When Eva arose from her knees she held the little cluster of violets in her hand. Looking wistfully down upon the blossoms, she unconsciously took a position, which filled Ruth with the enthusiasm of an artist. “Oh, if I could paint her now!” she thought. “Would there be any harm?” questioned Eva, in a low voice, turning her eyes wistfully from the flowers to Ruth’s glowing face. “I—I suppose he would rather expect it. Don’t you?” Ruth smiled, and held out her hand for the flowers, but Eva pretended not to see her. Even to that gentle hand she would not, for one moment, consign the previous blossoms. So, with a gentle wile of abstraction, she placed the flowers on her bosom, which rose and swelled to their almost imperceptible touch, as waters bear lotus-flowers on their waves. “Now, isn’t she stunning?” exclaimed James, moving in a circle, and on tiptoe, around the room, afraid of touching the snow-white train with his foot. “That Miss Spicer, who goes down the avenue to meet him, every day at three o’clock, will be nowhere. In fact, I don’t believe there’ll be a handsomer girl at the party to-night. She’s A No. I, and a picked article at that. Hallo! Who’s coming?” James heard the outer door open, without a knock, and a heavy rustle of silk in the passage. Eva gathered up her dress, and sat down on Ruth’s couch, ashamed of her own beauty, and wondering who the intruder could be. Ruth smiled, and said, “I dare say it is Mrs. Smith.” So it was, that good woman in all her glory. She pushed the door wide open; for, with a huge panier added to her own generous proportions, the skirt of her dress turned upward, and thrown over her shoulders, that open space seemed scarcely sufficient to admit her. “Just run down to give you a look at my dress before the carriage comes,” she exclaimed, flinging an avalanche of red moire antique down from her shoulders, and spreading it along the humble carpet with the pride of a peacock. “What do you think of that, now? Seven dollars a yard, and twenty-five yards, besides trimming. Going it, rather, for a corner groceryman’s wife, isn’t it? But when an old friend asks you, a’most with tears in her eyes, to be at her first party, one can’t refuse to do the thing up brown, which I think Smith and I have done it. Low in the neck, you see, and Marier Antoinet sleeves to say nothing of white kid-boots, with heels like that!” Here Mrs. Smith lifted her dress and brought to view a high-heeled boot, strained till the buttons threatened to fly off, over a large, dumpty foot, looked exceedingly like an apple-dumpling prepared for cooking.