"What friends Mrs. Georgia" (so she was called to distinguish her from the other) "and captain Arlingford are!"
"Yes, indeed; just see how she smiles upon him—don't you think her handsome when she smiles?"
"Very much so. Captain Arlingford seems to think so, too. What a pity he is the only one she will honor by one of them."
"Well, it is fortunate she has met some one who can please her—she seems so dull, poor thing!"
"A handsome man like Captain Arlingford does not find it very hard to be agreeable, I fancy; he is decidedly the best-looking young man here."
"Mrs. Georgia's opinion exactly," said Miss Harper, sending a spiteful glance at the unconscious objects of these remarks, who sat conversing on a sofa at some distance. "I asked her, yesterday, and she said, 'Yes, she thought he most decidedly was.'"
"Poor, dear Georgia!" chimed in Miss Freddy, looking tenderly toward her; "I am so glad she likes him; she seems to like so few, and indeed nobody could help liking him, he is so charming. What a nice nose, and lovely mustache, and sweet curling hair he has, to be sure!"
"And, by George! he shows his good taste, too, in flirting with the prettiest woman among you," exclaimed Harry Gleason, bluntly. "Arlingford knows what's what, I tell you; he'll go in and win, I'll bet!"
Now these remarks, though at first he paid no attention to them beyond what the words conveyed, jarred disagreeably on Richmond's mind. But as days passed on and they grew more frequent and more meaning in tone, and he saw the curious smiles with which they were regarded, and the expression of his mother's face as she watched them, and saw his cousin look first at them and then at him with a sort of anxiety and tender pity, he felt a growing disagreeable sensation of uneasiness for which he could hardly account. Even to himself, he was ashamed to own he was jealous of Georgia—his leal, true-hearted, straightforward Georgia, whom he had never known to be guilty of a dishonorable thought in her life. Fiery, rash, high-spirited she was, but treacherous, deceitful, wicked she was not. He could have staked his soul upon her truth, and yet—and yet by slow degrees the poison began to enter his mind, and he commenced to watch his wife with an angry, suspicious eye.