“What is the matter with you, Fanny?” Caroline asked, after some very marked signs of abstractedness on the part of the former.
“Oh, nothing at all!” Fanny answered quickly, and for a while she endeavored to take more interest in our conversation, but this soon subsided.
“Fanny, if you can give no better explanation of your conduct this morning, I must be under the necessity of attributing it to the usual cause of sighs and absent-mindedness, and believe you to be in love,” Caroline said.
Fanny colored, and exclaimed—
“Oh, no indeed, I am not!”
“Then don’t look so confused and mortified, my dear; for even if you were, you need not be ashamed of it,” Caroline answered composedly.
Fanny left the room soon after this, and I produced the daguerreotype from a corner in my work-box, and showed it to Caroline. She pronounced it the very best likeness she had ever seen, and laid it on the sofa-table. Just then a visiter was announced, proving to be Mr. Harry Lambert, who had spent the previous winter in Philadelphia.
After a mutual recognition, and a few of the common-place inquiries usually made upon such occasions, had passed, he carelessly opened the case containing Fanny’s likeness. As the face met his eye, I thought he changed color, but this may have been mere fancy; for he said, in a perfectly calm and indifferent tone,
“This face looks familiar to me. I must certainly have met the original before.”
“Of course you have, it is Fanny Day. You were quite well acquainted with her in Philadelphia, and I trust you cannot so soon have forgotten an old friend,” I said; and scarcely was the remark made, when the object of it entered the room. This time there was no mistaking the glow upon the gentleman’s face; but Fanny’s cheek was quite colorless as she returned his greeting.