One lovely evening in summer, a circle of young ladies was sitting in the delicious moonlight that streamed fitfully through the glancing leaves and fragrant clusters of honeysuckle that shaded the veranda of Mrs. Tower’s residence, chatting joyfully—the girls I mean—not the honeysuckles or the moonlight, though I could not vouch that they exchanged no love whispers audible to the ears of fairies—laughing merrily over the ices and fruit, and of course, gossiping.

Mrs. Tower had been more than usually agreeable, though she was always lovely; and as to Mr. Style, he had carried every heart. The girls had all been completely captivated; some by his calm and manly beauty, and some by the flashing brilliancy of his ripe and richly cultivated mind, and some by those inexpressible fascinations, which, had he been a man of the world, would have made him irresistible in all society. But Mr. Style was a man of pure and exalted piety, and would have conscientiously feared to use his slightest power to interest a heart to which his own must stoop from its own moral height to meet, or to whose affection he could not earnestly respond. Indeed so fastidious was the Rev. Mr. Style, that he had never met the lady, as he determined, whom he could cordially invite to the queenship of his affections. He was verily so happy and contented as an inmate of Mrs. Tower’s family in the pursuit of his daily duties—so happy in the satisfaction and regard of his people, that it seldom occurred to him that “it is not good for a man to be alone.” The mammas and blooming young ladies, however, adopted that doctrine as one of the most important, prominent and practical of the whole creed, and most especially did they set their faces against so Popish a practice as the “celibacy of the clergy!”

Mrs. Tower had withdrawn from the circle a few minutes to examine the dispatches brought in by the evening mail, but returning soon with a smile of unusual gladness illuminating her pensive face, and an open letter in her hand, she said—

“Well, girls, I have intelligence here that makes me very happy. I have at length prevailed with a young friend of mine, to leave the city and pass a few weeks with me during the hottest of the season, and I am so very glad?—”

“O, so am I,” interrupted Miss Charlotte Varley, a very languishing young lady, who had great hopes of success with Mr. Style, since she had joined his communion and was a teacher in his Sabbath-school—but withal a belle—“a young gentleman from the city will be very refreshing this terrible weather—I hope he is a pious man, Mrs. Tower—we have so few of those—and that he will bring us some new plans about Sabbath-schools and benevolent societies such as are found to be most useful in the city!”

Miss Varley closed her remarks with a small sigh, and looked at Mr. Style for pious sympathy. Mr. Style that moment turned away to pluck a drooping blossom that hung near him, and some of the ruder minxes indulged in mischievous glances and a smothered laugh.

“I declare, Charlotte,” interposed Miss Emilie Jones, who was one of Miss Varley’s most sincere despisers, “the effervescence of your regard for Sabbath-schools and ‘cent societies,’ has quite anticipated the sequel of Mrs. Tower’s story—you did not allow her time to say whether we are to be favored by the accession of a lady or a gentleman to our little country community—but consulting your own fancy, I suppose you took it for granted it must be a ‘pious young gentleman.’”

The color deepened in Charlotte’s really beautiful face, as a glimpse of her ridiculous position flashed from Emilie’s playful satire, and to increase her confusion, the girls all laughed more saucily than before. There might have been some serious heart-burnings, but Mrs. Tower came to the rescue.

“Charlotte is entirely excusable, young ladies,” she said, “and I am responsible for her remark by my own ambiguity. My friend is a lady, and one of the loveliest of her sex in mind and heart. I have not seen her since she grew into a woman, but I am confident from what I know of the development of her character, I shall not be disappointed in the promise of her childhood. She will be here in two weeks at most, and possibly sooner. Now I am old and dull girls, and I shall draw largely on your vivacity for her entertainment, at first for my sake, and afterward, when you know her, for her own.”

“O yes, indeed, Mrs. Tower,” promised the girls, and none more promptly than Charlotte and Adelaide Varley, both for themselves and for their mother and three sisters at home. They would specially make a party for her, though they had determined to make no parties till their friends, Mrs. Tyler and her daughter, very genteel people from New York, should come, which event could not certainly be hoped for at least for three weeks. And Misses Charlotte and Adelaide telegraphed to each other, while the rest were promising their attentions, how much pleasure it must afford Mrs. Tyler and Elizabeth if they should happen to recognize a city acquaintance in Mrs. Tower’s expected visiter—“as their metropolitan friends,” Charlotte remarked, “were so very gay and fashionable, they had sometimes languished in the country for a city face or something that looked familiar.”

“It must be a melancholy and most insupportable deprivation,” chimed in Emilie Jones, “to spend a whole fortnight on the stretch in such an ugly and unsightly village as this of N. has the reputation of being, especially in the summer, and all that time, not so much as see fiery red brick palisades towering up on both sides of you, and pouring down on your ‘devoted head’ a perfect torrent of heat! I am sure if I were anybody’s ‘metropolitan friends,’ I should mourn being obliged to set my feet on the cool grass! How I should miss the scorching them on a hot pavement, to say nothing of the disadvantage to my lungs of inhaling fresh clear air, instead of dust and cigar smoke, and all sorts of vile fumes and abominations! What is your taste, Mr. Style?”

“I am a great lover of the country, and particularly of this beautiful village, Miss Emilie,” gallantly replied Mr. Style.

“Well, well, Emilie, enough of your mischief for once,” said Adelaide Varley, with a very severe smile which she meant for an indifferent one. “We all know you are more wicked than citified. But my watch says it is time to go home, and I guess Mrs. Tower will be glad to be rid of such a set of chatter-boxes as we have proved ourselves this time.”

“Mr. Style will write a livelier sermon for it, I’ll wager my thimble, after he has slept upon the savor of our conversation,” said Emilie, as she gave him her hand at parting, and turned gayly round to bid Mrs. Tower good night.

“Come again, dears, every one of you,” said Mrs. Tower, as she smiled on the youthful group, “come every day and enliven us with the life of such glad spirits. Mr. Style would lead a most monotonous life indeed if I were all the company he could have.”

“You, indeed, my dearest Mrs. Tower,” replied Emilie. “That man is verily avaricious who covets better or more charming society than our most delightful hostess of this evening, to say nothing of the ice creams and etceteras! Yes, worthy of stripes is he, whether clergyman or layman!”

And Emilie finished her speech with a quick glance at the young minister, and her own peculiarly rich and musical shout of mirth, and tripped lightly down the terrace and across the wide and shaded street to her own home.

As the other young ladies of the party had farther to go, Mr. Style took them all under his protection, rendering particular assistance to Miss Charlotte, who complained of excessive weariness and lassitude. Beside, being occasionally afflicted with a difficulty of the heart, she could not walk so fast as some of the girls, so Mr. Style found himself safely at Mrs. Varley’s door with his delicate charge, many minutes after all the others were laughing and speculating about it in their own rooms.

“Well, Adelaide, what do you think of Mrs. Tower’s coaxing a very pretty young lady to her house, to pass some weeks in company with the Rev. Mr. Style?” said Charlotte, very sharply, as she ran upstairs to the parlor, in double quick time, quite independent of the “heart difficulty,” that had so impeded her progress home.

“It’s downright scandalous!” said Miss Annette, the eldest daughter, “and I should not wonder at any breeze it might raise in the church and society—it may result in something very unpleasant indeed!” and Annette shook her head very doubtfully.

“It is ridiculous! Nothing but a trap, depend on it,” said Mrs. Varley, for Adelaide had detailed the whole story with her own annotations long before Charlotte reached home.

“It is really a very presuming thing,” seriously responded Annette, shaking her head still more dubiously.

“Yes, yes—very presumptuous indeed!” sneered Mrs. Varley, who never had any opinions, only those that were to be had at second hand. “Just as if Mrs. Tower could not only dictate who we shall have for minister, but also who he shall marry! for I declare, girls, it looks like that—don’t it now?”

“To be sure it does, mamma,” replied Annette; “you have hit the nail on the head this time! It takes you to see what folks are about behind the scenes. Lottie, did you get any particulars about this person out of Mr. Style, coming home—whether he ever saw her—whether she is rich and fashionable, so it will do for us to notice her?—”

“No, Annette, I did not learn any thing about her, though I asked questions enough in all conscience,” fretted Charlotte. “But I think we had better write immediately to Mrs. Tyler and find out something,” she continued. “I declare, mamma,” and the tears started to her eyes for very vexation and disappointment, “Mr. Style would not speak only on the most indifferent subjects coming home, and if I don’t bring him to the point soon, I don’t believe one of us will ever be married in the world, and I will go to a convent! I will!”

“Don’t say so, Lottie! don’t dear,” soothed the mamma—“only think what good aim money takes at the hearts of men, and are we not rich, child; and are not my daughters fine dashing girls, dressing as well as the best of ’em, and wont they finally marry jest as they please? The chaff always blows away first, they used to say when I was young!”

“Well, who wants to wait forever, mother, for all that?” said Annette, who really had waited a reasonable time, with her purse and her heart in her hand, and yet no bidders.

“I for one, want to wait till I am sought,” said Adelaide, “and not make such a ridiculous matter of it as Charlotte does, in her pursuit of Mr. Style. The girls all laughed at your speeches, Lottie, till I am heartily vexed and ashamed about the whole game. Do be a little wiser in your demonstrations—”

“I guess I’ll come and borrow some of the wisdom you have to spare, Miss,” retorted Charlotte, very angrily, as she rose and whisked out of the room, slamming the door violently after her.

Mrs. Varley and the three sisters, Annette, Almeda, and Cynthia, all pounced upon Adelaide, who was really more shrewd and sensible than they all, till she diverted them from the attack by a narration of what was always interesting, the gossip she had gathered from one and another, together with her own active surmises during the evening.

“If you had seen how Emilie Jones acted, mamma—I could not help thinking Mr. Style and Mrs. Tower were both delighted with her impudence,” said Adelaide. “For my part, I think she is one of the sauciest and most sarcastic imps I ever saw. If Capt. Jones was not so rich and his family so influential, I would cut her acquaintance.”

“And a mighty deal would she care for that,” replied Annette, “so long as Mrs. Tower makes such friends of her and her mother. But did she tell you that her father and George are coming home directly? Mrs. Jones was here to-night, and she said so.”

“No—she did not say a word about it. She makes no disclosures to me,” returned Adelaide. “There will be another mark for our beautiful Charlotte—the young lieutenant—if she does not succeed in her ‘ecclesiastical measures,’” she added, biting her lips in expectation of a torrent of displeasure from her mother and sisters. It came, of course, and in a fit of resentment and passion, she too flirted off to bed.

——