But, though my friend Rebecca, was the last woman in the world to
"Die of a rose, in aromatic pain,"
she was a perfect Sybarite, in some respects, as I will convince you.
Entering her mother's tasteful, pretty drawing-room, a few evenings after this conversation, I found the charming "Jewess," as I sometimes called her, in allusion to Scott's celebrated heroine, reading by the light of an astral lamp. She was elegantly, and, I suppose fashionably, dressed, and reclining in a large, luxurious-looking, stuffed chair, with her daintily-slippered feet, half buried in a soft crimson cushion. In short, she was the very impersonation of the "unbought grace" of one of Nature's queens. Had I been younger, by some fifty years, I should have been tempted, beyond a doubt, to do oriental homage to so much loveliness.
"By the way, Rebecca," said I, after a few minutes' chat with my hostess, "I must tell you of a witticism you elicited, this morning, from one of your admirers!"
"One of my admirers! Who, pray?"
"Guess! Well, I won't tantalize you!—Howard Parker!"
"You tell me something, Colonel! I am not entitled to enter Mr. Parker on my list of
"What, what! that to me, my dear? I have a great mind to punish you, by not telling you what he said."