"Is she always so desperately industrious?" said Mr. Thorn.
"Miss Ringgan, Mr. Stackpole," said Constance, "is subject to occasional fits of misanthropy, in which cases her retreating with her work to the solitude of the centre-table is significant of her desire to avoid conversation,--as Mr. Thorn has been experiencing."
"I am happy to see that the malady is not catching, Miss Constance."
"Mr. Stackpole!" said Constance,--"I am in a morose state of mind!--Miss Ringgan this morning received a magnificent bouquet of roses which in the first place I rashly appropriated to myself; and ever since I discovered my mistake I have been meditating the renouncing of society--it has excited more bad feelings than I thought had existence in my nature."
"Mr. Stackpole," said Mrs. Evelyn, "would you ever have supposed that roses could be a cause of discord?"
Mr. Stackpole looked as if he did not exactly know what the ladies were driving at.
"There have five thousand emigrants arrived at this port within a week!" said he, as if that were something worth talking about.
"Poor creatures! where will they all go?" said Mrs. Evelyn comfortably.
"Country's large enough," said Thorn.
"Yes, but such a stream of immigration will reach the Pacific and come back again before long: and then there will be a meeting of the waters! This tide of German and Irish will sweep over everything."