightful mode of communication, and in a pause of the music said, “Your cousin has been telling me of your relatives in New York, and she told me more of yourself than you ever did.”

“Very likely.  Trust your friends for that.  I hope she gave me a good character.”

“Oh, she has the greatest admiration for you, and she said the family have the highest expectations of your career.  Why didn’t you tell me you were the child of such hopes?  It half frightened me.”

“It must be appalling.  What did she say of my uncle and aunts?”

“Oh, I cannot tell you, except that she raised an image in my mind of an awful vision of ancient family and exclusiveness, the most fastidious, delightful, conventional people, she said, very old family, looked down upon Washington Irving, don’t you know, because he wrote.  I suppose she wanted to impress me with the value of the prize I’ve drawn, dear.  But I should like you just as well if your connections had not looked down on Irving.  Are they so very high and mighty?”

“Oh, dear, no.  Much like other people.  My aunts are the dearest old ladies, just a little nearsighted, you know, about seeing people that are not—­well, of course, they live in a rather small world.  My uncle is a bachelor, rather particular, not what you would call a genial old man; been abroad a good deal, and moved mostly in our set; sometimes I think he cares more for his descent than for his position at the bar, which is a very respectable one, by the way.  You know what an old bachelor is who never has had anybody to shake him out of his contemplation of his family?”

“Do you think,” said Irene, a little anxiously, letting her hand rest a moment upon Stanhope’s, “that they will like poor little me?  I believe I am more afraid of the aunts than of the uncle.  I don’t believe they will be as nice as your cousin.”

“Of course they will like you.  Everybody likes you.  The aunts are just a little old-fashioned, that is all.  Habit has made them draw a social circle with a small radius.  Some have one kind of circle, some another.  Of course my aunts are sorry for any one who is not descended from the Van Schlovenhovens—­the old Van Schlovenhoven had the first brewery of the colony in the time of Peter Stuyvesant.  In New York it’s a family