Four years had flown by. All Washington had assembled at the grand gala ball, which celebrated the re-election of Gen. Jackson to the Presidential chair. From every part of the Union, wealth, beauty and talent seemed to meet in this common centre of attraction; and the family of Mr. Laverty, the rich Philadelphia merchant, formed one of the most important integers of the great unit, Fashion.

Amy was lovelier far, than when we saw her last. Every petal of the bud had unfolded—she was radiant as the very impersonation of beauty’s self—her mien was queen-like—her arched brow and forehead had been sung as the ebon bow of Cupid reposing on a tablet of alabaster. Amid the gay revel, every eye was turned upon her. Ladies pronounced her stiff and formal, while the gentlemen protested that “Venus, when she rose, fresh from the soft creation of the wave, was not more beautiful!”

Amy must have possessed charms of no common order, or this unanimity of the female censure would have been destroyed. Panegyric, on the part of gentlemen, is not so certain a criterion, for we have known Sheridan Knowles drawn upon for a comparison, as above, when Shakspeare’s “starved executors, the greedy crows,” would have been more apposite, and have heard Moore quoted?—

and applied to the veriest green gooseberry optics ever saw! Such comparisons, if not “odorous,” as Mrs. Malaprop would have them, are nevertheless generally picked from the most forced hot-beds in the garden of compliment, and loom large, like the sunflower, with a special care always to face about to the rising beams of the sun of riches or fashion.

“I believe, Miss Laverty, I have engaged the pleasure of your hand for the next set?” said the gay, noble and fine-looking Frank Pennant, coming up to the belle of the ball-room.

“Certainly, sir, with all my heart,” was the reply, as she rose.

“Fortunate dog that I am—then I have both your hand and your heart,” laughed Frank.

A slight sigh escaped Amy. Why? Was she in love? Was the place where her heart ought to have been, touched? “Nous verrons,” as the politicians quote from the venerable father of the trans-Mason and Dixon line press.

“Others might sigh, my dear Miss Laverty,” continued Frank, as he was leading Amy to their place in a cotillion, “for such a confession as you made just now! He will indeed be a happy man, who asks your hand for the grand promenade of life, and receives it with all your heart!”

“Do you think so, Mr. Pennant?” archly asked Amy, with a glance from her eye, which might have made Diogenes turn his tub bottom upward, to hide himself under—“why, when you ask it, it would be almost heresy to refuse.”

“Upon my word, Miss Laverty!—are you sharp-shooting, or do you mean to canonize me? Heresy to refuse me! Why, my catalogue of rejections rivals in length that of an old operatic friend, Don Juan’s conquests! Through all the grades in the navy, up to my present rank, I have been tossed to and fro by bright eyes and obdurate hearts, like a nautical shuttlecock, by the battledores of the fair sex! One has disliked my long voyages—the other my short pay; one has had a soul above a middy, and passed me with a cut direct, just as I was entered ‘passed’ by the commissioners—another left me, it being a losing game to love a simple lieutenant; while another—ah! she would have eloped with me to the world’s end, at the risk of the rope’s end, if I had but been a poor cabin boy, with a touch of the romantic in my disposition; whereas, unfortunately, that very day the President had promoted me, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate! So you see fate, professional promotion, the President and Congress, have all been against me, and I have been declined as often as any common noun in the entire language!”

“But now, Mr. Pennant,” interrupted Amy, “as you have attached yourself to me?—”

“Attached myself! My dear Miss Laverty, how could I help it? Are we not,—we poor devils, all and singular, the captives that swell your triumph? Look, now, at Walton, how he eyes me, half cannibalish, half wolfish, because I have unconsciously retained your hand after the last balancez! Excuse me!”

“Come, Mr. Pert, don’t interrupt me. I was about to say—as you have attached yourself to our party for the last three weeks, and have been trying to make yourself exceedingly agreeable in my eyes, I shall demand that you report to me in future, and I will prevent you from being entangled in any of the labyrinths of our sex’s wiles or whims!”

“Will you, indeed! What a sweet Ariadne!”

“I can give you the clue to escape the monsters!”

“And entangle me yourself, at last,—to weave a web and detain me for your own amusement, I trust!”

“Nay, Frank!—pray excuse me, Mr. Pennant; I did not mean—do you really wish that I may entangle you in any web I may have the skill to weave?”

“Well, my dear Miss Laverty,” replied Pennant, “three weeks have glided away very delightfully in your meshes, and I am free to confess the silken bondage pleases me. I love a flirtation, where no heart can be broken! I like to tilt against breasts of adamant, and shiver the spears of repartee against the solid barrier!”

“And judge you, I have a heart of adamant, Mr. Pennant?”

“I have been told so, Miss Laverty.”

“And pray, by whom?”

“My old friend and class-fellow, Harry Stanton.”

“Henry Stanton!”

“Yes, you remember him? the son of one of our Lancaster county farmers, who has made such a sensation the past winter, as a member of your Pennsylvania Legislature, at Harrisburg.”

“Oh, yes! Cabbages and cream cheeses, I remember!”

“Madam!”

“He made love to me four years ago, and I was compelled to reject him.”

“I know it, Miss Laverty. He told me you were without a heart, and therefore I have been under no restraint in our little innocent flirtations, as no life-chord can be cracked.”

“Henry Stanton is a friend of yours, then?”

“Yes, Miss—almost a brother. I shall marry his sister Kate, next May.”

“You, Mr. Pennant!”

“Yes—she came, saw and conquered, the past fall, as I returned from my last cruise. A sweet girl she is, Miss Laverty.”

“Mr. Pennant, will you step and find my father, and ask him to order the carriage? I have danced enough, to-night, and will retire.”

Frank withdrew, and Amy sighed again! That night tears wet her pillow. Tears around the couch of youth, and wealth and beauty! Ah! gold may purchase the gorgeous bouquet, to adorn the opera box, even in mid-winter; but all the wealth of India cannot buy one single shoot of heart’s ease! It is a fairy plant, and blossoms loveliest in the humble shades of life!

And Amy slept at last; but she slept uneasily, amid confused dreams that Kate and Henry Stanton were attempting to poison her! About the same time, Queen Mab was with Frank Pennant, too, and he laughed happily in his sleep, as he dreamed that Kate was pelting him, in mimic play, with rose-buds and myrtle leaves, while his dear friend Harry looked on smilingly. If dreams are an index to our waking thoughts, it needs no somnosophist to interpret what was passing in the dark chambers of their thoughts!

——