PAGE 8
Making A Sensation
by
“It has occurred quite naturally, Caroline. The dashing belle has gained a little more good sense than she had a few months ago. She has not forgotten the party at Mrs. Walsaingham’s. And by the bye, Caroline, how completely you out-generalled me on that occasion. I had a great mind for a while never to forgive you.”
“You are altogether mistaken, Melvina,” Caroline said, with a serious air. “I did not act a part on that occasion. I went but in my true character, and exhibited no other.”
“It was nature, then, eclipsing art; truth of character outshining the glitter of false assumption. But all that is past, and I am wiser and better for it, I hope. You will be happy, I know, with Henry Clarence, for he is worthy of you, and can appreciate your real excellence; and I shall be happy, I trust, with the man of my choice.”
“No doubt of it, Melvina. And by the way,” Caroline said, laughing, “we shall make another ‘sensation,’ and then we must be content to retire into peaceful domestic obscurity. You will have a brilliant time, I suppose?”
“O yes. I must try my hand at creating one more sensation, the last and most imposing; and, as my wedding comes the first, you must be my bridesmaid. You will not refuse?”
“Not if we can agree as to how we are to dress. We ought to be alike in this, and yet I can never consent to appear in any thing but what is plain, and beautiful for its simplicity.”
“You shall arrange all these. You beat me the last time in creating a sensation, and now I will give up to your better taste.”
And rarely has a bride looked sweeter than did Melvina Fenton on her wedding-day. Still, she was eclipsed by Caroline, whose native grace accorded so well with her simple attire, that whoever looked upon her, looked again, and to admire. The “sensation” they created was not soon forgotten.
Caroline was married in a week after, and then the fair heroines of our story passed from the notice of the fashionable world, and were lost with the thousands who thus yearly desert the gay circles, and enter the quiet sphere and sweet obscurity of domestic life.