Debby's Debut

On a cheery June day Mrs. Penelope Carroll
and her niece Debby Wilder, were whizzing along
on their way to a certain gay watering-place, both
in the best of humors with each other and all the
world beside. Aunt Pen was concocting sundry
mild romances, and laying harmless plots for the
pursuance of her favorite pastime, match-making;
for she had invited her pretty relative to join her
summer jaunt, ostensibly that the girl might see a
little of fashionable life, but the good lady secretly
proposed to herself to take her to the beach and
get her a rich husband, very much as she would
have proposed to take her to Broadway and get her
a new bonnet: for both articles she considered
necessary, but somewhat difficult for a poor girl
to obtain.

Debby was slowly getting her poise, after the
excitement of a first visit to New York; for ten
days of bustle had introduced the young philosopher
to a new existence, and the working-day
world seemed to have vanished when she made her
last pat of butter in the dairy at home. For an
hour she sat thinking over the good-fortune which
had befallen her, and the comforts of this life which
she had suddenly acquired. Debby was a true
girl, with all a girl's love of ease and pleasure;
it must not be set down against her that she
surveyed her pretty travelling-suit with much
complacency, rejoicing inwardly that she could use
her hands without exposing fractured gloves, that
her bonnet was of the newest mode, needing no
veil to hide a faded ribbon or a last year's shape,
that her dress swept the ground with fashionable
untidiness, and her boots were guiltless of a patch,
--that she was the possessor of a mine of wealth
in two of the eight trunks belonging to her aunt,
that she was travelling like any lady of the land
with man- and maid-servant at her command, and
that she was leaving work and care behind her for
a month or two of novelty and rest.

When these agreeable facts were fully realized,
and Aunt Pen had fallen asleep behind her veil,
Debby took out a book, and indulged in her favorite
luxury, soon forgetting past, present, and future
in the inimitable history of Martin Chuzzlewit.
The sun blazed, the cars rattled, children
cried, ladies nodded, gentlemen longed for the
solace of prohibited cigars, and newspapers were
converted into sun-shades, nightcaps, and fans;
but Debby read on, unconscious of all about her,
even of the pair of eves that watched her from the
Opposite corner of the car. A Gentleman with a
frank, strong-featured face sat therin, and amused
himself by scanning with thoughtful gaze the
countenances of his fellow-travellers. Stout Aunt Pen,
dignified even in her