"If I have learned nothing else by visiting Europe," she said, "I have learned to see how inconsiderate we girls are in America, in talking so much, openly, of this sort of thing. A woman's delicacy is like that of a tender flower, and it must suffer by having her name coupled with that of any man, except him that she is to marry."
"Julia, dear, I will never speak of Mr. Shoreham again. I should not have done it now had I not thought his attentions were acceptable to you, as I am sure they are to your parents. Certainly, they are VERY marked—at least, so others think as well as myself."
"I know it SEEMS so to the WORLD," answered Julia in a subdued, thoughtful tone, "but it scarcely seems so to ME. Betts Shoreham is very agreeable, every way a suitable connection for any of us, and that is the reason people are so ready to fancy him in earnest."
"In earnest! If Mr. Shoreham pays attentions that are pointed, and is not in earnest, he is a very different person from what I took him to be."
Julia's voice grew still more gentle, and it was easy enough to see that her feelings were enlisted in the subject.
"It is no more than justice to Betts Shoreham," she continued, "to say that he has NOT been pointed in his attentions to ME. We females are said to be quick in discovering such matters, and I am not more blind than the rest of our sex. He is a young man of good family, and has some fortune, and that makes him welcome in most houses in town, while he is agreeable, well-looking, and thoroughly amiable. He met us abroad, and it is natural for him to keep up an intimacy that recalls pleasant recollections. You will remember, Mary, that before he can be accused of trifling, he must trifle. I think him far more attentive to my mother, my father—nay, to my two little sisters—than he is to ME. Even Mademoiselle Hennequin is quite as much if not more of a favorite than I am!"
As Mary Warren saw that her friend was serious she changed the subject; soon after, we were set down at Mr. Monson's door. Here the friends parted, Mary Warren preferring to walk home, while Julia and I entered the house together.
"Well, mother," cried Julia, as she entered Mrs. Monson's room, "I have found the most beautiful thing you ever beheld, and have bought it. Here it is; what do you think of my choice?"
Mrs. Monson was a kind-hearted, easy, indulgent parent, who had brought her husband a good fortune, and who had married rich in the bargain. Accustomed all her life to a free use of money, and of her own money, too, (for this is a country in which very many persons cast the substance of OTHERS right and left,) and when her eldest daughter expressed a wish to possess an elaborate specimen of our race, she had consented from a pure disinclination to deny her child any gratification that might be deemed innocent. Still, she knew that prudence was a virtue, and that Julia had thrown away money that might have been much better employed.
"This is certainly a very beautiful handkerchief," observed the mother, after examining me carefully, and with somewhat of the manner of a connoisseur, "surprisingly beautiful; and yet I almost wish, my child, you had not purchased it. A hundred dollars sounds frightfully en prince for us poor simple people, who live in nutshells of houses, five and twenty feet front, and fifty-six deep, to pay for a pocket-handkerchief. The jewel-box of a young lady who has such handkerchiefs ought to cost thousands, to be in keeping."