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he is! What an example to the younger men!”

“Why, Carrie, do you really mean to———”

“Oh, I don’t know; you must not ask me that till he does. But he is really a charming companion―so cultivated, so civilized! Of course, there is a disparity of age; but you, Lizzie, can’t cast a stone at me on that account.”

“No, oh no! But are you sure you love him enough to—to———?”

“Love? Oh, nonsense! I have had enough of sentiment with Adeline’s affairs to last me all the rest of my natural life. But if you do want to see a case of the real thing—what mother calls the good old-fashioned, jealous devotion of her young days—just look at that young man standing against the door, over there—to the right.”

“Arthur Campbell! You don’t mean him, do you?”

“Yes, I do; and he is just as mad as he can be to-night, because that pale girl in the blue brocade—by the bye, I must take a note of her dressmaker—won’t look at him; and she has turned the heads of half my own special partners to-night.”

Carrie saw that her shaft had sped, and she