Making a Sensation

"Do you intend going to Mrs. Walshingham's party, next week, Caroline?" asked Miss Melvina Fenton of her friend Caroline Gay. "It is said that it will be a splendid affair."

"I have not made up my mind, Melvina."

"O you'll go of course. I wouldn't miss it for the world."

"I am much inclined to think that I will stay at home or spend my evening in some less brilliant assemblage," Caroline Gay replied in a quiet tone.

"Nonsense, Caroline! There hasn't been such a chance to make a sensation this season."

"And why should I wish to make a sensation, Melvina?"

"Because it's the only way to attract attention. Now-a-days, the person who creates a sensation, secures the prize that a dozen quiet, retiring individuals are looking and longing after, in vain. We must dazzle if we would win."

"That is, we must put on false colors, and deceive not only ourselves, but others."

"How strangely you talk, Caroline! Every one now is attracted by show and eclat."

"Not every one, I hope, Melvina."

"Show me an exception."

Caroline smiled as she answered,

"Your friend Caroline, as you call her, I hope is one."

"Indeed! And I suppose I must believe you. But come, don't turn Puritan. You are almost behind the age, as it is, and if you don't take care, you will get clear out of date, and either live and die an old maid, or have to put up with one of your quiet inoffensive gentlemen who hardly dare look a real briliant belle in the face."

Caroline Gay could not help smiling at her friend's light bantering, even while she felt inclined to be serious in consideration of the false views of life that were influencing the conduct and affecting the future prospects of one, whose many good qualities of heart, won her love.

"And if I should get off," she said, "with one of those quiet gentlemen you allude to, it will be about the height of my expectation."

"Well, you are a queer kind of a girl, any how! But, do you know why I want to make a sensation at Mrs. Walshingham's?"

"No. I would be pleased to hear."

"Then I will just let you into a bit of a secret. I've set my heart on making a conquest of Henry Clarence."

"Indeed!" ejaculated Caroline, with an emphasis that would have attracted Melvina's attention, had her thoughts and feelings not been at the moment too much engaged.

"Yes, I have. He's so calm and cold, and rigidly polite to me whenever we meet, that I am chilled with the frigid temperature of the atmosphere that surrounds him. But as he is a prize worth the trouble of winning, I have set my heart on melting him down, and bringing him to my feet."