visitors each brought with them their own cup; and, seeing our party at the fountain with no cups in their hands, with eager politeness, several of the guests offered theirs, saying, “Do not drink out of any cup but mine! This is the only description of cup proper to be used."

This earnestness caused them to pause. It seemed that there must be some reason for this strange variety of sentiment; and they held aloof from accepting any one's cup, wishing an expla

nation.

"Does it make any difference, sir?" asked Annie of a gentleman in middle life, who held to her a crystal goblet of singular beauty.

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Certainly, madam!" he replied, "all the difference possible! This water has the property of receiving, as well as imparting; and, if you drink out of my cup, the water becomes instantly medicated, and is altogether different in its action upon the brain and stomach."

"Is it possible!" exclaimed Oliver. "Well, that is something new, indeed."

The guests, who had now collected around our friends, all affirmed the fact; and there arose a discussion about the cause of these phenomena, and why their cups were the only cups to be used.

"Will you please explain to us what this means?" asked Frank of the gentleman whose goblet Annie held, and who introduced himself as Professor Reinhard. This gentleman, who spoke English with great ease, though not without a foreign accent, went into quite a history of the manufacture of the cups in vogue. Those in the highest repute among the learned were the pure

THE MAGICAL CUPS USED.

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German alumine, of which there were many manufacturers, all of them famous men. These cups were more porous than any other. They imbibed the stench better, and gave to the palate the water divested of all that was noisome, and in crystal purity, charged with an exhilarating gas, delicious to the taste when, by long practice, the palate had been duly cultivated to perceive its Vulgar people," said the professor, "never like these German goblets, for reasons which can have no weight with persons of true refinement and education; and it is only to such," said he, bowing, "I ever present my cup."

sweetness.

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There was no resisting this; and Annie put the goblet to one of the swan's bills, and it was surprising to see the effervescence which changed the bilge-water into a white foam. This was drank while in the act of bubbling into pearls. They all drank out of the professor's cup, but were troubled for an hour afterwards with eructations of gas, and a feeling of being light-headed.

After they had drank of the professor's cup, other guests pressed them to drink out of theirs; but, for that time, they declined. They thought they had had enough. However, during their stay, they were tempted to drink out of various cups offered to them. There was a very nice cup from the Eclectic manufactory of Cousin, a Parisian article, very pretty and artistic; another style, a sort of Wedgewood ware, bore the name of Newman and Company, London. The meanest and poorest of all the cups (and these were most in use, because they were to be had at a low price) were manufactured by Parker, Emerson, and Co. Professor Reinhard and other Germans were very much offended that these people should palm off their miserable claptraps as their own original inventions. These Parker & Co.

cups were so offensive, at times, that new beginners had to hold their noses while they drank the water out of them.

That we may finish up matters as they are presented, we will here say our lady pilgrims had a taste all round, and soon became satisfied. Oliver was soon done for. Frank was inclined to think he should get over the repugnance; but it was rather because a very lovely girl of Bostonia insisted upon his drinking out of her cup. Even her beauty, however, could not make the water palatable; and they all resigned the fountains to those who found them to their taste.

CHAPTER XV. .

THE WIDOW FITZALLEN, AND HER NEIGHBOR MR. JOHN THOMPSON.

AMONG the guests at the same hotel they found an acquaintance and neighbor in Mrs. Fitzallen, a handsome widow of thirty, whose residence in Vanity Fair was on the opposite side of the street to theirs. Mrs. Fitzallen was most happy to welcome them as a neighbor on the same floor, and in the same wing of the hotel.

Mrs. Fitzallen's husband, in the midst of a career of successful speculations, died suddenly, and left his wife with two children, and an estate greatly involved; so that the fashionable circles confidently predicted that this lady would very soon subside into the obscurity out of which she had been raised by

MRS. FITZALLEN AND MR. THOMPSON.

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her husband's success. There were those who hoped it would take place at an early day; for she was in very dangerous proximity to Mr. John Thompson, a man of forty-five, of large wealth, whose wife was certain to die some time of consumption. The sympathy of Miss Sophronisba T'nipnose, of Mrs. Bates, and others, for the health of Mrs. John Thompson, was of the most perfectly disinterested character; and, if jellies could keep her alive, she would be in no immediate danger of dying.

But Mrs. Fitzallen had the important advantage of propinquity. The houses joined in front, and the garden-grounds were separated only by a wire fence, which was elastic, and admitted of being crept under by lifting up the lines of wire. All this was carefully noted by ladies who had no other concern than what was suspended on the life of dear Mrs. Thompson. One thing was greatly to the credit of Mrs. Fitzallen. She never was seen there; nor was there a single jelly, as these ladies well knew, to be seen in the sick chamber of Mrs. John Thompson, from Mrs. Fitzallen. But they did not know of the methods Mrs. Fitzallen took of enlisting Mr. John Thompson in the settlement of her estate, and the nicest tête-a-tête oyster-suppers that rewarded him for all his pains-taking. Mrs. Thompson, like a fortress beleaguered, held out in a manner that was beyond all endurance; and Mrs. Fitzallen, on the opening of the spring, determined, for her part, to come out to the Brunnens, if perchance she might meet with some one as eligible as Mr. Thompson, without his embarrassments.

We have here related what she, in her frank manner, with wonderful skill at showing up her rivals, told our party, one evening, as they sat in their parlor; and people do find it some

times such a relief to tell all they have kept for a lifetime pent

"You will find, here, my dear ladies," said Mrs. Fitzallen, to our lady pilgrims, on her first visit to their most attractive parlor, the next morning after their arrival, in reply to a question of Annie, "a great many women and men who don't believe anything nothing at all; and yet they are often at swords' points, because, in getting down to the dead-level of scepticism, they travel by ways of their own choosing. Can anything be more absurd?"

"I think," said Annie, "I have a sort of consciousness that this is so; but, then, I have only seen the surface of society here, as yet."

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O, you will find it out by and by," said Mrs. Fitzallen. "Their Conversaziones' are, of all things, stupid. These are held every Friday evening, when the inspired give forth their ' utterances,' as they call sayings, in words which are as unintelligible as those of Delphi. Those ancient sibyls could never have been more pretentious and oracular."

"Pretentious!" said Annie.

"Ah, yes, that's the word. It vexed me to see Oliver and Frank, last evening, listen by the hour to those Bostonia girls talking the most sublime nonsense; and they all attention, only because these are sweet-pretty young ladies, and have such sweet manners and, too, a good deal of coquetry."

Oliver and Frank entered with the newspapers which came in by the morning's mail, from Vanity Fair; and the servant-maid of Mrs. Fitzallen brought her a letter, which she asked leave to open.

'O, here is a letter from Mrs. Bates!" cried Mrs. Fitzallen,