Any disinterested observer would have pronounced the family dinner-party a very happy one, and much interested in the various topics that were discussed. How much we talk of candor and frankness, as if any one of us ever admitted either, among the virtues of society. The frankness that passes current as such, is but a base counterfeit, as any one may find by circulating an infinitesimal quantity of the genuine metal. He will be set down instantly as an uncomfortable Marplot. Little children alone exemplify real candor, and how we adore it in them! But it doesn’t do for grown people, any more than the religion of Christ, as taught by him and his Apostles, will do, according to Mrs. Kendrick, for the exigencies of modern times. There was Miss Delano presiding at the table with suave good-breeding, while under the smile with which she served the dessert to Ella, there lurked a deep contempt of that young lady’s “ways” with Albert; Clara, apparently without a care and conversing easily upon various subjects, was in fact suffering and longing to get away; Albert’s light laugh and animated chit-chat, mostly with Ella, concealed a dismal dissatisfaction with fate, that had made him appear something less than absolute perfection in his wife’s eyes; Ella appeared as gay as a bird and as transparent as crystal, yet she would have cut off her little finger sooner than have her real thoughts and feelings engrafted on the consciousness of those present. Mr. Delano, indeed, had not much feeling of any kind except that of general weariness, which he carefully concealed, and so was in some degree masked like the rest.