“Oh, Marguerite, if that will make you happy, I will promise you faithfully never, never to marry, but to be your own dear, little Nellie forever and ever; for indeed why should I not? I love no one in the world but my parents and you!” Will it be credited (even although we know that such compacts are sometimes made and always broken) that these two girls entered into a solemn engagement never to marry; but to live for each other only? From the day of this singular treaty, Marguerite De Lancie grew fonder than ever of her friend, lavished endearments upon her, calling Cornelia her Consolation, her Hope, her Star, and many other pet or poetic names besides. Nevertheless, when the fashionable season was over, Miss De Lancie left town without taking her “Consolation” with her. And again for a few months Marguerite was among the missing. She was not one to disappear with impunity or without inquiry. Where was she? Not at either of her own seats, nor at either of the watering places, not, as far as her most intimate friends and acquaintances knew, at New York, Philadelphia or Richmond, for her arrival at either of these places would have been chronicled by some one interested. Where was she, then? No one could answer; even her bosom friend, Cornelia Compton, could only reply, “Gone gypsying, I suppose.” Again seven months rolled by, while the brightest star of fashion remained in eclipse. Again a Christmas party was assembled at Compton Lodge, when the news of Miss De Lancie’s arrival at her house on Loudoun street reached them. Colonel and Mrs. Compton waited some days for her call, and then not having received it, they went to visit her at her home. They found Marguerite, as ever, gay, witty and sarcastic. She told them in answer to their friendly inquiries that she had been “at Seringapatam,” and gave them no further satisfaction. She accepted the invitation to join the Christmas party at Compton Lodge, went thither the same day, and as always before, distinguished herself as the most brilliant conversationalist, the most accomplished musician, the most graceful dancer, and the most fearless rider of the set. At the breaking up of the company, however, though invited and pressed to return with the Comptons to Richmond, she steadily declined doing so, alleging the necessity of visiting her plantation. Therefore the Comptons returned to Richmond without their usual guest, and Cornelia, for the first time in many years, spent the whole winter in town without Marguerite. But if Miss Compton was bereaved of her friend, she was also freed from her mistress, and entered with much more levity into all the gayeties of the season than she ever had done in the restraining companionship of Marguerite De Lancie.