“Pray why,” said a gentleman who was somewhat famous for puns, conundrums and such little witticisms, preferring as it seemed to shoot the “rats and mice and such small deer” of literature, because he could draw a _long_ rather than a _strong_ bow; “Pray,” said he in that half suppressed voice which, like a theatrical aside, is sure to be distinctly heard in a crowd, “why is this saloon like the President’s levee? do ye give it up? why it is filled with a crowd of _hungry expectants_! ha! ha! ha!” The joke would have been excellent as an after dinner speech, but the audacity of uttering an idle jest while so many persons were keenly alive to one of the sufferings of frail humanity, was very properly punished. No body laughed, and, to his infinite regret, the great Mr. —— saw that he had wasted his wit. The first stroke of the second bell brought all to their feet, as suddenly as if they had been subjected to the power of a galvanic battery. Cecil Forrester, attired with unusual care, all the lurking dandyism of his character fully but not offensively displayed, had been one of the first in the saloon, determined to give Miss Oriel a lesson in indifference. But she did not appear, and, as the band struck up a march, the usual signal for deploying into the dining-room, he took the hand of his neighbor, who happened to be a very pretty woman, and followed the somewhat rapid pace of the procession. The important business of the dinner-table was half finished: the soup, the fish, even the joints had disappeared, and the voracity of the _élégants_ had given place to fastidiousness as they amused themselves with a bit of _ris de veau glacé_ or a _petit pâte de Périgord_, when a slight bustle at the door attracted universal attention. A dumpy, over-dressed old lady, leaning on the arm of a delicate, fair-haired girl, entered with that fussy manner so characteristic of an out-of-place feeling, while, immediately following her, with a complexion as cool and fresh as marble, if one could only imagine marble tinged with the rose-tint of youth and health—a complexion such as nothing but a morning bath can give—came the elegant Miss Oriel. There was the very perfection of art in her whole appearance. She had chosen for her entrance the moment when the fierce appetites of those who eat to kill time (and sometimes end by killing themselves) were sufficiently appeased to enable them to admire something else beside the reeking dishes. Among the heated and flushed beauties who sat around the table, with relaxed ringlets and moistened brows, she appeared like some fairy of the fountain, some water nymph fresh from her sub-marine grotto, diffusing about her a cool and refreshing atmosphere as she moved gracefully onward. Her dress was white transparent muslin, which displayed rather than veiled the fine form of her arms, while her neck and shoulders, actually dazzling in their snowy hue and polish, were