"Without betraying what sort of man _I_ love," breathed Fanny, in the lowest possible tone, which could be also perfectly distinct, and with her head apparently upon the point of dropping after her words into his waistcoat.

"Well?" said Dinks.

"Well, I can not do that, but I will make a bargain with you. If you will say what sort of girl you would love, I will answer your question."

Fanny dreaded to hear a description of Hope Wayne. But Alfred's mind was resolved. The foolish youth answered with his heart in his mouth, and barely whispering,

"If you will look in your glass to-night, you will see."

The next moment Fanny's head had fallen into the waistcoat--Alfred Dinks's arms were embracing her. He perceived the perfume from her abundant hair. He was frightened, and excited, and pleased.

"Dear Alfred!"

"Dear Fanny!"

"Come Hope, dear, it is very late," said Mrs. Dinks in the ball-room, alarmed at the long absence of Fanny and Alfred, and resolved to investigate the reason of it.

The lovers heard the voice, and were sitting quietly just a little apart, as Mrs. Dinks and her retinue came out.

"Aren't you afraid of taking cold, Miss Newt?" inquired Alfred's mother.

"Oh not at all, thank you, I am very warm. But you are very wise to go in, and I shall join you. Good-night, Mr. Dinks." As she rose, she whispered--"After breakfast."

The ladies rustled along the piazza in the moonlight. Alfred, flushed and nervous and happy, sauntered into the bar-room, lit a cigar, and drank some brandy and water.

Meanwhile the Honorable Budlong Dinks sat in an armchair at the other end of the piazza with several other honorable gentlemen--Major Scuppernong from Carolina, Colonel le Fay from Louisiana, Captain Lamb from Pennsylvania, General Arcularius Belch of New York, besides Captain Jones, General Smith, Major Brown, Colonel Johnson, from other States, and several honorable members of Congress, including, and chief of all, the Honorable B.J. Ele, a leading statesman from New York, with whom Mr.

Dinks passed as much time as possible, and who was the chief oracle of the wise men in armchairs who came to the springs to drink the waters, to humor their wives and daughters in their foolish freaks for fashion and frivolity, and who smiled loftily upon the gay young people who amused themselves with setting up ten-pins and knocking them down, while the wise men devoted themselves to talking politics and showing each other, from day to day, the only way in which the country could be made great and glorious, and fulfill its destiny.

"I am not so clear about General Jackson's policy," said the Honorable Budlong Dinks, with the cautious wisdom of a statesman.

"Well, Sir, I am clear enough about it," replied Major Scuppernong. "It will ruin this country just as sure as that," and the Major with great dexterity directed a stream of saliva which fell with unerring precision upon the small stone in the gravel walk at which it was evidently aimed.

The Honorable Budlong Dinks watched the result of the illustration with deep interest, and shook his head gravely when he saw that the stone was thoroughly drenched by the salivary cascade. He seemed to feel the force of the argument. But he was not in a position to commit himself.

"Now, _I_ think," said the Honorable B.J. Ele, "that it is the only thing that can save the country."

"Ah! you do," said the Honorable B. Dinks.

And so they kept it up day after day, pausing in the intervals to smile at the ardor with which the women played their foolish game of gossip and match-making.

When Mrs. Dinks withdrew from her idle employments to the invigorating air of the Honorable B.'s society, he tapped her cheek sometimes with his finger--as he had read great men occasionally did when they were with their wives in moments of relaxation from intellectual toil--asked her what would become of the world if it were given up to women, and by his manner refreshed her consciousness of the honor under which she labored in being Mrs. Budlong Dinks.

The weaker vessel smiled consciously, as if he very well knew that was the one particular thing which under no conceivable circumstances could she forget.

"Budlong, I really think Alfred ought to keep a horse."

"My dear!" replied the Honorable B., in a tone of mingled reproach, amusement, contempt, and surprise.

"Oh! I know we can't afford it. But it would be so pleasant if he could drive out his cousin Hope, as so many of the other young men do. People get so well acquainted in that way. Have you observed that Bowdoin Beacon is a great deal with her? How glad Mrs. Beacon would be!" Mrs. Dinks took off her cap, and was unpinning her collar, without in the least pressing her request. Not at all. His word was enough. She had evidently yielded the point. The horse was out of the question.

Now the state of the country did not so entirely engross her husband's mind, that he had not seen all the advantage of Hope's marrying Alfred.

"It _is_ a pleasant thing for a young man to have his own horse. My dear, I will see what can be done," said he.

Then the diplomatist untied his cravat as if he had been undoing the parchment of a great treaty. He fell asleep in the midst of rehearsing the speech which he meant to make upon occasion of his presentation as foreign minister somewhere; while his beloved partner lay by his side, and resolved that Alfred Dinks must immediately secure Hope Wayne before Fanny Newt secured Alfred Dinks.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE FINE ARTS.

The whole world of Saratoga congratulated Mrs. Dinks upon her beautiful niece, Miss Wayne. Even old Mrs. Dagon said to every body:

"How lovely she is! And to think she comes from Boston! Where did she get her style? Fanny dear, I saw you hugging--I beg your pardon, I mean waltzing with Mr. Dinks."

But when Hope Wayne danced there seemed to be nobody else moving. She filled the hall with grace, and the heart of the spectator with an indefinable longing. She carried strings of bouquets. She made men happy by asking them to hold some of her flowers while she danced; and then, when she returned to take them, the gentlemen were steeped in such a gush of sunny smiling that they stood bowing and grinning--even the wisest--but felt as if the soft gush pushed them back a little; for the beauty which, allured them defended her like a fiery halo.

It was understood that she was engaged to Mr. Alfred Dinks, her cousin, who was already, or was to be, very rich. But there was apparently nothing very marked in his devotion.

"It is so much better taste for young people who are engaged not to make love in public," said Mrs. Dinks, as she sat in grand conclave of mammas and elderly ladies, who all understood her to mean her son and niece, and entirely agreed with her.

Meanwhile all the gentlemen who could find one of her moments disengaged were walking, bowling, driving, riding, chatting, sitting, with Miss Wayne. She smiled upon all, and sat apart in her smiling. Some foolish young fellows tried to flirt with her. When they had fully developed their intentions she smiled full in their faces, not insultingly nor familiarly, but with a soft superiority. The foolish young fellows went down to light their cigars and drink their brandy and water, feeling as if their faces had been rubbed upon an iceberg, for not less lofty and pure were their thoughts of her, and not less burning was their sense of her superb scorn.

But Arthur Merlin, the painter, who had come to pass a few days at Saratoga on his way to Lake George, and whose few days had expanded into the few weeks that Miss Wayne had been there--Arthur Merlin, the painter, whose eyes were accustomed not only to look, but to see, observed that Miss Wayne was constantly doing something. It was dance, drive, bowl, ride, walk incessantly. From the earliest hour to the latest she was in the midst of people and excitement. She gave herself scarcely time to sleep.

The painter was introduced to her, and became one of her habitual attendants. Every morning after breakfast Hope Wayne held a kind of court upon the piazza. All the young men surrounded her and worshipped.

Arthur Merlin was intelligent and ingenuous. His imagination gave a kind of airy grace to his conversation and manner. Passionately interested in his art, he deserted its pursuit a little only when the observation of life around him seemed to him a study as interesting. He and Miss Wayne were sometimes alone together; but although she was conscious of a peculiar sympathy with his tastes and character, she avoided him more than any of the other young men. Mrs. Dagon said it was a pity Miss Wayne was so cold and haughty to the poor painter. She thought that people might be taught their places without cruelty.

Arthur Merlin constantly said to himself in a friendly way that if he had been less in love with his art, or had not perceived that Miss Wayne had a continual reserved thought, he might have fallen in love with her. As it was, he liked her so much that he cared for the society of no other lady. He read Byron with her sometimes when they went in little parties to the lake, and somehow he and Hope found themselves alone under the trees in a secluded spot, and the book open in his hand.

He also read to her one day a poem upon a cloud, so beautiful that Hope Wayne's cheek flushed, and she asked, eagerly,

"Whose is that?"

"It is one of Shelley's, a friend of Byron's."

"But how different!"

"Yes, they were different men. Listen to this."

And the young man read the ode to a Sky-lark.

"How joyous it is!" said Hope; "but I feel the sadness."

"Yes, I often feel that in people as well as in poems," replied Arthur, looking at her closely.