A Heart-Song of To-day by Savigny, Annie Gregg

"Well, the darling is handsome enough to have half-a-dozen," said gay Mrs. Eustace Wingfield.

"I am ready to bet a box of gloves (twelve buttons) that a dozen women have as good as asked him," laughed another butterfly.

"Forestalling the advanced method in Lytton's 'New Utopia,'" said Mrs. Claxton.

"There would be an absence of the usual mother-in-law difficulty," lisped a young Government _attache_, meekly, who had recently married the only child of her mother.

"Or, if so, she would pose _not_ as Mark Twain's, but as M. Thiers," said Wingfield, jestingly.

"I don't believe a word of it," said Posey Wyesdale, weeping profusely; "it is invented by some person who is jealous of his overwhelming love for me; but I'll let them see I shall marry him all the same."

"Give me your attention, young ladies," said Madame de Lancy, privately, and with a business-like air, to her eight daughters, who were out. "It is commonly reported that Capt. Trevalyon has a 'hidden wife;' but as it may be a complete falsehood, I wish you all--all, remember--for we do not know his style, and one of you will doubtless suit him; I repeat, I wish you all, to be tenderly sympathetic and consoling in your manner towards him; it is unfortunate that the season is just about over; but much may be done in one meeting, and I shall tell your father to invite him to dinner to-morrow; I shall have no one else to distract his attention from yourselves."

And in her own mind she decided that Mrs. Trevalyon should have at least four of her sisters on her hands to settle in life.

CHAPTER IX.

VAURA IN A MEDLEY.