Miss Ariana Huntingdon was convinced that men did not feel, and therefore had not the slightest scruple in taking captive as many as came within range of her fascinations.
Had the misanthropical little coquette been old, or ugly, the stronger sex would have risen in a body to expel her from the city, but being very young and very pretty, they seemed to love her all the better for her alledged heresy as to man’s supremacy.
“That is one of the most beautiful apparitions that I ever met,” said a young gentleman who caught a glimpse of our heroine upon a fashionable promenade, crowded with insipid faces, whose fair unmeaningness was made more conspicuous from being contrasted with the gayest of colors.
“Ashes of roses” would have been the only appropriate hue for some of these passé damsels, of whose bloom certainly but the cinders were remaining, on which the marks of their former beauty were faintly traced in flittering characters.
There was a peculiar freshness and individuality in Ariana’s appearance, arising from her clear, original intellect, which made her always noticed, even by those who did not admire the piquant style of her beauty. Then her dress, without trespassing upon the mode of the season, bore some tasteful addition, so unique, that it was at once surmised that she must be very distingué to be allowed such independence.
“Madame Bonheurie has not a hat trimmed in that manner,” said a characterless parvenu, who could not have afforded even a ribbon without a pedigree.
The article of dress, thus criticised, was a hat of delicate rose-color, but, alas! instead of wearing the stiff top-knots of ribbon which were then in vogue, Ariana had arranged the trimming so as to drop upon one side, without hiding the swan-like throat of its petite wearer. Her mantle, too, though unexceptionable in the richness and color of the velvet, was but slightly trimmed, and its graceful sleeves were quite unlike the stiff armlets through which some fair ladies’ hands were peeping in unnatural constraint.
Ariana, while smiling sweetly on her acquaintances, so moderated her tokens of favor upon this particular day, that no one stepped to her side to offer their escort, for she was deep in meditation,
“Am I really anxious to be an old maid?” was the question she was revolving in her own mind, and every antiquated maiden whom she met seemed to weigh against the affirmative that an hour since she would have been ready to pronounce.
“Yes,” however, sprung to her lips as she entered the parlor of Professor Daley, or rather study, as it might more appropriately be named. All signs of feminine refinement were neutralised in this uncomfortable apartment by huge piles of books, placed where most convenient for that gentleman.