“Well,” King retorted, with some spirit, “it is not a place where people pretend not to know each other, as if their salvation depended on it.”
“Oh, I see; hospitable, frank, cordial-all that. Stanhope, do you know, I think you are a little demoralized this summer. Did you fall in love with a Southern belle? Who was there?”
“Well, all the South, pretty much. I didn't fall in love with all the belles; we were there only two weeks. Oh! there was a Mrs. Farquhar there.”
“Georgiana Randolph! Georgie! How did she look? We were at Madame Sequin's together, and a couple of seasons in Paris. Georgie! She was the handsomest, the wittiest, the most fascinating woman I ever saw. I hope she didn't give you a turn?”
“Oh, no. But we were very good friends. She is a very handsome woman—perhaps you would expect me to say handsome still; but that seems a sort of treason to her mature beauty.”
“And who else?”
“Oh, the Storbes from New Orleans, the Slifers from Mobile—no end of people—some from Philadelphia—and Ohio.”
“Ohio? Those Bensons!” said she, turning sharply on him.
