Then Edith summoned up all her latent substitutes for naturalness, and bore down upon Mr. Monroe with such a load of banter and mirthful sayings that that gentleman eventually smiled, to the surprise of everybody. Then it became alarmingly noticeable that Mr. Monroe was paying close attention to Edith's highly interesting but entirely assumed form of gabbling--so much so, in fact, that it was feared by Mrs. Cobb once that he was on the point of taking Edith in his unloving embrace, and running away with her. But Mrs. Cobb saved him from this duncely possibility by saying: "Be careful, Mr. Monroe, or you will do something desperate directly!" Mr. Monroe quickly recovered himself and became a living sphynx again. "Hah, Miss Edith," said Jasper Cobb, catching the trend of things Edithward, "now, I am jealous." Miss Edith turned to him, with pretended hautiness, and should liked to have said, "Impudence," but forbore that unlady-like expression in deference to her own good breeding. She was relieved, however, from making any answer to him by Mr. Cobb, who arose at that critical moment and announced, most graciously and grandiloquently, that the table would be cleared of the women and menu to make way for cigars and wine. All of which orders being carried into execution, as per custom, the waiters proceeded to serve those two refreshing desserts. They sat long over their cigars, and longer over their wine--till the air was an ultramarine blueness, and the men in tipsy joyousness. Mr. Monroe was very thirsty, it turned out, from the number of glasses that he drained, which had an happy effect upon him. For, with the disappearance of the wine down his esophagus, came a set grin on his face, akin to the smile of a disgruntled ghost. Young Cobb, aside from smoking enormously, imbibed freely, much against his personal appearance and qualifications to enter much farther into the pleasures of the evening. All the other gentlemen, including old man Cobb, entered into the libations with rare partiality--except Mr. Jarney, who, it was seen, refrained from participating in the dispatching of the invigorating liquor, a constitutional habit with him. This trait was looked upon by his now inebriating friends as a high breach of etiquette in not sipping wine after breaking bread at the home of a friend, and was an affront not to be condoned on such an occasion. But Mr. Jarney, while not approving of such bacchanalian practices, as far as he and his family were concerned, looked askance at them, so long as they were confined to others, and he made no protest. After the free lubrication of their unsettled nerves and muddled heads, the men arose to join the ladies, who in the meantime had dressed for the ball, now to follow.