After all, the boys always told me that men would not care about me; that I was not the sort of woman to get on with them! Well, perhaps! It certainly seems so.
I meet Mrs.Huntley pretty often in society nowadays, at such staid and sober dinners as the neighborhood thinks fit to indulge in, in this lenten season; and, whenever I do so, I cannot refrain from a stealthy and wistful observation of her.
She is ten--twelve years older than I.Between her and me lie the ten years best worth living of a woman's life; and yet, how easily she distances me! With no straining, with no hard-breathed effort, she canters lightly past me.

So I think, as I intently and curiously watch her--watch her graceful, languid silence with women, her pretty, lady-like playfulness with men.

And how successful she is with them! how highly they relish her! While I, in the uselessness of my round, white youth, sit benched among the old women, dropping spiritless, pointless "yeses" and "noes" among the veteran worldliness of their talk, how they crowd about her, like swarmed bees on some honeyed, spring day! how they scowl at each other! and _finesse_ as to who shall approach most nearly to her cloudy skirts! Several times I have strained my ears to catch what are the utterances that make them laugh so much, make them look both so fluttered and so smoothed.

Each time that I succeed, I am disappointed.

There is no touch of genius, no salt of wit in any thing she says.