[pg 110]Mabel's eye took in at a glance all the gentlemen, and she felt chagrined to find Dr. Lacey absent. "What if he should not come?" thought she. "The party would be a dreadfully dull affair to me." Some time after, she missed Florence and two or three other girls, and thinking they were in the parlor above, she went in search of them. She found them on the balcony not far from the gentlemen's dressing room, the windows of which were open. As she approached them, they called out, "Oh, here you are, Mabel! Florence is just going to tell us about Dr. Lacey's sweetheart."
"Dr. Lacey's sweetheart!" repeated Mabel. "Who is Dr. Lacey's sweetheart, pray?"
"Do not blush so, Mabel; we do not mean you," said Lida Gibson, a bright-eyed, witty girl, with a sprinkling of malice in her nature.
"Of course you do not mean me," said Mabel, laughingly. "But come, cousin; what of her?" And the young girls drew nearer to each other, and waited anxiously for Florence's story.
Little did they suspect that another individual, with flushed brow, compressed lip and beating heart was listening to hear tidings of her whom Florence had designated as his sweetheart. Dr. Lacey had entered the gentlemen's dressing room unobserved. He heard the sound of merry voices on the balcony, and was about to step out and surprise the girls when he caught the sound of his own name coupled with that of Fanny Middleton. His curiosity was aroused and he became a listener to the following conversation:
"Come, Florence," said Lida, "do not keep us in suspense any longer. Tell us whether she is black or white, fat or lean, rich or poor."
"But first," said Mabel, "tell us how you know she is anything to Dr. Lacey."
"That is what I don't know," said Florence. "I am only speaking of what has been."
"Well, then," said Mabel, more gayly, "go on,"
"This Fanny Middleton," said Florence, "looks just as you would imagine a bright angel to look."