feasted! you writing your immortal book, and I raking in dollars every night of my life, and our own money lying snug all the time? It would be famous fun, wouldn't it?"

"Why, certainly the mode of life as you sketch it, major, would be pleasant enough and profitable too, I dare say," replied his lady, "if we mind our hits properly. It will be exceedingly necessary, however, to find out who's who, and what's what, before we decide upon what to accept and what to refuse. I have said to all that I would send an answer, and this will give us a little time for inquiry."

"You are a jewel!" exclaimed the major, with a burst of really passionate admiration. "But there goes the bell, my darling. After dinner you must write me down the names of all these excellent people, that I may learn what I can about them. And you may keep the letters, you know, and ask a few questions of Mrs. Beauchamp, or any body else who can answer them."

"I shall not be idle, my dear," replied his wife, with a composed and quiet smile, which proved to her acute husband that she was not quite in her usual state of mind; but he was at that moment inclined to think that all moods became her, and taking her arm within his, he led her with a very decided feeling of triumph to the dinner-table.

CHAP. XXII.

THERE was a something in Mrs. Allen Barnaby's demeanour as she entered the dining-room, supported on the arm of her husband, which both attracted the attention of her particular friends among the company assembled there, and puzzled them.

"Was she ill?” "Was she affronted at somebody or something?" "Had she received disagreeable tidings from home?" or "was she only very much fatigued?" All and each of these motives suggested themselves to all those sufficiently interested in this lady to watch her as she entered the room, despite the interesting nature of the business already going on at the top of the table, where Mrs. Carmichael, puffing and wheezing like a fainting steam-engine, was sending round by the sable hands of two negro Hebes, sharply scrutinized portions of a favourite fish. The equality or inequality of this nice and difficult distribution was, under ordinary circumstances, a matter of great moment, and nearly of universal interest; but now it was only partially so. Yet it would be difficult to describe precisely what it was in the bearing of Mrs. Allen Barnaby which caused this effect. She always walked in with a great deal of dignity, and so she did now. She had always some volant ribbon or floating scarf to attend to and arrange; and so she had now. She never failed to return with great benignity any salutations which she might receive as she moved onward to her place; nor did she fail to do so now. But in all this there was something that nobody had ever seen before; a blending of condescension and indifference; an eye that seemed not fully conscious of the identity of the objects over which it glanced; an air of superiority softened by benevolence; and, finally, a look of gentle tenderness when she turned towards her husband, that seemed to indicate that she recognised in him a being who in some degree at least approached to an equality of condition with herself.

Having reached the chair now constantly reserved for her, next her friend Mrs. Beauchamp she placed herself in it with a sort of circular bow that seemed to say, "Pray do not disturb yourselves;" but not even to that favoured lady did she give more than half a smile, and half a nod, accompanied with a languid look and drooping eyelid that seemed to speak exhaustion and fatigue.

"Oh my!" exclaimed her observant friend, "if you an't regularly done up Mrs. Allen Barnaby! God bless your dear heart! You have just been working too hard, that's quite plain and clear, and that won't do at all. We shall have you ill, by and by, if we don't take care, and then what is to come of our delightful tour? Take my advice, and desire your husband, the major, to send you a glass of his wine. Though I am sure, for the matter of that, Colonel Beauchamp would be firstrate happy to offer you a taste of his, only gentlemen boarders are generally supposed to know their own lady's taste best. Haven't you been writing an unaccountable quantity to-day, Mrs. Allen Barnaby? Say."

Mrs. Allen Barnaby in reply to this question turned her benignant countenance upon her friend. There was a gentle and very charming smile upon it, but the eyes were considerably more than half closed, and for a few seconds she suffered herself to be looked at in silence; then she said, shaking her head, and smiling if possible with still more benignity,

"Oh no! You are quite mistaken, dear lady; I have not written a single line."

There was a look of blank disappointment on the countenance of Mrs. Beauchamp on hearing this, which recalled Mrs. Allen Barnaby to the necessity of not losing any birds already in her hand, while starting away to look after others which were still in the bush; she therefore so far recalled herself to the passing moment as to say, "You look surprised, my dear Mrs. Beauchamp, and so you well may! But your surprise would cease if you knew what a morning I

had passed."

"Not sick, I hope?" returned her new friend with very sincere anxiety. "I'm sure I wouldn't have you take a spell of sickness just now for more than I'll say."

"You are very kind! Oh no! Not sick, or sorry, I assure you; only engaged, too incessantly occupied by a multitude of letters, to do any thing but read them."

"My! A mail from the old country, I expect?" replied Mrs. Beauchamp, with a sort of congratulatory smile.

"No," returned Mrs. Allen Barnaby composedly, "not so. All my letters were from ladies and gentlemen-mostly from gentlemen, indeed, who were here last night."

A visible augmentation of colour suffused the cheeks of Mrs. Beauchamp on hearing these words; an effect which was instantly and satisfactorily remarked by the authoress.

"They will be at fisticuffs about me soon, if I don't take care," thought she, "but it will be better for me to carry on every thing peaceably, and profit by them all in turn." And with this feeling she smiled with more of peculiar and personal affection on Mrs. Beauchamp than she had done before, and said, "I must ask your advice and as

sistance about all this. In a society so particularly select and elegant, I would not for the world offend any body; but it is impossible to accept all these invitations, and you must help me to decide whom I must refuse."

What's that about invitations, mamma?" demanded Madame Tornorino, who like the rest of the company had remarked something queer in her mother's look, which now, with her inherited shrewdness, she thought might very likely be the result of more compliments and invitations. "I say, mamma," she resumed, "I beg you will let me know all the invites in time, for I hate to be taken at a hop, and so does the Don, too."

"Fear not, my love," replied her mother, with a tranquillizing nod, "I will always contrive to give you time enough for dressing. Bu upon my word, dear, I don't think I can promise to keep a regular calendar of all invitations, it would occupy more time than I can spare. But you may go into my room if you like it, after dinner, and collect all the notes and letters which you will find lying about upon my table, and read them, if it will be any satisfaction to you."

"Ask if you may bring them all down into the drawing-room," whispered Miss Matilda Perkins across Don Tornorino, by whose side it was the pleasure of his young wife that her friend should always sit (thinking it, probably, more cozy and comfortable to keep their party thus far together, than to let any other lady sit next him, particularly "that odious Annie Beauchamp," whom she hated above all things, and towards whom she had more than once caught the beautiful eyes of her Don directed). "Oh, for goodness sake bring them down, my darling dearest Madame Tornorino!" reiterated her eager friend.

"Very well," was the reply. "Hold your tongue and say nothing about it. I shall bring them down, if I like it, and ask no leave, you may depend upon it. I should have thought you might have guessed that without my telling you."

Mrs. Beauchamp who, though for very different reasons, was quite as anxious about these invitations as Miss Matilda herself, ventured to ask a few questions of her new friend respecting the names of the parties from whence they came; to all of which Mrs. Allen Barnaby replied with almost her former affectionate warmth of manner.

"You shall see them all, my dear Mrs. Beauchamp. Don't imagine for a moment that it is possible I could have any reserves with you! Oh no! we must talk them all over together."

"Thank you very much," replied the comforted Mrs. Beauchamp. "I certainly should like to see who comes forward first and foremost. I told you how it would be, didn't I, Mrs. Allen Barnaby? You won't forget that, I expect? Say."

"No, indeed! I shall never forget the exceedingly kind and friendly manner in which you have conducted yourself towards me throughout, my dear madam. I shall not easily meet with any one whose society I shall enjoy so thoroughly as I do yours."

There was some comfort in hearing this, but the words did not seem to mean exactly what the same words would have meant yesterdayat least, so thought, or rather so felt, Mrs. Beauchamp. But yet, to do her justice, she did by no means fully enter into nor understand the

nature of the change she remarked. She thought, indeed, that it was likely enough Mrs. Allen Barnaby might like to listen to other first-rate patriotic ladies, as well as to her, and might wish to compare testimonies together in order to get at the exact truth; but for all the calculations which were going on as to whom she could turn to greatest profit in other ways, nothing of the kind ever entered her head. Neither did she long suffer the trifling difference which she had fancied perceptible in the illustrious lady's tone to dwell upon her mind.

"I ought to be ashamed of myself," thought she, the moment afterwards, for having any such fancies. As if we ought not, one and all, to think of the one great object of having justice done to our country; and there is no danger upon that score as long as this dear writing lady keeps clear of those wicked and rebellious free states that don't scruple to abuse our venerable institutions about slavery, just as bad, more shame for them, as our foreign enemies themselves can do."

So the next time Mrs. Allen Barnaby gave her an opportunity of speaking to her again, which was not immediately-for to say truth that lady had in a great degree lost the comfort she might have found from Mrs. Carmichael's dinners in consequence of the immense importance she had hitherto attached to all that was said to her, and was now making amends to herself for it, by attending much more to the dinner, and much less to the conversation than heretofore. But as soon as she found an opportunity, Mrs. Beauchamp said,

"Do you happen, Mrs. Allen Barnaby, ma'am, to recollect any of the names of the gentlemen who have been writing to you? I can't say but what I should like to know who's come forward."

Mrs. Allen Barnaby, who had just completed the demolition of a very savoury plate, and had been reflecting during the pleasant process on the various words and phrases which had reached her since her arrival at New Orleans, relative to the first-rateness of standing of her already well-secured friend, Mrs. Colonel Beauchamp, promptly replied, and in accents of perfectly recovered cordiality,

"My dearest friend! I have the very worst head in the world for names! Let me see-let me see-oh, yes, my dear Mrs. Beauchamp! there is one I remember perfectly; and the better, perhaps, because I received two notes so signed. Gregory is the name. Both General Gregory and Mrs. Gregory, wrote most obligingly, and very strongly urged our immediately paying them a visit at their place in the country."

"Possible!" exclaimed Mrs. Colonel Beauchamp, and there stopped.

"Possible?" repeated Mrs. Allen Barnaby. "What does that mean, my dear friend? Do you doubt its being possible?"

"Oh my! no, Mrs. Allen Barnaby. No doubt of any thing you say could enter my thoughts, you may be very sure. Only to me, who so well knows the general and his uncommon quietness upon all matters, leaving every thing to his wife, you know, and all that, it does seem something like a miracle, that he should sit down and write an invitation, specially as his lady was doing the very same."

"It certainly shows a most amiable and cordial feeling of hospitality," replied Mrs. Allen Barnaby; "so much so, indeed, that I felt

the moment I read their two letters, that it would be quite impossible to refuse the invitation."

"But I do hope and trust, my dear lady," returned the now really terrified Mrs. Beauchamp, "that nothing and nobody will be able to lead you aside from the plan we have so beautifully laid down together for the examination of all the most important parts of the Union. Say ?"

"No, dearest Mrs. Colonel Beauchamp," responded the authoress; "most truly may you affirm, both to yourself and others, that nothing will induce me to abandon a project to which my heart and my understanding are alike pledged, alike wedded, alike bound!"

This was uttered with solemnity, the movement of the knife and fork being intermitted, and the raised eyes fixed devoutly on the ceiling."

"Thank God!" ejaculated Mrs. Colonel Beauchamp, fervently; "then I don't care a hominy bean for earthly man, woman, or child. That tour can't be done every day, from July to eternity, and it is I that shall be, as I must say I ought, my dear Mrs. Allen Barnaby, your companion and leader, to edify you as to where you should look first and foremost."

Mrs. Allen Barnaby assiduously fed herself upon duck and green corn, and smiled and nodded an affectionate assent.

It is probable that the whole party at the boarding-table had heard enough of what had passed there, to feel some curiosity as to what was to be "brought down," and accordingly the cigar-smoking, which usually takes place at that hour in the chambers"-the wives of American citizens being imperturbably amiable on this point-was postponed, and the whole party assembled in the saloon.

Patty failed not to do as she had declared she would do if it so pleased her, and as it did please her to scamper into her mamma's room the moment the party had risen from table, and to scamper down again as fast as she could run, with both her hands full of letters, and a few, for fun, secured beneath her chin, she reached the saloon just as the last of the company entered it, and bouncing up to the longest table, bent over it, and discharged the three divisions of her load at the same moment.

"There!" she exclaimed; "now then, let's see what it's all about."

"That dear creature's vivacity will never be restrained, let the business in hand be ever so important!" observed her mother, moving with a very slow and deliberate pace towards the table.

Mrs. Allen Barnaby was in truth in no great hurry to reach it; for not only the ardent eager-minded Miss Matilda Perkins was already bending over the still open despatches, and possessing herself of their contents with the most assiduous industry, but very many others of the party were doing exactly the same thing, without the slightest shadow of restraint or ceremony; and as the lady to whom they were addressed happened to prefer their being read by all the world, she had no wish to check the operation by her presence. But Mrs. Allen

Barnaby showed her English ignorance in thus restraining her stepsnothing short of her withdrawing her letters altogether, or so folding