"Dear aunt! forgive me!" said Jessie, giving way to tears. "My feelings are unusually disturbed this morning. Late hours and the excitement of company have made me nervous. As for Mr. Dexter, let us pass him by for the present. He has not impressed me as favorably as you seem to desire."
"But Jessie."
"Spare me, dear aunt! If you press the subject on me now, you will only excite disgust where you hope to create a favorable impression. I have had many opportunities of close observation, and failed not to improve them. The result is—"
Jessie paused.
"What?" queried her aunt.
"That the more narrowly I scan him the less I like him. He is superficial, vain and selfish."
"How do you know?"
"I cannot make manifest to your eyes the signs that were clear to mine. But so I have read him."
"And read him with the page upside down, my, word for it, Miss Jessie Loring!"
Jessie answered only with a sigh, and when her aunt still pressed her on the subject, she begged to be spared, as she felt nervous and excited. So, leaving the sitting room, she retired to her own apartment, to gather up, and unravel, if possible, the tangled thread of thought and feeling.