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“I apprehend your flute, which, by the by, I am glad to see you have brought, will be rather in the PENSEROSO style this evening, Mr. Delafield.”

{penseroso = melancholy}

“Unless enlivened by the contagious gayety of your smile,” returned Delafield, endeavouring to look excessively unconcerned; “but”–

“Oh! my very laugh is musical, I know,” interrupted Maria; “but then it is often shockingly out of time.”

“It seldom fails to produce an accompaniment,” said the gentleman, now smiling in reality; “but”–

“Where is Charlotte Henley?” said the young lady, again interrupting him; “she has a perfect horror of the tuning of fiddles and the preparatory thrummings on the piano; so endeavour to preserve the harmony of your temper for the second act.”

“Well! it is some relief to know she is coming at all,” cried Seymour, quickly; and then, recovering himself with perfect breeding, he added–“for one would wish to see you as happy as all your friends can make you, on such an occasion.”

“I am extremely indebted to your unbounded philanthropy,” said Maria, rising and courtseying with great gravity; “do not doubt of its being honourably mentioned at”–

“Nay, nay,” cried the youth, colouring and laughing, “you would not think of mentioning my remarks to”- –

“At the next meeting of the Dorcas Society, of which I am an unworthy member,” continued Maria, without listening to his remonstrance.

{Dorcas Society = lady’s group at a church, devoted to making and providing clothes for the poor}

Seymour Delafield now laughed without any affectation–and exchanging a look of perfect consciousness of each other’s meaning, they separated, as the preparations for the business of the evening were about to commence. For a short time there was a confusion of sounds that perfectly justified the absence of Miss Henly, when the music began in earnest. Within half an hour, Mr. Delafield, who had suffered himself to be drawn to the back of the chair of a professed belle, turning his head to conceal a yawn that neither the lady’s skill nor his good manners could repress, observed Charlotte sitting quietly by the side of her friend. Her entrance had been conducted with such tact, that had she possessed the most musical ear imaginable, it were impossible to disturb the party less; a circumstance that did not fail to impress Seymour agreeably, from its novelty. He moved to the side of the fair vision that had engrossed all his thoughts since the moment they had first met, and took the chair that the good nature of Miss Osgood offered to his acceptance between them.

“Thank fortune, Miss Henly,” he said, the instant he was seated, “that bravura has ceased, and I can now inquire how you recovered from the fatigue of your walk?”

“I suffered no fatigue to recover from,” replied the lady, raising her eyes to his with an expression that told the youth he had better talk straight forward at once; “I walk too much to be fatigued with so short an excursion.”

“You came here to favour us with your skill on the harp, Miss Henly?”

“No.”

“On the piano?”

“On neither–I play on nothing.”

“You sing, then?”

“Not at all.”

“What! not with that voice?” exclaimed the young man, in surprise.

“Not with this voice, and surely with no other.”

Seymour felt uneasy, and, perhaps, disappointed. He did not seem to have roused a single sensation in the breast of his companion, and it was seldom that the elegant possessor of three hundred thousand dollars failed to do so, wherever he went, or whatever he did. But, in the present instance, there was nothing to be discerned in the countenance or manner of Charlotte that indicated any thing more than the sweetness of her nature and the polish of her breeding. He changed the subject.

“I hope your friend did not suffer yesterday from his humanity?”

“I sincerely hope so too,” said Charlotte, with much simplicity, and yet with a good deal of feeling.

“I am fearful that we idle spectators,” continued the gentleman, “suffered in your estimation, in not discovering equal benevolence with Mr. Morton.”