self very agreeable. After dinner he proposed we should go to the
concert, as he felt an interest in the new _primadonna_, having heard
her at her _debut_ in Europe. I made an objection, which was overruled
by Mrs. Langley's expressing a desire--strange for her--to go
likewise; and we went. I had not been ten minutes in the room when, on
lifting my eyes, the first person I saw was Harry Morton looking
sternly at me. Foolishly, I grew embarrassed, my face burned, and my
whole frame trembled with nervous agitation. He did not approach me,
but gave me only a cold bow. 'He thinks me guilty of falsehood,' I
said to myself. How wretchedly passed the evening, and yet I have no
doubt I was an object of envy to many of my young lady friends. The
rich _distingue_, Templeton Langley showed himself my devoted admirer,
while his mother, the acknowledged leader of _ton_, sat beside us
smiling approvingly. My indifferent, cold manner, my simple costume,
and my beautiful face, completed that evening the conquest of the
fastidious, fashionable young man. You cannot imagine the delight of
my mother, when day after day found Templeton Langley constantly
beside me, she could scarcely restrain her exultation; while I, poor
child, listened with aching, throbbing senses for the approach of one
who never came near me. Two or three weeks passed in a whirl of
gayety. It was the close of the season, and one or two brides in our
circle made the parties very constant. Mrs. Langley proposed that our
family should join her son and herself in their summer visit to the
Lakes; accordingly we did so, and we spent more than three months
traveling. Ere the close of those three months, Templeton Langley
offered himself to me. I could not describe to you the scene that
ensued between my mother and myself when I rejected him. She was a
worldly woman, and my conduct seemed perfectly wild to her. She
remonstrated, persuaded, then reproached me in impatient, angry tones.
My father was a quiet, amiable man, and rarely interfered with my
mother in her management, but he fortunately shook off enough of his
lethargy to come to my rescue at this time.

"'If Mary does not love Mr. Langley,' he said, 'why urge her to marry
him? Do not scold the poor child,' and he drew me toward him tenderly.

"Templeton Langley was rather an indifferent person in every way. His
wealth, combined with his situation in the fashionable world, placed
him in a fictitious light; but he had