Supper was announced, and the old gentleman, rising, requested his nephew to lead in his wife, while he himself, took the arm of his eldest daughter, and left Zuleime to Mr. Fairfax. They crossed the hall and entered a large and pleasant dining-room, where stood an elegant table, laid with a damask table-cloth, set out with silver plate, and Sevres porcelain, and laden “with all the luxuries of the season.” Waiters of perfect dress and _ad_dress were in attendance. “I assure you, Miss Zuleime, that contrast is all the seasoning of existence—and _this_ is a high seasoning. For yesterday we sat down to eat supper off of pewter plates, on a bare board, in a mean hut, in company with rude mountaineers, and to-night we sit at the elegant tea-table of Clifton, surrounded with beautiful, refined, and accomplished ladies,” said Frank, as he handed his lively companion into her chair, and took the seat by her side. The sprightly Zuleime laughed, and said she doubted whether he would find more substantial or savory fare here than he got at the mountain hut. After all were seated, and all served, the conversation became general and vivacious—old Mr. Clifton being evidently “the life of the company.” He chatted, jested, laughed, told anecdotes, and finally, inspired Frank, who gave a laughable description of their adventures on the Alleghanies; of being upset in the stage coach, and pitched into Wolf’s Lick; of being lost in the fog, and near going down the Devil’s Staircase; finally, of being caught in the tempest, and shut up in a mountain hut with a raving maniac. At this the old gentleman began to rally his proud daughter on her gratuitous ill-humour of the preceding evening, at the said delay, and then to scold the young men for their effeminacy and want of gallantry, courage, in suffering themselves to be deluged by the storm. Now, to be charged, all at once, with effeminacy, and want of gallantry, and courage, even in jest, was too much, and in Frank’s case, too near the truth to go without reply. So he began vehemently to clear his fame, assuring the assembled company that it was _not_ altogether effeminacy, for that they had been hospitably sheltered in the cabin of a beautiful shepherdess. “Yes,” said Frank, maliciously, “_so_ beautiful that _Clifton_ there couldn’t keep his eyes off her, and while I sat and played checkers with her brother, he sat and studied her face, ‘and it were a book’—_for hours_. I wish you had seen him, Miss Clifton— “‘Never gazed the moon Upon the water as he sat and read As ’twere her eyes.’ Fact, my dear lady, and I should be guilty of misprision of treason, to conceal it!” laughed Frank, shaking his head at his friend. “Ah-h-h! H-a-a-ah!—are you _there_, my fine fellow!” chuckled the old gentleman, gleefully rubbing his hands, and pointing his finger at his nephew, greatly enjoying his discomfiture.