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Book, page 211 / 224 public property for this one evening. The company was large, and their tastes were varied; so no pains had been spared to give them variety. You are acquainted with quite a number of the guests; yet I am by no means sure that you would recognize them all. Even in so short a period of time as three years, great changes may be elicited! For instance, do you know the young man in unnoticeable, and therefore appropriate, evening dress, who is doing duty at the piano, watching with practiced eye the course of the player, and turning the leaf with skilful hand at just the right moment? It is a somewhat embarrassing position; but his manner leads you to suppose that he has been accustomed to it all his life, and that he reads music well. In the latter belief you are correct; but as to being accustomed to it--three years ago Nimble Dick could have told you a different story! You can't believe that it is he? I do not wonder. The change is certainly a great one; but he does not feel it. To tell you the truth, he almost forgets, when he becomes absorbed in his work, that this sort of society was not always open to him. Three years means a long time to the young; and Richard Bolton has so long been accustomed to the freedom of Mrs. Roberts' parlors, and to the sort of people whom one finds there, that none of the refinements of polite life are strange to him; and as to turning music, has he not done it for his hostess numberless times? If your eyes are now opened, it is possible that you may be trying to spy out other young men. The rooms are full of them, elegantly-dressed, fashionable young men; but a few are noticeable by the air which they have of being in a sense responsible for the comfort of the others. They are on the alert; they are taking care that no young guest shall appear for a moment to be forgotten or neglected. They appear to be entirely familiar with the house and all its appointments. They can be appealed to for a glass of water or an ice, or to know what special scene this landscape hanging over the mantel represents, or whose bust this is in the niche at the left, or in what portion of the library a certain book will be found, or from what part of the foreign world that strangely-shaped shell came, and they are all equally at home. In short, it is like having a dozen or twenty young hosts to look after your comfort and pleasure. In point of fact, there are seventeen of them. The
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