engaged to Mr. Alfred Dinks?"

Alas! Mrs. Dinks, who knew Hope, knew that the time for dexterous
subterfuges and misleadings had passed. She resolved that people, when
they discovered what they inevitably soon must discover, should not
suppose that she had been deceived. So, looking straight into Fanny
Newt's eyes without flinching--and somehow it was not a look of profound
affection--she said,

"I was not aware of any such engagement."

"Indeed!" replied the undaunted Fanny, "I have heard that love is blind,
but I did not know that it was true of maternal love. Mr. Dinks's mother
is not his confidante, then, I presume?"

The bad passions of Mr. Dinks's mother's heart were like the heathen, and
furiously raged together at this remark. She continued the fanning, and
said, with a sickly smile,

"Miss Newt, you can contradict from me the report of any such
engagement."

That was enough. Fanny was mistress of the position. If Mrs. Dinks were
willing to say that, it was because she was persuaded that it never would
be true. She had evidently discovered something. How much had she
discovered? That was the next step.

As these reflections flashed through the mind of Miss Fanny Newt, and her
cold black eye shone with a stony glitter, she was conscious that the
time for some decisive action upon her part had arrived. To be or not to
be Mrs. Alfred Dinks was now the question; and even as she thought of it
she felt what must be done. She did not depreciate the ability of Mrs.
Dinks, and she feared her influence upon Alfred. Poor Mr. Dinks! he was
at that moment smoking a cigar upon the forward deck of the _Chancellor
Livingston_ steamer, that plied between New York and Providence. Mr.
Bowdoin Beacon sat by his side.

"She's a real good girl, and pretty, and rich, though she is my cousin,
Bowdoin. So why don't you?"

Mr. Beacon, a member of the upper sex, replied, gravely, "Well, perhaps!"

They were speaking of Hope Wayne.

At the same instant also, in Mrs. Kingfisher's swarming drawing-rooms,
looking on at the dancers and listening to the music, stood Hope Wayne,
Lawrence Newt, Amy Waring, and Arthur Merlin. They were chatting together
pleasantly, Lawrence Newt usually leading, and Hope Wayne bending her
beautiful head, and listening and looking at him in a way to make any
man eloquent. The painter had been watching for Mr. Abel Newt's entrance,
and, after he saw him, turned to study the effect produced upon Miss
Wa