The gentleman gave her his arm, and they strolled leisurely in the direction of the party she had deserted so unceremoniously.

“I did not know it, bat I am glad to learn that you are to make a long visit to the city.  I have business that may detain me here for a week—­perhaps a fort-night,” was his answer to the first question she suffered him thus to honor.

Then the introduction to Mr. and Mrs. Mason, their married daughter, Mrs. Cunningham, and her husband, was performed.  The Member’s wife was a portly, good-natured Virginia matron, whose ruling desire to make all about her comfortable as herself, sometimes led to contretemps that were trying to the subjects of her kindness, and would have been distressing to her, had she ever, by any chance, guessed what she had done.

She opened the social game now, by saying, agreeably:  “Your name is not a strange one to us, Mr. Chilton.  We have often heard you spoken of in the most affectionate terms by our friends, but not near neighbors, the Ayletts, of Ridgeley,——­county.  Is it long since you met or heard from them?”

“Some months, madam.  I hope they were in their usual health when you last saw them?”

Receiving her affirmative reply with a courteous bow, and the assurance that he was “happy to hear it,” Mr. Chilton turned to Rosa, and engaged her in conversation upon divers popular topics of the day, all of which she was careful should conduct them in the opposite direction from Ridgeley, and his affectionate intimates, the Ayletts.  He appreciated and was grateful for her tact and delicacy.  Her unaffected pleasure at meeting him had been as pleasant as it was unlooked-for, aware as he was, from Mabel’s letter immediately preceding the rapture of their engagement, that Rosa must have been staying with her when it occurred.  The slander that had blackened him in the esteem of his betrothed had, he naturally supposed, injured his reputation beyond hope of retrieval with her acquaintances.  Rosa, her bosom companion, could not but have heard the whole history, yet met him with undiminished cordiality, as a valued friend.  Either the Ayletts had been unnaturally discreet, or the faith of the interesting girl in his integrity was firmer and better worth preserving than he had imagined in the past.  Perhaps, too, since he was but mortal man, although one whose heritage in the school of experience had been of the sternest, he was not entirely insensible to the privilege of promenading the long suite of apartments with the prettiest girl of the season hanging upon his arm, and granting her undivided attention to all that he said, indifferent to, or unmindful of, the flattering notice she attracted.

Over and above all these recommendations to his peculiar regard was her association with the happy days of his early love.  Not an intonation, not a look of hers, but reminded him of Ridgeley and of Mabel.  It was a perilous indulgence—­this recurrence to a dream he had vowed to forget, but the temptation had befallen him suddenly, and he surrendered himself to the intoxication.