The Van Kraut property had been bowing about the drawing-rooms of New York for a year or two, watched with palpitating hearts and longing eyes.

Until that was disposed of, nothing else could win a glance. There were several single hundreds of thousands openly walking about the same rooms, but while they were received very politely, they were made to feel that two millions were in presence and unappropriated, and they fell humbly back.

Fanny Newt, upon her debut in society, had contemplated the capture of the Van Kraut property; but the very vigor with which she conducted the campaign had frightened the poor gentleman who was the present member for that property, in society, so that he shivered and withdrew on the dizzy verge of a declaration; and when he subsequently encountered Lucy Slumb, she was immediately invested with the family jewels.

"Heaven save me from a smart woman!" prayed Bleecker Van Kraut; and Heaven heard and kindly granted his prayer.

Presently, while the hot hum went on, and laces, silks, satins, brocades, muslins, and broadcloth intermingled and changed places, so that Arthur Merlin, whom Lawrence Newt had brought, declared the ball looked like a shot silk or a salmon's belly--upon overhearing which, Mrs. Bleecker Van Kraut, who was passing with Mr. Moultrie, looked unspeakable things--the quick eyes of Fanny Newt encountered the restless orbs of Mrs. Dinks.

Alfred had left town for Boston on the very day on which Hope Wayne had learned the story of her engagement. Neither his mother nor Hope, therefore, had had an opportunity of asking an explanation.

"I am glad to see Miss Wayne with you to-night," said Fanny.

"My niece is her own mistress," replied Mrs. Dinks, in a sub-acid tone.

Fanny's eyes grew blacker and sharper in a moment. An Indian whose life depends upon concealment from his pursuer is not more sensitive to the softest dropping of the lightest leaf than was Fanny Newt's sagacity to the slightest indication of discovery of her secret. There is trouble, she said to herself, as she heard Mrs. Dinks's reply.

"Miss Wayne has been a recluse this winter," remarked Fanny, with infinite blandness.

"Yes, she has had some kind of whim," replied Mrs. Dinks, shaking her shoulders as if to settle her dress.

"We girls have all suspected, you know, of course, Mrs. Dinks," said Miss Newt, with a very successful imitation of archness and a little bend of the neck.

"Have you, indeed!" retorted Mrs. Dinks, in almost a bellicose manner.

"Why, yes, dear Mrs. Dinks; don't you remember at Saratoga--you know?"

continued Fanny, with imperturbable composure.

"What happened at Saratoga?" asked Mrs. Dinks, with smooth defiance on her face, and conscious that she had never actually mentioned any engagement between Alfred and Hope.

"Dear me! So many things happen at Saratoga," answered Fanny, bridling like a pert miss of seventeen. "And when a girl has a handsome cousin, it's very dangerous." Fanny Newt was determined to know where she was.

"Some girls are very silly and willful," tartly remarked Mrs. Dinks.

"I suppose," said Fanny, with extraordinary coolness, continuing the _role_ of the arch maid of seventeen--"I suppose, if every thing one hears is true, we may congratulate you, dear Mrs. Dinks, upon an interesting event?" And Fanny raised her bouquet and smelled at it vigorously--at least, she seemed to be doing so, because the flowers almost covered her face, but really they made an ambush from which she spied the enemy, unseen.

The remark she had made had been made a hundred times before to Mrs.

Dinks. In fact, Fanny herself had used it, under various forms, to assure herself, by the pleased reserve of the reply which Mrs. Dinks always returned, that the lady had no suspicion that she was mistaken. But this time Mrs. Dinks, whose equanimity had been entirely disturbed by her discovery that Hope was not engaged to Alfred, asked formally, and not without a slight sneer which arose from an impatient suspicion that Fanny knew more than she chose to disclose--

"And pray, Miss Newt, what do people hear? Really, if other people are as unfortunate as I am, they hear a great deal of nonsense."

Upon which Mrs. Budlong Dinks sniffed the air like a charger.

"I know it--it is really dreadful," returned Fanny Newt. "People do say the most annoying and horrid things. But this time, I am sure, there can be nothing very vexatious." And Miss Newt fanned herself with persistent complacency, as if she were resolved to prolong the pleasure which Mrs.

Dinks must undoubtedly have in the conversation.

Hitherto it had been the policy of that lady to demur and insinuate, and declare how strange it was, and how gossipy people were, and finally to retreat from a direct reply under cover of a pretty shower of ohs!

and ahs! and indeeds! and that policy had been uniformly successful.

Everybody said, "Of course Alfred Dinks and his cousin are engaged, and Mrs. Dinks likes to have it alluded to--although there are reasons why it must be not openly acknowledged." So Field-marshal Mrs. Dinks outgeneraled Everybody. But the gallant young private, Miss Fanny Newt, was resolved to win her epaulets.

As Mrs. Dinks made no reply, and assumed the appearance of a lady who, for her own private and inscrutable reasons, had concluded to forego the prerogative of speech for evermore, while she fanned herself calmly, and regarded Fanny with a kind of truculent calmness that seemed to say, "What are you going to do about that last triumphant move of mine?" Fanny proceeded in a strain of continuous sweetness that fairly rivaled the smoothness of the neck, and the eyes, and the arms of Mrs. Bleecker Van Kraut:

"I suppose there can be nothing very disagreeable to Miss Wayne's friends in knowing that she is engaged to Mr. Alfred Dinks?"

Alas! Mrs. Dinks, who knew Hope, knew that the time for dexterous subterfuges and misleadings had passed. She resolved that people, when they discovered what they inevitably soon must discover, should not suppose that she had been deceived. So, looking straight into Fanny Newt's eyes without flinching--and somehow it was not a look of profound affection--she said,

"I was not aware of any such engagement."

"Indeed!" replied the undaunted Fanny, "I have heard that love is blind, but I did not know that it was true of maternal love. Mr. Dinks's mother is not his confidante, then, I presume?"

The bad passions of Mr. Dinks's mother's heart were like the heathen, and furiously raged together at this remark. She continued the fanning, and said, with a sickly smile,

"Miss Newt, you can contradict from me the report of any such engagement."

That was enough. Fanny was mistress of the position. If Mrs. Dinks were willing to say that, it was because she was persuaded that it never would be true. She had evidently discovered something. How much had she discovered? That was the next step.

As these reflections flashed through the mind of Miss Fanny Newt, and her cold black eye shone with a stony glitter, she was conscious that the time for some decisive action upon her part had arrived. To be or not to be Mrs. Alfred Dinks was now the question; and even as she thought of it she felt what must be done. She did not depreciate the ability of Mrs.

Dinks, and she feared her influence upon Alfred. Poor Mr. Dinks! he was at that moment smoking a cigar upon the forward deck of the _Chancellor Livingston_ steamer, that plied between New York and Providence. Mr.

Bowdoin Beacon sat by his side.

"She's a real good girl, and pretty, and rich, though she is my cousin, Bowdoin. So why don't you?"

Mr. Beacon, a member of the upper sex, replied, gravely, "Well, perhaps!"

They were speaking of Hope Wayne.

At the same instant also, in Mrs. Kingfisher's swarming drawing-rooms, looking on at the dancers and listening to the music, stood Hope Wayne, Lawrence Newt, Amy Waring, and Arthur Merlin. They were chatting together pleasantly, Lawrence Newt usually leading, and Hope Wayne bending her beautiful head, and listening and looking at him in a way to make any man eloquent. The painter had been watching for Mr. Abel Newt's entrance, and, after he saw him, turned to study the effect produced upon Miss Wayne by seeing him.

But Abel, who saw as much in his way as Mrs. Dagon in hers, although without the glasses, had carefully kept in the other part of the rooms.

He had planted his batteries before Mrs. Bleecker Van Kraut, having resolved to taste her, as Herbert Octoyne had advised, notwithstanding that she had no flavor, as Abel himself had averred.

But who eats merely for the flavor of the food?

That lady clicked smoothly as Abel, metaphorically speaking, touched her.

Louis Wilkottle, her cavalier, slipped away from her he could not tell how: he merely knew that Abel Newt was in attendance, vice Wilkottle, disappeared. So Wilkottle floated about the rooms upon limp pinions for sometime, wondering where to settle, and brushed Fanny Newt in flying.

"Oh! Mr. Wilkottle, you are just the man. Mr. Whitloe, Laura Magot, and I were just talking about Batrachian reptiles. Which are the best toads, the fattest?"

"Or does it depend upon the dressing?" asked Mr. Whitloe.

"Or the quantity of jewelry in the head?" said Laura Magot.

Mr. Wilkottle smiled, bowed, and passed on.

If they had called him an ass--as they were ladies of the best position--he would have bowed, smiled, and passed on.

"An amiable fellow," said Fanny, as he disappeared; "but quite a remarkable fool."

Mr. Zephyr Wetherley, still struggling with the hand problem, approached Miss Fanny, and remarked that it was very warm.