"Well, she's rich, and brilliant, and very gracious to Jim."
"Well, I happen to know just how much that amounts to. Jim never would have a serious thought of Jane Stuyvesant—that I'm certain of. She's a perfectly frivolous girl, and he knows it."
"I've thought sometimes he was quite attentive to one of those Stephenson girls, at Aunt Maria's."
"What, Sophia Stephenson! You couldn't have got more out of the way. Why, no! Why, she's nothing but a breathing wax doll; that's all there is to her. Jim never could care for her."
"Well, what was it about that Miss Du Hare?"
"Oh, nothing at all, except that she was a dashing, flirting young thing that took a fancy to Jim and invited him to her opera box, and of course Jim went. The fact is, Jim is good-looking and lively and gay, and will go a certain way with any nice girl. He likes to have a jolly, good time; but he has his own thoughts about them all, as I happen to know. There isn't one of these that he has a serious thought of."
"Well, then, darling, since nobody else will suit him, and it's for his soul's health and wealth to be married, I don't see but you ought to undertake him yourself."
Alice smiled thoughtfully, and twisted her sash into various bows, in an abstracted manner.
"You see," continued Eva, "that it would be altogether improper for you to enact the fable of the dog in the manger—neither take him yourself nor let any one else have him."
"Oh, as to that," said Alice, flushing up, "he has my free consent to take anybody else he wants to; only I know there isn't anybody he does want."