“You should have been born in the Spice Islands,” said the hostess, tapping the dark cheek with her fore finger.  “But we could not spare you from our wassail-cup to-night, my dear Lady Pimento!”

She bent slightly, that the flattery might reach no other ear.  She may not have known that Rosa’s Creole skin was at a wretched disadvantage, as seen against the green silk background; but others noticed it, and thought how few complexions were comparable to the wearer’s.  She had the faculty of converting into a foil nearly every woman who approached her.

“Thank you!  So I am pimento, am I?” queried Rosa, pertly.  “And each of us is to personate some condiment—­sweet, ardent, or aromatic—­in the exhilarating draught!  Which shall Mr. Harrison here be?

“‘Cinnamon or ginger, nutmeg or cloves?’”

“That is a line of a college drinking-song!”

The speaker was a young man of eight-and-twenty; who sat between Rosa and Mabel, and whose attentions to the latter were marked.  Of medium height, with sandy hair and whiskers, high cheek-bones, that gave a Gaelic cast to his physiognomy; which was remarkable for nothing in particular when at rest, and followed somewhat tardily the operations of his mind when he talked, he would probably have been the least likely person present to rivet a stranger’s notice but for the circumstance that he played shadow to the host’s sister and was Mrs. Aylett’s brother.  With regard to the feeling entertained by the former of those ladies for him, there were many and diverse opinions, but his sister’s partiality was unequivocally exhibited.  Of her three brothers, this—­the youngest, the least handsome, and the only bachelor—­was her favorite.  She took pains to apprise his fellow-guests of this interesting fact by petting him openly, and exerting her fullest artifices to bring him out in becoming colors.

“It is,” she answered him now, admiringly.  “What a memory you have, my dear Herbert!  Now I am never positive with whom to credit a quotation.  I recollect, since you have spoken, that your famous quartette-club ussd to render that with much eclat, and how it was encored at the brilliant private concert you gave in behalf of some popular charity or other.”

Thus encouraged, Mr. Dorrance proceeded to enlarge the fragment: 

    “Nose, nose, jolly red nose! 
     Where got you that jolly red nose? 
     Nutmeg and ginger, cinnamon and cloves,
     These gave me this jolly red nose.’

“You did not quote the third line correctly, Miss Tazewell.”

“Never having been a college bacchanalian, I am excusable for the inaccuracy,” she retorted.  “I did not even know where I picked up the foolish bit.  Having ascertained the origin to be of doubtful respectability, I shall never use it again.”

“My sister has alluded to our quartette-club,” pursued Mr. Dorrance, turning from the caustic beauty to Mabel, without noticing the impertinent thrust.  “It was the most successful thing of the kind I ever knew of, being composed of thoroughly-trained musicians—­ amateurs, of course—­and practising nothing but classic music, the productions of the best masters.  There is something both instructive and elevating in such an association.”