Clarice was maid to a wealthy society dowager. James the butler fell in love with Clarice when she first entered the household, and she, hearing the servants' gossip about James's savings and salary, had encouraged his attentions. He pressed her to marry him. But young Nicholas Stuyvesant came home from abroad to find his mother ill and Clarice nursing her. Every day he noticed the modest rosy maid moving noiselessly about like a sunbeam. Her physical perfection profoundly impressed him. In her presence he constantly talked to his mother about his admiration for healthy women. Each evening Clarice reported to him the condition of the mother, and on one occasion mentioned that she had never known ache, pain, or malady in her life. The young man often chatted with her in the drawing-room, and James the butler got his _congé_. Mr. Stuyvesant induced his mother to make Clarice her companion, and then he met her at picture exhibitions, and in Central Park by chance, and next--every one will recall the exciting scene--he paid passionate court to her "in the pink sewing-room, where she had reclined on soft silken sofa pillows, with her tiny slippers upon the head of a lion whose skin formed a rug before her." Clarice thought him unprincipled, and repulsed him. When the widow recovered her health and went to Newport, the former maid met all society there. A gifted lawyer fell a victim to Clarice's charms, and, on a moonlit porch overlooking the sea, warned her against young Stuyvesant. On learning that the _roué_ had already attempted to weaken the girl's high principles, to rescue her he made her his wife. He was soon afterward elected Mayor of New York, but remained a suitor for his beautiful wife's approbation, waiting upon her in gilded halls with the fidelity of a knight of old. Cordelia adored Clarice and fancied herself just like her--beautiful, ambitious, poor, with a future of her own carving. Of course such a case is phenomenal. No other young woman was ever so ridiculous. "You have on your besht dresh, Cordalia," said her mother. "It'll soon be wore out, an' ye'll git no other, wid your father oidle, an' no wan airnin' a pinny but you an' Johnny an' Sarah Rosabel. Fwhere are ye goin'?" "I won't be gone long," said Cordelia, half out of the hall door. "Cordalia Angeline, darlin'," said her mother, "mind, now, doan't let them be talkin' about ye, fwherever ye go--shakin' yer shkirts an' rollin' yer eyes. It doan't luk well for a gyurl to be makin' hersel' attractive." "Oh, mother, I'm not attractive, and you know it."