At the end of the three weeks, Adeline returned home, bringing glowing accounts of the delights of Boston, and talking a great deal about several "delightful young gentlemen," and occasionally mentioning a certain Theodore St. Leger. She had heard that the Boston people were all BLUE; but it must be a calumny to say so, for she had had a very lively time--plenty of fun and flirtation. Miss Lawrence returned with her, and of course a party was given in her honour; there were some eighty persons present, all free from the shackles of matrimony, apparently to give the Boston young lady an opportunity of meeting a representation of her peers, the marriageable portion only of the New York community. The evening was pronounced delightful by Miss Lawrence; but all the guests were not of the same opinion. {"BLUE" = literary or learned, from "blue-stocking"} "What an absurd custom it is, to have these young people parties," said Harry Hazlehurst, who was on one of his frequent visits to New York at the time, and was sitting in Mrs. Graham's drawing-room, with that lady, Jane, and Mrs. Stanley. "I agree with you; it is a bad plan," observed Mrs. Stanley. "The first of the kind that I went to, after we came home, made me feel ashamed of myself; though Dr. Van Horne, I suppose, would accuse me of high-treason for saying so." "But most young people seem to enjoy them," said Mrs. Graham. "It is paying us but a poor compliment to say so. One would think the young people were afraid to laugh and talk before their fathers and mothers. I really felt the other night as if we were a party of children turned into the nursery to play, and eat sugar-plums together, and make as much noise as we pleased, without disturbing our elders. It is a custom that appears to me as unnatural as it is puerile. I hope you don't like it," he added, turning to Jane. "I care very little about it." "I am glad, at least, you do not defend it." "There are a few families you know, Harry, who never give those kind of parties," observed Mrs. Stanley. Hazlehurst's conscience felt a twinge, for he knew she was thinking of Elinor, whom Miss Wyllys had never allowed to give these UNMARRIED parties; though she went to other houses, when asked. "Miss Taylor had collected a tribe of Europeans of all sorts, last night; half-a-dozen Englishmen, and a vulgar Frenchman," observed Harry, by way of changing the conversation. "I was surprised when my friend Townsend told me he was invited; he did not know the Taylors, and only arrived a week since." "Adeline invited him on purpose; Miss Lawrence is very fond of foreigners, and you know Mr. Taylor calls on all the strangers who arrive," said Jane. Harry's lip curled a little. "How disagreeable that Captain Kockney is," continued Jane.