side.  She had already been presented to the fashionable guests who sat around the ample table, and a good deal of the awe which she had felt in anticipation, had begun to ooze away.  Although much was said that was unintelligible to her, she could see that this was not the result of intellectual deficiency on her part, but merely of an ignorance of the ground on which the conversation was founded.  As Cornelia stole glances at the faces, pretty or pretentious, of the young ladies, or at the mustaches, whiskers, or carefully-parted hair of the young gentlemen, it did not seem to her that she could call herself essentially the inferior of any one of them.  As to what they thought of her, she could only conjecture; but the gentlemen were extravagantly polite—­according to her primitive ideas of that much-abused virtue—­and the ladies were smiling, full of pretty attitudes, small questions, and accentuated comments.  No one of them, nor of the young men either, seemed to be very hungry; but Cornelia had her usual unexceptionable appetite, and ate stoutly to satisfy it; she even tasted a glass of Italian wine at dessert, upon the assurance of Aunt Margaret that “she must—­really must—­it would never do to come to New York without learning how to drink wine, you know;” and upon the word of the young gentleman who sat next to her that it wouldn’t hurt her a bit—­all wines were medicinal—­Italian wines especially so; and so, indeed, it proved, for Cornelia thought she had never felt so genial a glow of sparkling life in her veins.  She was good-natured enough to laugh at any thing, and brilliant enough to make anybody else laugh; and the evening passed away most pleasantly.

But Cornelia was no fool, to be made a butt of; and her personality was too vigorous, her individuality too strong, not to make an impression and way of its own wherever she was.  The young ladies tried in vain to patronize her:  they had not the requisite capital in themselves; and the young gentlemen soon gave up the attempt to make fun of her; her vitality was too much for them, and they were, moreover, disconcerted by her beauty.  Miss Valeyon, however, was new to the world, and her curiosity and vanity had large, unsatisfied appetites.  To have been patronized and made fun of would have done her little or no harm; but in gratifying these appetites she might do a good deal of harm to herself.

When the young gentlemen were in town, or in the smoking-room, the young ladies were of course thrown upon their own resources, and generally drifted together in little groups, to talk in low tones or in loud, to laugh or to whisper.  Cornelia, who soon got upon terms of companionship with one or two members of these conclaves, could hardly do otherwise than occasionally join the meetings.  At first she found little or nothing of interest to herself in what they talked about.