“Not at all.”

“And I hope not pained by the intelligence?”

“No, Caroline, not now,” her friend said, smiling; “though two or three months ago it would have almost killed me.  I, too, have been wooed and won.”

“Indeed!  That is news.  And who is it, Melvina?  I am eager to know.”

“Martin Colburn.”

“A gentleman, and every way worthy of your hand.  But how in the world comes it that so quiet and modest a young man as Martin has now the dashing belle?”

“It has occurred quite naturally, Caroline.  The dashing belle has gained a little more good sense than she had a few months ago.  She has not forgotten the party at Mrs. Walsaingham’s.  And by the bye, Caroline, how completely you out-generalled me on that occasion.  I had a great mind for a while never to forgive you.”

“You are altogether mistaken, Melvina,” Caroline said, with a serious air.  “I did not act a part on that occasion.  I went but in my true character, and exhibited no other.”

“It was nature, then, eclipsing art; truth of character outshining the glitter of false assumption.  But all that is past, and I am wiser and better for it, I hope.  You will be happy, I know, with Henry Clarence, for he is worthy of you, and can appreciate your real excellence; and I shall be happy, I trust, with the man of my choice.”

“No doubt of it, Melvina.  And by the way,” Caroline said, laughing, “we shall make another ‘sensation,’ and then we must be content to retire into peaceful domestic obscurity.  You will have a brilliant time, I suppose?”

“O yes.  I must try my hand at creating one more sensation, the last and most imposing; and, as my wedding comes the first, you must be my bridesmaid.  You will not refuse?”

“Not if we can agree as to how we are to dress.  We ought to be alike in this, and yet I can never consent to appear in any thing but what is plain, and beautiful for its simplicity.”

“You shall arrange all these.  You beat me the last time in creating a sensation, and now I will give up to your better taste.”

And rarely has a bride looked sweeter than did Melvina Fenton on her wedding-day.  Still, she was eclipsed by Caroline, whose native grace accorded so well with her simple attire, that whoever looked upon her, looked again, and to admire.  The “sensation” they created was not soon forgotten.

Caroline was married in a week after, and then the fair heroines of our story passed from the notice of the fashionable world, and were lost with the thousands who thus yearly desert the gay circles, and enter the quiet sphere and sweet obscurity of domestic life.

SOMETHING FOR A COLD.

“Henry,” said Mr. Green to his little son Henry, a lad in his eighth year, “I want you to go to the store for me.”

Mr. Green was a working-man, who lived in a comfortable cottage, which he had built from money earned from honest industry.  He was, moreover, a sober, kind-hearted man, well liked by all his neighbors, and beloved by his own family.