cceeded. She had formed the acquaintance of many
disreputable people; she had read French novels and French plays such
as no well-bred French woman would suffer in her family; she had lost
such innocence and purity of mind as she had to lose, and, after all,
had _not_ got the French language.

However, there are losses that do not trouble the subject of them,
because they bring insensibility. Just as Mrs. Follingsbee's ear was
not delicate enough to perceive that her rapid and confident French
was not Parisian, so also her conscience and moral sense were not
delicate enough to know that she had spent her labor for "that which
was not bread." She had only succeeded in acquiring such an air
that, on a careless survey, she might have been taken for one of
the _demi-monde_ of Paris; while secretly she imagined herself the
fascinating heroine of a French romance.

The friendship between Mrs. Follingsbee and Lillie was of the most
impassioned nature; though, as both of them were women of a good solid
perception in regard to their own material interests, there were
excellent reasons on both sides for this enthusiasm.

Notwithstanding the immense wealth of the Follingsbees, there were
circles to which Mrs. Follingsbee found it difficult to be admitted.
With the usual human perversity, these, of course, became exactly the
ones, and the only ones, she particularly cared for. Her ambition was
to pass beyond the ranks of the "shoddy" aristocracy to those of the
old-established families. Now, the Seymours, the Fergusons, and the
Wilcoxes were families of this sort; and none of them had ever
cared to conceal the fact, that they did not intend to know the
Follingsbees. The marriage of Lillie into the Seymour family was the
opening of a door; and Mrs. Follingsbee had been at Lillie's feet
during her Newport campaign. On the other hand, Lillie, having taken
the sense of the situation at Springdale, had cast her thoughts
forward like a discreet young woman, and perceived in advance of her a
very dull domestic winter, enlivened only by reading-circles and such
slow tea-parties as unsophisticated Springdale found agreeable. The
idea of a long visit to the New-York alhambra of the Follingsbees in
the winter, with balls, parties, unlimited opera-boxes, was not a
thing to be disregarded; and so, when Mrs. Follingsbee "_ma chered_"
Lillie, Lillie "my deared" Mrs. Follingsbee: and the pair are to be
seen at this blessed moment sitting with t