“Blue or pink, Charlotte?”

“O, the blue, by all means, Lucia.”

“And pearls or rubies?”

“Pearls.”

“Blue and pearls! Why, I shall personate the very ideal of maiden simplicity. I might as well appear all in white!”

“And it would be beautiful, Lucia,” answered her friend.

“Think so? Well, I have a great mind to try it, for you must know it is my desire to look uncommonly well to-night,” said Lucia.

“But why to-night do you so particularly wish to shine?” inquired Charlotte.

“Why? Why, don’t you know we are to meet that renowned enslaver of hearts, that coquet, Frank Gadsby! Is not that enough to inspire my vanity?” replied the lively girl.

“And you are resolved upon leading this renowned conqueror in your own chains, Lucia?”

“He shall not escape them, Charlotte. I will bring him to my feet, and thus become the champion of my sex,” said Lucia.

“And have you no fears for yourself? Where so many have yielded their willing hearts, do you expect to escape without paying the same penalty?”

“Fears!” answered Lucia. “Why, Charlotte, you don’t think I would give up my affections to one who has no heart, and never had one; or, if he had, it has been so completely divided and sub-divided, quartered and requartered, and parceled out by inches, that not a fragment is left to hang a hope upon! Why, I should as soon think of falling in love with one of those effigies of beau-dom—those waxen busts at a barber’s window—as with this hollow-hearted Frank Gadsby.”

“You are right, Lucia; for I certainly think that when you marry, it would be well to have at least one heart between you and your cara sposa, for I am sure you have none,” said Charlotte, laughing.

“Now, that is the unkindest cut of all, Charlotte—I no heart! Why, I am ‘all heart,’ as poor Mrs. Skewton would say,” answered Lucia.

“Ah, Lucia, it is conceded by all, I believe, that you are an arrant coquette.”

“I a coquette!” exclaimed Lucia. “I deny the charge; there is my gage!” drawing off her little glove and throwing it at the feet of Charlotte.

“I accept the challenge,” answered her friend. “In the first place, let me remind you of a poor Mr. F——.”

“You need not remind me of him,” answered Lucia. “I am sure I shall not soon forget him, with his tiresome calls every day, nor his attempts to look tender with those small, twinkling gray eyes of his. Imagine an owl in love, that’s all.”

“And yet you encouraged his visits. Then, there was young Dornton.”

“Dornton! yes, I remember. Poor fellow, how he did torment me with his execrable verses!”

“Execrable! If I remember, Lucia, you once told me they were beautiful.”

“Ah, I tired of them, and him too, in a fortnight. Why, Charlotte, it was a perfect surfeit of antimony wrapped up in honey.”

“Then, your long walks last summer with Dr. Ives.”

“Were very pleasant walks until he grew sentimental, and suddenly popped down upon his knees, one day, in the high grass, like a winged partridge; he looked so ridiculous that really I could not help laughing in his face. It was a bitter pill; doctor, as he was, he could not swallow it.”

“For six weeks you flirted with Henry Nixon,” continued Charlotte. “Why, he was your shadow, Lucia; what could have tempted you to trifle with him as you did? I am sure he loved you.”

“There you are mistaken,” was the reply. “He was only flattered by my smiles and proud of being in my train. Such magnificent bouquets, too, as he brought me! It was party season, you know, and his self-love, thus embodied in a flower to be worn by me, was quite as harmless to him as convenient for myself.”

“But not so harmless were the smiles and flattering words you bestowed upon young Fairlie. O, Lucia, your thoughtless vanity ruined the happiness of that young man, and drove him off to a foreign clime, leaving a widowed mother to mourn his absence.”

“Indeed, Charlotte,” replied Lucia, in a saddened tone, “I had no idea James Fairlie really loved me until too late. He painted so exquisitely that, at my father’s request, he was engaged to paint my portrait. I believe I gave him a lock of my hair, and allowed him to retain a small miniature which he had sketched of me; but, as I told him, when he so unexpectedly declared his love, I meant nothing.”

“Ah, Lucia,” said her friend, reproachfully, “and did you mean nothing when you allowed the visits of Colonel W——?”

“O, the gallant Colonel! Excuse me Charlotte—a pair of epaulettes answer very well, sometimes, in place of a heart. The Colonel’s uniform was a taking escort through the fashionable promenades; and, then, he was so vain that it did one good to see him lose the ‘bold front of Mars’ in the soft blandishments of Cupid; and not forgetting, even when on his knees, to note, in an opposite mirror, the irresistible effect of his gallant form at the feet of a fair lady! So far, I think, I have supported my ground against your accusation of coquetry,” added Lucia.

“On the contrary, my dear Lucia, I am sorry to say that you have but proved its truth,” answered Charlotte. “Sorry, because there is, to my mind, no character so vain and heartless as that of a coquette, and I would not that any one whom I love should rest under such an imputation. The moment a woman stoops to coquetry she loses the charm of modesty and frankness, and renders herself unworthy the pure affection of any noble-minded man. It betrays vanity, a want of self-respect, and an utter disregard for the feelings of others. A coquette is a purely selfish being, who, by her hollow smiles and heartless professions, wins to the shrine of her vanity many an honest heart, and then casts it from her as idly as a child the plaything of which he has tired. She is unworthy the name of woman.”

“Hollow smiles—heartless professions! Why, what is all this tirade about, Charlotte?” interrupted Lucia, indignantly. “I do not understand you. You surely do not mean to class me with those frivolous beings you have named.”

“It will do for young coxcombs and fops,” continued Charlotte, “whose brains centre in an elegant moustache or the tie of a cravat, who swear pretty little oaths, and can handle their quizzing glass with more skill than their pen—it will do for them to inflate their vanity by the sighs of romantic school-girls; but for a high-minded, noble woman, like you, Lucia, to descend from the dignity of your position to the contemptible artifices of a coquette—fie, Lucia, be yourself.”

“From no other but you, Charlotte,” she replied, “would I bear the unjust imputation you cast upon me, and I should blush did I think myself deserving one half your censure. I do not feel that I have descended at all from the ‘dignity of my position,’ as you are pleased to term it, and consider a coquette quite as contemptible as you do.”

“Ah, Lucia,” said Charlotte, archly,

“Nonsense! I know I am not a coquette, Charlotte,” retorted Lucia. “Gay and thoughtless I may have been; but I have never, nor would I ever, trifle with the affections of one whom I thought any other feeling but his own vanity had brought to my feet. But come, Madam Mentor, I will make a truce with you. I must first vanquish this redoubtable Gadsby, in honorable warfare, and with his own weapons, and then, I promise you, no duenna of old Spain ever wore a more vinegar aspect than shall Lucia Laurence, spinster.”

“But, Lucia—”

“No—no—no! stop! I know what you are going to say,” interrupted the gay girl, playfully placing her little hand over the mouth of her friend. “Positively I must have my way this time. And now for the business of the toilet. Let me see—blue and pearls; no, white—white, like a bride, Charlotte!”

——