Pencil Sketches; or, Outlines of Character and Manners. Leslie Eliza

situation now became intolerable. She felt that there was nothing left for her but to go home. Unluckily she had ordered the carriage at eleven o'clock. At last she resolved on making a great effort, and on plea of a violent headache (a plea which by this time was literally true) to ask Mrs. Potts if she would allow a servant to bring a coach for her.

      After several attempts, she rose for this purpose; but she saw at the same moment that all eyes were turned upon her. She tremblingly, and with downcast looks, advanced till she got into the middle of the room, and then all her courage deserted her at once, when she heard some one say, "I wonder what she is going to do next."

      She stopped suddenly, and stood motionless, and she saw Miss Potts giggle, and heard her say to a school-girl near her, "I suppose she is going to speak a speech." She turned very pale, and felt as if she could gladly sink into the floor, when suddenly some one took her hand, and the voice of Bromley Cheston said to her, "Albina—Miss Marsden—I will conduct you wherever you wish to go"—and then, lowering his tone, he asked her, "Why this agitation—what has happened to distress you?"

      Cheston had just arrived from New York, having been detained on the way by an accident that happened to one of the boats, and finding that Mrs. Marsden was in town, and had that day sent several messages for him, he repaired immediately to her lodgings. He had intended declining the invitation of Mrs. Potts, but when he found that Albina had gone thither, he hastily changed his dress and went to the party. When he entered, what was his amazement to see her standing alone in the centre of the room, and the company whispering and gazing at her.

      Albina, on hearing the voice of a friend, the voice of Bromley Cheston, was completely overcome, and she covered her face and burst into tears. "Albina," said Cheston, "I will not now ask an explanation; I see that, whatever may have happened, you had best go home."

      "Oh! most gladly, most thankfully," she exclaimed, in a voice almost inarticulate with sobs.

      Cheston drew her arm within his, and bowing to Mrs. Potts, he led Albina out of the apartment, and conducted her to the staircase, whence she went to the ladies' room to compose herself a little, and prepare for her departure.

      Cheston then sent one servant for a carriage, and another to tell Mr. Potts that he desired to speak with him in the hall. Potts came out with a pale, frightened face, and said—"Indeed, sir—indeed, I had nothing to do with it; ask the women. It was all them entirely. It was the women that laughed at Miss Albina, and whispered about her."

      "For what?" demanded the lieutenant. "I insist on knowing for what cause."

      "Why, sir," replied Potts, "she came here to my wife's party, after Mrs. Potts had sent a note desiring her to stay away; which was certainly an odd thing for a young lady to do."

      "There is some mistake," exclaimed Cheston; "I'll stake my life that she never saw the note. And now, for what reason did Mrs. Potts write such a note? How did she dare—"

      "Oh!" replied Potts, stammering and hesitating, "women will have their notions; men are not half so particular about their company. Somehow, after Mrs. Potts had invited Miss Albina, she thought, on farther consideration, that poor Miss Albina was not quite genteel enough for her party. You know all the women now make a great point of being genteel. But, indeed, sir (observing the storm that was gathering on Cheston's brow), indeed, sir—I was not in the least to blame. It was altogether the fault of my wife."

      The indignation of the lieutenant was so highly excited, that nothing could have checked it but the recollection that Potts was in his own house. At this moment, Albina came down stairs, and Cheston took her hand and said to her: "Albina, did you receive a note from Mrs. Potts interdicting your presence at the party?"—"Oh! no, indeed!" exclaimed Albina, amazed at the question. "Surely she did not send me such a note."—"Yes she did, though," said Potts, quickly.—"Is it, then, necessary for me to say," said Albina, indignantly, "that, under those circumstances, nothing could have induced me to enter this house, now or ever! I saw or heard nothing of this note. And is this the reason that I have been treated so rudely—so cruelly—"

      Upon this, Mr. Potts made his escape, and Cheston, having put Albina into the carriage, desired the coachman to wait a few moments. He then returned to the drawing-room and approached Mrs. Potts, who was standing with half the company collected round her, and explaining with great volubility the whole history of Albina Marsden. On the appearance of Cheston, she stopped short, and all her auditors looked foolish.

      The young officer advanced into the centre of the circle, and, first addressing Mrs. Potts, he said to her—"In justice to Miss Marsden, I have returned, madam, to inform you that your note of interdiction, with which you have so kindly made all the company acquainted, was till this moment unknown to that young lady. But, even had she come wilfully, and in the full knowledge of your prohibition, no circumstances whatever could justify the rudeness with which I find she has been treated. I have now only to say that, if any gentleman presumes, either here or hereafter, to cast a reflection on the conduct of Miss Albina Marsden, in this or in any other instance, he must answer to me for the consequences. And if I find that any lady has invidiously misrepresented this occurrence, I shall insist on an atonement from her husband, her brother, or her admirer."

      He then bowed and departed, and the company looked still more foolish.

      "This lesson," thought Cheston, "will have the salutary effect of curing Albina of her predominant follies. She is a lovely girl, after all, and when withdrawn from the influence of her mother, will make a charming woman and an excellent wife."

      Before the carriage stopped at the residence of Mrs. Marsden, Cheston had made Albina an offer of his heart and hand, and the offer was not refused.

      Mrs. Marsden was scarcely surprised at the earliness of Albina's return from the party, for she had a secret misgiving that all was not right, that the suppression of the note would not eventuate well, and she bitterly regretted having done it. When her daughter related to her the story of the evening, Mrs. Marsden was overwhelmed with compunction; and, though Cheston was present, she could not refrain from acknowledging at once her culpability, for it certainly deserved no softer name. Cheston and Albina were shocked at this disclosure; but, in compassion to Mrs. Marsden, they forbore to add to her distress by a single comment. Cheston shortly after took his leave, saying to Albina as he departed, "I hope you are done for ever with Mrs. Washington Potts."

      Next morning, Cheston seriously but kindly expostulated with Albina and her mother on the folly and absurdity of sacrificing their comfort, their time, their money, and, indeed, their self-respect, to the paltry distinction of being capriciously noticed by a few vain, silly, heartless people, inferior to themselves in everything but in wealth and in a slight tincture of soi-disant fashion; and who, after all, only took them on or threw them off as it suited their own convenience.

      "What you say is very true, Bromley," replied Mrs. Marsden. "I begin to view these things in their proper light, and as Albina remarks, we ought to profit by this last lesson. To tell the exact truth, I have heard since I came to town that Mrs. Washington Potts is, after all, by no means in the first circle, and it is whispered that she and her husband are both of very low origin."

      "No matter for her circle or her origin," said Cheston, "in our country the only acknowledged distinction should be that which is denoted by superiority of mind and manners."

      Next day Lieutenant Cheston escorted Mrs. Marsden and Albina back to their own home—and a week afterwards he was sent unexpectedly on a cruise in the West Indies.

      He returned in the spring, and found Mrs. Marsden more rational than he had ever known her, and Albina highly improved by a judicious course of reading which he had marked out for her, and still more by her intimacy with a truly genteel, highly talented, and very amiable family from the eastward, who had recently bought a house in the village, and in whose society she often wondered at the infatuation which had led her to fancy such a woman as Mrs. Washington Potts, with whom, of course, she never had any farther communication.

      A recent and very large bequest to Bromley Cheston from a distant relation, made it no longer necessary that the young lieutenant should wait for promotion before