more sweet than honey, because their flavor would never clog upon him who tasted thereof.  Her attire was striking—­it would have been bizarre upon any other lady in the room, but it enhanced the small stranger’s beauty.  A black robe—­India silk or silk grenadine, or some other light and lustrous material—­was bespangled with butterflies, gilded, green, and crimson, the many folds of the skirt flowing to the carpet in a train designed to add to apparent height, and, in front, allowing an enchanting glimpse of a tiny slipper, high in the instep, and tapering prettily toward the toe.  In her hair were glints of a curiously-wrought chain, wound under and among the bandeaux; on her wrists, plump and dimpled as a baby’s, more chain-work of the like precious metal, ending in tinkling fringe that swung, glittering, to and fro, with the restless motion of the elfin hands, she never ceased to clasp and chafe and fret one with the other, while she thus stood and awaited the decision of her companions.  But instead of detracting from the charm of her appearance, the seemingly unconscious gesture only heightened it.  It was the overflow of the exuberant vitality that throbbed redly in her cheeks, flashed in her eye, and made buoyant her step.

“What an artless sprite it is!” said one old gentleman, who had stared at her from the instant of her entrance, in mute enjoyment, to the great amusement of his more knowing nephews.

“All but the artless!” rejoined one of the sophisticated youngsters.  “She is gotten up too well for that.  Ten to one she is an experienced stager, who calculates to a nicety the capabilities of every twist of her silky hair and twinkle of an eyelash.  Hallo! that is gushing—­nicely done, if it isn’t almost equal to the genuine thing, in fact.”

The ambiguous compliment was provoked by a change of scene and a new actor, that opened other optics than his lazy ones to their extremest extent.  A gentleman had come in alone and quietly—­a tall, manly personage, whose serious countenance had just time to soften into a smile of recognition before the black-robed fairy flew up to him—­both hands extended—­her face one glad sunbeam of surprise and welcome.

“You here!” she exclaimed, in a low, thrilling tone, shedding into his the unclouded rays of her glorious eyes, while one of her hands lingered in his friendly hold.  “This is almost too good to be true!  When did you come?  How long are you going to stay? and what did you come for?  Yours is the only familiar physiognomy I have beheld since our arrival, and my eyes were becoming ravenous for a sight of remembered things.  Which reminds me”—­coloring bewitchingly, with an odd mixture of mirth and chagrin in smile and voice—­“that I have been getting up quite a little show on my own account, forgetful of les regles, and I suppose the horrified lookers-on think of les moeurs.  May I atone for my inadvertence by presenting you, in good and regular form, to my somewhat shocked, but very respectable, relatives?  Did you know that I was in Congress this year—­that is, Mr. Mason, my aunt’s husband, is an Honorable, and I am here with them?”