It appeared to her, in her own pleasure, her mission to illustrate to the rather subdued people about her what a good time really was, so that they could have it if they wanted it.

Her joy was crowned when March modestly professed himself unworthy to monopolize her, and explained how selfish he felt in talking to a young lady when there were so many young men dying to do so.
"Oh, pshaw, dyun', yes!" cried Mela, tasting the irony.

"I guess I see them!" He asked if he might really introduce a friend of his to her, and she said, Well, yes, if he thought he could live to get to her; and March brought up a man whom he thought very young and Mela thought very old.
He was a contributor to 'Every Other Week,' and so March knew him; he believed himself a student of human nature in behalf of literature, and he now set about studying Mela.

He tempted her to express her opinion on all points, and he laughed so amiably at the boldness and humorous vigor of her ideas that she was delighted with him.

She asked him if he was a New-Yorker by birth; and she told him she pitied him, when he said he had never been West.