OR LILLIE MASON'S DEBUT.
BY ENNA DUVAL.
Maybe without a further thought,
It only pleased you thus to please,
And thus to kindly feelings wrought
You measured not the sweet degrees;
Yet though you hardly understood
Where I was following at your call,
You might—I dare to say you should—
Have thought how far I had to fall.
And even now in calm review
Of all I lost and all I won,
I cannot deem you wholly true,
Nor wholly just what you have done. MILNES.
There is none
In all this cold and hollow world, no fount
Of deep, strong, deathless love, save that within
A mother's heart. HEMANS.
On paying a visit to my friend Agnes Mason one morning, the servant told me his mistress would be pleased to see me in her dressing-room. Thither I repaired, and found her, to my surprise, surrounded by all sorts of gay, costly articles, appertaining to the costume of a woman of the world. To my surprise, I say, for Agnes has always been one of the greatest home-bodies in the whole circle of my acquaintances. A party, or a ball she has scarcely visited since the first years of her marriage, although possessing ample means to enjoy every gayety of fashionable life.
Over the Psyche glass was thrown a spotless crêpe dress, almost trembling with its rich embroidery; and near it, as if in contrast, on a dress-stand, was a velvet robe, falling in soft, luxurious folds. Flowers, caps, coiffures of various descriptions, peeped out of sundry boxes, and on a commode table was an open écrin whose sparkling, costly contents dazzled the eyes.
"Hey-day!" I exclaimed to my friend, as she advanced to meet me, "what's the meaning of all this splendor?"