Among the number of gentlemen whom Beulah occasionally met at Dr. Asbury's house were two whose frequent visits and general demeanor induced the impression that they were more than ordinarily interested in the sisters. Frederick Vincent evinced a marked preference for Georgia, while Horace Maxwell was conspicuously attentive to Helen. The former was wealthy, handsome, indolent, and self-indulgent; the latter rather superior, as to business habits, which a limited purse peremptorily demanded. Doubtless both would have passed as men of medium capacity, but certainly as nothing more. In fine, they were fair samples, perfect types of the numerous class of fashionable young men who throng all large cities. Good- looking, vain, impudent, heartless, frivolous, and dissipated; adepts at the gaming table and pistol gallery, ciphers in an intelligent, refined assembly. They smoked the choicest cigars, drank the most costly wines, drove the fastest horses, and were indispensable at champagne and oyster suppers. They danced and swore, visited and drank, with reckless indifference to every purer and nobler aim. Notwithstanding manners of incorrigible effrontery which characterized their clique, the ladies always received them with marked expressions of pleasure, and the entree of the "first circle" was certainly theirs. Dr. Asbury knew comparatively little of the young men who visited so constantly at his house, but of the two under discussion he chanced to know that they were by no means models of sobriety, having met them late one night as they supported each other's tottering forms homeward, after a card and wine party, which ended rather disastrously for both. He openly avowed his discontent at the intimacy their frequent visits induced, and wondered how his daughters could patiently indulge in the heartless chit-chat which alone could entertain them. But he was a fond, almost doting father, and seemed to take it for granted that they were mere dancing acquaintances, whose society must be endured. Mrs. Asbury was not so blind, and discovered, with keen sorrow and dismay, that Georgia was far more partial to Vincent than she had dreamed possible. The mother's heart ached with dread lest her child's affections were really enlisted, and, without her husband's knowledge she passed many hours of bitter reflection as to the best course she should pursue to arrest Vincent's intimacy at the house. Only a woman knows woman's heart, and she felt that Georgia's destiny would be decided by the measures she now employed. Ridicule, invective, and even remonstrance she knew would only augment her interest in one whom she considered unjustly dealt with. She was thoroughly acquainted with the obstinacy which formed the stamen of Georgia's character, and very cautiously the maternal guidance must be given. She began by gravely regretting the familiar footing Mr. Vincent had acquired in her family, and urged upon Georgia and Helen