, the most agreeable, and the most
refined, and May Dacre was a divinity who would summon many a crowd to
her niche in this Pantheon of fashion.

If any difficulty were for a moment anticipated in bringing about this
arrangement, a fortunate circumstance seemed sufficient to remove it.
Lord St. Maurice and Arundel Dacre had been acquainted at Vienna, and,
though the intimacy was slight, it was sweet. St. Maurice had received
many favours from the _attache_, and, as he was a man of family and
reputation, had been happy to greet him on his arrival in London. Before
the Dacres made their appearance in town for the season Arundel had been
initiated in the mysteries of Fitz-pompey House, and therefore a desire
from that mansion to cultivate the good graces of his Yorkshire relation
seemed not only not forced, but natural. So, the families met, and, to
the surprise of each other, became even intimate, for May Dacre and Lady
Caroline soon evinced a mutual regard for each other. Female friendships
are of rapid growth, and in the present instance, when there was nothing
on either side which was not lovable, it was quite miraculous, and the
friendship, particularly on the part of Lady Caroline, shot up in one
night, like a blooming aloe.

Perhaps there is nothing more lovely than the love of two beautiful
women, who are not envious of each other's charms. How delightfully they
impart to each other the pattern of a cap, or flounce, or frill! how
charmingly they entrust some slight, slender secret about tinting a
flower or netting a purse! Now one leans over the other, and guides her
inexperienced hand, as it moves in the mysteries of some novel work,
and then the other looks up with an eye beaming with devotion; and
then again the first leans down a little lower, and gently presses her
aromatic lips upon her friend's polished forehead.

These are sights which we quiet men, who, like 'little Jack Horner,'
know where to take up a safe position, occasionally enjoy, but which
your noisy fellows, who think that women never want to be alone--a sad
mistake--and consequently must be always breaking or stringing a guitar,
or cutting a pencil, or splitting a crowquill, or overturning the gold
ink, or scribbling over a pattern, or doing any other of the thousand
acts of mischief, are debarred from.

Not that these bright flowers often bloomed alone; a blossom not less
brilliant generally shared with them the same parterre. Mrs. Dallington