good does it do? I have maintained a high protective tariff; there is
nothing tangible which he can produce against me; there is never any
thing which he can _say_ against me; and if I have been ordinarily
skillful and cautious there is absolutely nothing for him to
_think_, but "How good she has been to me; how delicately,
tenderly, she has tried to avoid giving me pain!"

At the start, my first season out, it was a hard policy to follow, and I
would often spend a sleepless hour, after the man had said "good-night!"
But those foolish old days have gone, and with them the early freshness
of my youth, although the _appearance_ remains. I have seen so many
men promptly revive beneath the showers of another woman's glance
and of another woman's tender--perhaps like mine--unmeant words, mere
platitudes, platitudes effectual, intangible. They are not sufficient
proof in any court of conscience, law, or public opinion. They are the
glorious privileges of a woman who is a Private Corporation,

=Flirting for Revenue Only=.


Robert Fairfield! There is a magic something in the very name itself.
And the man! ah, after all, old things are best. My heart never knew a
sensation--the quick, throbbing something which we call _love_--until
I met him, when hardly more than a school-girl. It was my first winter!
He was young, attractive, somewhat wild, and quite the _fashion_
that year, and in fact ever since. He is a dainty love-maker. He is
ready with a hundred delicate little attentions unknown to most men,
and highly gratifying to most women. But after all their influence is
limited--at least with me. His actual presence is necessary. Mamma
opposed the match--for we were engaged (never announced) at one time.