He was astonished, therefore, when she protested that she had had “enough of it,” and proposed that they should extricate themselves from the press and go home.  It was contrary to the commonly received tenets of his sex respecting the insatiable nature of feminine vanity, that she should weary so soon of adulation which would have rendered a light head dizzy.  Mrs. Mason was not ready to leave the halls of mirth.  She had met scores of old friends, and was having a “nice, sociable time” in a corner, while Mrs. Cunningham had “not begun to enjoy herself, looking at the queer people and the superb dresses.”

Of course, they had no objection to their wilful relative doing as she liked, but did not conceal their amazement at her bad taste.

“Take the carriage, dear!  You’ll find it around out there somewhere,” drawled the easy-tempered aunt.  “And let Thomas come back for us.  He will be in time an hour from this.”

“Would it be an unpardonable infraction of etiquette if we were to walk home?” questioned Rosa of Mr. Chilton, when they were out of Mr. Mason’s hearing.  “The night is very mild.”

“But your feet.  Are they not too lightly shod for the pavement?”

“I left a pair of thick gaiters in the dressing-room, which I wore in the carriage.”

“Then I will be answerable for the breach of etiquette, should it ever be found out,” was the reply, and Rosa disappeared into the tiring-roem to equip herself for the walk.

It was a lovely night for December—­moonlighted and bland as October, and neither manifested a disposition to accelerate the saunter into which they had fallen at their first step beyond the portico.  Rosa dropped her rattling tone, and began to talk seriously and sensibly of the scene they had left, the flatness of fashionable society after the freshness of novelty had passed from it, and her preference for home life and tried friends.

“Yet I always rate these the more truly after a peep at a different sphere,” she said.  “Our Old Virginia country-house is never so dear and fair at any other time as when I return to it after playing at fine lady abroad for a month or six weeks.  I used to fret at the monotony of my daily existence; think my simple plsasures tame.  I am thankful that I go back to them, as I grow older, as one does to pure, cold water, after drinking strong wine.”

“You are blessed in having this fountain to which you may resort in your heart-drought,” answered Frederic, sadly.  “The gods do not often deny the gift of home and domestic affections to woman.  It is an exception to a universal rule when a man who has reached thirty without building a nest for himself, has a pleasant shelter spared, or offered to him elsewhere.”

“Yet you would weary, in a week, of the indolent, aimless life led by most of our youthful heirs expectant and apparent,” returned Rosa.  “I remember once telling you how I envied you for having work and a career.  I was youthful then myself—­and foolish as immature.”