"The Briggs family spend their winters in town, their summers at Newport, Saratoga, or some other watering-place, at which nobody cares anything about the water. The frequenters of these rural or seaside retreats are presumed to come for their health, but really come to show their dresses. Thus Miss Flora's life varies very little all the year round; she rises late, and is dressed for breakfast; after breakfast she practises upon the piano, shops with her mamma, and returns to be dressed for luncheon; after luncheon she usually takes a brief nap, or lies down to read a novel, and is then dressed for the afternoon promenade, as you have just seen her; after the promenade she is dressed for a drive with mamma in the Central Park; after the drive she is dressed for dinner, or dines in her out-of-door costume, preparatory to being dressed for the opera, the theatre, a ball, or a party. Every Tuesday she receives calls; every Thursday she calls upon her acquaintances. Whenever she has a spare moment, it is bestowed upon her dressmaker. If she thinks, it is to design new trimmings; if she dreams, it is of a heavenly _soiree dansante_, with an eternal waltz to everlasting music, and a tireless partner in paradisiacal Paris. "As all the best and--in a double sense--the dearest things of Miss Flora's life come from Paris, it is quite natural that she should look to Paris for her future. The best of all authorities declares that 'where the treasure is there will the heart be also.' Miss Flora's treasures are in the Parisian _magasins_, and her heart is with them. Although scores of young men kneel at her feet, press her hands, and deride the stars in comparison with her eyes, she cares for none of her worshippers. She smiles upon them, but the smile is no deeper than the lips; she flirts with them, but stops at that sharp, invisible line which separates a flirtation from a compromising earnestness; she is a coquette, but not a jilt. If she encourages all, it is because she prefers none. Her heart has never been touched, and she knows that none of her admirers in her own country can hope to touch it. Her rivals scornfully assert that she has no heart; but as she is, after all, a woman, this assertion must be incorrect. She is in love with an ideal, but that ideal has a title. So soon as Mr. Briggs can dispose of his business, Miss Flora is to be taken to Paris. Within two years afterwards she will be led to the altar by a French duke, marquis, or count, who will fall in love with her father's bank-book, and then she will figure as an ornament of the French Court, or the _salons_ of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. This is her ambition, and she will certainly accomplish it. The blood of the Van Duysens and the money of Briggs can accomplish anything when united in Miss Flora. With this end in view, the little lady is as inaccessible to ordinary admirers as a princess. She is a duchess by anticipation, and feels the pride of station in advance.