Children!"

On one of these occasions I met her. She was just beginning her
_condottiere_ life then, and was very attractive even to those on whom
she had no designs--believed in balls, and had an ingenious talent for
original composition. I don't think those entertainments are dangerously
exciting to her now; and Heaven forefend that she should write poetry!
One shudders to think of what it would he. Well, she was returning to
the house after a moonlight flirtation (if you can call it so when it
was all on one side). She had been trying to fascinate a stupid, sullen,
commercial Orson--a boy not clever, but cunning, who calculated on his
share in the bank as a means of procuring him these amusements, as other
men might reckon on their good looks or soft tongue. He had just left
her, and I was wishing her good-night under the porch. She forgot her
cue for a moment, and became natural. "I feel so very, very tired," she
said. I remember how drearily she said it, and how the tears glittered
in her weary eyes. I remember, too, how, ten minutes later, I heard that
amiable youth boasting of what had happened, and giving a hideous
travestie of her attempts to captivate him, till at last my wrath was
kindled, and, to his great confusion (for he was of a timid
disposition), I spoke, and sharply, with my tongue.

Ah me! I mind the time when men used to waylay Fanny Singleton in the
cloak-room, and shoot her flying as she went up the staircase, in their
anxiety to secure her for a partner; and now she is a refuge for the
destitute, except when some one, for old acquaintance' sake, takes a
turn with one of the best waltzers in Europe.

I like her for one thing--she has never tried the girlish dodge on yet.
She has never been heard to say, "Mamma always calls me a wild thing."
It is better that she should be bitter and sardonic, as she is
sometimes, than that. Mars herself could hardly play the _ingenues_ when
in mature age. Grisi's best part now is not Amina.

The last thing I heard of Fanny was that she was about to unite herself
(the _active_ voice is the proper one) to a very Low-Church clergyman, a
distinguished member of the Evangelical Alliance, pregnant with the odor
of sanctity--_bouquet de Baptiste_ treble distilled. I dare say they
will get on well enough. If the holy man wants to collect "experiences,"
his wife will be able to furnish them, that's certain. It will be very
"sweet."

I pity, but I condemn. In the name