"I have been through all this, Nina," said the latter, with a melancholy shake of her head, "and I know the vanity of it."

"Well, aunty, I haven't been through it, so I don't know."

"Yes, my dear, when I was of your age, I used to go to balls and parties, and could think of nothing but of dress and admiration. I have been through it all, and seen the vanity of it."

"Well, aunt, I want to go through it, and see the vanity of it, too. That's just what I'm after. I'm on the way to be as sombre and solemn as you are, but I'm bound to have a good time first. Now, look at this pink brocade!"

Had the brocade been a pall, it could scarcely have been regarded with a more lugubrious aspect.

"Ah, child! such a dying world as this! To spend so much time and thought on dress!"

"Why, Aunt Nesbit, yesterday you spent just two whole hours in thinking whether you should turn the breadths of your black silk dress upside down, or down side up; and this was a dying world all the time. Now, I don't see that it is any better to think of black silk than it is of pink."

This was a view of the subject which seemed never to have occurred to the good lady.

"But now, aunt, do cheer up, and look at this box of artificial flowers. You know I thought I'd bring a stock on from New York. Now, aren't these perfectly lovely? I like flowers that mean something. Now, these are all imitations of natural flowers, so perfect that you'd scarcely know them from the real. See—there, that's a moss-rose; and now look at these sweet peas, you'd think they had just been picked; and, there—that heliotrope, and these jessamines, and those orange-blossoms, and that wax camellia."—

"Turn off my eyes from beholding vanity!" said Mrs. Nesbit, shutting her eyes, and shaking her head:—

"'What if we wear the richest vest,—

Peacocks and flies are better drest;

This flesh, with all its glorious forms,

Must drop to earth, and feed the worms.'"

"Aunt, I do think you have the most horrid, disgusting set of hymns, all about worms, and dust, and such things!"

"It's my duty, child, when I see you so much taken up with such sinful finery."

"Why, aunt, do you think artificial flowers are sinful?"

"Yes, dear; they are a sinful waste of time and money, and take off our mind from more important things."

"Well, aunt, then what did the Lord make sweet peas, and roses, and orange-blossoms for? I'm sure it's only doing as he does, to make flowers. He don't make everything gray, or stone-color. Now, if you only would come out in the garden, this morning, and see the oleanders, and the crape myrtle, and the pinks, the roses, and the tulips, and the hyacinths, I'm sure it would do you good."

"Oh, I should certainly catch cold, child, if I went out doors. Milly left a crack opened in the window, last night, and I've sneezed three or four times since. It will never do for me to go out in the garden; the feeling of the ground striking up through my shoes is very unhealthy."