"Well, Charlotte, when is it to be? I think I retired in very good season." "Perhaps you did, Maria," returned the other, without raising her face from the reflecting attitude in which she stood--"I believe it is all very well." "Well! you little philosopher--I should think it was excellent--that--that is--if I were in your place. I suspected this from the moment you met." "What have you suspected, Maria?--what is it you imagine has occurred?" "What! why Seymour Delafield has been stammering--then he looked doleful--then he sighed--then he hemmed--then he said you were an angel--nay, you need not look prudish, and affect to deny it; he got as far as that before I left the room--then he turned to see if I were not coming back again to surprise him--then he fell on his knees--then he stretched out his handsome hand--it is too handsome for a man's hand!--and said take it, take me, take my name, and take my three hundred thousand dollars!--Now don't deny a syllable of it till I tell your answer." Charlotte smiled, and taking her work, quietly seated herself at her table before she replied-- "You go through Cupid's exercise so dexterously, Maria, one is led to suspect you have seen some service." "Not under such an officer, girl! Ah! Colonel Delafield, or General--no, Field-Marshal Delafield, is an officer that might teach"--as Miss Osgood spoke with short interruptions between her epithets, as if in search of proper terms, she dwelt a moment on the last word in such a manner as to give it a particular emphasis--Charlotte started, more perhaps from the manner than the expression, and turning her glowing face towards her friend, she cried involuntarily-- "Is it possible that you could have overheard--" "What?" "Nothing--what nonsense!" "Let me tell you, Miss Prude, it is in such nonsense, however, that the happiness or misery of us poor sports of fortune, called women, in a great measure blooms or fades--now that I call poetical!--but for your answer: first you said--indeed, Mr. Delafield, this is so unexpected--though you knew well enough what was coming--then you blushed as you did a little while ago, and said I am so young--I--am but poor seventeen--then he swore you were seventy--no, no,--but he said you are old enough to be his ruling star--his destiny--his idol--his object of _worship_--ha! I do hit the right epithet now and then. Well--then you said you had parents, as if the poor man did not know that already, and that they must be consulted; and he desired you to ask the whole city--he defied them all to say aught against him--he was regular at church--subscribed to the widow's society, and the assembly; and in short, was called a 'good' young man, even in Wall-street." "All this is very amusing, Maria--but--"