TWO FACES UNDER ONE HOOD.
“The land hath bubbles as the water hath,
And these are of them.”
“Who is she?”
“Ay, that is precisely the question which everybody asks, and nobody can answer.”
“She is a splendid-looking creature, be she who she may.”
“And her manners are as lovely as her person. Come and dine with me to-morrow; I sit directly opposite her at table, so you can have a fair opportunity of gazing at this new star in our dingy firmament.”
“Agreed; I am about changing my lodgings, and if I like the company at your house, I may take a room there.
The speakers were two gay and fashionable men: one a student of law, the other a confidential clerk in a large commercial house. They belonged to that class of youths, so numerous in New York, who, while in reality labouring most industriously for a livelihood, yet take infinite pains to seem idle and useless members of society; fellows who at their outset in life try hard to repress a certain respectability of character, which after a while comes up in spite of them, and makes them very good sort of men in the end. The lady who attracted so much of their attention at that moment, had recently arrived in the city; and, as she wore the weeds of widowhood, her solitary position seemed sufficiently explained. But there was an attractiveness in her appearance and manners which excited a more than usual interest in the stranger’s history. She had that peculiar fascination which gentlemen regard as the most exquisite refinement of frank simplicity, but which ladies, better versed in the intricacies of female nature, always recognise as the perfection of art. None but an impulsive, warm-hearted woman, can retain her freshness of feeling and ready responsive sympathy after five-and-twenty; and such a woman never obtains sufficient command over her own sensitiveness to
