"Let me loosen your braids for you, Del," said she, quietly, taking up my hair in her gentle way, which always had a good effect on my prancing nerves; "let me bathe your forehead with this, dear;--now, let me tell you something you will like." "Oh, my heart! Laura, I wish you could! for I declare to you, that, if it wasn't for--if it didn't----Oh, dear, dear! how I do hate that name!" "It is not so very good a name,--that must be owned, Del. All is, you will have to call him 'Mr. Sampson,' or 'My dear,' or 'You'; or, stay, you might abbreviate it into Ame, Ami. Ami and Delphine!--it sounds like a French story for youth. If I were you, I wouldn't meddle with it or think any more about it." "Such a name! so ridiculous!" I muttered. "You have considered it so much and so closely, Del, that it is most disproportionately prominent in your mind. You can put out Bunker-Hill Monument with your little finger, if you hold it close enough to your eye. Don't you remember what Mr. Sampson said to-night about somebody whose mind had no perspective in it? that his shoe-ribbon was as prominent and important as his soul? Don't go and be a goosey, Del, and have no perspective, will you?" And Laura leaned over and kissed my forehead, all corrugated with my pet grief. "Well, Laura, what can be worse? I declare--almost I think, Laura, I would rather he should have some great defect." "Moral or physical? Gambling? one leg? one eye? lying? six fingers? How do you mean, Del?" "Oh, patience! no, indeed!--six fingers! I only meant"---- And here, of course, I stopped. "Which virtue could you spare in Mr. Sampson?" said Laura, coolly, fastening my hair neatly in its net, and sitting down in _her_ rocking-chair. When it came to that, of course there were none to be spared. We undressed, silently,--Laura rolling all her ribbons carefully, and I throwing mine about; Laura, consistent, conservative, allopathic, High-Church,--I, homoeopathic, hydropathic, careless, and given to Parkerism. It did not matter, as to harmony. Two bracelets, but no need to be alike. We clasped arms and hearts all the same. By-and-by I remembered,-- "Oh! what's your good news, Laura?" "Ariana Cooper and Geraldine Parker are both married,--both on the same day, at Grace Church, New York." "Is it possible? Who told you? How do you know?" "I read it in the 'Evening Post,' just before I came up-stairs. Now guess,--guess a month, Del, and you won't guess whom they have married." "No use to guess. They've found somebody in New York at their aunt's, I suppose. Both so pretty and rich, they were likely to find good _partis_." "Merchants both, I think. Now do guess!" "How can I? Herbert Clark, maybe,--or Captain Ellington? No, of course not. A merchant? Julius Winthrop. I know Ariana was a great admirer of a military man. She used to say she would have loved Sidney for his chivalry, and Raleigh for his graceful foppery; and Pembroke Dunkin she admired for both. It isn't Pembroke?"