of his superior advantages.  However backward Frederic may have been in the beginning to monopolize the notice and time of his “sisterly friend,” he was not an insensate block, who could not perceive and value the compliment paid him by her partiality—­ever apparent, but never unmaidenly.  Impute it to whatever motive he might, the distinction titillated his vanity, touched, at least, the outermost covering of his heart.  It might be pity, it might be pleasant, mournful memories of other days—­it was most likely of all a sincere platonic affection, for one with tastes and feelings akin to hers that gave lustre to her eyes, and gentle meaning to her smile when he drew near.  At any rate, it would be churlish not to accept the preference these conveyed, and to like her and his position as her chosen knight better every day; it was inevitable that he should marvel—­not without melancholy-at the flight of time that brought so soon the day of parting.

The Masons, with himself, were engaged to attend a large party on the last evening of January.  Without analyzing the impulse that constrained him to do so, he had refrained from reminding Rosa that his stay in Washington was so nearly over, and, with masculine consistency, he was half disposed to be affronted that she had forgotten what he had said to her of its extent.  He had never seen her more lively—­in more radiant spirits and looks—­than she was upon the night of the 30th.  He had dropped into her aunt’s parlor about ten o’clock, and detected Rosa in the act of dragging her new ball-dress from the box in which the mantua maker had sent it home.

“Conceive, if you can—­but you can’t, being a man—­what I have undergone for an hour and more!” she cried, at seeing him.  “My treasure—­the darlingest love of a dress I have ever ordered—­was brought in exactly two seconds before a brace of honorables—­ lumbering machines that they are! knocked at the door.  So, lest they should brand me as a frivolous doll (as if anybody with a soul, and an infinitesimal degree of love for the beautiful, could help admiring the divine thing!), I pushed the poor box under the sofa, and there it has lain in ignominious neglect, like a pearl of purest ray serene smothered in an oyster, all the time they were here.  I was purposely cross and stupid, too, in the hope of getting rid of them the sooner.  If you despise what most of your undiscriminating sex call fancy articles, consider a woman’s fondness for a ravishing robe despicable and irrational, Mr. Chilton, you need not look this way.  You could hardly have a severer—­certainly not a more appropriate—­punishment.”

“You depreciate my aesthetic proclivities,” he rejoined, catching her tone.  “You would not trust my bungling fingers to help excavate the gem, I know; but I may surely use my eyes—­admire, as we bid children do—­with my hands behind my back.”