We must leave Georgia to her alluring wiles, and Catherine to her observations, and seek Mrs. Cabell and her party. They are in the dressing-room, and about to leave it. Only Mrs. Cabell turns again and again to survey her form in the mirror, and re-adjust the flow of her purple satin dress, or the wave of her white ostrich plumes. When all is done, she turns for the last time to Carolyn, to rebuke her for not adding a single ornament to her mourning dress of black velvet, which is relieved only by the falls of fine Brussels lace on the neck and arms, and the sunny ringlets falling all around her head as low as the throat. Carolyn looks very fragile, but interesting and lovely, though she does not know it. Major Cabell gave his right arm to his mother, and his left to his cousin, and so, as it was now the acme of the fashionable hour, they entered the saloon, and made their slow progress up to the upper end, where the Governor and staff stood, to receive all comers—Mrs. Cabell bowing and smiling to such acquaintances as she chose to recognize in passing, until at length they stopped. A feeling of false shame, a morbid notion that all eyes were upon her, and scrutinized the few pits hidden under the golden curls on her temples, had caused Carolyn to cast her eyes down, and keep them down, during the whole progress through the room—and though her acute ears heard such murmurs as these—“How fair she is,” “But how fragile, as if a zephyr would blow her away”—she never fancied they were breathed of her, and never surmised the admiration she elicited. “Governor T——, Miss Clifton, of Clifton,” were the words that admonished Carolyn she was standing before the great man, and must look up and curtsy. She curtsied before she looked up, and when she raised her eyes, she saw only Archer Clifton before her, who bowed when he met her glance! The Governor and many others were there, but how could she see any one but Archer Clifton! But, oh! the perversity of human nature! As soon as she met his eyes, all the pride and scorn of her proudest, most scornful days, returned upon her with a vengeance—all the more fiercely, ferociously, that she believed herself a fright, and found Archer Clifton handsomer, more dignified, higher in favor with God and man than ever! Major Cabell was about to pass on instantly with his ladies, to give place to the next arrivals. Returning Archer Clifton’s bow with a haughty bend, she threw up her head and swept on with the most superb air of arrogance imaginable. They joined the promenaders—Carolyn all the more unhappy for her show of hauteur—the heart beneath that erected head and expanded chest almost breaking with chagrin. Captain, now Major Clifton, stood at the right hand of the Governor, with his eyes roving calmly over the miscellaneous assembly, until they chanced to rest upon the stately form of his mother when they lighted up with surprise and pleasure, and