I used to say Mamita would have called you Lady Viola; but violet colors and lilac colors are cousins, and they both suit your complexion and your name, Mamita Lila." After dinner, she began to play and sing with more gayety than she had manifested for many a day.

While her friend played, she practised several new dances with great spirit; and after she had kissed good-night, she went twirling through the door, as if music were handing her out.
Mrs.Delano sat awhile in revery.

She was thinking what a splendid marriage her adopted daughter might make, if it were not for that stain upon her birth.

She was checked by the thought: "How I have fallen into the world's ways, which seemed to me so mean and heartless when I was young! Was _I_ happy in the splendid marriage they made for _me_?
From what Flora lets out occasionally, I judge her father felt painfully the anomalous position of his handsome daughters.

Alas! if I had not been so weak as to give him up, all this miserable entanglement might have been prevented.