Some of these young women were beautiful, and all looked pretty, their charms equalised by their clothes and manners. They had all been on the most intimate terms with each other from babyhood, and they had the eagerness to please anyone and everyone, characteristic of the American girl. Each talked to the other as if that other were a lover, and they had the sweetest smiles for the maid. "So it was pleasant at the Bracketts'?" asked Grace, beginning to fill her cups. "Oh, delightful!" exclaimed the whole circle; "that is"--with modified energy--"it was crowded of course, and very hot, and it was hard to get at people, and there was no time to talk when you did; but everybody was there," they concluded with revived spirit. "I was not there," sighed Mildred; "I had to make tea for Miss Caldwell--mother said I must--and some of the people stayed so late that it was no use thinking of the other place, though I put on this gown to be all ready. I thought it would do to pour out at such a little tea"--surveying her pale fawn cloth gown dashed with dark velvet worked in gold. "Oh, perfectly! most appropriate!" said the others. "Who else poured out?" said Grace. "Why, she told me that Caroline Foster was coming, and I was so delighted; but when I got there I found Mrs. Neal had sent a note saying she could not allow Caroline to give up the Bracketts' altogether; and Miss Caldwell had invited that Miss Leggett, whom I hardly know--wasn't it unpleasant? And she wore regular full dress, pink India silk and chiffon, cut very low--the effect was dreadful!" "Horrid!" murmured her sympathising friends. "Caroline was there, I suppose?" queried one. "No--she never came at all." "Probably she went to the Bracketts' first, and couldn't get away," said Grace. "I wonder she isn't here by this time. Who saw her there?" General silence was the sole answer, and she looked round her only to have it re-inforced by a more emphatic "I didn't." "Why, she must have been there! She told me she should surely go. How odd--" but her words died away, and the group regarded each other with looks of awe, till one daring young woman broke the spell with, "Do you think--can it be possible--that she's really engaged?" "To Mr. Johnson?" broke out the whole number. "Oh! I hope not! It would be shocking--dreadful--too bad!" "We shouldn't see a thing of her; she would be so tied down," murmured Dorothy Chandler, almost in tears. "Everyone who marries is tied down, for that matter," cheerfully remarked a blooming young matron, who had been the rounds of the teas. "I assure you," she went on, nibbling a chocolate peppermint with relish, "I am doing an awful thing myself in being here at this hour; aren't you, Anna?"--addressing a mate in like condition, who blushed, conscience-stricken as she said, "Perhaps Caroline is in love with Mr. Johnson." "I don't see how any one can fall in love with a widower," said Mildred.