[B] 'AN ille mihi liber cui mulier imperat? cui leges imponit, præscribit, jubet,' etc.
In the summer Miss Liner visited at the watering-places--Saratoga, Sharon, Rockaway--and returned fully impressed with the truth of a late traveller's remark: 'The social intercourse of American watering-places may be defined as follows: the gentlemen spit and the ladies spat.' She herself came home with no less than five quarrels on her hands, which she was heroical enough not to regret, when the five foes gave parties and left her out.
The first year or two of this kind of life was very pleasant; but as winter after winter rolled on its balls, and summer after summer found her haunting the same places, and she found herself still remaining Liner, a sigh, soft yet spiteful, escaped from her 'heaving breast.'
(_Nota._--All breasts 'heave' in romances, as if they were Irishmen employed in coal-yards.)
'Why,' whispered she, softly, 'can I not find some one on whom I may lavish the treasures of affection that I have been hoarding for so many years?'
'There,' hissed she, spitefully, 'is that Henrietta Hoogeboom, not half so stylish as I am, and a miserable waltzer, and yet she is engaged!'
One young man, a foreigner from Tobolsk, encouraged by her bravos at his performances, did propose; but was indignantly refused. Old Mrs. Liner, who was a little à la Malaprop, said, crimson with rage, that she 'wouldn't make use of him as a foot-pad.' Had the youth from Tobolsk asked a few years later, he would have been accepted. A man can carry off any single woman, if he only chooses the right time. Drowning men are said to catch at straws. It may be so. We have never witnessed a drown, and cannot say: but spinsters about sinking into the vast profound of old-maidism do catch at straw men. This we can assert.
No good parti offered. Attention too began to be scanty. The world of beaux, empty-stomach'd as empty-hearted, rushed to her balls to enjoy the suppers, and to dance with newer belles. They were smiling but unsatisfactory. Now and then some eager débutant would claim her hand for a waltz, and lead her off in triumph, amid the sneers of the experienced. Pardon us, good friends, if we again recur to the romance, the _analyses_ of which we have been giving you: