The bride, a motherless girl, speedily adopted Mrs. Simmons as mother, and made many happy hours for the old lady; but that venerable and pious person is frequently heard to say to herself, in periods of thoughtfulness: “A lovely experience completely spiled!” [Illustration: THE CAPTAIN BURST INTO A LAUGH, WHICH MADE THE MINISTER’S CHANDELIERS RATTLE. ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MISS FEWNE’S LAST CONQUEST. HOW many conquests Mabel Fewne had made since she had entered society no one was able to tell. Perhaps the conqueror herself kept some record of the havoc she had worked, but if she did, no one but herself ever saw it. Even such of her rivals as were envious admitted that Miss Fewne’s victims could be counted by dozens, while the men who came under the influence of that charming young lady were wont to compute their fellow-sufferers by the hundred. It mattered not where Miss Fewne spent her time: whether she enjoyed the season in New York or Washington, Baltimore or Boston, she found that climatic surroundings did not in the least change the conduct of men toward her. In what her attractions especially consisted, her critics and admirers were not all agreed. Palette, the artist, who was among her earliest victims, said she was the embodiment of all ideal harmonies; while old Coupon, who at sixty offered her himself and his property, declared in confidence to another unfortunate that what took him was her solid sense. At least one young man, who thought himself a poet, fell in love with her for what he called the golden foam of her hair; a theological student went into pious ecstasy (and subsequent dejection) over the spiritual light of her eyes. The habitual pose of her pretty fingers accounted for the awkward attentions of at least a score of young men, and the piquancy of her manner attracted, to their certain detriment, all the professional beaus who met her. And yet, a clear-headed literary Bostonian declared that she was better read than some of his distinguished _confreres_; while a member of Congress excused himself for monopolizing her for an entire half-hour, at an evening party, by saying that Miss Fewne talked politics so sensibly, that for the first time in his life he had learned how much he himself knew. As for the ladies, some said any one could get as much admiration as Mabel Fewne if they could dress as expensively; others said she was so skillful a flirt that no man could see through her wily ways; two or three inclined to the theory of personal magnetism; while a few brave women said that Mabel was so pretty and tasteful, and modest and sensible and sweet, that men would be idiots if they didn’t fall in love with her at sight.