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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Phemie Frost's Experiences, by Ann S. Stephens
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Phemie Frost's Experiences
+
+Author: Ann S. Stephens
+
+Release Date: October 13, 2009 [EBook #30245]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHEMIE FROST'S EXPERIENCES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roberta Staehlin and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+Unexpected and alternative spelling, hyphenation, capitalisation
+punctuation, possible typographer's errors and omitted words, and
+incorrectly numbered chapters and page numbers have been retained
+as they appear in the original publication.
+
+
+
+
+PHEMIE FROST'S EXPERIENCES.
+
+BY
+
+MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS.
+
+AUTHOR OF "FASHION AND FAMINE," "REJECTED WIFE," "OLD HOMESTEAD," ETC.,
+ETC., ETC.
+
+    NEW YORK:
+
+    _G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers._
+
+    LONDON: S. LOW, SON & CO.
+
+    M.DCCC.LXXIV.
+
+
+    Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by
+    G. W. CARLETON & CO.,
+    In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
+
+
+    Maclauchlan,
+    Stereotyper and Printer, 56, 58 and 60 Park Street, New York.
+
+
+
+
+    To
+
+    FRANK LESLIE, ESQ.,
+
+    ONE OF THE BEST-TRIED AND MOST VALUED FRIENDS I HAVE,
+
+    _THIS VOLUME_,
+
+    THE LIGHT AMUSEMENT OF MY LEISURE HOURS,
+
+    IS
+
+    Respectfully Dedicated.
+
+    ANN S. STEPHENS.
+
+    ST. CLOUD HOTEL,         }
+    NEW YORK, _March_, 1874. }
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+    Thistle down, thistle down, cast to the wind
+      So lightly and wildly, you scarcely can find
+    A glimpse of it here, or a gleam of it there,
+      As it trembles, a silvery mist, on the air.
+
+    Like the wide thorny leaves whence the mother root threw
+      Up its crown of rich purple, bejewelled with dew,
+    These feathery nothings, barbed, sparsely, with seeds,
+      Must struggle for life with the brambles and weeds.
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+     CHAPTER                                             PAGE
+
+
+           I.--Leaving Home.                               11
+
+          II.--Phœmie's First Visit.                       25
+
+         III.--About Girls.                                28
+
+          IV.--More About Girls.                           33
+
+           V.--Poor Children.                              39
+
+          VI.--He Has Come.                                41
+
+         VII.--The French Dress-maker.                     45
+
+        VIII.--The Genuine Madame.                         48
+
+          IX.--Ready to Land.                              51
+
+           X.--Down the Bay.                               54
+
+          XI.--The Grand Duke.                             57
+
+         XII.--Tickets for the Ball.                       60
+
+        XIII.--The Grand Duke's Ball.                      63
+
+         XIV.--The Natural History Philanthropist.         67
+
+          XV.--Christmas in New York.                      74
+
+         XVI.--The Night Before Christmas.                 78
+
+        XVII.--Early Service.                              81
+
+       XVIII.--High Church.                                84
+
+         XIX.--Christmas Morning.                          88
+
+          XX.--About Lions.                                90
+
+         XXI.--Dining in the Dark.                         95
+
+        XXII.--New Year's Day.                             99
+
+       XXIII.--The New Year's Reception.                  102
+
+        XXIV.--Mignon: A Night at the Grand Opera.        108
+
+         XXV.--The Black Crook.                           114
+
+        XXVI.--Living Apart.                              120
+
+       XXVII.--More About Fisk.                           124
+
+      XXVIII.--She Would Go.                              128
+
+        XXIX.--Mr. Greeley's Birthday Party.              132
+
+         XXX.--Leap Year.                                 135
+
+        XXXI.--A Man that Wouldn't Take Money.            140
+
+       XXXII.--A Democratic Lunch.                        144
+
+      XXXIII.--Dempster Proposes a Trip.                  149
+
+       XXXIV.--In Washington.                             152
+
+        XXXV.--Getting Information.                       157
+
+       XXXVI.--The Liederkranz Ball.                      161
+
+      XXXVII.--How Did the Papers Know?                   165
+
+     XXXVIII.--Reception of the Japanese.                 168
+
+       XXXIX.--The Japanese.                              171
+
+          XL.--That Diplomatic Stag Party.                174
+
+         XLI.--The Dinner.                                179
+
+        XLII.--In the Basement of the Capitol.            182
+
+       XLIII.--Phœmie Dines with a Senator.               186
+
+        XLIV.--Marble Halls.                              191
+
+         XLV.--Randolph Rogers' Bronze Doors.             194
+
+        XLVI.--Was it a Meeting-house?                    197
+
+       XLVII.--Easter.                                    201
+
+      XLVIII.--A Church Higher Yet.                       204
+
+        XLIX.--Easter Sunday.                             206
+
+           L.--That Man with the Lantern.                 211
+
+          LI.--Mrs. Grant's Reception.                    215
+
+         LII.--Representative Women.                      220
+
+        LIII.--A Literary Party.                          223
+
+         LIV.--Dressing for a Party.                      227
+
+          LV.--Foreign Ministers.                         230
+
+         LVI.--Good Clothes.                              237
+
+        LVII.--The Party of the Season.                   241
+
+       LVIII.--Down the Potomac.                          245
+
+         LIX.--Mount Vernon.                              250
+
+          LX.--Mr. Greeley's Nomination.                  253
+
+         LXI.--Women and Things.                          258
+
+        LXII.--A Trip to Annapolis.                       263
+
+       LXIII.--Among the Cadets.                          267
+
+        LXIV.--American Authors.                          271
+
+         LXV.--The Statue of Shakespeare.                 275
+
+        LXVI.--Racing Dresses.                            279
+
+       LXVII.--The First Horse-race.                      282
+
+      LXVIII.--Off Again.                                 288
+
+        LXIX.--The Steeple-chase.                         293
+
+         LXX.--Preparing for Sea.                         296
+
+        LXXI.--Yacht-racing.                              300
+
+       LXXII.--Music that is Music.                       304
+
+      LXXIII.--Hubbishness.                               306
+
+       LXXIV.--Thunders of Music.                         308
+
+        LXXV.--Saratoga Trunks.                           312
+
+       LXXVI.--The Dolly Varden.                          314
+
+      LXXVII.--Starting for Long Branch.                  320
+
+     LXXVIII.--That Hair-trunk.                           323
+
+       LXXIX.--At the Branch.                             326
+
+        LXXX.--The Race-course.                           328
+
+       LXXXI.--Climbing Sea Cliff.                        332
+
+      LXXXII.--Fighting for the Body.                     335
+
+     LXXXIII.--Lions and Lambs.                           337
+
+      LXXXIV.--Experiences.                               240
+
+       LXXXV.--The Second Day.                            342
+
+      LXXXVI.--The Blacksmith's Conversion.               347
+
+     LXXXVII.--That Ovation of Fire.                      352
+
+    LXXXVIII.--Let Him Go.                                359
+
+      LXXXIX.--Done Up in a Hurry.                        362
+
+          XC.--The Yellow Flag.                           367
+
+         XCI.--The Man that Saved Me.                     370
+
+        XCII.--Pleasure Bay.                              375
+
+       XCIII.--Netting Crabs.                             379
+
+        XCIV.--Extra Politeness.                          384
+
+         XCV.--The Clam-bake.                             387
+
+        XCVI.--That Clam-bake.                            390
+
+       XCVII.--One Hour of Heaven.                        392
+
+      XCVIII.--C. O. D.                                   309
+
+        XCIX.--Taken In.                                  404
+
+
+
+
+PHÅ’MIE FROST'S EXPERIENCES.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+LEAVING HOME.
+
+
+I have made up my mind. Having put my hand to the plough, it isn't in me
+to back out of a duty when duty and one's own wishes sail amicably in
+the same canoe. I am going to give myself up to the good of mankind and
+the dissemination of great moral ideas.
+
+Selected by the Society of Infinite Progress as its travelling
+missionary, with power to spread the most transcendental of New England
+ideas throughout the world, I shall take up my cross and go forth.
+
+The evening after the Society had crowned me with this honor, I asked
+Aunt Kesiah and Uncle Ben Frost, who have been working the farm on
+shares ever since my father died, if they could not make out to do
+without me for some months, or weeks, or years, just as duty or my own
+feelings took a notion to stay.
+
+Aunt Kesiah sat right down in the rocking-chair, and looked straight in
+my face for a whole minute without speaking.
+
+"What," says she at last, "going away from home at your age--a female
+woman all alone in the world! You and the Society just take my breath
+away, Phœmie. Where on arth are you a going to?"
+
+"Well," says I, "it seems to be my duty to seek a field where there is
+the most sin and iniquity a going on, where dishonesty rides
+rampagnatious as a roaring lion, and fashion flaunts herself like a
+peacock with moons in every tail feather. First of all, the field of my
+duty lies in York, that Babylon of cities."
+
+"But whose a going to bear the expenses?" says Uncle Ben, who always was
+'cute as a miser about money matters. "Duty is sumtimes rayther
+expensive."
+
+"The Society," answers I. "The members are a picking up produce now, I
+shan't go empty-handed on my mission. All the members are wide awake
+about that. Crops have been first-rate."
+
+"Yes," says Uncle Ben, "I give in there."
+
+"And hens never laid better since chickens were hatched," continued I.
+
+"Jes' so," says Aunt Kesiah, "if the pesky creturs wouldn't run off and
+hide their nests."
+
+"Hams are plenty, smoked beef ditto, to say nothing of dried apples. I
+mean to sell everything at a profit and settle accounts with the
+Society."
+
+"I reckon you'll get cut short; up to this time there has bin lots of
+talking in that Society. When it comes to giving--but never mind--we
+shall see!"
+
+"There, there, Benjamin, don't you go to pouring cold water on our
+Phœmie's missionary work. She is sot on going, so let her go."
+
+"Is she sot?" says Uncle Ben, looking at me sort of anxious.
+
+"Yes," says I, "my face is turned to the mark of the prize of the high
+calling."
+
+"Jes' so," says Uncle Ben, "got your hand on the prow with a hard grip?
+That being the fact, old woman, the best thing is for you to lend a
+helping hand and send her off comfortably. She can try anyhow, though I
+have a notion that the world has got to be so wicked since the war, that
+one female woman--"
+
+"Girl!" says I.
+
+"Well, girl--may fall short of regenerating the hull of it all to once.
+Still there is no knowing what any one can do till they try."
+
+"When do you lay out to start?" says Aunt Kesiah, all in a flutter.
+
+"Right off," says I.
+
+"By land or water?"
+
+"Both," says I.
+
+"Oh, dear! what if you should get shipwrecked, and all the produce and
+garden sass with you!" says she.
+
+"There now, don't skeer the girl, Kesiah," says Uncle Ben. "The Sound
+don't rage to any great extent, neither are the engines alles a busting
+as a general thing."
+
+"Well, well, if she's sot on going, I'll do my best to help get her
+off," says Aunt Kesiah, and she goes right to putting lard in a kettle,
+and while it was a heating, rolled out a lot of doughnuts, which article
+of food she excels in. For two whole days that good soul devoted herself
+to making crullers, doughnuts, and turnover pies, as if she thought I
+should not find anything to eat till I got home again.
+
+Well, by and by the day came for me to start. That tea-party and a
+prayer-meeting at Deacon Pettibone's house was a season that none of us
+will ever forget. Mrs. Pettibone, our president, is a wonderfully gifted
+woman, and that night she seized right hold of the horns of the altar
+and fairly beat herself. Oh, sisters, it was a touching time when I
+drove with Uncle Ben through Sprucehill a bowing from one window to
+another, for every member of the Society seemed to rush heart and soul
+to the windows; and when I found your executive committee on that
+platform, the tears that had been standing in my eyes just burst out and
+overflowed my soul.
+
+There I sat on my trunk in your midst, with a bandbox at my feet, and a
+new satchel, large, plump, and shiny, in my hand, ready to start, but
+feeling the responsibility of my trust, and the danger of a young girl
+going forth into the world all alone. No wonder some of you thought I
+should give up and take my hand from the plough. It was a trying
+situation. I felt it; I suffered; but, knowing that the eyes of all
+Sprucehill were upon me, I was firm. Yes, even when Aunt Kesiah placed
+that satchel in my lap, and told me with tears in her eyes to take
+special care of it, for she did not know what I should do if it got
+lost.
+
+She said this so loud, and with such deep sobs, that a tall gentleman
+who stood on the platform with a satchel in his hand, seemed to be
+greatly affected by the touching scene, and kept close to us till the
+train come lumbering and snorting in.
+
+Then, sisters, you remember how we fell upon each other's neck, and wept
+and kissed each other, then tore apart. How I went weeping into the cars
+leaving the satchel behind, and how Uncle Ben pushed it through the
+window, telling me to be awful careful of its precious contents so loud
+that everybody heard, and I have no doubt wondered how many thousand
+dollars it held. Well, the contents of that bag were miscellaneously
+precious. I had seen Aunt Kesiah pack it, with a feeling that made me
+homesick before I left the old farm. Doughnuts, crullers, turn-over
+pies, with luscious peach juice breaking through the curves. A great
+hunk of maple sugar, another of dried beef, some cheese, and a pint
+bottle of cider. It nearly broke Aunt Kesiah's heart because she
+couldn't top things off with a pot of preserves, but I wasn't sorry,
+thinking they might be unhandy to carry.
+
+Well, I took the satchel, set it upon my lap, and looked out of the
+window at you all, as well as I could for crying, till the train gave a
+jerk that made my teeth rattle, and moved on.
+
+When I lost sight of you, sisters, I felt awfully lonesome and almost
+'fraid to trust myself among so many masculine men as filled the cars.
+Being an unprotected female, with a certain amount of promiscuous
+property in my charge, I felt a commercial and moral responsibility that
+weighed down my shoulders till I felt like a camel with an enormous load
+to carry.
+
+Had I been travelling with nothing but my own self to take care of, the
+sense of responsibility would have been less; but I could not help
+thinking that the dignity of our Society was in my keeping, and the
+anxieties of all Sprucehill followed me swifter than the cars could run
+or the snorting engine draw. So I pulled my dust-colored veil tight
+over my face, and, with my feet planted firm on the floor, sat
+bolt-upright, holding the satchel on my lap with both hands, kind of
+shivering for fear some man might attempt to sit down by me. I couldn't
+think of this without feeling as if I should sink right through the red
+velvet cushions that I sat on.
+
+I was so anxious that my heart jumped right into my mouth when that man
+I had seen on the platform come my way. While he was looking around, the
+breath stood still on my lips, and I gave my satchel a grip which would
+have hurt it if such things have any feeling. I have no doubt that the
+austerity of my countenance scared all the rest of them off, for most of
+'em passed on, after giving me a regretful glance; but when he come in
+swinging his new satchel, so independent, I moved a little; for I knew
+he was a gentleman by the way he wore his hat--clear back on his
+head--by the great seal, with a red stone in it, on his finger, and by
+the heavy gold chain swinging across his breast.
+
+When I saw this man's eyes fixed on my seat so beseeching, I kind of
+moved a little more and then let my eyes droop downward, determined not
+to help his presumptuous design to sit by me a single bit.
+
+"Thank you," says he, sitting down close to me, and chucking his satchel
+under the seat. "If there is a superior person in the car, I'm certain
+to have the luck and the honor to sit beside her. Some people prefer to
+look out of the window, but I would rather gaze on a sweet, pretty face,
+by a long shot--especially if it does not belong to a girl with airs."
+
+I felt myself blushing all over at this delicate compliment, and
+observed, with becoming diffidence and great originality, that "beauty
+was only skin-deep at the best, and not by any manner of means to be
+compared with Christian piety and high intellect."
+
+The man--he was a stalwart, handsome man; not pursey like Deacon
+Pettibone, nor slim to bean-poleishness like the circuit preachers that
+live about, and only pick up a little roundness at camp-meetings; but
+tall, and what young ladies call imposing. Well, the man gave me another
+long look at this, and says he:
+
+"But when all these things jibe in together so beautifully, who is to
+say which it is that captivates a man's fancy? Not I. It is my weakness
+to take lovely woman into the core of my heart as a whole; but, if there
+is one quality that I prize more than another, it is piety."
+
+I blushed with thrilling consciousness of the grace that has been in me
+so long that it has become a part of my being; but his praise did not
+satisfy me. One hates to take sweet things in driblets, with a spoon,
+when the soup-ladle is handy.
+
+"Piety is a thing to be had for praying, fasting, and unlimited
+devotion. Anybody can have it who grapples the horn of the altar in
+deadly earnest. In short, if there is anything that everybody on earth
+has a right to, it's religion. The only aristocracy there is about it,
+comes when one reaches the high point of perfect sanctification--a state
+that some people do reach, though it is sometimes so difficult to point
+out the particular person."
+
+"Ah, indeed!" said he. "But I have penetration, madam, great
+penetration. Do not torture your sensitive modesty by an attempt to
+conceal extraordinary perfection from one who can so fully appreciate
+it, and who grieves to say how uncommon it is."
+
+I said nothing, but dropped my eyes, and sat up straighter than ever.
+
+"Permit me," says my polite fellow-traveller, gently laying his hand on
+my satchel; "this is too heavy for the lap of a delicate female.
+Supposing we place it side by side with mine under the seat?"
+
+I held on to the satchel, afraid that he might mash one of the turn-over
+pies.
+
+"Do allow me. I really tremble to see a person so formed by nature borne
+down by such a weight," says my fellow-traveller, with great
+impressiveness. "It isn't to be thought of."
+
+"But--but I don't feel the weight so very much," says I, loosening my
+grip a trifle.
+
+"But, my dear madam, remember that the life and health of a person like
+you is of consequence to the whole universe. Remember the siotic nerve."
+
+"The what nerve?" says I.
+
+"Siotic," says he. "That nerve which is so tender in very pious people.
+They say that the Pope has been suffering agonies with it."
+
+"Dear me," says I, "is it anything mixed up with a heart disease?"
+
+"Not at all; it is a strain upon the great sensitive nerve that runs
+like a whip-cord from I don't know where down the back of the le--"
+
+Oh! sisters, he almost had that terrible word out, but I gave such a
+start and blushed so that he turned it right round on his tongue, and
+says he with great emphasis, "limb."
+
+"Oh!" says I, with a gasp of relief, "now you speak so that a modest New
+England woman can understand. So there is a nerve!"
+
+"Peculiarly susceptible in religious and intellectual persons," says he.
+
+"Running down the limb!" says I.
+
+"Both limbs," says he, "which a weight carried on the lap is sure to
+exasperate if it does not end in kinking up the siotic and crippling the
+l--limbs."
+
+"Are you a doctor?" says I.
+
+He smiled.
+
+"A sort of one," says he, and, without more words, he took my satchel
+and sat it down by his, under the seat, as sociable as could be.
+
+After that, he took hold of my hand, as if he was a-going to feel my
+pulse, looking sweetly anxious.
+
+"Is there a siotic there?" says I.
+
+He gave my hand a hard squeeze, and seemed to ruminate.
+
+"It takes a little time to discover," says he, half closing his eyes.
+"Be tranquil; there is no danger now. The arm has been in one position
+rather too long; change was necessary. But this is a change."
+
+Then he gave my hand another squeeze, and, leaning back, shut his eyes
+entirely.
+
+That minute the engine gave out a sharp yell that nearly scared me to
+death. The cars heaved a jerk and a jolt, the man on the platform sung
+out something, and before I could say Jack Robinson, my fellow-passenger
+made a dive under the seat, dragged out his satchel, and made for the
+door, bowing as he went, and hustling out something about its being his
+station.
+
+While I was a-staring after him with all the eyes in my head, the cars
+gave another jerk, and, splash-bang, away we went, so fast that the man
+scooting along that platform, waving his hand backwards, seemed to be
+swimming in fog.
+
+Sisters, I must say that a feeling of lonesomeness fell upon me after he
+went; his conversation had been so scientific and interesting that I
+felt the loss.
+
+Besides that, I felt a little hungry, and thought I'd take a bite of
+something to eat. So I stooped down, lifted the satchel to my lap, and
+tried to open it.
+
+The lock, it seemed to me, had got a stubborn twist, and wouldn't open;
+just then the conductor came along, and I gave him a pitiful look.
+
+"Please, sir, help me a little," says I; "it won't open all I can do."
+
+The conductor came forward, snatched hold of the satchel, and wrenched
+it open.
+
+"Thank you," says I, lifting my eyes to his gaze, and diving my hand
+down into the satchel, for I meant to give him a doughnut for his
+politeness; but instead of that luscious cake, my hands sank into a half
+peck of sawdust packed close in the satchel my fellow-passenger had left
+behind.
+
+"Look there," says I; "isn't it dreadful, and I an unprotected female?"
+
+"Was your money in the bag?" asks the conductor.
+
+"No," says I, putting one hand up to my bosom, to make sure it was safe.
+"I always keep my money where--no matter, the--the handsome upstart will
+have a splendid feast of turnovers and doughnuts, besides a lively drink
+of cider; but as for money, that is in a safe place."
+
+"And your ticket?"
+
+"That," says I, "not being private property, like money, is kept
+handier."
+
+With that, I took the ticket from inside of my glove and handed it to
+him.
+
+"All right," says he, "the scamp hasn't made so much of a haul as he
+expected."
+
+"But he'll have a sumptuous meal," says I, a little down in the mouth;
+for I was growing hungry, and not a bite left. Just then a boy came into
+the cars with a basketful of popped corn on his arm. It looked awfully
+tempting, for every kernel was turned wrong side out, white as snow. I
+bought a popped corn of the boy, and pacified myself with that till the
+cars stopped ten minutes, where there was a mean chance to get something
+more substantial to eat. I went in with the crowd, helter skelter;
+wrestled my way to a long counter, got a cup of tea which I swallowed
+scalding hot, and, after a hard struggle for it, carried a wedge of
+custard pie off with the palm of my hand for a plate, and skivered back
+to the cars, nibbling it as I ran; for the bell was ringing and the
+conductor yelling "all aboard!" so loud that half the passengers went
+back coughing and choking, and muttering some kind of wickedness as they
+went.
+
+Well, all the rest of my car ride was just like this, only once in a
+while a little more so, till I got onto the Sound. There a great large
+steamboat, a quarter of a mile long, took a part of us in, and carried
+us right out to sea.
+
+
+HELL GATE.
+
+I was just a little disappointed in that roaring element. The air that
+came above it was salty and light, and the waves sparkled beautifully,
+but they did not rage worth a cent. Still the shores away off on both
+sides looked dreamy, and we cut through the water so swift that it made
+me dizzy.
+
+Two or three stylish sort of men seemed as if they were hankering to
+speak to me as I sat there all alone on deck; but I didn't seem to see
+it, and they contented themselves with looking at me as if I was the
+most cruel creature on earth; which I meant to be. The loss of one
+satchel full of doughnuts and things is as much as I can afford on one
+trip.
+
+By and by that part of the ocean we travelled on kept growing narrower
+and narrower, till you could see houses on both shores, and
+splendiferous houses they were, with great meadows a-sloping down to the
+water; tall trees shading them, and bushes growing together in clumps.
+Some were of stone, some of wood, with pointed roofs and cupolas, and
+great wide stoops, in which you could see people sitting and moving
+about. Some with spy-glasses in their hands, a-watching us sweep by them
+like a house afire.
+
+I felt lonesome and almost homesick, but for all that the sight was
+exhilarating--very.
+
+"Haven't we got almost to New York," says I to the captain; "it seems to
+me as if the sea was shutting in."
+
+"Oh, we are almost there," says he, "close on to Hell Gate now."
+
+"To what?" says I, almost hopping from the stool I sat on.
+
+"Hell Gate," says he.
+
+"Oh, mercy! you don't tell me it is so bad as that? I knew York was an
+awful wicked place, but I didn't think an innocent missionary would have
+to go in it through that gate!"
+
+"It is a little dangerous for sail crafts," says he, smiling, I suppose,
+to comfort me; "but you are safe. We shall go through with a rush."
+
+I caught my breath.
+
+"But supposing _He_ were on the watch?"
+
+"_He!_ Who?"
+
+"Don't ask me; I'd rather not mention his name, being a female who
+abhors profanity."
+
+All at once the captain's eyes began to sparkle as if he were just
+longing for a tussle with the evil one.
+
+"Don't be afraid," says he, "I reckon we shall make the gate without
+much trouble. The blasting won't stop us yet awhile."
+
+"Blasting?"
+
+"Yes; they'll have the all-firedest upheave there, before long, that
+ever tore a hole in the bottom of the sea."
+
+"Blasting! with fire and brimstone?"
+
+"And nitro-glycerine," says he, as calm as skim milk.
+
+"And you mean to take this big steamboat right through it with me on
+board?"
+
+He laughed right there in my frightened and pale face.
+
+"I really don't know any other way to reach New York," says he.
+
+"Let me ashore," says I, a starting up, "me and my hair-trunk; I don't
+care for the produce; it may serve to cool their tongues down there. But
+put me and my hair trunk on any land. It is all I ask."
+
+"It's impossible," says he.
+
+"But I won't go through that in--that awful gate," says I.
+
+"Why, we are in it now; don't you see the whirl of the waters?"
+
+"In it now. Oh, mercy!"
+
+I fell down upon my seat, and buried my face in my shawl, shaking from
+head to foot.
+
+Sisters, that cruel man laughed. O, how hardened he must have got, going
+through that sulphurious gate.
+
+"I say, madam, there is no danger, we are almost through now."
+
+"Is _he_ there? Have you seen anything of his blasting hosts?" says I
+under my breath. "Do they mean to fire up just yet?"
+
+"No, no, we are all safe. Quite through--New York is in sight."
+
+I let my shawl drop a little, and peeped out. There was no sign of a
+gale; the water was a little bubbly and rough, as if it had been rushing
+through a race-way, but that was all. That captain of ours must have
+been on good terms with the old serpent that keeps the gate, or he never
+could have got through so easy. Now that it was over, I almost wished I
+had found grit enough to see how it was done. As it was, my eyes were
+hid, and I did not even see the awful old gate.
+
+Well, at last I rose up slowly and looked forward. There was New York
+City, right before me; just one pile of roofs and walls with cupolas,
+pointed fronts, and steeples; looking through the smoky haze acres and
+acres of houses, miles and miles--a whole island laid down with stone.
+All around it, just as far as I could see, the water was thick with
+ships, steamboats, and small boats, all flying up and down and across,
+like living things, each with an errand of its own. There, along the
+edges of the city, was what seemed to me like a forest of dead trees,
+without a leaf or a sign of greenness upon them.
+
+"Well," says the captain, "you see that we have run the gate. Never been
+here before, I reckon?"
+
+"No, never," says I, "and hope I never shall be again."
+
+"I thought things seemed a little green," says he.
+
+"From the Green Mountains," says I.
+
+"Exactly," says he. "Well, how do you like the looks of the city?"
+
+"Hazy," says I; "dry as tinder. All stone walls, and too many dead trees
+about for my notion."
+
+"Dead trees? I have never seen any," says he, a-looking around.
+
+"Must be awful short-sighted," says I. "Just look down there; it is like
+a burnt faller."
+
+He looked ahead where my finger was pointing, and laughed right out.
+
+"Why, that is the shipping," says he.
+
+"Shipping," says I. "Don't tell me that! I wasn't brought up in the
+woods not to know tree trunks when I see them, dead or alive."
+
+"But I assure you those are the masts of vessels. You can see the hulls
+now."
+
+I did see the hulls, and felt dreadfully; what would the captain think
+of me! At once I looked up.
+
+"Yes," says I. "There is no question about it. Those are the hulls of
+ships, and the others are masts; but I was right."
+
+He laughed: "But you said they were dead trees."
+
+"Just so. Isn't a mast made out of a tree?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"And isn't the tree dead before it can be made into a mast?"
+
+"Why, yes," says he, and now it was his turn to be down in the mouth.
+
+"Well, then, isn't the edge of the water there chuck full of dead
+trees?"
+
+At first the captain sort of choked a little; but the next minute he
+burst out a laughing.
+
+"Do you want to know my opinion?" says he.
+
+"Well, rather," says I.
+
+"Well, it's this: Green Mountain or not, if anybody buys a certain lady
+I know of for a fool, he'll get awfully taken in."
+
+"Shouldn't wonder," says I.
+
+With that, I picked up my umbrella, tied my bonnet a little tighter,
+took my bandbox in one hand, and followed the crowd across a plank
+bridge, and got into about the dirtiest road that my foot ever trod on.
+
+"Want a carriage? Want a carriage?" I never saw men more polite than the
+drivers with whips were. It seemed as if they couldn't do enough for me.
+It really was a strife which should take me in his carriage. Their
+attentions really were flattering. It was like a welcome in this strange
+place.
+
+It was like being in a little room all cushioned seats and windows when
+I got into the great double carriage so kindly offered me.
+
+The cushions were soft as down, and gave so, when I seated myself, that
+I couldn't help catching my breath. "Where to," says the driver,
+a-leaning through the window.
+
+"First," says I, "if it won't be too much trouble, I will go somewhere
+and buy a new satchel; I really don't feel at home without one. Then you
+may take me to a boarding-house in Bleecker Street. You'll know where it
+is by inquiring about a little. The name is Smith, and they come from
+Vermont. Their daughter married and settled on Sprucehill. Smith. You
+can't help but find them."
+
+"Have you got a number?" says the man.
+
+"No," answers I, "only one family."
+
+"But the house."
+
+"No," says I again. "I haven't got any house, but the old homestead on
+Sprucehill."
+
+"But Bleecker is a long street."
+
+"Is it?"
+
+"And I must have a number."
+
+"Why, isn't one street of a name enough?" says I, getting out of
+patience. "What on earth do you want?"
+
+"I want the name of the people."
+
+"Smith."
+
+"And the number of the house they live in."
+
+"Oh, then, houses go by numbers, not names, here in York, do they? Stop
+a minute!"
+
+Here I took a slip of paper from my pocket-book which Smith's daughter
+had written, and gave it to him.
+
+"All right," says he, hopping up the wheel, and going to his seat. Then
+away we rolled, genteel as could be.
+
+I bought the satchel at a store we drove by, and then we went on and on
+and on, till at last he stopped before a brick house with a good deal of
+iron about it.
+
+The driver jumped down, ran up the steps, pulled a rusty knob fastened
+to the door stone, and faced round towards his horses.
+
+A girl I should consider as hired help opened the door.
+
+"Is Mrs. Smith at home?" says I, a-putting my head out of the window.
+
+"Yes," says she.
+
+"I'll get out," says I.
+
+The driver unfolded a lot of steps that had been hid away under the
+windows. I went down them with a genteel trip. The man had been so
+polite, I stopped to thank him.
+
+"Three dollars," says he, a holding out his hand.
+
+"Three dollars? What for?" says I, all in a flutter.
+
+"For bringing you here," says he. "Stopping on the way, and so on."
+
+"But you invited me."
+
+The fellow grinned, and held out his hand harder than ever. The help on
+top of the steps giggled.
+
+"Come, look sharp, I can't wait all day," says he, as pert as a fox.
+
+"Well," says I; "being an unprotected female in a strange place, I can't
+help myself, I guess; but they do sell politeness awful dear in York. It
+must be scarce."
+
+I gave him three dollars without another word, feeling like a robbed
+princess as I did it. Then I took the bandbox and new satchel in my
+hand, and walked into Smith's boarding-house, about the homesickest
+creature that ever bore a cross.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+PHÅ’MIE'S FIRST VISIT.
+
+
+Sisters:--Some of you must remember my cousin Emily Elizabeth Frost,
+that married a Dempster ten years ago when most of us were little mites
+of things sewing our over-and-over seams. She was a smart creature
+enough, and as her mother was a proper, nice woman, it was reasonable to
+hope that she could be depended on to bring up her children; for her
+father was a deacon in the church, and her mother just the salt of the
+earth. Well, as soon as I got settled in my boarding-house, I took it
+into my head to go and see Cousin Elizabeth. She hadn't been to Vermont
+lately, and I'd rather lost track of her; so I gave one morning to
+hunting her up.
+
+Some useful things can be found in a great city like this. Now, I tell
+you, amongst them is a great, fat dictionary, crowded full of names,
+where everybody that keeps a decent house sets down the number, which is
+a convenience for strangers like me.
+
+I found the name of Cousin Elizabeth's husband, who keeps a bank
+somewhere down town, the book said, and got into the first street car
+that went towards the Central Park. After a while I got out and hunted
+up the number, feeling awfully anxious, for the houses about there were
+what the papers call palatial--a word we have not much use for in our
+parts. I just stopped on the other side of the street and took a general
+survey before I attempted to go in, feeling more and more fidgety every
+minute, for that house just took me down with its sumptuousness. Such
+great windows, with one monstrous pane in a sash, and lace and silk and
+tassels shining through! The front was four stories high and ended off
+with the steepest roof you ever saw, just sloping back a trifle, and
+flattening off at the top, with windows in it, and all sorts of colors
+in the shingles, which they call "tiles" here. Then the stone steps
+wound up to a platform with a heavy stone railing on each side, and a
+great shiny door, sunk deep into the wall, was wide open, and beyond it
+was one of glass, frosted over like our windows on a snapping cold
+morning, and under my feet was a checkered marble floor. I found the
+knob of a bell sunk into the door jamb, and pulled it a little, feeling
+half-scared to death. Then I just stepped in and waited in front of the
+glass door.
+
+A colored person of remarkably genteel appearance opened the door, and
+gave me a look from head to foot that riled the old Adam in my bosom;
+then he muttered something about the basement; but I put him down with
+just that one lift of my finger.
+
+"Is my cousin, Mrs. Dempster, at home?" says I.
+
+"I--I'll inquire," says he, as meek as Moses; "walk in."
+
+Walk in I did.
+
+"Have you a card?" says he.
+
+"No," says I; "as a general thing cards ain't desirable among relations,
+nor moral under any circumstances with religious friends. Say that Miss
+Frost is here--Miss Phœmie Frost, from the State of Vermont. No cards!"
+
+The fellow opened a door on one side of the hall, and I went through.
+Don't expect me to describe that room. It isn't in me to give the least
+idea of it. Great chunks of glass like the hub of a wheel, with crooked
+spokes of glass starting every way from it, and what seemed like
+hundreds of icicles falling from them, dropped down from the ceiling.
+When the negro opened the blinds and let in a drift of sunshine, they
+turned into a snarl of rainbows that fairly blinded me. Then there was a
+carpet soft as spring grass in a meadow, and bright as a flower-garden;
+chairs shining with gold and silk; marble women, white as milk, with not
+a thing on worth speaking of, and looking-glasses half as large as our
+spring ponds.
+
+I turned my looks away from the women without clothes, while that
+colored person was by; but gave them a skimpy peep or two the minute he
+was gone. Really, it was dreadful. I would not have believed such things
+of Cousin Elizabeth.
+
+Oh mercy on me! while I was looking, in came a gentleman, who bowed, and
+took a chair, and sat smiling on those creatures just as if he was used
+to it. Talk of blushing--my face was one blaze of fire.
+
+While I was wondering what I should do, a girl, or what ought to have
+been a little girl, came sidling into the room, gave me a look as if I'd
+been a dog in the wrong place, and went up to the gentleman.
+
+"Mamma will be down directly, and has sent me to entertain you," says
+she, shaking out her short skirts, and almost sitting down on the
+crimpy hair that half covered them behind. "Ah! I see you are admiring
+our crouching Venus. Lovely, isn't it? The curving lines are so perfect.
+The limbs--have you observed the foreshortening of that limb?"
+
+The foreshortening of that limb? Mercy on me, I couldn't stand it.
+Another minute and I should have boxed her ears, for all the blood that
+burned in my face went tingling down to my fingers. That was too much;
+so I up and said I would call again, and marched right out of the house.
+Girls indeed!
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+ABOUT GIRLS.
+
+
+Dear Sisters:--You ask a puzzling and painful question--What kind of
+girls do the children I write about make?
+
+My dear friends, girls--modest, rosy, bright-eyed school-girls, such as
+you are a-thinking of--are scarce as hen's teeth in this great city, and
+not to be found in profuseness anywhere. They went out with pink calico
+sun-bonnets, and ain't likely to come in again yet awhile, I tell you!
+Republican institutions can be carried to a great extent; and our young
+ones have found it out, and trample down all the good, wholesome old
+fashions before their little feet quite get out of baby shoes. At this
+moment I can't find a girl of twelve years old that don't know a
+thousand times more than her mother, and wouldn't attempt to teach law
+to her father if he was a judge in the Supreme Court. Yet, it's a
+shocking truth, the little upstarts don't know how to read like
+Christians, or spell half their words. The tip-top fashionable
+school-marms here are quite above teaching such common things as reading
+and spelling, and turn up their noses at any study that hasn't some
+"ology" or "phy" at the end of it.
+
+I should just like to have a string of the girls that walk in squads up
+and down the Fifth Avenue, with short dresses and hair streaming loose
+down their backs, in a district school-house, with no books but
+Webster's Spelling-book and the Columbian Reader. Wouldn't I astonish
+them with science? I guess they would understand the meaning of a
+spelling-class by the time I got through with 'em!
+
+As for arithmetic, they don't know what it is in these high-falutin
+seminaries; mathematics is the word; A B roots and squaring circles, as
+if circles ever would be square. Of course they can't, having been tried
+and kept round as an O all the time. But these A's and B's, and roots
+and such like, are considered as arithmetic for girls here; so the end
+of it is, they can, maybe, tell you how many square feet there are in a
+building lot, but couldn't add up ten shillings to save their lives; of
+course they forget how to estimate the square feet for want of having
+unlimited building lots to work on, while the washing bill and girl's
+wages and such things, come up every day all through their lives.
+
+What _do_ girls learn at the schools?
+
+Oh, a mighty deal that some good women pass half through a lifetime
+without knowing, and are just as likely as not all the better for it.
+Some of the lessons are paid for, and some are given free gratis for
+nothing by the scholars to each other, and what some of them don't know
+in the way of flirting, drooping the eyes, and things you never dreamed
+of, ain't worth keeping secret.
+
+"A little leaven leavens the whole lump." That passage has always
+relieved my feelings about the old patriarchs; for it's a proof that
+they and their families had raised bread in those old Bible times; and
+light bread, even if saleratus has to be used, is a blessing on the
+domestic hearth. For that reason, I'm astonished that bread-making is
+left to men-bakers here in York. But this passage sometimes puts you in
+mind of something beside turnpike emptins. I should like to promulgate
+some genuine old-fashioned ideas into these tip-top schools, where one
+bold, forward girl with unwholesome ideas in her head, would set them
+working like leaven in every innocent young soul in the seminary.
+Somehow, more or less, girls always do manage to give a good deal of
+knowledge that isn't set down in the bill, though that is generally long
+enough, goodness knows.
+
+I wish you could see one of these bills with the extras. Now in our
+district schools, there isn't much chance for the scholars to get over
+intimate. They don't sleep and eat and work together, like canary birds
+crowded in one cage and huddled together on one roost; the weak don't
+catch the faults of the strong, and if they did, the free breezes of our
+hills would sweep them away before the poison struck in. Flirtations do
+not become a science with them before they can spell "baker," and they
+don't often learn such things from their New England mothers, anyhow.
+
+Well, I would give a good deal to see a genuine girl who did not think
+herself a marvel of superior knowledge at twelve, or had not plunged
+into a heart disease at the sight of some hotel lounger at fourteen. I
+tell you, sisters, these young creatures have too much liberty; they
+have no wholesome growth either of body or mind. They know too much at
+fifteen, and will know a great deal too little at forty.
+
+The girl of twelve--which is about the age you are thinking of--has a
+great deal more assurance than some of our church members at fifty. Baby
+boys and girls haven't gone quite out of fashion, but they are getting
+scarcer every year, people tell me; and regular-built, wholesome
+children are as hard to find here as green gooseberries in October. I've
+seen plenty of little men and women, that couldn't speak plain to save
+their lives, dressed out like soldiers on a training day, with short
+frocks or tunics, and legs as bare as bare could be; but such boys and
+girls as we remember are not to be found anywhere nowadays, I tell you.
+
+What does all this mean? Just this: Mothers don't trust their young ones
+out of fashion long enough to grow. Besides, there isn't, only now and
+then, one who gets acquainted with her own child well enough to know
+what is good for it. Why, these city women would go crazy to see a
+little girl, six years old, swing upon a gate or riding horseback on a
+rusty old farm-horse, gripping the mane with both hands, and sending up
+shouts of fun if she happened to tumble off. Children, in the natural
+state, love water, like ducks and goslings. It used to be a sight to
+watch them, knee-deep in the brooks, with their tenty-tointy feet
+shining through the ripples, as they hunted for water-cresses and sweet
+flag-root; but catch one of your new-fangled young ones at anything with
+so much human nature in it. All the water they see is in the bottom of a
+bath-tub, rubbed on their skimpy limbs by an Irish girl's hands. Not the
+mother's. Oh, no! Care of one's own children is too much for a healthy
+young woman nowadays. Being a professor and member of a church, I want
+to speak accordingly, and just drop the mothers here. Christian language
+isn't up to the occasion.
+
+Well, as I was saying, the meanness of these mothers in hiving up their
+young ones and cheating 'em out of the very best years of life, is
+enough to make a saint mad. The rough-and-tumble season, which gives a
+child sound lungs, strong limbs, and a brain that thinks of nothing but
+high play, is just knocked out of their lives. It's an awful swindle on
+the poor little things, and I'm not afraid to say it openly and
+above-board here in my very first report.
+
+If I haven't a right to speak on this subject, I should like to know who
+has. That's all. I never had a child of my own, which is, perhaps,
+natural to a state of single blessedness, and so had plenty of time to
+make other people's children a speciality. Besides, haven't I kept
+district school, and boarded round enough to get an inside view of a
+good many family circles? Haven't I seen droves of young ones, in loose
+calico slips or cosey-fitting jackets and trousers, coming miles to
+school, only setting their dinner baskets down now and then to stone a
+squirrel, or climb up among the burrs of some great chestnut limb which
+offered to give them a ride to Boston or a trip to Canterbury.
+
+Dear me, I think I see them now running "like split," as they said, to
+catch up time, with such a lively color rushing through the tan on their
+faces, hats off, and sun-bonnets flying out by the strings.
+
+There, that's what I call childhood. You and I, sister, know something
+about it; now don't we? Do you remember that little red school-house
+where we learned our letters, and the old broken-limbed apple-tree
+behind it? No wonder the limbs got scraggly; they couldn't stand horse
+for a whole school, year after year, without some wear and tear, could
+they?
+
+Well, may be you and I owe to that old patriarch more than we know of.
+The apples were so sour the pigs wouldn't eat 'em, but they never hurt
+us. Then the limbs stretching out every which way--weren't they splendid
+to swing on, and in a hot day the shade was like a tent.
+
+You and I have been tough and hearty all our lives, just as like as not
+on account of that old tree and the long road home, and the pine woods
+it ran through, with the good wholesome samp and milk when we got there.
+There was generally a little red light in the sky from the sunset when
+we went to bed, and just a streak of rosy yellow when we got up, with
+dew enough on the grass to wash our faces in before breakfast.
+
+That's what I call life for a child; all out-doors for a playground,
+good, sound sleep, plenty of wholesome food, three times a day, and
+always hungry at that. Why, the few years after you begin to toddle, and
+before you learn to read, if you're properly let alone, are choke-full
+of happiness that ripples like a brook through your whole life. I say,
+once more, it's a sin and a shame to cheat a child out of that which is
+just God's portion of a human life.
+
+Now I ask you, isn't it probable, between you and I, that the Saviour
+picked out just such bright, happy little creatures as these, when He
+took 'em in His arms and blessed 'em, and said of such is the kingdom of
+heaven. If the apostles wanted to hunt up one of the kind now, they'd
+have to catch it in the cradle. Just think of bringing forward one of
+the little things we meet in the avenues here, to be held up as a
+monument--all flutings and lace, kid gaiters, pink and blue sashes, long
+white feathers, and parasols. Yes, believe it or not, I say parasols
+about the size of a poppy. Oh, don't mention it! The whole thing makes
+me sick. The children you meet here in York look like little barefooted
+scarecrows, or else like motto papers afloat.
+
+But are all the little folks you see painted like a dahlia, and pink as
+hollyhocks. You are asking this question in the Society. I know it.
+Well, I should rather think not. These whipper-snappers go tipping down
+the avenues, and ride with their mothers' lap-dogs in the Park,
+a-looking like their own French dolls, and are about as likely to make
+men and women.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+MORE ABOUT GIRLS.
+
+
+Sisters:--My cousin's little girl has just upset me. Remember she is my
+own flesh and blood; and genuine honest blood in Vermont is as pure as
+the sap in our maple-trees, and ought to keep sweet as the sugar we make
+from it, wherever it is found. Being my second cousin in her own right,
+I expected to find her a model of what the rising generation ought to
+be, and went to that house, exalting myself accordingly. I shall find,
+thought I, a genteel, modest, seemly little lady, polite, and cordially
+glad to see a relative that wants to love her and exalt her into a
+pattern and a monument of female promise. But instead of that, just
+read my last report, though it must fall short of giving you any idea
+how heavy my heart was, and how my brain burned with disappointment.
+
+_Has_ female modesty died out since you and I came into the world? or
+was it burnt over during the war, like the great prairies, where the hot
+flames parch up all the sweet green grass and the bright flowers,
+killing them root and blossom, snakes likewise? One thing is certain, my
+dear sisters in the cause, honesty among men and modesty among women go
+hand in hand all over the earth. When women degenerate, it is because
+the moral atmosphere which they breathe is tainted and unwholesome.
+Something has gone awfully wrong both with the men and women of America
+in these latter years. The fraud and demoralization of the thing they
+call "shoddy" has settled down upon our social life everywhere. I
+shudder to think of it! With a constitution made strong with fresh air
+from the Green Mountains, and morals consolidated in the oldest
+congregation of the State, I feel afraid of myself and almost weary of
+well-doing. It has become so miserably unfashionable to be honest, that
+people seem to think me crazy when I speak my mind.
+
+Do not start and say that Phœmie Frost is ready to give up her mission;
+because she isn't of that sort. Her hand is on the plough--they spell it
+_plow_ here, which takes away half the strength of that agricultural
+word--on the plough, is she, a female, to turn back because rocks and
+roots choke up the furrow? Not if Miss Frost knows anything of herself!
+
+Speaking of female modesty, between my little cousin and that marble
+girl, the poor naked creature seemed to have the most of it. She did
+scrouch down and try to hide herself behind herself, as if she was
+ashamed that the man who made her had forgot to cover her up a little.
+But the live girl did not seem to feel for her a mite; in fact, I think
+she enjoyed seeing her scrouch, because of the foreshortenings, you
+know.
+
+It's of no use denying it, I did feel down in the mouth about this girl;
+and seeing my duty clear, determined to do it or perish in the attempt.
+
+Once more I stood in front of that "palatial residence," and, with a
+hand made firm by a powerful sense of duty, pulled the silver knob in
+the jamb of the door. The same finified youngster came and asked me with
+his saucy eyes what I wanted there. This time I had written out a square
+piece of paper, on which he had the pleasure of reading: "Miss Phœmie
+Frost, Home Missionary and Special Plenipotentiary from the Society of
+Infinite Progress, Sprucehill, Vermont." "Think," says I, when I handed
+him the paper, "if this don't fetch them all down a notch or two,
+nothing will."
+
+And it did!
+
+Yes, I have the pleasure of saying pretension and pomposity do have a
+wonderful effect here in New York. I don't know whether it was the
+missionary or the plenipotentiary that brought my cousin to her oats,
+but rather think it was the latter--having a foreign twang to it, of
+course, it impressed her aristocratically.
+
+The waiter-man took me into the drawing-room, as he called it, but why,
+no human being could have told; for there wasn't a sign of drawing
+paper, pencil, nor painting things in sight. In fact, it was the
+self-same room that I went into the last time I was there. A little
+darker and more sunsetty, because the red curtains swept close, and
+blinds were rolled down under the lace. There was that marble girl, too,
+a-looking at me as if half-scared to death; but in that light she seemed
+dressed in a veil of pink gauze, and looked just lovely. There being no
+man by I really could have kissed her, she seemed so sweet, and so
+awfully ashamed of herself huddled down as if she longed to creep out of
+sight.
+
+The door opened, and that fellow came in simpering like a chessy cat,
+and asked if I would be so good as to walk up to the boudor.
+
+"To the what?" says I.
+
+"To the ladies' boudor," says he, a turning his head, and trying to
+choke off a laugh. "This way!"
+
+I took my satchel from a table all framed in gold, and checkered with
+precious stones, where I had laid it down. Then, bowing my head and
+lifting my forefinger, told that servile creature to proceed, with an
+air of command that quenched his saucy smile in no time.
+
+Up the stairs he went, and I followed after; treading a carpet that gave
+to the feet like a meadow in its first spring grass. Through an open
+door I saw my cousin lifting herself up from a sofa, covered with blue
+silk and open-worked lace. Then she dawdled towards me with one hand
+out, and the laziest smile you ever saw about her mouth.
+
+"Cousin Emily," says I, "how do you do?"
+
+"My dear Miss Frost," says she, "I'm happy to make your acquaintance."
+
+Happy to make my acquaintance, and I her first cousin. Did you ever?
+
+At first I _was_ taken aback, and felt as if I should choke. Hadn't I
+learned that great white creature her letters? Hadn't I spent dollars on
+her for slates and pencils, besides taking her to the maple camps when
+she was a little girl, and giving her no end of sweet sap to drink. Who
+was it but me that turned down her first over-and-over seam, and gave
+her a tentie-tointy silver thimble to take the stitches with. I wonder
+what she did with it? Now she was happy to make my acquaintance, and
+dragged a double winrow of worked flounces, topped off with a muslin
+skirt and scarlet training jacket, across the room to tell me so. Our
+mothers were sisters; pray remember that!
+
+"Take that seat," says she, a-dropping down to the sofa as a great white
+hen turkey settles onto its nest. "How long have you been in the city?
+Do you make anything of a visit? So thoughtful and kind of you to give
+me an early call."
+
+There I sat, straight as a sign-post, with my satchel in my lap, and
+both hands on that, riling up like an Irish girl's coffee, and feeling
+the wrath within me grow stronger and stronger while she settled back
+and half-shut her eyes, and seemed to be quite satisfied that she had
+done her best. I could see that her half-shut eyes were turned on my
+alpaca dress, which was a trifle dusty, and on my cotton gloves, that
+were clean and whole, at any rate. While she examined them, I took an
+observation of her. Mercy, how she has changed! Five times the hair she
+ever had before hung in great, heavy braided loops down her back. There
+must be some way of making the hair grow, 'specially here in York, that
+we never heard of. And her figure, which was slim and graceful as the
+droop of a willow when she married, has swelled out fearfully behind,
+which makes her seem to stoop, and gives one the most humpy idea of a
+camel in motion of anything I know, which, being Scriptural, is, I dare
+say, the only religious idea she has kept firm to.
+
+"You called the other day," says she. "I was so sorry not to have seen
+you; but I was dressing to go out. Still, you saw my little girl?"
+
+"Yes," says I, "I saw your little girl; and, to tell you the honest
+truth, that is what brings me here now. I haven't had a minute's rest
+since I was here. Why, Cousin Emily, I expected to see a child. Instead
+of that--"
+
+She roused up at this, opened her eyes wide, and interrupted me.
+
+"Instead of that," says she, turning a great gold bracelet on her arm,
+and smiling as if what she was saying swelled her out with
+pride--"instead of that, you found a finished young lady. No wonder you
+were surprised."
+
+"A finished young lady!" says I, riling into strength. "That is what no
+child ever can be; and let me tell you, the attempt to force one into
+such an unnatural creature is abominable. You can polish every bit of
+the modesty and innocence of childhood out of a little girl; but all
+that you can get for it is affectation and self-sufficient impertinence,
+becoming neither to the child nor the woman. Why, cousin, the little
+creature I saw in your parlor--sent there, as she said, to _entertain a
+gentleman_--was just an absurdity to him, and to me something dreadful.
+I asked myself what a child like that would become at forty years of
+age. Why, cousin, when she is at her meridian she will feel herself at
+least a hundred and fifty. You have cut off all the bloom and richness
+of a young life; you have made a dainty little monster of her--swept
+away all companionship with children, and made it presumption and
+impertinence when she attempts to force herself among her elders. I
+could not be so cruel to a dog as you have been to that child."
+
+Cousin Emily woke up now with a vengeance. Her sleepy eyes flashed
+lightning. "Cruel!" says she. "I cruel to my only daughter? Why, there
+is not a child in America who has had such care--such abundant chances
+for improvement. She has been to the most expensive schools."
+
+"Exactly," says I.
+
+"She has had masters at home--music, dancing, the languages--"
+
+"Exactly," says I.
+
+"Things that I never thought of learning she has mastered."
+
+"Just so," says I.
+
+"She had a French nurse before she could speak. No expense has been
+spared by her father. I never had such chances; and we are determined to
+give her a splendid education. In fact, she might come out this season,
+so far as that is concerned; but I have resolved to be rigid--not a day
+before she is seventeen. Then her education will be complete."
+
+"Her education complete at seventeen! Why, Cousin Emily, a woman's
+education is _never_ complete. At the best schools we get but a dreamy
+sort of idea of the things we must bring all the faculties of a
+well-regulated mind to understand in after years. A well-educated woman
+is one who studies and learns something every day of her life--who
+thinks about what she sees, and acts upon what she knows."
+
+Cousin Emily lifted up both hands, all covered with shining rings, as if
+to choke me off. I stopped. Far be it from Phœmie Frost to force the
+opinions of our Society upon unwilling ears; but I lifted my forefinger
+in solemn admonishment, and says I:
+
+"Oh, Cousin Emily, Cousin Emily, has it got so that you hold up both
+hands against common-sense!"
+
+"Not against common-sense," says she, "but against your uncommonly long
+sentences. Why, Miss Frost, it is like our old-fashioned country
+preaching."
+
+"Which has died out of your heart, I dare say. Oh, Emily, Emily, what
+would your sainted mother, my aunt, say?"
+
+This brought the misguided woman to her tears. She sat up on that
+lace-silk sofa, straight and listening, as I have seen her many a time
+on the a b c bench at school, when her little feet couldn't touch the
+floor.
+
+"Cousin Phœmie," says she, "I am trying to do what is right."
+
+"I hope so," says I, with tears of thankfulness in my eyes, for the
+"Cousin Phœmie" went straight to my heart. "But my mind isn't quite
+equal to more of this conversation this morning. The next time I come
+this way we shall both be more like our natural selves."
+
+With that I tightened my cotton gloves, took up my satchel, and left
+that house, feeling that I had paved the way to a good work hereafter.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+POOR CHILDREN.
+
+
+Are there no genuine children among the poor of New York?
+
+Beloved sisters, your question wrings the heart in my bosom. I asked it
+of myself this very morning, and resolved to investigate.
+
+I hadn't found a child that could be called a child outside a
+perambulator, which means a little carriage pushed by an Irish girl,
+with a cap on, along the avenues. So I took my mission down among the
+tenement-houses. There I found young ones on the sidewalks, the
+doorsteps, and in the gutters, thick as grasshoppers in a dry pasture
+lot, all hard at work, trying to play. But the play seemed more like
+fighting than fun. Two girls stopped me on the sidewalk, swinging the
+dirty end of a rope, while another tried to jump it, but only tripped
+up, and went at it again. Shaking her loose hair, and--yes, I say it
+with tears in my eyes--swearing at the other two.
+
+I laid my hand on her head, and gently expostulated. She was a little
+mite of a girl, with a sharp, knowing face. The first word she spoke
+made my nerves creep. Why, that little thing had the wickedness of an
+old sinner on her baby mouth, and couldn't speak it out plain yet.
+
+Oh! my dear sister, and you, my friend, in the great course of infinite
+progress and general perfection, had you been with me, almost
+broken-hearted among that rabble of children, who will never, never know
+what childhood is, the last pound of butter and dozen of eggs in our
+village would be freely given to support my mission here. Barefooted,
+bareheaded, barelegged, and, it seemed to be, bare of soul, these little
+wretches swarmed around me when I kindly asked the baby girls not to
+swear, all making faces at me. The boys, that sat with their feet in the
+gutters, flung away the oyster-shells and lobster claws they had just
+raked from an ash-barrel, and began to hoot at me. One little
+wretch--forgive me for calling names--not more than five years old, had
+a cigar in his mouth half as long as his own arm. When I stooped down to
+take it from him, he gave a great puff right into my eyes, and scampered
+off, with his dirty fingers twirling about his face like the handle of a
+coffee-mill.
+
+As a New England woman, whose duty, I take it, is to set everybody
+right, I wasn't to be put down by a boy like that, but caught him by the
+collar of his jacket, snatched the cigar from his lips, and flung it
+into the gutter, where it sizzled itself out. Then I lifted my
+forefinger as I do in Sunday-class, and began to admonish him. But
+instead of listening, he got the skirt of my alpaca dress between his
+teeth and ground a great hole in it, swearing like a trooper
+betweenwhiles.
+
+Oh, sister! that was a trying season! In less than three minutes the
+sidewalk was swarming with dirty-faced children. I might as well have
+been in a wasps' nest. The spiteful imps buzzed around me so--little
+girls, with lank hair falling over their eyes; lazy boys, swaggering
+like drunken men, and swearing like troopers; and a woman--the boy who
+smoked called her mother--who stood on a doorstep, with a hand on each
+hip, scolding like fury. I kept my finger up. They would not hear a word
+I said, but I felt it my duty to do that much, when a very gentlemanly
+man in blue regimentals touched my arm, and observed in the kindest way
+that things were getting so mixed and unpleasant perhaps I would permit
+him to escort me round the corner. You know, sister, I always had a
+power in the lift of my finger. It was wonderfully manifest just as this
+gentleman crossed the street, and must have astonished him, for the
+children hushed up at once, and huddled back to the doorstep like a
+flock of lambs, which was an evidence of moral suasion I take pride in
+reporting to the Society.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+HE HAS COME.
+
+
+Sisters:--As a representative of your august body, I ought now to have
+been in an atmosphere of royalty--Imperial royalty, which counts at A
+No. 1, as kings are put down. The young potentate of all the Russias,
+with all his ships and things, ought to have been on hand a week ago;
+but he still lingers on the "rolling sea and briny deep," a prey, it is
+dreadfully to be feared, to sea-sickness--which, they tell me, is
+heart-rending--and storms which are liable to aggravate the
+sea-sickness.
+
+I sympathize with that young man in all the depths of my feminine
+nature--which are getting bottomless from the great need of compassion
+which human life exhibits to the thinking mind. He ought to have been
+here when our enthusiasm was at its hottest point. Then he would have
+had the stormiest sort of a welcome. The soldiers were ready to file out
+any minute; the mouths of ever so many cannon were burning to let off
+fire; all the ships would have burst into a storm of flags at the first
+gun. People couldn't but just keep from shouting every time they met
+each other. But the young man didn't come. He hasn't come yet, and all
+the enthusiasm is burning down to cinders and ashes. When he does come,
+I'm afraid it'll be like putting a mess of apples into an oven after the
+pan of baked pork and beans has been drawn out--half roasted, and hard
+at the core when you cut 'em.
+
+This is a great country, my friends--in fact, very extensive--but you
+can't wake it up to an earthquake of enthusiasm about the same person
+more than once. That prince had better have struck when the iron was
+red-hot. He didn't, and so I can't tell you anything about him, except
+that he isn't more at sea than the rest of us. When he does come, depend
+upon it, there will be an uprising among the females of this great city;
+and foremost of her sex will be your representative, faithful to her
+trust, and ready, with a modest helping hand, to lead this young person
+into the paths of propriety.
+
+He has come at last, but the bitter-sweet of hope and fear has been
+given us as daily food for two weeks past, and the wormwood of ceaseless
+apprehension took the place of the yellow berries, and nightshade
+darkness settled down upon us. Lovely young girls cried over their
+ball-dresses of illusion, and wondered if _their_ hopes would thin off
+into the same slimpsy nothingness. Middle-aged ladies, whose hair needs
+no powder, and whose teeth never ache, began to falter in the dancing
+steps practised in the private recesses of their own palatial homes,
+and wondered if their joints were to be twisted and racked into new-born
+graces, only to settle down into rusty stiffness again without having
+fascinated the Russian soul out of that princely bosom.
+
+Of course it is right and proper that an opportunity to study the
+antiquities of a nation should be offered to every potentate and prince
+that honors our Republican shores by setting his high-born foot upon
+them, and it is highly proper that first-class specimens should be in
+readiness the moment he enters a ball-room. That is what people tell me
+has always been the custom at balls given to princes, and it isn't
+likely that new rules are to be laid down for the benefit of a lot of
+girls, anyhow. Governors and mayors are not often so young as they have
+been. As a general thing, their wives are not troubled with an epidemic
+of youth and beauty. It is an awful omission in the laws, but these
+dignified chaps can't get up young and dashing wives for the occasion,
+when a great high potentate from over seas shines down upon us in the
+dancing way. I haven't a doubt they would like to sacrifice themselves
+and astonish the world by so doing, but common people would be apt to
+call it bigamy. So they have to do the very best they can with such
+wives as they have got, and furbish them up with diamonds, laces,
+flounces, and a dancing-master, till they answer to begin with.
+
+I don't mean to be hard or sarcastical on this subject, but in these
+times, when it is so easy for a man to put away his wife, couldn't this
+official potentate get a temporary divorce just for the occasion,
+especially if the kingly visitor happens to be young and very fond of
+dancing. It would give us young girls a chance.
+
+Don't think that I am putting on airs, or that I don't feel reverential
+when age is mentioned, but Emperors' sons don't come to our free land of
+liberty every day, and girls are so plenty that old folks ought to stand
+back. Far be it from Phœmie Frost, on her own humble merits, to build
+upon opening that ball with the Imperial Duke of all the Russias; but a
+Society like ours has its social, moral, and scientific claims. As for
+literature, since my reports have been honored by publication, I must
+maintain the dignity of the position. If dignity and age is to lead in
+this grand ceremonial, I have kept school, and--well, yes--no, one could
+say that I--in fact, as to years, am I not competent to open the ball
+with any prince that can come across the ocean, be he boy or patriarch?
+There, that sentence is off my mind, and I can go on without a hitch of
+the pen.
+
+In other respects I have been silently but surely preparing myself. The
+Society has been liberal, and most of my savings were in the bank,
+rolling up interest beautifully, when I came from my childhood's home.
+Then there was a handsome profit on the donation of eggs and butter and
+maple-sugar which came in the freight train before I started. I attended
+to the sale myself at the market, and had nothing to do with that Mr.
+Middleman people talk so awfully about as a cheat and a general grabber.
+Well, I dickered the things off at a good price, as I was a-saying, and
+have got the money safe in my bosom--a hiding-place sacred to myself
+alone.
+
+Thus lifted above all mercenary anxieties, I gave my attention entirely
+to the self-improvement necessary to my appearance before his highness
+as a representative character on whom the eyes of all Sprucehill were
+fixed. I would say the world--only for the modest consciousness that
+comes over me when I think of myself as a genius.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+THE FRENCH DRESS-MAKER.
+
+
+Alpaca does make a first-class dress for our social gatherings and
+literary circles in Sprucehill, and when puffed out behind, and trimmed
+promiscuously with flutings, it sometimes has a sumptuous appearance
+elsewhere; but for a ball, in which one aims to dance with a great grand
+Archduke of all the Russias--excuse me for saying it, but alpaca is not
+quite the thing. Doubtful of my own imperfect judgment, I asked a
+fashionable dress-maker in the Third Avenue, who had "Madame" spelt with
+an E on her tin sign at the door, and she said: "It wasn't the thing for
+a lady entirely, by no manner of means," and her tongue had a rich roll
+to it, which satisfied me that Ireland had sympathized with France in
+her troubles, to the extent of getting the language a little mixed.
+
+"No," says she, a leaning both elbows on her counter, and a looking at
+me from head to foot. "Madame should have a _robe de_ silk, very
+complete, with flowers in her hair entirely, and an overskirt to the
+fore, garnitured with Limerick point."
+
+"An overskirt before," says I, lifting both hands, satchel and all.
+"Why, every skirt that I've seen in the street, or anywhere else, was
+puckered and bunched up behind," says I. "Excuse me, but I really
+couldn't think of wearing 'em in any other way."
+
+The French dress-maker--I know she was French by the letter E after
+Madam, and because the sign said she was from Paris. Well, she colored
+up, and looked every which way at first, but then she gave a skimping
+laugh, and said that I didn't understand French. I--I didn't understand
+French! I who had studied "French without a Master" as a speciality,
+with the most intelligent member of our circle, and conversed in the
+language as directed by that excellent book so fluently that the
+pronunciation sounded almost like English nipped off a little! This was
+too much.
+
+The clear grit, which lies at the bottom of every New England woman's
+heart, riled up in mine when that cherished accomplishment was cast into
+disrepute.
+
+"Madame," says I, putting a keen emphasis on that E, "I came here to
+inquire about the most fashionable way of making a dress, not to give or
+take a lesson in the languages. Permit me to say I never could submit to
+wear an overskirt in the way you speak of--wrong side before--why, it
+would look dreadfully."
+
+"But Madame does not understand; I speak English so much in this country
+that my own language gets knocked into smithereens. I beg pardon--into
+confusion. Madame must be very perfect herself to detect it."
+
+I felt a smile creeping over my lips. Really, sisters, I had been too
+hard on the poor woman. It was not her fault if my ear was so very
+correct that nothing but the purest accent could satisfy me. She saw
+this look dawning upon my face, and I knew that she felt relieved by the
+way her elbows settled down on the counter again.
+
+"If madame will take a chair--that is, repose herself. Madame--"
+
+"Excuse me," says I, benignly, for I didn't want to hurt her feelings
+again. "_Mademoiselle_, if you please."
+
+"Pardon me," says she, humbly.
+
+"Just so," says I, benignly. "Now supposing we go on about this
+ball-dress. How much silk will it take?"
+
+The woman sat and thought to herself ever so long. Then she counted her
+fingers over once or twice. Then she said she didn't exactly know how
+much, which is the way with dress-makers all over the world, I do
+believe.
+
+"But one won't buy a dress without knowing how much to ask for," says I.
+"Say twelve yards now?"
+
+The woman lifted herself right off from the counter, and sat staring at
+me.
+
+"Twelve!" says she, "eighteen at the least."
+
+I felt as if some one had struck me. Eighteen yards for a dress, and
+gored all to pieces at that!
+
+"Some of your dress-makers in Broadway would want more than that!" says
+she, "and send for more and more after that."
+
+I made no answer, but took up my satchel and walked straight out of the
+door.
+
+Eighteen yards of silk for a dress! The thought of it kept me awake all
+night.
+
+The next morning I went right up to the palatial residence of my cousin,
+Emily Elizabeth Dempster, feeling that she would expect me to enter on
+that subject about bringing up children, which was my duty; but I was so
+down in the mouth about that dress, that everything like a moral idea
+had just swamped itself in those eighteen yards of silk; and instead of
+giving advice, I went into that house to beg for it, feeling all the
+time as if somebody had dumped me down from a mighty high horse onto
+that stone doorstep, and left me to travel home afoot. In fact, I felt
+as if coming to that house to ask about ball-dresses, instead of giving
+instruction, was a mean sort of business. But the ambition of a great,
+worldly idea was burning in my bosom, and I resolved to press forward to
+the mark of the prize of the high calling.
+
+Mercy on me! it is a ball-dress, not a class-meeting, that I am writing
+about. Oh, my sisters! is it true that black angels and white angels
+ever do get to fighting in a human soul, just as they do down South? If
+so, they had a tussle in my bosom that morning, and the black fellow
+came out best, with a gorgeous silk dress a-floating and a-rustling out
+from his triumphant right hand, and the splendid shadow of a great Grand
+Duke following after.
+
+Cousin Emily Elizabeth was just coming downstairs, flounced and puffed
+and tucked up about the waist, till she was all over in a flutter of
+silk, and lace, and black beads, with a dashing bonnet on her head high
+enough for a trooper's training-cap, all shivery with lace and bows,
+with one long feather curling half way round it, and a white tuft
+sticking up straight on the top, looking so 'cute and saucy.
+
+Emily Elizabeth looked a little scared when she saw me coming in with my
+satchel; but when I told her what I wanted, her eyes brightened up, and
+she laughed as easy as a blackbird sings. "Oh, is that all!" says she.
+"I thought it was about the children. I'll give you a note to my
+dress-maker. Styles all French, and _so recherché_." Look in the
+dictionary, sisters, and you will discover that this means something
+first-class.
+
+She took out a pencil and a square piece of paper with her name printed
+on it, and wrote something French, with the number of a house, which I
+won't give, not wanting any of my friends to be talked out of a year's
+growth, as I was.
+
+"There," says she. "The cream-on-cream all go to her. She'll fit you out
+splendidly. Leave it all to her. Good-morning, cousin; I must go; but my
+daughter is in the drawing-room--she will entertain you."
+
+"Just so," says I, putting the card in my satchel, and making swift
+tracks for the out-door; "but I haven't time to be entertained."
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+THE GENUINE MADAME.
+
+
+Well, I went straight down to that dress-maker's house, and handed the
+square paper cousin had written on to a lady who was fluttering round
+among a lot of girls, all hard at work sewing, like bumble-bees in a
+rose-bush.
+
+She looked at the paper; then she gave my alpaca dress an overhauling
+with her scornful eyes. Then she began to talk; but, my goodness, her
+French was awful. I couldn't understand a word of it. Once in a while
+she would chuck an English word in, and rush on again like a mill-dam.
+
+When I tried to put in a word of genuine French or pure English, she
+lifted her hands, hitched up her shoulders, and seemed as if she was
+swearing at me one minute and wanted to kiss me the next. I couldn't
+stand that.
+
+"How much will you ask--how many yards will it take. _La pre la pre?_"
+says I, bursting into French.
+
+The woman looked around on her girls, spread her hands as if praying for
+help, and then, all red in the face, she burst into English. Then I knew
+she did not understand her own native tongue, and gave her a sarcastic
+smile.
+
+"I find everything. How many yards? Oh, that depends on the idea, the
+invention. I have it here growing in my brain. The price? Ah, I cannot
+tell. When the work is complete then we know. There will be crêpe and
+point--"
+
+"But I don't want points," says I. "Talk in English if you don't
+understand your own language. The price, the price!"
+
+"Oh, very well, it shall be to your own satisfaction--perfect," says
+she, and then the creature shook out her hands as if she was shewing
+chickens from a corn-crib, and before I could say another word she
+shewed me on to the steps and shut the door.
+
+Well, I went back to my boarding-house, beat out and worried almost to
+death. Figures are satisfactory to the New England mind; but when you
+have only a whirlpool of broken words, ending with satisfaction, with a
+woman's hands spread out on her bosom, and nothing more, it is
+tantalizing. But I reckon the figures will come by and by, only I
+_should_ like to have an idea of what they will count up to.
+
+As I was saying in the beginning of my report, ten thousand anxious
+female bosoms thrilled with expectations every night, and existence
+dragged wofully in literary and fashionable circles until that
+auspicious moment arrived when the son of an Imperial Emperor cast
+refulgence on our Western Hemisphere. But the waiting of us young girls
+was lonesome, very.
+
+I had done my best. For the first time in my life I had twisted my
+front hair into little wire tongs they call crimping-pins; maybe it was
+their tightness that held my eyes so wide open last night. I was trying
+with all my strength to shut them, when the sound of a cannon, ever so
+far off, brought me up in the bed, with my hand clasped and the heart in
+my bosom trembling like a frightened chicken.
+
+"He has come," says I to myself. "Alexis has come. To-morrow we shall
+see him--handsome, young, filled with Imperial royalty from the crown of
+his noble head to the soles of his patent-leather boots. But will he
+wear his crown in the procession, or only keep it for the grand ball.
+What if he should rest that crown on the head of some distinguished
+American, selecting a literary lady?" This thought impressed me; both
+hands went up to my lofty brow. Alas! they only sent the crimping-pins
+ploughing across my head with a thorny sharpness that filled my throat
+with screeches.
+
+My dress has come home--I am stunned:
+
+    Thirty yards of silk, $10 per yard      $300.00
+    One piece French crape                    25.00
+    Ten yards Brussels point                 100.00
+    Linings                                   10.00
+    Making                                    50.00
+    Materials                                 35.00
+    Silk buttons                              12.00
+    Passementerie, etc.                       15.50
+                                            -------
+                                            $547.50
+
+I have just recovered from a long fainting fit. They have taken the
+crimping-pins out of my hair and deluged it with crystal water. I am
+lying on my couch faint and exhausted. Oh, my sisters, the paths of
+royalty are beautiful, but full of thorns. That bill has been enough to
+destroy all my pleasure in the visit of the Grand Duke Alexis.
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+READY TO LAND.
+
+
+The great Grand Duke of all the Russias has been thrown upon our shore
+by an upheaving of the mighty deep, and is now rocking at his ease in
+the iron-clad cradle of a great nation. Oh, he had a terrible time.
+Winds tossed him, storms pitched that noble vessel end foremost into the
+very bowels of the sea, then hove it up on great mountain waves, where
+it rocked and tottered and trembled, while the rain washed its
+decks--rendering mops useless--and the lightning got so tangled in the
+spars and rigging that you couldn't tell which was rope and which was
+fire.
+
+Out of all this danger the great Grand Duke was blown upon our shore,
+with a good deal less fuss than Jonah had when he took to his life-boat
+with fins and tail, and discharged cargo on a desert shore, without the
+first chance of an imperial reception, and nothing but an upstart guard
+to offer him the hospitalities of the country.
+
+Before daylight, Sunday morning, the vessel which bore that noble youth,
+all weather-beaten as a rusty potash kettle, but grand and majestic
+after its tussle with the storms, shot out her anchor in the lower
+bay--for New York has two bays, and two fine old rivers empty into them.
+The squadron--which means three or four other ships from Russia--had
+been waiting there till their great iron hearts nearly burst with fear
+that the imperial vessel had foundered; and when they saw it careering
+in amongst 'em, they set up a shout that made the very fishes in the bay
+rest on their fins and wonder what it could mean, for they had never
+heard Russians before, and it seemed as if the alphabet had been shaken
+ten thousand times over from as many pepper-boxes, and rained down on
+the water in one great shout.
+
+Nobody has told me yet how his imperial dukeship took this, and I
+haven't liked to inquire too closely. Supposing him asleep in the sweet
+privacy of his own upper berth, it wouldn't be quite proper, you know,
+but it must have been soul-stirring to hear those native syllables
+raining down blessings like tacks and brad-awls on his noble head.
+
+How our imperial guest spent the Sabbath-day is a mystery that Russia
+and the Russians only can solve. But I am credibly informed that ten
+thousand upper-crust females betook themselves to secret devotions in
+their own rooms, in crimping-pins and curl papers, the moment we got
+news that he was here.
+
+As for myself, I confess--no, our Society is not a confessional, and the
+secrets of a lady's get-up don't belong to a report for the public eye.
+So I say nothing on that point.
+
+Sunday night I couldn't sleep a wink; my heart was full of noble
+aspirations, and it seemed as if some wild Indian of the forest had got
+his grip in my hair and might scalp me any minute, everything was
+twisted so tight in that direction. In fact, to say nothing of sleeping,
+I couldn't have winked to save my life. But I bore it with Christian
+fortitude, determined to press forward to the mark of the prize. Oh,
+dear! will I ever remember that this report isn't a class-meeting
+confession? Well, the morning came, and oh, my sisters, it was pouring
+cats and dogs. When I heard this, I rose up in bed, covered my face with
+both hands, and just boo-hooed out a crying. I knew well enough that ten
+thousand other young girls were weeping like the skies; but that only
+made me feel worse and worse, for mine has always been a sympathetic
+heart, and I felt for them--I did indeed.
+
+I did not know what on earth to do. Cousin Emily Elizabeth Dempster had
+promised to come and take me down to the _Mary Powell_, a steamboat
+which the committee had engaged to take itself and all its wives and
+their friends, down to welcome the great Grand Duke, and bring him up to
+the city.
+
+Cousin Emily Elizabeth's husband was a head cockalorum in this
+committee, which being the _crême on crême_--excuse French, it will
+break in somehow in spite of me--well, which being the _crême on crême_
+that had skimmed itself off from all the common milk of New York
+society, puffed Cousin E. E. up like--like a ripe button-ball.
+
+Since my reports have appeared in what the newspapers call the world of
+letters--I say it modestly, but truth is truth--Cousin E. E. has been
+sweet as maple-sugar to me, I can tell you. She had her eye teeth cut in
+Vermont, and understood that Queen Victoria knew there was one notch
+above the crown when she took to writing books. I say nothing; but there
+is an aristocracy that cuts its own way through all social flummery,
+like an eagle among chippen birds. That is real live genius; and if New
+England hasn't got her share of that, I don't know where its
+head-quarters are.
+
+Well, I and the clouds shed tears together for a good while; then I
+started up. "What if it does pour?" says I to myself; "the Grand Duke
+has been in storms before this; he ain't sugar nor salt, to melt at
+anything less than the glance of a loving eye. What's the good of being
+down in the mouth about a little rain? I'll get up--I'll unskewer my
+hair--I'll put on _that dress_, if I die for it." I started out of bed;
+I stood before the looking-glass; I began to untwist, to unroll; I did
+the corkscrew movement; I jerked--I shook my hair out--ripple, ripple,
+ripple, it fell over my shoulders. Then I rested awhile, and winked my
+eyes with exquisite satisfaction--for freedom is sweet both to the head
+and heart.
+
+I felt like a new creature--a delicious looseness settled on my
+temples--a feeling of feminine triumph swelled my soul. Could he resist
+the fleecy softness of that hair--the thousand ripples breaking up the
+sunshine--only there wasn't any sunshine to break. Not a silver thread
+was visible; if there had been several the night before, it was nobody's
+business but my own. My arms were tired with continual undoing; but,
+sisters, am I one to faint by the way? No, no, a thousand times no.
+
+I began to roll, to braid, to puff; I planted hair-pins in my head as
+thick as bean-poles in a garden. Heavy braids--expensive but
+lovely--fell down the back of my head; fluff on fluff shaded my lofty
+forehead. I say nothing; but my literary success, great as it is, has
+not been more satisfactory than this.
+
+I put on that dress in a great hurry, for Cousin E. E. was at the door
+in her carriage. How it glistened in the glass! How it swept out on the
+carpet, a peacock's tail is a trifle compared to it! I tucked it up; I
+turned the lining inside out, pinned it, puckered it round the waist,
+and then put on my new bonnet, which looked like a black beehive with a
+bird perched on the top. Then, with a burning heart, that fairly turned
+against it, I put on my waterproof cloak and pulled the hood over my
+poor bonnet.
+
+I opened my cotton umbrella, and went down. Cousin E. E. was waiting,
+and a tall fellow in half regimentals held the door open. I jumped in as
+spry as a cricket, and away we went.
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+DOWN THE BAY.
+
+
+The _Mary Powell_ lay huddled up close to the wharf, with a great white
+flag crossed with blue stripes at one end, and the glorious old
+star-spangled banner at the other. In fact, she was all dressed out in
+flags. They were soaked through and through till their slimpsiness was
+distressing. In fact, the steamboat looked like a draggled rooster with
+no fence or cart to hide under.
+
+The committee were all there, with a whole swarm of ladies in waterproof
+cloaks, huddled together like chickens in a coop. There were generals,
+too, with gold epaulets on their shoulders: one that I'd heard of in the
+war, General McDowell, and some others, that lighted up the deck a
+little with their gold lace and sword-handles.
+
+She moved--I mean the _Mary Powell_. The sea was gray, the sky was
+black. Now and then I saw a flag fluttering by on some vessel, like a
+poor frightened bird searching for shelter, and pitied it. Then all at
+once bang went a gun. I hopped right up, and screamed out:
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"The salute," says a gentleman close by me. "A salute for the Grand
+Duke."
+
+I sat down astonished.
+
+"Sir," says I, "I can't believe it. I--I've been saluted myself before
+this, and I know what it is. No human lips could have made that noise."
+
+The man looked at me, and puckered up his lips a trifle, as if he were
+trying to choke back a laugh.
+
+"I'm speaking of guns," says he, "not the sweet little salutes in your
+mind."
+
+"Oh," says I, "that makes a difference, though I never heard firing off
+guns by that name before."
+
+"The Grand Duke will have twenty-two of 'em," says he.
+
+"Well, then, I'm glad it's only the guns," says I, and a great big sigh
+of relief came up from my jealous bosom.
+
+Then we all went on again, till I heard some one call out that we'd got
+to heave-to. This scared me dreadfully. I looked around. Which two of
+all these females did they mean to heave into the vasty deep? Not me for
+one. If Russia is barbarous enough to want that sort of cannibal
+hospitality, I'm counted out.
+
+Shivering with fear, I drew back into the crowd, but watched things like
+a cat. Drifting through the fog, I saw a little vessel coming close to
+us, as if she had something to do with this heathen ceremony. The ladies
+in their waterproofs crowded to the side of the steamboat, as if they
+rather panted for the glory of being drowned then and there for the
+pleasure of the great Grand Duke.
+
+I heard a splash, but could not see if any one had been flung over, and
+when I got up to look, there was a magnificent old fellow, with ribbons
+in his coat and brooches set thick with shining stones on his bosom,
+a-coming up the side of the boat. He looks so proud and puffy, that I
+should have took him for the great Grand Duke, only that he wasn't near
+young enough.
+
+"Who is it?" says I to the old gentleman.
+
+"Catacazy," says he.
+
+"Cat--what?" says I, categorically.
+
+"Catacazy, the Russian Minister," says he.
+
+"Minister," says I; "do they mean to get up a prayer-meeting on board?"
+
+The old gentleman simmered down the laugh that was on his lips into a
+smile, and said he thought not.
+
+This pacified me, and I sat still while we went down through the upper
+bay, which seemed wrapped in waterproofs too, and into the lower bay,
+which heaved and rolled as if it was half-choked up with sweltering wet
+blankets. Then we came in sight of the ships, and saw the flags
+a-battling with the storm; but no one on board seemed to care a
+continental cent whether New York sent out her _crême on crême_ or not.
+This silence made my heart sink.
+
+Then the minister went to the side of the vessel, leaned over, and swung
+his hat. By and by a boat came from the great Grand Duke's vessel, in
+which an imperial-looking man stood upright, like a high-born monarch,
+and lifted his cap as if it had been a crown.
+
+"It is--it is--oh, yes, it is the Duke!"
+
+This was on every lip but mine. I could not speak; exquisite emotion
+forbade it.
+
+No one came on board; but the minister with that catish name got into
+the boat, and then some of the committee, which skimmed itself again,
+and thickened up its cream considerably.
+
+There we waited and waited.
+
+They came back at last. That young gentleman was not the great Grand
+Duke. He wasn't coming till next day.
+
+Oh, how we wilted! Some of us almost burst out a-crying. I did not
+speak; I could not. Ever since we reached the lower bay, I had felt
+dreadfully discouraged; now a strange sinking of the heart seized upon
+me--a faint dizziness, an agony of disappointment seemed raging in my
+stomach. Oh, my sisters! these exquisite sensibilities are a proof of
+greatness, I know, but the sufferings they bring, no human being but the
+creature of genius can tell.
+
+I am better. The glorious sight which followed that stormy day has
+relieved me. I have seen ten thousand flags blazing along Broadway--I
+have seen three times ten thousand republican worshippers waving their
+hats and handkerchiefs in acclamations for the son of an imperial
+despot. I have heard the glorious music of an imperial serenade--I have
+seen HIM.
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+THE GRAND DUKE.
+
+
+Sisters:--I have seen him. This hand has been pressed--significantly
+pressed--by the soft, rosy palm of imperial royalty. If a tablet to my
+memory should ever be sunk in the walls of our meeting-house, I charge
+you, dear sisters in the cause, to have this honor cut in Roman capitals
+deep into the marble; for what is an exaltation to me is glory to the
+Society, and, in fact, to all Vermont.
+
+I have been on the same steamboat with the great Grand Duke; his
+splendid blue eyes have looked into mine, and in that glance we grappled
+each other, soul to soul. He has smiled upon me through the yellow glory
+of that silky mustache, under which his plump, red lips shone like
+cherries, ripe enough to swallow, stones and all. He speaks English;
+reveres genius, and knows that it can never grow old.
+
+I saw him in Broadway, when all the New York militia turned out, which
+was a training day worth looking at. A snow-storm of handkerchiefs
+burst out of the windows; ten thousand female hands waved him forward.
+Shouts rose from the multitude; little children were crowded back into
+the gutters; women were jammed together on doorsteps and curbstones. In
+fact, the skim milk of society was compelled to flow in awful narrow
+channels, while the _crême on crême_--excuse French once more--rolled
+smoothly through the city in carriages, with royalty leading the way, a
+regiment of trainers leading him, and a band of music leading the whole.
+
+I saw the whole glorious procession. From block to block I flitted, like
+some aspiring bird on the crest of a wave. My heart was full, my eyes
+fixed on one object--that tall, noble figure, with a blue watered silk
+scarf across his royal bosom, and a half-moon hat, with dipping points,
+gracefully lifted from his head. He must have been dazzled; he must have
+been impressed by this proof that republics scorn monarchies and trample
+them under foot.
+
+I flitted onward through the crowd, waving my handkerchief from a
+doorstep now and then. That handkerchief the idol of this august
+occasion seemed to follow eagerly with his eyes, as a sort of beacon
+light which kindred sympathy impelled him to recognize, for wherever I
+went he lifted that half-moon hat from his royal brow and smiled. I felt
+this compliment to the depths of my soul--it thrilled me.
+
+When I lifted myself out of the skim milk, and flowed in with the cream
+of cream on that stand in Union Square with my cousin and the _élite_ of
+society, he saw me again and recognized me once more, which irritated my
+cousin's jealousy a little, for she insisted that he lifted his black
+half-moon to the whole of us. But I know!
+
+I watched the carriage that bore him with a blushing cheek and a beating
+heart. There was General Dix, a real nice-looking old gentleman, sitting
+in front of him; there was Catacazy, the ambassador of all Russia, also
+a nice gentleman as you want to see, with _his_ hat off, a-bowing and
+a-bowing. We flung up our handkerchiefs--we clapped our hands.
+
+The Clarendon Hotel stands near one corner of the Union Square; it has a
+skimpy piazza in front made of iron, and I've seen bigger hotels anyhow.
+But it is considered tip-top, and is always brimming over with the cream
+of cream. That is why Mr. Catacazy took my Grand Duke there. There was
+such a crowd of folks and trainers that I lost sight of him. By and by
+out he came into the piazza, and stood right before our aristocratic
+stand, which was fringed round with red cloth, and over which the
+star-spangled banner waved itself meekly to the nest of black eagles
+that streamed out over that noble scion of all the Russias.
+
+I could not see _him_ plainly, as my heart panted to, so I borrowed my
+cousin's glass--a little spy-glass, understand--not specs, which I
+haven't come to by a long way. Well, I unscrewed the eye-glass, wound it
+up to the right notch, and brought him almost to my face; and there I
+stood, choke-full of heavenly satisfaction, all the while _he_ looked
+down on the general training of soldiers that marched stream on stream
+between him and me.
+
+While my soul was going out luminously through these eyes, Cousin Emma
+Elizabeth Dempster touched my elbow, and says she:
+
+"Miss Frost, if you've got through with my glass, I should like to try
+it a little."
+
+I gave it up. Not being long-sighted, the whole pageant was a blank to
+me after that cruel deprivation, for I could no longer see that imperial
+figure on the piazza.
+
+My reports are making a tremendous sensation, and I--well, being modest
+by nature, I say nothing, but a committee, skimmed daintily off from the
+cream of cream, called at my boarding-house, and wanted me, as a rising
+star in the literary hemisphere of writers, to invite the great Grand
+Duke to a private reception, or entertainment, or something, where some
+that hadn't been on the steamboat could shake hands with him, and others
+might just touch the extremity of his coat, which they gave me their
+honor they wouldn't pull--as some high-bred ladies did when he was going
+from the boat.
+
+I received this committee with dignity, and promised to take their
+request into mature consideration, as soon as I could learn personally
+from the great Grand Duke whether he should prefer to have this homage
+paid by my own sex to the extremities of his coat, or not. I felt for
+these young ladies. I had experienced the yearning desire that possessed
+them, and knew how truly irrepressible it was. Had it not inspired the
+whole committee of reception, their wives, and their children to the
+third generation? Had it not disturbed fashionable life to its very
+dregs, and given spice to our weekly literature? Yes, I felt for these
+young persons, and in a little speech, remarkable for its graceful
+elocution, gave them encouragement.
+
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+TICKETS FOR THE BALL.
+
+
+Tickets for the ball! Sent, no doubt, at the Grand Duke's request.
+Cousin Emily Elizabeth has got tickets too. We shall go together in the
+same carriage, and leaning on her husband's arm. Dempster is a handsome
+man, and really _distingué_ looking. Excuse French; an educated person
+will break into it now and then.
+
+The day has come. Cousin Emily has just sent me a bundle of things, with
+her compliments--a little box with a cake of lovely white chalk in it;
+another, smaller yet, filled with a pink powder that looks like ground
+rose-leaves, and a bottle with something liquid and dark in it, which
+does not seem as if it was good to drink. What on earth does Cousin E.
+E. expect me to do with these things?
+
+Ah! pinned to the bundle, I find a letter, beginning "Dear Cousin
+Phœmie," and asking me to excuse her, but she sends the things, thinking
+that I may want to rejuvenate, and perhaps dye, before I go to the ball.
+
+Rejuvenate! Does she mean to say that I'm not young enough? and if I
+wasn't, how are these things a-going to help me? I know that girls in
+school sometimes eat chalk and chew gum, but never heard that they got
+the younger for it. Then the pink powder--well, it's no use calculating
+about it, especially as she wants me to die after it. I wish Cousin E.
+E. would ever learn to spell. When a woman dies she does not do it with
+a "y" as a general thing.
+
+Now what _does_ all this mean?
+
+I was doing my hair at the looking-glass, when Cousin E. E. came in,
+looking like a queen; her blue silk dress was all spotted with gold
+flowers, and it streamed out half across my bedroom. Over that she wore
+a long white cloak, with tassels to it, and her hair was looped in with
+pink roses that were not redder than her cheeks, which would have
+satisfied me that her health was first-rate, if it hadn't been for the
+shadows that lay around her eyes, which had grown awfully dark since I
+saw her at home.
+
+"Oh!" says she, "I am just in time. Came early, thinking you might want
+help. Sit down; that will do. Now where is the you-know-what--those
+boxes--you understand?"
+
+Here E. E. flung off her cloak and came to the glass. I declare to you
+the creature's neck was white as any snow-drift but uncovered to an
+extent that frightened me out of a week's growth. Her arms, too, were
+the same, and bare as her neck. She had a narrow pink shoulder-strap,
+and some lace between them, and that was all; only a string of white
+stones, that shone like a rainbow now and then, was around her neck and
+one arm; two or three of the same kind of stones hung down from her
+ears, and shot out light from her hair.
+
+The whiteness of that neck astonished me, and made me look every which
+way.
+
+E. E. didn't seem to mind that, but took off her long white gloves and
+laid them on the table; then she snatched up one of the boxes, and began
+to rub a handkerchief that lay on the bureau in it.
+
+"There now; hold back your head a little," says she; "shut your eyes."
+
+Here she began to rub my face and neck and arms with the handkerchief
+till they looked white as her own. Then she changed boxes, and I could
+feel her making soft dabs at my cheeks, which tickled a little.
+
+"Now open your eyes," says she.
+
+I opened them wide, she astonished me so; and, as true as you live, she
+began to tickle them with a tenty-tointy brush. After that she titivated
+my hair a little, washed her hands with some Cologne water, and
+snatching up my pink silk dress, which lay across the bed, just buried
+me in it. I declare it was scrumptious to feel the silk a-rustling round
+me, and a-settling down on the floor, wave on wave. Well, the bill was a
+damper, but I couldn't help enjoying it for all that.
+
+"Now," says E. E., a-drawing on her long, white gloves, "just take a
+look, and let us be off--Dempster is waiting."
+
+I did take a look, right straight in the glass, and couldn't help doing
+it again and again, the lady I saw there seemed so much like a
+magnificent stranger to me--so white, so blooming--so--. Forgive me,
+sisters--I forgot that modesty is a tender blossom that should be
+encouraged--and I will say no more, only this, Cousin Dempster's neck
+had a good deal more of it than mine, and that French dress-maker had
+given me a little chance of sleeves, while her's left them out
+altogether.
+
+When she spread out my skirt, it half covered the room. All at once she
+saw just one little spot of rain on it, and held up both her hands.
+
+"Why, you haven't worn this before? Good gracious! no lady in our set
+ever wears the same dress twice. The idea!"
+
+I felt myself wilting, for she was sarcastic in her speech. Then I up
+and spoke for myself.
+
+"Yes, I wore it once," says I; "but it was tucked up under my
+waterproof cloak, with the lining turned inside out, and nobody saw
+it--especially the great Grand Duke, who didn't come out of his own
+vessel."
+
+"Oh," says she, "then it won't be an absolute disgrace to the family if
+you wear it. I began to be afraid to go with you. There, now, don't look
+pins and needles at me, but just put something round you, and let us be
+off, or _he_ will be there before us."
+
+That was enough. I huddled up that pink silk in my arms, and in less
+than two minutes Cousin Dempster's carriage was so choke full of his
+wife and me, that he took a seat with the driver.
+
+
+
+
+XIII.
+
+THE GRAND DUKE'S BALL.
+
+
+Oh, my! wasn't that ball-room a sight to see? Seats piled on seats, all
+cushioned with red velvet, and one end curving round like a great red
+horseshoe, with flags and flowers and shields running below the
+bottommost tier; a great swinging balloon of sparkling glass poured its
+light, like July sunshine, down on a crowd of people, that looked more
+like born angels than human creatures. It fairly made me dizzy to look
+at 'em from Cousin Dempster's box-seat, which was right in the end of
+the circle.
+
+After a while I got my senses back, and looked out for _him_. He wasn't
+there yet, and that gave me a chance to see things. Four more heaps of
+glass, that seemed as if they had caught fire, hung in the other end of
+the room, and beyond them was a fountain of water, a-sparkling and
+a-flashing and a-tinkling in a make-believe garden by moonlight, with
+live fish swimming in it, and live flowers blooming in piles and heaps
+around it, and make-believe trees. Half running round the room was a
+lot of marble posts, with white flower-pots running over with sweetness,
+and linked together with running vines, that made you feel yourself
+almost out of doors.
+
+All this was splendid; but there was one spot that everybody looked
+towards, and I most of all. Three boxes, cushioned with red velvet, were
+just chained together with great wreaths of flowers such as I never saw
+in a garden; but I knew they were genuine because of the scent, which
+was delicious. Banners set full of stars and stripes of red and white
+silk, all tangled in with flowers, hung over these boxes, and right in
+the centre streamed a white silk banner, on which our old bald eagle and
+the black eagles of all the Russias flocked together as sociable as
+robins in a nest.
+
+"There he is! There he is!"
+
+I started. I caught my breath, for back of the white flag _he_ stood
+with the light a-shining on his beautiful yellow hair, and a smile on
+his lips. Oh, how grand, how tall, how gorgeous! Everybody was a-looking
+at him. The girls around me--always forward, and _so_ silly--began
+twittering together, and looking that way as if he would ever think of
+dancing with them. They swarmed around me, as a representative person.
+They forgot their own trivialities, and rendered me such homage as
+genius commands from commonplace minds.
+
+"You are an author," said they. "You belong to the great aristocracy of
+the world. Speak for us. He cannot dance with all of us, but he can look
+this way through his opera-glass, and give us all a chance of being put
+in the papers as the beautiful young lady he admired so much. We appoint
+you a committee of one. Address him in our behalf. Get some memento of
+him that we may leave to future generations."
+
+The entreaties of these young creatures went to my heart. I raised my
+forefinger, which was like an oath to them, and says I:
+
+"Thanks for this honor. Like a Roman matron I will do my duty. Wait."
+
+I arose from my seat, and swept, with a dignity and grace that must
+have done the Society I represent great honor, around the gallery, and
+found my way into the private retiring-room of our illustrious guest. It
+was small but beautifully furnished. My pink silk, as it trailed in,
+seemed to fill the whole room. In the looking-glass I saw a figure,
+tall, commanding; I may say queenly--but enough of that.
+
+A person stood near the door and looked in. I lifted my finger; he
+approached.
+
+"Go," says I, "to the great Grand Duke of all the Russias, and tell him
+that Miss Phœmie Frost, a committee lady, awaits his presence here."
+
+He started--he smiled--he went.
+
+I drew back and stood against the wall opposite the door. _He_ entered,
+looking a little puzzled. I advanced one foot, then the other, three
+long paces, as queens do when they act on the stage. Then I sunk down in
+a profound curtsey, wound myself up again into a royal position, and
+held out my right hand.
+
+"Great Grand Duke Alexis," says I, "son of an illustrious father and an
+imperial mother, whom all women love to honor, welcome to our
+shores--welcome to the fashion, genius, and beauty embodied in the
+females of America."
+
+Before I could finish the address to which duty and ever-burning genius
+inspired me, the great Grand Duke quenched my ardor by a heavenly smile
+that danced in his blue eyes, and almost broke into a laugh on his red
+lips. His voice was like over-ripe strawberries when he spoke and said:
+"The ladies did him great honor; he had not English to express his
+pleasure, and no power to repay their kindness." This was my time.
+
+"Being the head of a committee of so many young ladies that it is
+impossible for your Imperial Majesty to dance with the whole, I--that
+is, these ladies--wish to be represented in the festive cotillon by a
+person worthy of the occasion. Not the wife of an American potentate,
+who may or may not have any claims of her own, but a potentate in
+herself. Not crowned with the shadow of a man's laurels, but wearing
+her own bay leaves as Tasso did."
+
+Here I felt my eyes a-drooping, and my tall figure bent like a weeping
+willow. The great Grand Duke saw my confusion, and his smile deepened
+audibly.
+
+"Say to the lovely committee of ladies," says he--
+
+But I interrupted him, and putting one hand on my heart, observed, with
+a gentle bow:
+
+"Embodied in me."
+
+Then he smiled out loud again, and says he:
+
+"If the Committee of Arrangement permit, I shall have much pleasure."
+
+With that he bowed and prepared to go out. I drew back toward the wall
+till the pink silk skirt began to tangle up my feet, and kept my eyes
+lifted to his face, which was still bathed in blushing smiles. Another
+step, a low curtsey, and I lifted myself up with dignity while he passed
+through the door.
+
+I was alone, with nothing but the looking-glass to gaze on my delight.
+The young ladies had begged of me for a memento of royalty. I looked
+around. An ivory-handled hair-brush lay on a marble shelf under the
+glass. I seized upon it, knowing that it had touched his head. I
+examined it. Imagine my joy--six bright yellow-brown hairs clung to the
+bristles! Carefully, daintily I picked them out, and, laying them in the
+palm of my white glove, formed a tiny tress of them--tiny, but oh! how
+exquisitely precious!
+
+With this treasure in my hand I went back to my constituency. They
+crowded round me; sparkling eyes gazed upon the glorious prize I had
+secured; cherry lips kissed it with gushing fervor, and pleaded with me
+for just a morsel. I secured one lovely hair for myself, and, cutting
+the rest into tiny bits, distributed them generously. Oh, sisters! this
+act endowed me with wonderful popularity among my young companions. We
+girls should be generous to each other. I was generous, and an orchard
+full of spring robins could not have chirped more happily than they did
+while flocking around me. But the dancing began. I stood ready, with my
+long pink silk skirt gathered half way from the floor. But all at once
+it dropped from my hand--_he_ was on the floor, and another lady clung
+to his arm. The jealousy of that committee of gentlemen had prevailed.
+He danced with the Governor's wife.
+
+Did I stand ready to play second fiddle to her? No, no! a thousand times
+no! Was I not a New England lady? Did I not feel that the literature of
+the country had its eyes upon me? _He_ couldn't help it; the deploring
+glance that he cast upon me was enough to satisfy me of that. Indeed,
+his feelings were so hurt that he really could not go through the
+figures of the cotillon, but kept dancing every which way, like a man
+torn with distractions. My heart ached for him. I could not bear to see
+his distress, and retired with dignity to my seat upstairs and looked
+on, while my proud New England heart burned with indignation. If I live,
+that committee of gentlemen shall hear from me again.
+
+
+
+
+XIV.
+
+THE NATURAL HISTORY PHILANTHROPIST.
+
+
+Sisters:--He has gone! The luminous star that has shone upon us with
+such refulgence for the last few weeks, has gone to our beloved "Hub of
+the Universe," where poets, governors, and other distinguished men of
+New England are now revolving around him like the spokes of a cart
+wheel. Mr. Holmes has written him some sweet verses; Mr. Longfellow has
+greeted him with welcomes. They have given him balls, dinners, and a
+cold in his face. In short, New England has been true to itself and its
+climate. When the hub turns on its axle, the spokes whirl and the tires
+revolve, giving a swift throb to the whole universe. As a New England
+woman--I beg pardon--young lady, I am proud of Boston, proud of the
+honor they are doing to _Him_. But after all, the Hub must imitate. We
+took the crown off.
+
+Before he left, a new and exquisite idea came into my head--some people
+may think it a little flighty, but you will understand all the poetry it
+contains. I have a canary bird--for I love birds with all the inborn
+intensity of genius--so old that his feathers are nothing more than a
+creamy white. In that particular he--I should say she--being a female,
+that never sings beyond a chirp, has the gift of silence peculiar to the
+sex. I got her cheaper on that account. Well, she is almost dove-like in
+color and in sweetness of disposition. No more lovely messenger from
+heart to heart could be found in the whole world.
+
+Well, sisters, I took this bird from its cage with my own hands, and I
+smothered it with kisses from my own lips, which quivered with intensity
+of emotion. Then I tied a blue ribbon about its neck, and attached to
+that a tenty-tointy note which contained these lines:
+
+    Farewell, noble prince, my fond heart is gushing
+      With thoughts that no language can ever reveal;
+    With the sweetest affection this warm cheek is blushing,
+      And hopes to my maidenly bosom will steal,
+    Of a time when our souls, with united expression,
+      Shall mingle with harmony more than divine;
+    And the priest--be he Greek, or of any profession--
+      Shall bless this poor hand as it clings unto thine.
+
+The paper was of an exquisite rose-color on which I indited this gem. I
+flatter myself that genius can sometimes write beautifully. It is not
+just the thing to particularize here, but if that Grand Duke _can_ read
+English he must have admired the sweet morsel which that lovely songster
+bore to him on the wings--well, of a canary.
+
+I would not send my bird in a cage, because handsome cages are
+expensive, and do not carry an idea of freedom with them, which our
+spread eagle might have led the great Grand Duke to expect. Neither
+would I trust her with a street boy whose hands might be dirty and
+unsafe. No, I put on my bonnet, locked the bird with his blue ribbon in
+a box covered with gilt paper, and walked straight down to the Clarendon
+Tavern, and asked for one of the committee-men.
+
+A tall, grave-looking gentleman came into the room, where I sat waiting,
+and said he was Mr. Bergh, one of the committee-men, and then stood a
+minute, as if he was waiting to know what I wanted.
+
+I had heard a great deal about the gentleman's goodness to the poor dumb
+beasts that are so abused and trampled on, and my heart rose right into
+my mouth.
+
+"Mr. Bergh," says I, reaching out my hand, "in the name of New England,
+permit me to shake hands, and thank you for the good you are a-doing to
+so many of God's own creatures."
+
+The gentleman smiled, and reached out his hand.
+
+"I am glad to hear," says I, "that some old bachelor has left a lot of
+money to your society. It is just what I would do myself if I hadn't a
+hope--that is, it may be possible that all the money I have will be
+needed for a special occasion--as no free-born New England woman would
+be beholden to a foreign nation for her setting out."
+
+Here Mr. Bergh smiled. You have no idea how much younger he looked when
+he did smile; the benevolence that made him a Natural History
+Philanthropist just shone out from his eyes, and beamed all over his
+face, till I longed to be--well, say a duck, or something of that
+sort--that he might save me from oppression.
+
+"Thank you," says he; "most men want some object in life. You ladies
+have done so much for humanity that we are content to leave it in your
+hands, but the poor animals have up to this time escaped compassion."
+
+"Not compassion, but assistance," says I. "Cruelty to animals is mostly
+confined to men."
+
+"Not exactly," says he. "I have sometimes seen kittens and pet dogs
+treated more unmercifully than omnibus-horses, and by innocent children
+too."
+
+I did not answer. How could I? The remembrance of a trout-brook, with
+birch-trees hanging over it, and great red-seeded brake-leaves growing
+thick on the bank, made me shudder. Hadn't I held ever so many kittens
+under water in that very spot, and shouted and laughed to the other
+girls--some of you, my sisters, among them--while the poor little things
+kicked and struggled for life, that was just as dear to them as it is to
+me? Hadn't I hunted up birds' nests, and driven the pretty creatures
+distracted by handling their eggs, till at last the nests were broken
+up? Then didn't I string the cold eggs into a chain, and hang them in
+triumph over the looking-glass in our keeping-room?
+
+You will tell me, out of the kindness of your hearts, that these were
+sins of ignorance. Just so; and it is this ignorance, which is sometimes
+cruel as the grave, that Mr. Bergh is trying his best to enlighten. No
+child would do a cruel thing if it were made to understand the pain it
+is giving. Yet, sticking pins through flies, and spearing wasps to the
+wall, are about the first thing a smart baby learns to do.
+
+Did you ever see a lot of boys going home from school, when a
+garter-snake, or any other harmless serpent, crosses their path? They
+know well enough that the poor things do no harm, and are as afraid as
+death of them; but see the great stones they heave upon the miserable
+reptile; the shouts they send up, as it writhes, and coils, and fills
+the air with feeble hisses, trying, poor thing, to save its bruised and
+broken life to the last.
+
+Does anybody tell the boys that this is brutal cruelty? No, even the
+Christian mother, who would not do an unkind thing to save her life,
+forgets that God makes snakes as well as ringdoves, and that pain is
+just as bitter to the snake as to the cooing bird.
+
+Sisters, we are all wrong in leaving these things to men only. If we did
+our duty, and taught little children that even thoughtless cruelty is a
+sin, and that the fun which comes out of pain to any of God's creatures
+is a crime, there would not be much for Mr. Bergh and his noble society
+to do. The cruel instincts of a child become ferocious in the man. With
+such, men can best deal. I thank God that one brave spirit is found
+ready and able to protect the dumb creatures that are given us for
+blessings, not for victims.
+
+While I am writing this, picture after picture comes up from my own past
+girlhood, and my heart stands still as I remember how ferocious a thirst
+for fun and ignorance can be in a child. How many sleepy-looking toads I
+have seen, with their backs all jewels, and their throats yellow gold,
+that asked nothing but a burdock leaf for shelter, and a few flies for
+food, crushed to death by boys who thought no harm, and only liked the
+sport of killing something.
+
+Since then, I have learned that these little creatures are a great help
+to gardeners, and that wise men foster them with kindness and care.
+
+Once, down by the trout-brook we know of, I saw a lot of children, busy
+as bees, doing something on the bank, where two or three boys were
+kneeling, and the rest looking on. Of course I went down to the brook,
+and, being a little mite of a creature, looked on, half frightened, half
+wondering.
+
+The boys had caught a great frog, green as grass. He was, I have no
+doubt, one of those hoarse old croakers, that make one timid about going
+by ponds and marshy ground in the night, up in our State. Well, they had
+him down in the grass, and one held him while the other ran a pin
+through both jaws and twisted it there. There was no fun in this. A lot
+of doctors cutting off an arm couldn't have been more gravely in
+earnest. Some of the boys were eight and ten years old; but not one of
+them seemed to feel that they were doing a hideous thing. I remember
+feeling very sorry for the poor frog, but it was not till years and
+years after that I understood the horrible, lingering death these
+ignorant boys had tortured him with. Since then I have never thought of
+that sparkling trout stream, without a pain at my heart.
+
+"Childish ignorance," I hear you say--for some of these boys were your
+own brothers, and meant no harm. But what right had they to be ignorant?
+They knew well enough that it was against the law to kill one another.
+Why were they not taught that the life that God gives to His meanest
+creature is as sacred as a good man's prayers; unless necessity calls
+for it, and then it must be taken with as little suffering as death can
+give?
+
+Sisters, I am in earnest; the missionary spirit is strong upon me. I
+wish our Society to take up this subject with interest. What Mr. Bergh
+has been doing among men, we must do among the children of this
+generation. When ignorance is an excuse for cruelty, you and I and every
+woman of the land are wretches if we allow a child to sin because it
+knows no better. There is no great study necessary to work out a reform
+here. The mother who knows what is right knows how to impress it on her
+children; and if they play at death and destruction, she is the person
+most to blame.
+
+Don't say that I am writing out one of my popular addresses before the
+Society--I never thought of such a thing; but when I saw the great
+Natural History Philanthropist, my heart and mind went right back to you
+and my duties as a missionary of universal progress, and I sat there in
+silence thinking over these things till I forgot that he was there.
+
+At last he spoke, and said, kindly enough, "Is there anything I can help
+you in?"
+
+I started and reached out my hand.
+
+"Mr. Bergh," says I, enthusiastically, "I can help you! All the world
+over we women work best in the primary department. You have begun a
+grand and a noble work among men. We will begin at the other end, and in
+that way cut your work down to nothing. I see a clear path before us.
+Henceforth I will belong to your Society, and you shall belong to mine.
+Is it agreed?"
+
+He sat down by me; his eyes grew bright; his earnestness of purpose
+inspired me to press forward to the mark of the prize--I beg pardon, the
+old prayer-meeting spirit will manifest itself in spite of me when my
+soul is full of a great purpose.
+
+After we had talked on the great subject satisfactorily, he said, all at
+once, "But you came for some purpose in which I may have the pleasure of
+serving you."
+
+Then I remembered my bird and its imperial object. Revealing my
+gold-paper box, I opened it carefully, fearing a sudden flight. Nothing
+moved. Trembling with dread, I put in my hand; it touched a soft fluff
+of feathers that did not stir.
+
+My heart sank like a lead weight in my bosom. I looked in; the poor
+little thing lay in the bottom of the box, with its wings spread out,
+and its head lying sideways. I touched it with my hand; it was limp and
+dead. While I had been talking with so much feeling about cruelty to
+animals, my own little songster--no, being a female she was not
+that--but my poor pet had been smothered to death in that gorgeous
+little receptacle.
+
+With my heart swelling like a puff-ball, I turned my shoulder on that
+good man, and closed my satchel solemnly, as if it had been a tomb.
+
+"Sir," says I, in a voice full of touching penitence, "I feel myself
+just at this minute wholly unworthy of the mark of the high calling to
+which I have offered myself. A young lady who puts herself forward to
+teach thoughtful kindness to the young, should be above reproach in that
+respect herself."
+
+The good gentleman looked awfully puzzled, for how would he guess at the
+crime I had locked up in that box?
+
+"Good-morning," says I, walking away; "the time may come when I shall
+feel a new exaltation, but just now--well, good-morning."
+
+I went away meek and humble as a pussy cat. When I looked down at the
+box in my hand it seemed as if I was carrying a coffin.
+
+Well, I buried my poor little pet in that identical box, with the blue
+ribbon about its neck; but the poem I forwarded to _him_ in Boston. I
+may be meek and humbly conscious of my own shortcomings, but the Grand
+Duke of all the Russias shall never go home with the idea that Vermont
+hasn't got poets as well as Boston, and that young ladies cannot put as
+much vim and likewise maple-sugar into their poetry as that smart
+fellow, Dr. Holmes, simmered down in his.
+
+Just read mine and his, that's all!
+
+I do think that nothing can equal the forwardness of some New York
+girls. Would you believe it, one stuck-up thing has just stolen my
+beautiful idea, and sent her card to the great Grand Duke tied round a
+bird's neck; but it was like stealing a fiddle and forgetting the
+fiddlestick. A card isn't poetry. There is no accounting for the vanity
+of some people; but the best proof of genius is imitation.
+
+
+
+
+XV.
+
+CHRISTMAS IN NEW YORK.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Thanksgiving is the great Yankee jubilee of New England.
+Then every living thing makes itself happy, except the turkeys, and
+geese, and chickens. They, poor martyrs, have been scared into the
+middle of next week by the yells, and shrieks, and awful cackling of the
+whole army of winged creatures that sit in ten thousand ovens, with
+their legs tied, their wings twisted, and the gravy a-dripping down
+their sides and bosoms, like rain from the eaves of a house. Of course,
+for that day, every barn-yard in New England goes into mourning. The
+poor hen is afraid to cackle when she lays an egg, for fear of having a
+gun cracked at her. Even the fat hogs look melancholy in their pens, for
+a smell of roasting spare-ribs comes over them, and they seem to
+ruminate mournfully on some means of saving their own bacon.
+
+Of course, there must be some unhappiness even on a New England
+Thanksgiving, or earth would forget itself and turn into heaven all at
+once. Besides, who thinks of the scared gobblers, when he has a plump
+turkey roasted brown as a berry, scenting the whole house with richness?
+I for one could not bring myself to the foul contemplation--excuse the
+wit--spontaneity is perhaps my fault.
+
+Well, what Thanksgiving is to New England, Christmas-day is to New York.
+Everybody goes to meeting in the morning, and everybody takes dinner
+with everybody else after that. For days before it comes the streets are
+full of covered wagons, and men and boys, loaded down with bundles,
+crowd against each other on every doorstep. In fact, half New York just
+throws itself away in presents on the other half, which pitches just as
+many back. Thus every street and house is a hubbub of gifts and a blaze
+of light, from Christmas Eve till after Christmas dinner.
+
+Christmas Eve, dear sisters, belongs to the children. What there is of
+'em in these parts, and the jubilation they have, rich and poor, black
+and white, is enough to warm the heart in one's bosom. There is a
+gorgeous old Dutch ghost that they think comes prowling over roofs and
+down chimneys in the night, to bring them presents. This comical old
+fellow sets up Christmas trees for the rich, and fills woollen stockings
+for the poor, and makes himself a magnificent old humbug that every
+child in the city worships and will believe in, though the little
+misguided souls know at the bottom of their hearts that, somehow or
+another, this Santa Claus and their own parents have a mysterious
+understanding and private moneyed transactions, that mix things
+terribly. Still, they really do believe in the old fellow, just as you
+and I believe in dreams. It is the last thing a little girl gives up,
+unless it is her dolls.
+
+Speaking of dolls, I wish you could see the scrumptious little ladies
+that have been sold here this week. You and I were awful proud if we
+could get a rag-baby, with drops of ink for eyes, and its cheeks
+reddened with a little pokeberry juice; but the dolls they sell here are
+such beauties!--yellow hair, frizzed around the face like thistle-down;
+rosy cheeks, and eyes that shut with such sweet laziness if you lay the
+little things down. I declare, it's enough to make one long to be a
+child again, to take one of these dainty creatures in your arms.
+
+The Saturday before Christmas I went out with Cousin E. E. Dempster, to
+buy presents. She came in her carriage, with the driver and another chap
+in regimentals on the front seat, outside, and a great white bear-skin
+inside that just swallowed us up to the waist, as if we had settled down
+in a snow-bank of fur. Under that was a muff for your feet, and some
+contrivance that must have been a foot-stove hid away, for it was as
+warm as toast.
+
+Well, sisters, such things may be extravagant, I know; but they are
+nice, if it wasn't for one's conscience.
+
+The carriage turned down Broadway, which is the street where the most
+splendid stores are found. It really was worth while to see how that
+driver--with his fur gloves that made his hands look like a bear's
+claw--guided them horses in and out, among the omnibus-stages, the
+carriages, and carts, that just turned the street into Bedlam. It fairly
+made me catch my breath to see how near the wheel would come to some
+other wheel, and then just miss it. Every stage that went lumbering by
+made me give a little scream, it came so near to running us down. But
+Cousin E. E. sat there buried in the white fur, as cosey as a goose on
+her nest. It aggravated me, and I asked her if she wasn't afraid nor
+nothing.
+
+"Oh no," says she, a-leaning back and half shutting her eyes; "it is the
+coachman's business. I should discharge him if anything happened."
+
+"But you couldn't discharge him after you were mashed to death under
+them great omnibus wheels," says I.
+
+E. E. smiled. What a calm, lazy smile she has!
+
+"No," says she; "but there would be a fuss, and my name would get into
+the paper. Everything has its compensation, Cousin Frost."
+
+Before I could answer, the carriage stopped in front of a large, high
+store, with great, tall windows, all one shiny sheet of glass on each
+side of the door, through which you could see lots on lots of silver and
+gold and precious stones, all in confusion, but, oh, how gorgeous!
+
+"This is Ball, Black & Co.'s," says she, a-going up to the door, which
+seemed to open of itself, and in we went.
+
+You have read the "Arabian Nights' Entertainment." I remember the time
+well, because we all got "kept in" after school for being caught at it.
+Well, that cave wasn't to be compared to what I saw in Messrs. Ball &
+Black's store. From floor to roof, all was one dazzle. Gold clocks, with
+silver horses tramping over 'em; colored men and women--reconstructed
+figures, I reckon; white stone women, a-standing, sitting down,
+scrouching themselves together, or riding lions a-horseback, bold as
+brass, filled one long room, like a regiment of military trainers. Then
+there were chandeliers of glass, in which no end of rainbows seemed to
+be tangled; dishes of sparkling glass, set in a frostwork of silver or
+gold, and--I may as well stop; no genius could give you an idea of the
+gorgeous things it was my privilege to see in those long rooms.
+
+When we had wandered upstairs and downstairs again, Cousin E. E. stopped
+at one of the counters, and wanted to look at some rings. As for me I
+wanted to look at everything. What was one ring compared to whole stars,
+and bands, and clusters of shiny, white stones, that seemed to have been
+dug out of a rainbow--all mixed up with other stones, red as blood,
+green as spring grass, blue as the sky, and white as snow-crust. Why,
+sisters, that counter was just one bed of burning sunshine. It dazzled
+my eyes so that I can hardly remember anything distinct enough to
+describe it to you.
+
+Well, Cousin E. E. bought her ring, which had a green stone set in it. I
+saw her hand a lot of money over the counter to pay for it, which riled
+my conscience a little; but I said nothing, the money being hers, not
+mine; still, how much good it might have done some missionary society.
+
+Well, out of this store of gorgeousness we went, and got into the
+carriage again.
+
+Cousin E. E. said she had bought so many things that this was about the
+last place she had to go to, and, as it was getting pretty near dark, I
+must go home with her and help fill up the Christmas tree. Cecilia would
+be dreadfully disappointed if it was not splendid, and they all thought
+so much of my taste.
+
+I made no objections; why should I? Christmas Day in a boarding-house
+isn't full of ravishing promises, so I just snuggled down into the white
+fur again, and let the fellow with bear-skin claws drive me where he had
+a mind to.
+
+
+
+
+XVI.
+
+THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS.
+
+
+Oh, sisters! there is something touching and splendid in a Christmas
+tree. Just fancy one of our mountain spruces, towering almost to the
+ceiling of a room, green as when it was cut from the woods. Think of
+this tree, hung all over with little wax candles, bunches of pale-green
+and purple grapes, teinty red apples, golden horns and baskets chuck
+full of sugar things. Stuffed humming-birds, looking chipper as life.
+Butterflies, that seem to be flying through the green of the trees, and
+a whole camp-meeting of dolls sitting around the roots, and then tell me
+if the Christmas time of a New York child isn't like living among the
+people of a fairy book.
+
+This was the sort of tree set up at Cousin Dempster's, Sunday night
+before this last Christmas day. Of course, we couldn't think of
+breaking the Sabbath, but the minute it was sundown, at it we went. Of
+course, we didn't want the little girl to know what we were a-doing; but
+the first we knew, in she hopped, as chipper as a humming-bird, and
+would keep interfering and changing things, in spite of all we could do.
+
+At last, her mother got her dander up and told her to march right off to
+bed, just as a woman born in Vermont ought to order her own child; but
+the tantalizing thing just hitched up her shoulder, and said, "She
+wouldn't go, nor touch to the tree was for her own self. The house was
+her par's, and she'd do just as she'd a mind to in it."
+
+With that, Cousin E. E. blazed into a passion, and took her child by the
+arm, with a jerk that sent her flying into the hall. Then I heard a
+screeching and a scrambling up the stairs, and it seemed to me a slap or
+two--I hope I wasn't mistaken about that--then a door slammed, and
+Cousin E. E. came downstairs like a house o' fire, with both eyes
+blazing, and one cheek red as flame. Could it be that the slap I heard
+was from the other side, or had it been a free fight?
+
+"That girl will be the death of me," says she, walking about like a lion
+in its cage. "I never knew a worse child."
+
+"I'm sure I never did," says I, with more than my usual spontaneity, for
+I felt it.
+
+"You never made a greater mistake," says E. E., fierce as a hen hawk.
+"It is because she has so much more brains--spirit--genius than any
+other children. A more splendid character never lived than my daughter
+Cecilia."
+
+I said nothing; maybe it would have been just as well if I had held my
+tongue before.
+
+"She is a favorite everywhere," E. E. went on, cooling down like a brick
+oven after the coals are hauled out.
+
+I said nothing.
+
+"Ahead of girls twice her age," E. E. went on. "She speaks French like a
+native."
+
+"Is there anything more to put on?" says I.
+
+"Yes," says she, "we will have the presents ready for the morning. I
+meant to have some of Cecelia's friends here to-morrow night, but she
+wanted the tree to herself."
+
+With this, E. E. brought an armful of boxes and things from the next
+room. The first thing she set up against the stem of the tree was a
+doll, dressed in a splendid silk ball-dress, with a long, sweeping
+train, and teinty rose-buds in her yellow curls. The blue eyes were
+natural as life, and her face was just lovely. Then she brought out a
+Saratoga trunk about as big as a foot-stool, which was crowded full of
+dolls' dresses, just such as a live young lady would be proud to wear.
+
+"Isn't it beautiful?" says E. E.
+
+"I should think so," says I; "how much did it cost?"
+
+"A hundred and twenty-five dollars," says she. "I sent to Paris for it."
+
+"A hundred and twenty-five dollars?" says I, lifting up both hands;
+"that would keep a poor family how long?"
+
+"I don't know," says she, short as pie-crust, "but a poor family
+wouldn't amuse my Cecilia, and these will."
+
+"Just so," says I; "what is this for?"
+
+"Oh, that is her father's present--pink coral--hang it across one of the
+limbs," says she.
+
+I hung the beads among the spruce leaves, and enjoyed the sight; they
+seemed like a string of rose-buds twisted in with the green.
+
+"There now, we will finish in the morning," says E. E. "I wish Cecilia
+had invited her little friends; it will seem rather lonesome."
+
+With this, Cousin E. E. gave a little sigh, and we went off to bed,
+telling me that I must be sure to get up in time for early service,
+which she wouldn't miss for anything.
+
+
+
+
+XVII.
+
+EARLY SERVICE.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Before daylight on Christmas morning, I went to early
+service at the highest church in New York city, which, after all, isn't
+anything to brag of in the way of steeple.
+
+There is a brick meeting-house on Murray Hill that beats it all to
+nothing, for that has just the longest and pointedest steeple that I
+ever set eyes on. Still, everybody allows that the little Episcopal
+church I went to, Christmas morning, is the very highest in all America;
+and, though in my heart I don't believe it, having eyes in my
+head--there is no chance for me to take a measurement, and what can I
+say against the word of everybody else? Still, to you in confidence, for
+I don't want to get into a schismatic controversy, I dare take an oath
+that the brick church on Murray Hill is twice as high, to say nothing of
+the sharp-pointedness of the steeple and the hilly ground.
+
+Cousin E. E. Dempster says she is high church from the crown of her head
+to the sole of her foot, which I didn't dispute, for she always had high
+notions. She gave me strict charge, when I went to bed, Christmas Eve
+night, not to sleep late, and be sure to be ready for an early start.
+
+Well, I went to bed feeling as if I had got to start by some swift
+railway train every hour of the night, and must be ready for them all.
+It was Sunday night, you know, and I woke up twice with a start, before
+it was next week; got up, felt for the matches I had laid handy, and
+went to bed again, and dreamed that I was trying to get into a steamboat
+with two steeples, which put off, and left me freezing on the dock.
+
+Like one of the wise virgins, I had brought a candle upstairs, and some
+matches, which was an improvement on their old lamps, I dare say; but I
+wasn't much afraid of the dark, and didn't keep it burning, only left
+everything ready.
+
+After that dream, I started up, struck a match, and found that I had
+been just fifteen minutes in getting that steam church under way. So I
+went on dreaming, starting up, and lighting matches all night, till at
+last I hadn't but one left, and with that I lighted the candle, and a
+gas-burner by the bureau, and began to dress myself.
+
+Before I got through, Cousin E. E. was at the door, with her beehive
+bonnet on, and wrapped up in fur.
+
+"Almost ready? I am so glad, for the day is just beginning to break, and
+I wouldn't have it broad light when we get there, for anything," says
+she. "Wrap up warm, for it has blown up awful cold in the night."
+
+I did wrap up warm; put on a veil, and tied my mink-skin victorine, with
+three tails on each tab, close around my neck.
+
+We went downstairs carefully, for only one burner was twinkling in the
+hall, and the whole house was dark and shivery.
+
+"Come in here," says Cousin E. E., opening the dining-room door.
+
+Under the glass globe, in which two or three chilly lights seemed
+longing to go out, the ghost of a table was spread, with a great deal of
+silver, and very little to eat.
+
+"Just a cup of coffee and a mouthful of toast before we start," says E.
+E., sitting down behind a great silver urn in her furs and her beehive;
+"for my own part, I could do without that."
+
+She poured me out a cup of coffee--it was half cold and awfully
+riley--and asked me to help myself to a piece of toast, which had black
+bars across it, as if it had been striped on a gridiron.
+
+"Things are getting cold," says E. E., "they have been standing so long.
+The cook has been out an hour; but she knows I consider this my
+penance."
+
+"Out where?" says I.
+
+"Oh, to early service."
+
+"An hour?" says I; "why I thought we were going to early service. It
+isn't daylight yet."
+
+"I know," says Cousin E. E., with a sigh, "but her church is a little
+higher than ours."
+
+"Higher," says I; "then there is some meeting-house a notch above
+yours?"
+
+"Yes, cousin," says she, mournfully, "but we are creeping up. Every year
+brings us a step nearer."
+
+"Just so," says I, wondering what she meant.
+
+"By and by we shall have confession," says she.
+
+"Oh," says I, "there isn't a meeting-house on Sprucehill that would take
+in a member till she had made a confession of religion."
+
+Cousin E. E. shook her head, and observed that I didn't understand,
+which riled me a little, having been a member--well, no matter how long.
+
+"Even now we have humiliation and penance."
+
+I was trying to swallow a mouthful of the bitter toast and riley coffee,
+and couldn't in my heart contradict her.
+
+"To that end we get up early, cast aside sleep, and, in all weather, go
+on foot to the altar. Each year the church is opened, and the candles
+lighted earlier and earlier, as souls more clearly see their way to the
+true faith."
+
+"Just so," says I; "by and by they will be good enough to light up, and
+open the day before, I suppose."
+
+The clock on the mantel-shelf struck. Cousin E. E. started up, and put
+both hands in her muff. I followed her out of the door, and into the
+street.
+
+Well, sisters, if there is a desolate spot on earth, it can be found in
+the streets of a great city after the lights have been put out, and
+while the sky is gray. To pass by houses in which thousands and
+thousands are sleeping, is like wandering through the lonesomeness of a
+graveyard. The morning was awful cold; before we got to Lexington Avenue
+the veil was stiff on my face. I felt the tears a-freezing on my cheeks,
+and my teeth chattered so that I couldn't speak. When we reached St.
+Albans--that is the name of Cousin E. E.'s church--two such shivery
+mortals you never saw. I say, sisters, there wouldn't have been much use
+in warming us against a good fire in any place just then. I don't mean
+to be satirical or irreverent, but when you go to early service at the
+break of day, and in the depths of winter, I think ice-water and
+snow-drifts might make a solemn impression on the sinful heart.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII.
+
+HIGH CHURCH.
+
+
+St. Albans may be a High Church, though I couldn't see it; but it
+certainly isn't very sizeable; and as for coldness, the very curls on my
+head shivered as if they grew there.
+
+Cold, yes; I should think that church was cold; but you never saw
+anything more beautiful than the picture it made when we went in. Right
+before us was a white altar--not a communion table like ours at home,
+but a little platform with steps to it, set thick with candles, and
+loaded down with wreaths of white flowers. I tell you, sisters, it
+seemed to me as if the angels must have been down overnight, and moulded
+those flowers out of the drifted snow, and breathed life into them, they
+looked so pure.
+
+On each side of this altar was a great, large candle, five feet high,
+and thick as a young tree, burning with a slow, steady fire, and some of
+the smaller candles twinkled like stars among the flowers.
+
+All overhead and down the walls of this little meeting-house were great
+wreaths of ground pine, ivy and hemlock, crowded with lights and
+sprinkled with flowers, and these flung shadows on the walls more lovely
+than the wreaths themselves.
+
+I was chilled through and through, but I don't think it was that which
+brought all these solemn feelings into my mind, for the tears that had
+frozen on my cheeks ran freely now, and my eyes kept filling again. I'm
+sure I can't tell the reason, only that everything was so still and
+beautiful.
+
+The pews in St. Albans have no cushions, and everybody can sit in them,
+only there is a placard on each, inviting the poor to sit down for
+nothing, but telling those that have money to give it, to support the
+church; which is just what our meeting-houses do, though they only chuck
+the plate at you, without a written warning.
+
+Cousin E. E. and I sat down in one of the pews, and slid our knees to a
+board running along in front, to kneel on, and covered up our faces a
+minute or two; then we looked up, and there, close by the altar, stood
+the minister; but, oh, goodness! how he was dressed out. He had on,
+first, a black silk gown, with great bishop-sleeves, then a white linen
+dress, that I should think was a night-gown, only it was on a man, and
+it isn't many women who would like to lend such things to be used in
+meeting-time. Over that he wore a white satin cape.
+
+Cousin E. E. pronounces it cope, but she does finefy her words so since
+she came to York.
+
+On that was worked a cross, in gold and silk, like a Free Mason's apron
+in some respects. He held a book open in his hand. I could see that he
+was shaking with chilliness, and the words rattled like icicles from his
+lips. Close by him stood a boy, dressed in a red frock, with a white one
+over it.
+
+I whispered and asked Cousin E. E. what his name was; she answered
+back--"Acolyte," which was a name I never heard before.
+
+After a while the congregation began to move out of the pews, a few at a
+time, and crowd up to the minister. Then they knelt down before him, and
+he gave them bread and wine close to the altar, instead of having it
+handed about as they do in our Presbyterian meeting-houses. Cousin E. E.
+went up with the rest, and wanted me to go with her, but I could not
+bring myself to partake of the Lord's Supper from a man in his
+shirt-sleeves, and with a silk cape on; so I shook my head and sat
+still, watching the altar.
+
+After they had done coming up to him, the minister knelt down and prayed
+awhile; then he got up, and the boy in red shirt and white frock handed
+him a black hat, with four corners, which he put on his head; then he
+took something from the altar and walked through a side door, still
+wearing his double-cocked hat. The boy followed him out, and then a man
+came round among the pews with a plate, in which Cousin E. E. dropped a
+gold piece with a ringing noise that made people look round. I followed
+up with five cents, and was astonished to see how little ring it had
+after the gold; nobody looked round at me.
+
+It was broad daylight when we came out of that little meeting-house, and
+not quite so cold as it had been; but still I was glad to keep my muff
+up to my face, and we walked toward home like a house afire.
+
+"Well, how did you like the service?" says Cousin E. E., as we shivered
+along--"impressive, isn't it?"
+
+"Very," says I; "only do tell me what it was all about. This getting up
+and sitting down and bowing at nothing is more than I can understand."
+
+"Oh," says she, "I ought to remember you came from a Congregational part
+of the country."
+
+"And Methodist--to say nothing of Baptists and Quakers," says I.
+
+"Yes, I mean all that," says she; "but the church, as a church, is but
+little understood among you."
+
+"Well, as you came from the same place, you ought to know," says I,
+rebuking her city airs in my most austere manner.
+
+"Well, yes," says she; "but one doesn't hear much of the true church so
+far in the mountains. Even you seemed puzzled by a good many things this
+morning."
+
+"Well, yes," says I--"the four-cornered cocked hat, for instance."
+
+"The four-cornered cocked hat!" says she, stopping short on the
+sidewalk. "What do you mean? That was the barette."
+
+"Oh," says I, "that is what they call it! Well, then, the four-cornered
+cocked barette--what does the minister wear that for? It isn't generally
+considered good manners for men to wear hats in meeting."
+
+"Oh, there is a clerical reason I can't quite explain, but it is a part
+of the ceremony."
+
+"Just so," says I--"and the night-gown."
+
+"Surplice, you mean," says E. E.; "oh, that is worn everywhere, in High
+and Low Church alike."
+
+"Well," says I, "there may be a reason for such things, but a
+respectable black coat is what I've been used to."
+
+"Yes, I know," says she; "but some people prefer the surplice and cope."
+
+"Now tell me," says I, "what on earth has a minister to do with a
+woman's satin _cape_, all crimlicued off with gold and silk work?" I put
+an emphasis on the word cape, to rebuke her finefied way of pronouncing
+it.
+
+"It is a part of the clerical paraphernalia, and gives richness to the
+vestments," says she. "But the altar--I felt sure that you would be
+pleased with that."
+
+"Yes," says I; "the white flowers, the candles, and the evergreens were
+beautiful. But the red and white boy was too much for me; then his
+name--Acolyte--I never heard anything like it."
+
+Just then we reached home, and shivered into the house to warm
+ourselves. Cousin Dempster was not up yet, and that child was sound
+asleep. It seemed to me as if we had been downstairs a week; but there
+was the Christmas tree, just loaded with presents; and there was the
+marble man and woman, looking cold as we were. And there we stood,
+hungry and shivering, for the help had all gone out to "early service,"
+and forgot to heap coal on the furnace; and the end was, we just got
+into our cold beds again, and shivered ourselves to sleep. I dreamed
+that a man, all in black and white, with a four-cornered hat on--one
+tassel hanging over his eyes, and another down his back--with something
+like a flash of fire about his neck, was burying me ten thousand feet
+deep in a snow-drift, and pounding me down with a candle as big round as
+my waist. Then it seemed to me that I got out, somehow, and was trying
+to warm my hands by the red frock of that boy, Acolyte, who faded into
+nothing before my eyes, and left me sound asleep as if I had never been
+to early service in my life.
+
+
+
+
+XIX.
+
+CHRISTMAS MORNING.
+
+
+We had a good long sleep after early service, and were all up bright as
+larks the next morning, wishing each other a merry Christmas, and
+waiting for that child to come down and see what Santa Claus had brought
+her. By and by we heard her coming. Mr. Dempster looked at his wife and
+smiled, as much as to say, "Won't our presents surprise her!" Cousin E.
+E. went to the door and opened it, looking pleased, and so like her old
+self that I could have kissed her.
+
+At last Cecilia came in, sour as vinegar, with her hair half combed, and
+her sash trailing.
+
+"Why, this is what I saw last night," says she, crossly.
+
+"Look at the foot of the tree!" says E. E., eagerly.
+
+Cecilia looked, and saw the doll and the open trunk. Her lips drooped at
+the corners, her right shoulder lifted itself.
+
+"A doll for me! The idea!" says she.
+
+Cousin E. E. turned away, I think, to hide the tears that swelled to her
+eyes. Mr. Dempster saw it, and says he:
+
+"Cecilia, your mother spent a great deal of money for the doll--don't be
+ungrateful."
+
+"Just as if I wanted her to do it. Baby things!"
+
+"Well," says Cousin E. E., trying to brighten up her face, "there is
+your father's present."
+
+Cecilia untwisted the string of coral, and looked at it.
+
+"Coral is for babies! That is worse yet! I just wish there hadn't been
+any Christmas at all," says she, a-flinging the beads in a lovely pink
+heap on the floor. "There now--I'll just go up-stairs and stay there!"
+
+"Wait a minute, my darling," says E. E.; "mother has got something
+else."
+
+Cecilia turned back a step, but scorned to let her sullen face brighten,
+though her eyes grew eager when Cousin E. E. took a little paper box
+from one of the baskets, and opened it.
+
+"See here!"
+
+Cecilia edged up to her mother, saw the emerald ring, and snatched at
+it.
+
+"I bought it for Cousin Phœmie," says E. E., a-looking sort of
+pleadingly at me; "but as you are so disappointed, I'm sure she won't
+care."
+
+"Cousin Phœmie! The idea!" Cecilia muttered to herself, as she tried the
+ring, first on one finger, then on another. "Of course she don't want
+it--old as the hills!"
+
+I did not say one word while that creature carried off the first
+Christmas present I ever had in my life; but it seemed as if I should
+choke. Isn't it hard that a spoiled child like that should have the
+power to destroy the happiness of three grown people? But she did it.
+
+The Christmas dinner was enough to make your mouths water, from this
+distance--the noblest sort of a turkey, stuffed with oysters, and
+everything to match--but none of us had much appetite for it. You can
+judge what my feelings amounted to, when I have lived one whole month in
+a boarding-house and couldn't get up an appetite--no, not even for the
+whitest meat of the breast! Old as the hills, indeed!
+
+
+
+
+XX.
+
+ABOUT LIONS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Cousin E. E. had invited a lot of her friends to a
+stupendous dinner-party on Christmas Day, and she wanted me there for a
+lion, she said, though what on earth a great roaring lion had to do at a
+dinner-table I couldn't begin to think. The idea made me fidgety; but I
+didn't think it consistent with the dignity of our Society to ask
+questions, or let any one know that I didn't understand everything just
+as well as folks that have lived in York all their lives. Still I
+couldn't help trying to circumvent Cousin E. E. into telling me what I
+wanted to know in a way that some people might call femininely
+surreptitious.
+
+"A lion!" says I. "Are such animals invited to a city dinner as a
+general thing?"
+
+"Oh! not at all," says she; "the most difficult thing in the world to
+get hold of is a real, genuine lion; that is, one the whole world knows
+about, and wants to see."
+
+"Why," says I, "if folks are so anxious about it, why don't they go up
+to the Rink and see Mr. Barnum's great monster animal. It don't cost
+much; besides, there are camels and monkeys, and lots and lots of
+things, thrown in."
+
+Cousin Emily Elizabeth laughed till tears come into her eyes.
+
+"Oh! Cousin Phœmie," says she, "you are so delightfully satirical."
+
+"Do you think so?" says I, awfully puzzled.
+
+"Yes," says she, "I do; but to me the eccentricities of genius are
+always interesting. To be an attractive lion one must say bright things,
+no matter how hard they cut."
+
+"I wasn't aware," says I, "that lions were given to much talking."
+
+"Oh!" says she, "that depends. There is your talkative lion, your
+learned lion, your silent lion--"
+
+"That is the sort that I've always seen," says I; "now and then a growl,
+but nothing beyond that."
+
+Cousin E. E. began to laugh again, till she had to hold one hand to her
+side.
+
+"Oh! cousin, paws, paws," says she; "you just kill me with laughing."
+
+"Yes," says I, "I don't deny that lions have paws, but it was speech we
+were talking about, and that I do deny."
+
+Cousin E. E. just shrieked out laughing, though for the life of me I
+couldn't tell what it was all about.
+
+"Now, don't you understand me--honest now--don't you?" says she.
+
+"Why, of course I do; only nothing could be more ridiculous than the
+idea of a great, big, magnificent wild beast, with a swinging walk, and
+a tuft on the end of his tail, being showed off at a dinner-table. I for
+one shouldn't have a mite of appetite with such a creature prowling
+round."
+
+"My dear, dear cousin, I'm speaking of human lions."
+
+"Human lions! I always thought the creatures were awfully inhuman," says
+I; "nothing but a jackal can be worse."
+
+"I mean great people--celebrated for something--bravery, literature, the
+arts, sciences," says she.
+
+"Well, what of them?" says I.
+
+"In society we sometimes call them lions."
+
+"O--oh!" says I, drawing the word out to give myself time. "So you
+really thought I didn't understand. Why, of course. Dear me! cousin, how
+easy it is to cheat you!"
+
+"Oh!" says she, "one must get up early to match you women of genius, I'm
+aware of that. What dry humor you have, now, looking so innocent and
+earnest, too!"
+
+I smiled benignly upon Cousin E. E.; if she could find any humor in what
+we'd been a-talking about, it was more than I could. Lions! Where does
+the joke come in, when human beings are called such names as that? Wild
+beasts, indeed!
+
+"How really modest you are!" says Cousin E. E. "Anybody else, who could
+write as you do, would have known that she was meant when I mentioned
+lions."
+
+I dropped my eyes, and folded both hands.
+
+"It will be the great feature of our party," says she. "Our friends will
+know that you are a blood relation, and that pleases Dempster; besides,
+you converse so beautifully, too."
+
+"Do I?" says I, folding one hand over the other, and back again.
+
+"And look so--so distinguished."
+
+I drew my figure upright, and looked into the glass opposite. My cousin
+had chosen her words well; there was something imposing in the bend of
+that head. I say nothing; but she was right. Indeed, so far as I am
+concerned, she generally is.
+
+Early in the morning I sent down for my pink silk dress. Cousin E. E.
+looked as if she was going to say something against it, at first; but,
+after a little, her face cleared up, and I heard her muttering:
+
+"This is the third time. Nothing on earth but a woman of genius could
+stand that; but she has got enough to carry it off."
+
+I said nothing, but thought of that bill, and just made a calculation of
+how much it would cost a woman to rig herself out if she went to many
+parties, and only wore a dress that cost five hundred dollars once.
+
+Well, sisters, Christmas Day came, and we were up by daylight, for
+Cousin Emily Elizabeth is, as I have told you, a High Church woman and
+an Episcopalian. We haven't got any meeting-house of that denomination
+in our neighborhood, and I don't exactly know what high and low church
+means, without it is that one set hold to meeting-houses with a belfry,
+and the others stand up for a high steeple--a thing that I told Cousin
+E. E. we common people didn't aspire to; at which she laughed again, as
+if I had said something awfully witty.
+
+Well, in another report I have given you an account of this daybreak
+meeting in the High Church, but just now I am taken up with the
+Christmas dinner.
+
+Now don't calculate, because we eat dinner punctually at noon in
+Vermont, that people here do the same thing, because it is nothing of
+the sort. Poor working people do that in this city, and nobody else. The
+more genteel and the richer you are, the later you eat your meals. Most
+of the well-to-do merchants eat dinner at six. Men that have got above
+earning their own living dine later yet, and some have got so
+disgustingly genteel and rich, that I don't suppose they dine till next
+day.
+
+Cousin Dempster attends to business yet, so he settled down on eight
+o'clock for his dinner, and a splendid affair it was.
+
+When Cousin E. E. and I came rustling downstairs with a cataract of silk
+rolling after us, I just screamed right out. The sight of that table was
+so exhilarating, glass a-shining--silver dishes and things
+a-sparkling--flowers heaped up in flower-pots and twisted in wreaths
+around the glass globe overhead, which flashed, and sparkled, and
+glittered as if it had been frozen up with ten thousand icicles that
+flung back all the light without melting a drop. The silk curtains were
+all let down. The carpet looked like a flower-bed, and the whole room
+was a sight to behold.
+
+Cousin E. E. shut the glass doors that looked as if a sharp frost had
+crept over 'em, and we sat down on the round sofa in the front room,
+ready for company, with nothing but those two marble folks to hear what
+we said.
+
+But peace and quietness will never come to a house that has a fast child
+like Miss Dempster, as the creature calls herself, in it. We had hardly
+sat down and got our trains spread, when in she came, all in a fluff of
+white muslin, and a flutteration of red ribbons, with her hair a flowing
+down her back, crinkle, crinkle, and her--well--limbs just strained into
+silk stockings and kid boots laced down ever so far below her frock, and
+looking so impudent. Down she sat on the round sofa, and begun to swing
+her heels against the silk cushions.
+
+"Why, daughter," says Cousin E. E., "what is the meaning of this?"
+
+The child laughed and flung back her head.
+
+"It means," says she, "that I'm not to be cheated into staying upstairs
+when a Christmas dinner is on hand. I'm ready for it, and I wish the
+company would come."
+
+"But, my child, you are too young."
+
+"If I'm too young, where do you find your old folks?" says the saucy
+thing, shaking out her ribbons.
+
+"Cousin E. E., I would not permit it," says I, for I couldn't help
+speaking to save my life. "She isn't of an age to go into company."
+
+"Well, you are old enough, and a good deal to spare," says the impudent
+thing. "No mistake about that!"
+
+I drew up the train of my pink silk dress, and walked across the room in
+a way that spoke my indignation, without words. When I turned to go back
+that creature was right behind me, with her head up, measuring off the
+carpet, step by step, with me.
+
+Sisters, I confess it, the strangling of that child would have done me a
+world of good; my fingers quivered to begin. But she just burst out
+a-laughing, and, would you believe it? her mother laughed too, but
+turned red as fire when I caught her at it.
+
+Before anything more could be said, Cousin Dempster came in, and the
+door-bell kept up such a ringing, that we were in a flutteration till,
+one after another, the company came in; ladies and gentlemen dressed up
+as if it had been a ball they were invited to.
+
+
+
+
+XXI.
+
+DINING IN THE DARK.
+
+
+Sisters, I'm afraid you would be taken aback by such dresses as filled
+Cousin Dempster's parlors that night. Such necks, such arms, no sleeves
+to speak of, nothing but a skimpy band across the shoulders; heads
+loaded down with braids and puffs, and great, long curls, which fell on
+those bare necks and covered them up into a little decency. Then the
+figures--mercy, how the dresses stood out behind; every lady seemed to
+be humpbacked below the waist. It takes time to get used to genteel
+society, I can tell you, and any amount of blushing has to be gone
+through.
+
+Well, when we had all got together, Cousin Dempster came up to me and
+crooked his elbow. I put my hand on his arm. The glass doors opened as
+if of themselves, and into the dining-room we went. The other ladies and
+gentlemen all locked arms, and followed us in good order. Cousin
+Dempster whispered to me as I went in,
+
+"The dinner is _given_ to you, remember."
+
+I said yes, I would remember. I hadn't even thought of paying for it,
+but I suppose he wanted to set my mind at rest on that point, which was
+kind, but unnecessary, as we never charge for meals in Vermont, except
+at taverns.
+
+"They were all invited to meet you," says he, at which I just turned
+round and made a low curtsey to the whole lot of 'em, before I took my
+seat, which was at Cousin Dempster's right hand.
+
+On the other side was a proper, pretty girl, with a neck like
+water-lilies, and cheeks like ever-blooming roses. She was a girl that
+laughed very low, when she did laugh, and looked at gentlemen sideways
+from under her eyelashes. One of those girls that speak as if ice cream
+would not melt in their mouths. An awful handsome young fellow came with
+her.
+
+Well, we all stood up waiting for Cousin E. E. to sit down, which she
+did. Then the rest of us rustled into our places, and half a dozen
+waiters went circumventing round us with little oysters, shells and all,
+on plates, which they set down before each of us, with a teinty silver
+pitchfork to eat 'em with. Then they brought plates with a few spoonfuls
+of soup in them, which they cleared away the minute we laid down our
+spoons. After that, came plate after plate, and the waiters kept filling
+the glasses that stood before us--pink, green, yellow, and white--with
+cider that bubbled and sparkled, and made the blood come faster and
+warmer into my face every time I tasted it.
+
+At first there hadn't been much talking; but now the ladies grew
+chipper, as so many canary birds, and the men followed suit.
+
+Such soft, low laughing, and such sweet voices I never heard at one
+table in my life.
+
+But while we were all enjoying ourselves so much, the lights in the
+glass balloon above us began to flash up and down, as if a high wind was
+rushing over them. Then all at once they quivered--winked furiously, as
+if they were joking with us--and went out, leaving us all in stone
+darkness.
+
+Then the ladies shrieked faintly, or laughed; some of them jumped up, I
+among the rest, wondering if the Day of Judgment had come.
+
+Cousin Dempster called out for the waiters to go and see what ailed the
+gas, and all was rustle and bustle and confusion.
+
+Perhaps I moved from my seat and dropped into some other without knowing
+it. I can't be certain about that or anything else; but all at once I
+felt an arm around my waist, and while I was holding my breath, with
+astonishment, some one kissed me.
+
+I gave a little scream, and pushed away that impudent arm with all my
+might.
+
+The arm wore a coat-sleeve--I can take my oath to that--and if I was
+used to such things I should say that there was a beard about the lips
+that touched my face.
+
+Sisters, it seemed to me for a minute as if Cousin E. E. really had got
+a roaring lion in her dining-room.
+
+While I sat there breathless and wondering if he would have the
+impudence to repeat that audacious conduct, a soft hand took hold of
+mine, and a sweet voice whispered in my ear:
+
+"Forgive me, dearest, I did not mean to be rude."
+
+I did not speak, but his penitence touched me with compassion. Softly I
+pressed the hand, in token of a relenting heart. How could I be hard on
+a man who meant no real harm, considering the temptation.
+
+He whispered something more, but I could not hear distinctly; for just
+then a waiter came in with a candle in his hand. Says he, "The gas works
+are blown up, and all Murray Hill, and more too, is in total darkness."
+
+Then there was a burst of voices; everybody laughed and everybody had
+something to say, which no one listened to.
+
+"Bring candles," Cousin Dempster sung out.
+
+"But the candlesticks--we have not got one in the house," says his wife.
+
+Then everybody laughed, and Cousin Dempster laughed loudest of all.
+
+"Find something," says he, "for we must have light."
+
+The waiter, says he, "Yes, sir, we'll do our best," and out he went.
+
+By and by he comes back, and all the rest of the waiters with him. Every
+one had a stone beer bottle in each hand, from which a tall white candle
+rose like a steeple to a church. There was not a smile on their faces.
+
+City waiters are never expected to smile, but each man set his two
+bottles down on the table, and drew back.
+
+Dempster burst out laughing; the rest burst out too; some giggled, some
+choked, some pealed out the fun that was in them like wedding bells.
+
+Everybody laughed except me and an elegant young gentleman, with blue
+eyes and a soft beard, that sat next me. He stared in my face, and I
+would have stared in his, only I couldn't bring myself to look in his
+eyes.
+
+Oh, sisters, it was dreadful! I had got into that young girl's place and
+she was in mine, and a teinty bit of court-plaster that I had put on the
+corner of my mouth, where the skin had been a trifle rubbed, was
+sticking right on the plumpest part of his under lip.
+
+Oh, sisters! I thought that I should have died with shame.
+
+He looked from me to the young lady, and she looked at him. I looked
+first at one, then at the other, from under my drooping lashes.
+
+She smiled, she touched her lip with one finger; he touched his, the
+mite of court-plaster stuck on his finger. Then she began to laugh, and
+so did he; the chairs shook under them. They made no noise, and the
+redness of their faces was lost in the shadow cast by the beer-bottles
+to every one but me.
+
+Cousin Dempster was busy trying to crowd an extra candle into one of the
+wine-bottles that had just been emptied, while he sat before the chair I
+ought to have been sitting in.
+
+"We must have a little more elegance at this end of the table," says he.
+
+"Wax candles and champagne bottles for this lady."
+
+He stooped down, expecting me to answer him; when he saw _her_ face all
+glowing with blushes.
+
+"Ah!" says he, laughing, "we have got a little mixed here, Cousin Frost.
+It will never answer to come between man and wife in this fashion,
+especially when they have been only three weeks married. Supposing we
+change round again?"
+
+I arose--she arose--we exchanged glances, then exchanged seats.
+
+The lights from these beer bottles were numerous, but not brilliant.
+Under the shadows we concealed the emotions which disturbed us.
+
+He looked funnily penitent, whenever his eyes caught mine, which was
+often, for somehow I could not keep looking on my plate all the time.
+
+As for that young creature, she seemed to be brimming over with fun.
+
+After a little, I began to feel myself smiling. It really was droll, but
+not so _very_ unpleasant.
+
+
+
+
+XXII.
+
+NEW YEAR'S DAY.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--After all, this city of New York is a wonderful
+institution. Vermont has its specialties, such as maple-sugar, pine
+shingles, and education; but in such things as style, fashion, and
+general gentilities, I must say this great Empire City isn't to be
+sneezed at, even by a Green Mountainer. Of course we are ahead in
+religion, morality, decorum, and a kind of politics that consolidates
+all these things into great moral ideas--as rusticoats, greenings and
+Spitzenbergen apples are ground down into one barrel of such sweet cider
+as we used to steal through the bunghole with a straw. You will
+recollect the straws--a Down-east invention, which these degenerated
+Yorkers have stolen, and are now using unblushingly for mint-juleps,
+sherry-cobblers, and such awful drinks as New England has put her foot
+down against with a stamp that makes inebriating individuals shake in
+their boots. But New York won't put her foot down, and the encroachment
+upon our patent-right for straws is just winked at.
+
+Dear me, how one thing does lead a person's mind into another! I took up
+my pen to write about New Year's Day in New York, and here I am, back in
+that old cider-mill behind our orchard, with heaps of red and yellow
+apples piled up in the grass, and the old blind horse moving round and
+round in the mill-ring, dragging along that great wooden wheel, under
+which we could hear the soft-gushing squelch of the apples, while all
+the air smelt rich and fruity with them.
+
+Do you remember the luscious juice dropping from the press, and the full
+barrels lying about, with the sweetness beginning to yeast through the
+bungholes? Then it was we pounced down upon them with our straws, and it
+was these straws that brought New Year's Day in New York and the old
+cider-mill at home into my mind at once. Thus it is, my sisters, with us
+children of genius; thought is born of thought, feeling springs out of
+feeling, till creation and re-creation become spontaneosities.
+
+Some people have said of Phœmie Frost that she lacks philosophy and that
+transcendental essence which becomes the highest female type in New
+England. If any such caviler should reach our Society, have the moral
+courage to point out that last paragraph, and see if the wretches have
+forgotten to blush for themselves.
+
+Christmas Day isn't anything very particular outside of the Episcopal
+Church, in our parts. Somehow the Pilgrim Fathers took a notion against
+it when they cut away from the old country, and built square
+meeting-houses all over New England. But they set up the same thing
+under a new-fangled name. Thanksgiving was just the same to them, and
+showed their independence; so they roasted and baked and stewed, and
+made pumpkin-pies a specialty--because the cavaliers in England couldn't
+get pumkins to compete with them--and went into their meeting-houses to
+thank God that they had good crops, instead of going down on their
+knees--which they didn't, because of standing up to pray--in solemn
+gratitude that the blessed Lord was born upon earth.
+
+Sisters, as a New England female, it would be against nature to say that
+the Pilgrim Fathers wasn't right in sinking Christmas in Thanksgiving,
+and thanking God for full crops, because the corn and potatoes were
+things they all could understand and accept with universal thankfulness;
+but about the birth of Christ, and its merciful object, no two sects
+that I ever heard of could agree, much less the Old Church and the New
+Covenanters.
+
+There it is again; my pen is getting demoralized. Christmas has come and
+gone. What more have I got to say about it? Why, just nothing. Wise
+people accept the past and look forward.
+
+Cousin Dempster insisted upon it, that I should come up and spend New
+Year's Day with them. Cousin E. E. was going to receive calls, and
+wanted some distinguished friend to help her entertain.
+
+I went.
+
+Early in the morning the empty carriage came down to my boarding-house,
+with those two regimental chaps on the out seat.
+
+I was all ready, with my pink silk dress on, and my front hair all in
+one lovely friz; but I just let the carriage wait that the boarders and
+people, with their faces against the window opposite, might have a good
+chance to look at it. Then I walked down the stairs with queenly
+slowness; the long skirt of my dress came a-rustling after, with a rich
+sound that must have penetrated to the boarding-house parlor, for the
+door was just a trifle open as I went by, and three faces, I could swear
+to, were peeping out as if they had never seen a long-trailed, pink silk
+dress before. Then I heard a scuttling toward the window, and, while I
+stood on the upper step, gathering up the back cataract of my dress,
+those same faces flattened themselves plump against the glass.
+
+Of course I did not hurry myself on that account, but took an
+observation up and down the street while I tightened the buttons of my
+glove, though one of the regimental chaps was a-standing there and
+holding the door wide open.
+
+"Why shouldn't I give the poor things just this one glimpse of the
+fashionable life to which genius has lifted me," says I to myself.
+
+Influenced by this idea, I paused, perhaps, half a minute, with my foot
+on the iron step, and asked the regimental chap, with the air of a queen
+giving directions, if it was very cold? and if Mrs. Dempster was quite
+well, that morning?
+
+He bowed when he answered both these questions, with the greatest
+respect; which was satisfactory, as the people on both sides must have
+seen him do it.
+
+Then I stepped gracefully into the carriage and sat down, buried to my
+knees in billows of pink silk. Over that I drew the robe of white fur,
+and waved my hand, as much as to say: I am seated; you can close the
+door. Which he did.
+
+One thing is curious about the streets of New York on New Year's Day.
+Not a woman or girl is to be seen on the sidewalks.
+
+The garden of Eden, before Adam went into the spare-rib business,
+wouldn't have been more completely given up to the desolation of
+manhood, unrefined by sweet female influence.
+
+But every man that I saw, going up or down, looked bright and smiling,
+as if he expected to find an Eve of his own before the day was over, and
+I shouldn't wonder if a good many of them did.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII.
+
+THE NEW YEAR'S RECEPTION.
+
+
+Cousin E. E. Dempster was all ready, and standing as large as life in
+one end of her long parlor, when I went in. The first sight of that room
+made me start back and scream right out. I had left daylight outside,
+but found night there. The blinds were shut close to every window. Over
+them fell a snow-storm of white lace, and over that a cataract of silk
+that seemed to have been dyed in wine, its redness was so rich and
+wavy.
+
+The two great glass balloons were just running over with brightness that
+scattered itself everywhere--on the chairs, the cushions, the carpet,
+and a great round sofa which stood, like a giant cheese, in the middle
+of the room, all covered with silk, and with a tall flower-pot standing
+up from the centre, running over with flowers, and vines, and things.
+
+This queer sofa, that seemed to have burst out into blossom for the
+occasion, was a New Year's present, Cousin E. E. said, and quite a
+surprise. "Then there is another," says she, a-pointing towards a marble
+man, dressed in a grape leaf, that seemed to have been firing something
+at the stone girl, and was watching to see if it had hit. "Of course you
+have seen the Apollo before?"
+
+I looked at the stone fellow sideways, then dropped my eyes.
+
+"I--I don't know," says I; "maybe I should know him better if he had his
+clothes on."
+
+"Look again. You must have seen him," says she.
+
+"No," says I, a-turning my head away; "I--I'd rather not till he goes
+out and fixes himself up a little."
+
+Cousin E. E. laughed till her face was red. While she was tittering like
+a chirping bird, that little creature Cecilia came tripping into the
+room, with a blue silk dress, ruffled over with white lace, just
+reaching to her knees, her yellow hair a-rippling over that, clear down
+behind, and a wreath of pink roses on her head. She looked at me from
+top to toe, gave her head a toss, and went up to her mother with the air
+of an injured princess.
+
+"That old pink silk again! What did you let her wear it for? New Year's
+Day, too. The idea!"
+
+I heard every word of it, for the stuck-up thing didn't trouble herself
+to speak low. My face had been hot enough before, but it burned like
+fire now, and my bosom heaved till it stormed against my dress and
+almost burst it.
+
+"Hush!" said Cousin E. E., looking scared; "she will hear."
+
+"Well, let her. As if I cared! The idea!"
+
+I stepped forward, with my finger lifted, and my dress sweeping. It must
+have been an imposing sight, for E. E. raised both hands, imploringly,
+and says she, "Cecilia, come and see your father's present."
+
+"Oh, isn't it gorgeous?" sang out the child, clasping her hands, and
+turning her back square on me while she went up to the stone fellow.
+"Such a splendid mate for Venus!"
+
+"Yes, I should think so," says I sarcastically; "only Miss Venus does
+seem ashamed of herself; but the fellow is bold as brass."
+
+The girl's lip curled like an opening rose-bud; she gave a nipping
+laugh, and I just heard "old fogy" break through it so saucily that my
+blood riled.
+
+"Did you apply that to me?" says I, a-lifting my finger.
+
+"No, no, nothing of the kind," says Cousin E. E., catching her breath.
+"You quite misunderstand Cecilia. Dear me, that is a carriage; people
+are beginning to call. Cecilia, my love, do try and make yourself
+agreeable."
+
+"Just as much as to say that I could be anything else," says the
+aggravating creature, a-hitching up her shoulders.
+
+Sure enough, some one was coming, and no three canary birds in a cage
+ever fluttered into their places quicker than we did. Cousin E. E.
+seated herself in a great cosey chair, all cushions, spread out her
+dress on the floor, and leaned a little sideways as if she was sitting
+to Brady for a picture. I gave my pink silk a wide swoop, and let it
+settle down on the carpet in ridges; then I leaned my elbow on the silk
+cushions of the great round sofa, and drooped my head a little as if
+breathing the scent of so many flowers had made me a trifle faint. That
+child ran to the glass, shook out her lace ruffles, and stepped back
+again to admire--well, her limbs--just as if she had been a stone girl,
+and was in love with herself. I swan to man she made me sick and faint,
+if the flowers didn't.
+
+There was a noise in the hall-way, and I caught a peep at a handsome
+young fellow prinking himself in the great looking-glass set in the
+hat-stand. Then he came in, tripping along with his hand held out to
+Cousin E. E., who went forward with her train following after, took his
+lilac glove in her hand, smiled up in his face, and said how glad she
+was to see him.
+
+Before he could answer, that forward child came up and held out _her_
+hand. She, too, was delighted; wondered he hadn't been there lately.
+Indeed, she began to think he was never coming again.
+
+The young fellow did seem to be taken aback a minute, for the forward
+creature had just cut her mother out; but he soon began to talk and
+laugh with her as chipper as could be, and only stopped to give me a nip
+of a bow when Cousin E. E. introduced him.
+
+Well, my opinion is I gave him as good as he sent; but short measure at
+that; for I just lifted my head as if taking a sniff at the flowers, and
+that was all. If that young man thought I was brought up in the woods to
+be scared by owls, he found out his mistake. He was standing with his
+back towards me when I heard E. E. say, in one of those whispers that
+cut to the ear keener than a scream:
+
+"It is Miss Phœmie Frost, the celebrated writer."
+
+"What," says he, "Miss Frost, the person on whom the Grand Duke levelled
+his eye-glass at the opera three times, and who was prevented opening
+the ball with him by the machinations of the committee?"
+
+"The same," says Cousin E. E.
+
+Before she could put in another word, that young gentleman had wheeled
+round in his patent leather boots, and was making me a bow that went so
+near the floor that his lilac gloves fell below his knees. Then he rose
+slowly, like a jack-knife that opens hard, and stood there a-smiling in
+my face as if I had just treated him to a quart of maple molasses fresh
+from the kettle.
+
+"Miss Frost," says he, "I'm happy to make your acquaintance; your
+writings have been my delight--in fact, a household word in our
+family--for years."
+
+"Years?" says I.
+
+"That is, ever since you began to honor the world with the emanations of
+your genius," says he, with an open wave of both hands.
+
+I bowed. I half rose from that round sofa. I knew by the soft, quivering
+sensation that smiles were creeping to my lips, and giving them a lovely
+redness.
+
+"Sir," says I, "you are complimentary. I am but a young beginner in the
+paths of literature--a timid worker in the great harvest field of
+thought."
+
+He smiled; he moved the billowy folds of my dress with infinite
+reverence, and seated himself timidly beside me. Then he talked books to
+me--broken and fragmentary, but exquisite. He could understand why the
+Grand Duke was so anxious to get back to New York. That poetry of mine
+must have lifted him right off from his feet. What a lovely talent
+poetry was!
+
+I sat upright, but looked downward, hiding the pleasure in my eyes by my
+drooping lashes. Faithful, heart and soul, to one noble being, I refused
+to look into the admiring eyes of another. His insidious praises of my
+genius made no impression. The image of a man six feet two, with a
+sky-blue scarf across his princely bosom, stood at the portal of my
+heart, and the young gentleman with curled hair and that light-colored
+mustache sighed, and sighed in vain.
+
+That forward little creature, Cecilia, saved me from temptation. Up she
+came, with her frock and her hair all in a flutter.
+
+"You haven't seen our new statue," says she, a-pulling at his hand.
+
+The young gentleman arose from my side with a look that went to my
+heart. As he stood before that pre-Adamite stone man, I got one good,
+long look at his face. As true as I live, he had found out some of
+Cousin E. E.'s ways of making herself beautiful! for his eyes had
+shadows under them, and his cheeks were like roses. Now, sisters, did
+you ever? Only think of a Green Mountain fellow doing that!
+
+But now another lot of men came in, dressed up to kill. Some had yellow
+kid gloves on, some lilac, and some gray. Their patent-leather boots
+shone like looking-glasses, and some of 'em tipped along as if they were
+treading over eggs and didn't mean to break 'em. Cousin E. E. introduced
+them all, and I had to rise, and bow, and make long, sweeping curtsies
+till my back ached, and my poor mouth felt dry with trying to look
+unconscious when so many of 'em told me I was a household word in their
+families.
+
+When the first lot of 'em were going out, Cousin E. E. just put back the
+red curtains at one end of the room, and behind 'em was a table all set
+off with silver, and glass, and flowers, and great, tall dishes crowded
+full of fruit and mottoes, all standing under the hot sunshine of one of
+those glass balloons, a-glittering and a-flashing like a house afire.
+
+I couldn't help giving a little scream, it was all so rich and
+beautiful--with two colored waiters in white gloves, ready to help
+everybody.
+
+Cousin E. E. stood at one end of the table--for it was a stand-up
+meal--and asked her visitors to take birds, and oysters, and terrapin.
+What the dickens is terrapin? Have you any idea, sisters? I ate some,
+and it had a stewy sort of taste, as if it had been kind of burnt in
+cooking.
+
+Well, one took one thing, and one another. Then each fellow wiped his
+mustaches, and the waiters came round with cider bottles, loaded over
+and chained up with silver, and the cider hissed and bubbled and
+sparkled as they poured it out into the glasses, that started narrow at
+the bottom, but spread out into dishes at the top, giving a chance for
+little whirlpools to the cider--which _was_ cider, I can tell you; it
+had vim enough in it to make your eyes snap.
+
+When the glasses were full we all took them up. The gentlemen muttered
+"Compliments of the season," and we answered "Compliments of the season"
+Cecilia and all--who just had the impudence to stand on tip-toe, and
+knock her glass against that of the fellow with lilac gloves and curly
+hair. Then we all drank and sipped, and, as that party went off,
+another came in--stream after stream--till night. It was the same thing
+over and over again, till ten o'clock at night, when Mr. Dempster came
+home, looking awfully tired out; then we just gave up. Sisters, this has
+been the hardest and most confusing day that I have known in New York.
+It seems as if my joints never would get limber again. But then I had a
+real good time, though the cider did begin to get into my head towards
+night. It couldn't have been made out of Vermont apples, I feel
+certain--they haven't got so much dizziness in 'em.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV.
+
+MIGNON: A NIGHT AT THE GRAND OPERA.
+
+
+Sisters, we went to the opera--that is, dear sisters in the cause, the
+Grand Duke and I were there; both of us seated on red cushions, and so
+near that we could exchange glances through our eye-glasses, which draw
+a beloved object close to you. They are a great invention which has not
+yet reached that portion of the country where prayer-meetings take the
+place of operas.
+
+I felt in my bones that he would meet me there; and when Cousin Emily
+Elizabeth sent me word that she had got a loge--which means a little
+square pen in the gallery, cushioned off like a first-class pew--and
+wanted me to go with her to hear the great primer-donner, I just got
+that dress out again, and set the frizzing-pins to work, and did myself
+up so scrumptiously that I don't believe that a creature on Sprucehill
+would have known me. Don't say this is extravagant, and flying in the
+face of Providence. If He don't want silk dresses worn by the elect,
+what on earth does He make silk-worms and mulberry-leaves for? That is a
+question that we'll have debated over in the Society some day. Until
+then, oblige me by not saying, openly, that I'm a free-thinker, because
+I'm nothing of the sort. Not that my taste, since coming to the opera,
+has not got a notch above Greenbank or Old Hundred, in the way of music;
+I am free to own that it has.
+
+Well, Cousin Emily Elizabeth had sent word that I mustn't wear a bonnet,
+or think of such a thing; and she sent me down a fur mantle, made of
+white kitten-skins, I reckon, with little black tails dropping all over
+it--just the tips, which needn't have hurt the black kittens much, if it
+_was_ all day to the white ones. So, when I come down, holding up my
+long skirts with one hand, and folding this fur across my innocent
+bosom, she just screamed out from the carriage that I looked gorgeous
+enough to turn the great Grand Duke's head, which I felt to be true--for
+women are not given to praising each other for nothing, anyhow.
+
+The opera-house in New York would take in our biggest meeting-house, and
+leave room for a wide strip of carpeting all round it. It has got three
+galleries, and ever so many places, that look like pulpits and deacon's
+seats, all cushioned and curtained off beautifully.
+
+We went up to the first gallery, and got into Cousin Dempster's
+loge-pew, which was just big enough for four people. This was fortunate,
+for our skirts and fur mantles took up every mite of room that Cousin D.
+did not want; but he put up with it beautifully, and just scrouched down
+behind us, with his head rising above our shoulders, which would have
+been rather uncovered if it had not been for the fur, which tickled mine
+a little; but I bore it with fortitude. You who know me will understand
+that.
+
+The opera-house was crowded full; every pew was crammed, and the benches
+down below couldn't be seen, the people were so thick. The pew loges
+were running over with handsome girls, and old ladies that tried their
+best to look like girls, and couldn't, not having the country freshness
+that some people bring with them from the mountains.
+
+But the three pulpits on the second gallery were empty yet--all empty,
+and gorgeously red, waiting for _him_.
+
+At last, a great green curtain that hung just beyond this sacred place
+rolled up. The lights in a great glittering balloon, all hung with ropes
+of shiny glass beads which fell down from the centre of the roof, blazed
+up, and when I dropped my head from looking at it, all the other end of
+the room was crowded with a gang of the queerest-looking people--men,
+women, children, and dogs--that ever you did see. That was the opera,
+Cousin E. E. said; though how an opera could have a house and a cart in
+it, beat me.
+
+Well, sisters, I give up. Roll every singing-school in Vermont into one
+crowd, and they couldn't begin to burst out like that; men, women, and
+girls, just went in for a splendid time, and they had it. First, a pew
+full of fiddlers, drummers, tromboners, and bas-violers, let themselves
+out in a storm of music that made the ten millions of beads on the glass
+balloons tremble like hailstones. Then the whole gang lifted up their
+voices, and the music rolled out just as I reckon the water does at
+Niagara Falls. Such a general training of music was enough to wake the
+dead out of a New England grave, where they sleep sound, I guess, if
+they do anywhere.
+
+By and by they rose up, and began to wander about, making their funny
+little white dogs play, and some of the girls began to dance about. It
+was a travelling-show, you see, and some of the upper-crust people came
+out of the house I spoke of, and listened. One was a lady, dressed out
+to kill in a striped skirt, black velvet, and yellow silk; another
+yellow skirt bunched over that, and then a blue dress puffed above both,
+and her hair just splendid. I tell you she was a dasher!
+
+But the people were all busy unloading the cart; they took out bundles
+and baskets and things. Finally a girl, that had been lying asleep on
+the load, jumped down, with her shoulders hitched up, and looking cross
+as fire at everybody that came near her. She was barefooted and
+bareheaded, and had nothing but an under night-gown and petticoat on,
+which seemed to aggravate her, for she looked scowling enough at the
+handsome young lady, and would not double-shuffle worth a cent, though
+all the men and women were trying to make her.
+
+The moment she jumped off from the cart, the folks in the seats just ran
+crazy, and began clapping their hands and stamping their feet like a
+house afire; I never saw people act so in my life. It was enough to
+frighten the poor thing half to death. Instead of that, it seemed to
+tickle her mightily, for she came forward, with her bare feet, and made
+a little mincing bow, and almost laughed.
+
+Then the strangest thing happened. First one, and then another, of the
+show-people, instead of reasoning with the wilful creature, just went to
+waving their arms and singing at her. I declare it was enough to have
+made a minister laugh when she turned, and began to sing back at them,
+sometimes spiteful, and then, again, with tears melting through her
+voice. An old man in gray clothes, that looked crazy as a coot, sung at
+her, sort of hoarse, and mournfully. Then a young fellow, in a green
+coat and high boots, dropped into the affair, and he sung at her. Then
+the handsome lady in blue and yellow burst out and sang at her too,
+filling the whole opera-house with music. By watching and listening, I
+found out this much. This girl was an orphan, picked up by the band of
+players, that made her dance and sing for her keeping. The fellow with
+the green coat and boots felt sorry for her, and bought her up, short
+gown and all, from the tribe of players. Then she put on the dress of a
+pretty boy, and waited on the handsome woman in yellow, who was one of
+them actress-women, and dead in love with the young fellow in boots. He
+was awfully in love with the actress woman too, which just aggravated
+that girl-boy out of her seven senses, poor thing! When she happened to
+watch them together, you should have seen her fling down her cap, and
+kick it about. There was some human nature in that, but singing love out
+before folks beats me. I couldn't bring myself to anything of the
+kind--not if the Grand Duke were standing before me with his arms out,
+shouting Old Hundred.
+
+Goodness gracious! that girl-boy had taken up my thoughts, so that I
+didn't know when the Grand Duke came into his pulpit loge. But there he
+was, standing up, and looking right toward me, so pleasant.
+
+I threw back my fur mantle a trifle, and taking Cousin E. E.'s fan,
+waved it gracefully, hoping thus to cool off the blushes that bathed my
+cheeks with a rosiness that I feared might not harmonize with the tints
+already there.
+
+Still he looked my way earnestly, and with the fire of admiration in his
+blue eyes. A young thing sitting in the loge-pew behind me began to turn
+away her head and hide behind her fan, as if she had anything to do with
+it. The conceit of some people is astonishing!
+
+Cousin E. E.'s little spy-glass lay in her lap. I took it up; I held it
+to my eyes, and devoured him with one burning glance. His heart seemed
+leaping to mine through the glass. I knew it. I felt it. Indeed he won't
+be the first of his noble race that has lost heart and soul to a country
+girl.
+
+The Prince sat down, and when there was a lull in the music, clapped his
+hands with joy. Oh, my sisters! it is something to have given such
+supreme pleasure to the Grand Ducal soul.
+
+He looked at the play; I looked too. Souls in sympathy have but one
+thought. I pitied that poor girl-boy with all my heart--my own happiness
+made me compassionate. How she suffered when that woman with the yellow
+skirts and the young fellow in boots were singing love to each other!
+Once she got wild, and dressed herself in a pink silk, and--well, she
+made one of those toilets that Cousin E. E. understands so well. I was
+sorry to see her exposing one or two little things that should be a
+secret with the sex. But she did, and the yellow lady caught her at it,
+and sung awfully provoking things at her.
+
+Well, she just tore off the dress, scattered the lace trimmings about,
+put on her old duds, and ran away.
+
+Then the house got on fire: the whole swarm of people come out
+helter-skelter, singing to the flames that didn't mind the music more
+than if it had been buckets full of water. Firemen came running with
+ladders that nobody climbed, and pails of water, that the firemen
+carried round and round, in and out, like crazy creatures. I am sure I
+saw one fellow, with a white pail, pitch through the same window into
+the red-hot flames fifty times. The poor girl-boy, being desperate, just
+pitched in, determined to burn herself, while the woman in yellow and
+the man in boots looked on.
+
+This went right to the cruel man's heart; he jumped in after her,
+carried her away from the devouring flames, and fell in love with her
+like a man. Of course, being a decent kind of a fellow, he couldn't keep
+on singing out his love to both girls at once with enthusiasm, and began
+to neglect the yellow girl in a way that brought tears into her voice
+whenever she came pleading to him under the window--which she did, not
+having the pride of all the Frost family in her veins.
+
+Of course this did no good; men never come back to women that whine. The
+girl--for she had given up boys' clothes--had got him safe; he didn't
+care a chestnut-burr for all the other's singing, but took to the little
+vagabondess with all his heart and soul.
+
+Now something else happened. The old man in gray got his mind again and
+turned out to be Mignon's father (have I told you that was her name?).
+He was a rich old fellow, with a house furnished with gilt chairs, and
+everything sumptuous--so, of course, the fellow in boots stuck to her
+more than ever.
+
+I don't know what became of the woman in yellow, but as for this other
+girl, she came out first best in every respect; especially at the end,
+when ever so many flowers and baskets and things were just poured down
+upon her. For my part, I thought the yellow girl ought to have had full
+half of these things, for I liked her quite as well, if not better than
+the vagabondess.
+
+Well, the green curtain went down for good, and the whole congregation
+got up to go out.
+
+"How do you like Nilsson?" says Cousin E. E., as she was fastening her
+fur mantle.
+
+"Nilsson!" says I, "I haven't seen her yet."
+
+"Why, yes you have--she just came out."
+
+"What!--that girl-boy?"
+
+"Yes, Mignon."
+
+"You don't say so," says I. "Who then was the girl in yellow?"
+
+"Oh! she is Duval."
+
+"Well, I like her at any rate, poor thing; it was a shame to treat her
+so."
+
+That moment I felt that the great Grand Duke was gone. Not one more
+glance. It was hard!
+
+
+
+
+XXV.
+
+THE BLACK CROOK.
+
+
+Sisters:--Since my intimacy with Imperial Royalty, Cousin Emily
+Elizabeth Dempster has been as proud as a peacock of our relationship,
+and speaks about the Court of all the Russias as if she expected to have
+an ice-palace built on the Neva for her, every winter, for the rest of
+her life. This may be natural--I dare say it is; but I'm afraid that
+Russia--being an awful despotism--wouldn't stand too many of one's
+relations crowding into the Imperial corn-crib, that being a free-born
+institution peculiar to high moral ideas which my great Grand Duke did
+not stay in Boston long enough to imbibe.
+
+Still, being a relation and born under the star-spangled banner, why
+shouldn't she have her own little hopes? I ask myself this and resolve
+to do my best for her. Being a first cousin she has her rights.
+
+This morning E. E. sent down a little straw-colored letter with a
+picture on the envelop just where it seals, and asked me to go with her
+and Dempster to see "The Black Crook," which she wrote was a spectacle
+worth looking at. They had got seats at Niblo's to see it after ever so
+much trouble, and were sure that I would be delighted.
+
+Delighted! What about! I never hankered much for eye-glass or
+spectacles. I wish cousin E. E. would be a little more particular about
+her spelling--that sometimes makes goose-pimples creep all over me--but
+a spectacle, singular, spelt with an "a," gives one just a tantalizing
+sense of growing old, more provoking than saying the thing right out. I
+can't see any more sense in one spectacle than in half a pair of
+scissors, but maybe she can. At any rate I don't mean to go gadding down
+to Mr. Niblo's theatre just to see that.
+
+But the "Black Crook," I'm beat to know what that has to do with
+spectacles or eye-glasses. I have read what our minister calls pastoral
+poetry, and almost always find it divided off into hill-side lots, where
+some stuck-up young creature in the farming line, is tending sheep, with
+a long crook-necked stick in her hand, with which she
+
+    Just trains the little bleating lambs,
+      "With fleece as white as snow,"
+    And points out with her crooked stick
+      Just where they ought to go.
+
+Excuse poetry, but, like a pent-up spring, it will break forth; nor must
+you suspect me of plagiarism. Remark--the second line has honest
+quotation-marks, which is doing full justice to Mary who owned the
+particular lamb which has become immortal from its whiteness and
+exceptional training.
+
+But all this does not bring us any nearer to what this Black Crook
+means. I have been studying this matter over. Of course a crook is a
+crook. Put the neck of a winter squash on the end of a bean pole, and
+you have it.
+
+But the Black Crook. Black? Ah, why didn't I think of that before? From
+the name, I suppose it is some reconstruction instrument for hooking-up
+taxes and bonds, left behind here in New York by some run-away Southern
+governor.
+
+Well, now, I _should_ like to see that--anything left behind by one of
+those fellows must be a curiosity.
+
+Yes, I made up my mind to accept Cousin E. E. D.'s invitation. The
+theatre would be something new anyhow, and it is the duty of my mission
+to see all things and hold fast to that which is good.
+
+Well, just before dark, I got out that pink silk dress and the two long
+braids, and shut myself in with the looking-glass over my bureau, which
+is always reflecting, but says nothing, or one might be afraid to trust
+it on some occasions.
+
+I was almost ready, when Cousin Emily E. come in so suddenly that I
+hopped up from my chair, and gave a scary scream. The face in the glass
+turned all sorts of colors, and seemed to scream too, and looked
+half-frightened to death. Cousin E. E. laughed, and shut the door.
+Holding up both hands, says she:
+
+"What, in that dress! My dear cousin, it is to a theatre we are going."
+
+"Well, I reckon your letter told me that," says I, a-spreading out the
+skirt of my dress along the floor.
+
+"But we do not dress like that for a theatre," says she, a-looking down
+at her black silk dress, which was all fluttered over with narrow
+ruffles. "No trains, dear Cousin Frost, no lace--a plain walking-dress
+and bonnet--nothing more?"
+
+I looked at the shiny waves of pink silk lying around my feet, and at
+that face in the glass, and was just ready to burst out a-crying. It was
+too bad.
+
+"You thought this just the thing when we went to hear that Miss Nilsson
+sing," says I, looking mournfully at that face in the glass, which was
+almost crying.
+
+"Yes; but that was the opera--this only a theatre. You see the
+difference," says she.
+
+"No, I don't," says I.
+
+"Well, you will," says she. "It's the fashion. You, who write about
+fashionable life so beautifully, ought to know that."
+
+"Just as if I didn't," says I; and the fire flashed into my eyes while I
+took off my pink dress; and put on my alpaca, which has got a new
+overskirt trimmed with flutings.
+
+"There," says I, flinging the pink silk down on the bed, "will that
+suit?"
+
+"Beautifully," says she. "Now get your shawl and bonnet."
+
+Which I did.
+
+The carriage held four of us this time, for Cousin E. E. had brought
+that little girl of hers, who sat huddled up in the back seat. When her
+mother told her to change places, "The idea," says she, giving her head
+a fling, and eying me like an angry poodle-dog; then she flounced down
+in the front seat, so huffish and sulky, that her father said, in a
+milk-and-waterish way:
+
+"My darling, don't be naughty."
+
+And his wife told him not to interfere between her and her child. She
+knew how to bring up a young lady, and he mustn't attempt to break her
+spirit; at which the heap of sulks in the corner muttered that it wasn't
+in him to do it.
+
+There isn't so very much difference between the Opera House and Mr.
+Niblo's theatre; only, one is piled up sky-high with cushioned
+galleries; and the theatre is considerably out-of-doors, especially in
+the lower story. We sat right in front, for Cousin E. E. said that the
+"Crook" could be seen best from there. I said nothing, but waited. Some
+people love to ask questions, but I would rather find out things for
+myself--it's a saving to one's feelings in the long run.
+
+Well, the theatre was jammed full of people, mostly with shawls, and
+cloaks, and bonnets on. Cousin E. E. was right. What is genteel in one
+place is vulgar in another--that is fashion.
+
+That child insisted on trying all the seats, to see which she liked
+best; but we got settled at last, and just then up went the
+picture-curtain with a rush. I screamed right out, for the very first
+sight took away my breath. Oh! sisters, I wish you could have seen it.
+Such trees, such loads of flowers, such clusters and streams of light!
+Oh my! if Eve ever had a paradise like that, she was just the greatest
+goose that ever lived to be turned out of it for the sake of one little
+knotty apple. I've no patience with her!
+
+While I was looking at this beautiful world, another scream burst from
+my lips, for, all in a moment, it was alive with women, so lovely, so
+graceful, so full of life, that they almost took away one's breath. At
+first, they all came whirling in, as figures do in a dream; but, after a
+minute, I just felt like sinking through the floor. Why, sisters, they
+might just as well have been dressed in flowers! In short, dress a
+full-grown girl in a double poppy, with fringed edges, and you have an
+idea of what I couldn't look at. I felt my cheeks glow with fire; my
+fingers tingled with shame. It seemed to me that every man in the house
+was looking straight into my eyes, to see how I bore it. I lifted my
+eyes, and cast one frightened look around me, ready to jump up and run
+from the first face turned to mine. Then I just covered my face with my
+open fan.
+
+There wasn't a face turned my way. Every soul--men, women, and
+children--were looking at those girls, who whirled, and moved, and
+tangled themselves up in some sort of a wild, wicked dance, that must
+have been the work of Old Nick himself, for nothing less could have made
+me look on. My whole heart rose right up against those beautiful
+creatures, but somehow they seemed to hold me to my seat. Really,
+sisters, you have no idea how very enticing a woman can be who puffs a
+lot of gauze around her waist, throws a wreath of flowers over her
+shoulders, and dances like a whirlwind.
+
+At first, I just covered my face with my fan, for I could not bring
+myself up to a straightforward look. Then, somehow, my fingers would get
+apart, and I found myself peeping through the slats just as shamed as
+could be, but yet I could not help peeping.
+
+Mercy on me, what a whirl and rush of light! What a flashing of gold;
+what a crowd of women dressed in nothing, and a little gauze thrown
+in--it made my head whirl like a top.
+
+I can't tell you just when my hand dropped into my lap, but before I
+knew it my eyes were fixed on that great whirling picture, and my sense
+of shame was lost in a storm of music. All these glittering women were
+standing in rows, regular as the pickets on a door-yard fence, while one
+girl, with a wreath of green leaves and red berries on her head, was
+whirling on one toe round and round, till she seemed to be a dozen girls
+whizzing round in a cloud of white muslin.
+
+By and by all the crowd of girls joined in and began dodging about among
+the trees and flowers, like--well I must say it,--like runaway angels
+determined to have a good time of it. Then a man, covered to his knees
+with silver scales like a fish, came in, and he had a dance with the
+girl in leaves and red berries. Such a dance--they backed, they
+advanced, they snapped their fingers at each other, they flung up their
+heels, they locked arms backwards, then broke apart, and began the most
+lively double-shuffle at each other that ever I dreamed of. It fairly
+took away my breath to see them.
+
+"That is a splendid can-can," says that child, taking the little
+spy-glass from her mother's lap, and levelling it at the dancers. "Don't
+you think so, Miss Phœmie?"
+
+I gave her a look; it was all I could spare just then, for some new
+people had come into the picture. A great tall fellow, with body
+supporters like bean poles, had come in with a lovely creature, who was
+considered a queen among the girls. Just as I was looking, he seemed to
+stretch himself out like a piece of india-rubber, and lifting one foot,
+swung it over her head without touching a curl.
+
+So this was the "Black Crook," not that I saw anything like a crook, but
+the burning pictures more than made up for that, and the dancing was,
+well--stupendous.
+
+Every once in a while a curtain would fall and shut out the pictures.
+Every time it was drawn up something more splendid than anything that
+had gone before came out. One picture was all in a veil of fog, through
+which the men and women roved like beautiful ghosts. In another, some of
+the cunningest little dogs you ever saw danced, and begged, and acted a
+play for themselves, just like human creatures. At last came a great
+fiery picture, all gold and glare, and flowers planted in fire, with
+trees that seemed to be dropping golden fruit, in which all the crowd of
+beautiful girls were lying on banks and under trees, and perched like
+splendid birds up in the air. Then the curtain came down with a thud,
+smothering up the fire, and hiding everything. The storm of music broke
+off with a crash, and the crowd began to shout and yell, and stamp their
+feet till the whole building shook.
+
+Sisters, this is all I can tell you about the "Black Crook." It is
+splendid, and wonderfully enticing; but you might as well expect me to
+give you a clear idea of a burning city. It is just one picture of
+gorgeous confusion and confused gorgeousness.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI.
+
+LIVING APART.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--There has been great tumult and trouble in New York since
+I wrote my last report. Something that relates to the honor of Vermont
+has thrilled the public mind to a fearful extent. A smart, genial,
+warm-hearted, dashing person, by the name of Fisk--Mr. James Fisk--born
+and brought up in our State, has been shot in the largest tavern in the
+city, where he died, I greatly fear, without a realizing sense that he
+was so soon to be called before his Maker.
+
+Many of you, my sisters, can remember this man--a great, handsome,
+good-natured-looking fellow, with sunshiny eyes, and a mustache that
+curled up like a pair of horns on each side of a mouth that always
+seemed ready to laugh at something. There wasn't a man that ever came to
+Sprucehill that everybody was so sure to remember. His great wagon,
+painted off like a circus, with four horses a-drawing it through the
+village, with a splash-dash noise of whips and wheels and hoofs, was
+enough to make the money spring right out of one's pocket. Mercy on me!
+Didn't he make the dry-goods fly! Everybody bought something of him, and
+I must say that everybody liked him. In the peddling line he was a sort
+of P. T. Barnum, only he didn't know how to stick to his trade as Barnum
+has. He drove his four horses; he made money like everything; he outgrew
+Brattleborough, which was his native place, and soon got above peddling,
+his native business.
+
+The next step towards his exaltation and ruin was that he left Vermont,
+a man who will do that of his own accord is sure to run wild. Well, he
+left his native State, and set up at the Hub of the Universe, which
+every one knows is Boston, where he began his education as a financier
+and a millionaire.
+
+Boston is a great city. I should like to hear any one dare to deny that;
+but, then, people here say that, in the way of financing, the Hub knows
+how to save, and skimp, and deposit, and get twice her share of offices
+out of the President of the United States; but, outside of that, she is
+nowhere, compared to New York. She has no idea of turning a sharp stock
+corner, couldn't get up a Black Friday to save her life; in fact, is
+only good at an old-fashioned tea-party. This is what Cousin Dempster
+says about Boston, and he ought to know, being a first-class broker in
+Wall Street, and New England born.
+
+Well, of course, it wasn't long before Mr. Fisk outgrew the Hub, which
+hadn't room for all the spokes which he wanted to carry to his wheel,
+and off he comes to New York, gets into the Erie Railroad, and, goodness
+knows how he did it! but before people knew who he was, he went smashing
+and crashing up that road, prowled through Wall Street like a roaring
+lion, or bear, or some other such animals as gore and claw each other in
+that neighborhood.
+
+Well, after he had sent a good many brokers sky-high with his horns, and
+knocked others down with his paws, for he tackled in with both, he goes
+kiting off to sea by way of the Sound.
+
+While people were wondering what he would do next, he had gone to work
+and fitted up great palatial steamboats, and invited the President to
+travel in them, which the President did, not dreaming that he was
+expected to build up a cattle-pen or a bear-garden in exchange for a
+little hospitality.
+
+Well, it's hard satisfying a Vermonter when he once breaks loose from
+his native mountains. After gobbling up railroads and putting steamboats
+afloat, Mr. Fisk just swung back into Wall Street one day, and upset
+things generally in less time than any man ever did before. No shootist
+ever brought down more birds at a shot, than he left men in that street
+rich in the morning, and ruined at night. Cousin Dempster says it was
+awful.
+
+Mr. Fisk didn't care, but wheeled out of the street just as he used to
+drive his pedler's wagon, with hoofs a-rattling and whips a-cracking,
+riding over ruined men everywhere in his track.
+
+Besides all this, Mr. Fisk had a great, grand, overpowering Opera House,
+and carried on a theatre, in which women danced, like Black-crookers,
+and sang like--well, I can't tell what they did sing like, not having a
+comparison handy--but it was awfully interesting, Cousin Dempster said;
+and I believe him, for E. E. says he used to go to that Opera House
+alone so often, that she began to be afraid that he was getting into
+some business with Mr. Fisk that must be transacted in the evening--a
+thing she didn't like, the man being considered so overpoweringly
+fascinating.
+
+I don't know whether Mr. Fisk belonged to the Woman's Righters or not,
+but there was a good deal of talk about him, such as would have
+compelled any religious society in Vermont to get up an investigation
+and some extra prayer-meetings, which he wouldn't have liked, being
+mostly given contrary-wise. But the one thing he hadn't done was to join
+a church, and, you see, nobody in particular had a right to call him to
+account but his wife, and she didn't.
+
+Some people were mean enough to hint that his system of married life
+wasn't just the thing for a couple brought up in the purifying
+atmosphere of a Vermont village, and went so far as to turn up their
+noses because he lived about the Opera House and she in Boston, close to
+the very heart of the Hub, as if any woman could get further away from
+original sin than that.
+
+But these slanderers knew as well as could be, that Mr. Fisk had a free
+pass on the telegraph and steam communication with his wife every day.
+Besides, didn't the newspapers give his most private actions to an
+admiring public, every few hours, and couldn't she read how blameless
+and self-sacrificing his life was.
+
+Besides being a great financier and seafaring man, our Vermont pedler
+took up social life as a specialty, and distinguished himself among the
+high fashionables. The moral ideas that he had brought from Down East,
+were just as dashing as his Wall-street corners. He still kept the
+telegraph wires quivering with conjugal messages, and when he took
+domestic ease and the fresh salt air on the Jersey sea-coast, at Long
+Branch, in a high-swung carriage, with four seats, and stable help in
+trainer's clothes, wasn't his wife at another watering-place, called
+Newport, with a high-swinging carriage of her own, all cushioned off
+with silk, and with her gold-mounted harness rattling over six horses,
+just as black and shiny as his?
+
+If that isn't conjugal sympathy, such as goes down among the upper crust
+of New York, I don't know what is.
+
+Just the same number of horses, just the same swing in her carriage,
+just the same people--no, I am a little out there. She had relations in
+the seats, and he hadn't always.
+
+But then, what is all that compared to a great many fashionable,
+married folks in New York--so extravagantly fond of each other, that
+they make the Atlantic Ocean for a connecting link, year after year, and
+correspond tenderly in bills of exchange.
+
+Our poor, dead pedler from Vermont wasn't the only man in New York who
+lived and loved by steam and telegraph.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII.
+
+MORE ABOUT FISK.
+
+
+When the New England mind, which is a little apt to be troubled about
+the marriage relations of its emigrants, asks you about my report, you
+can say that this New England couple were only following the upper-crust
+fashion with married people in our great cities, where men and their
+wives find the Atlantic Ocean more convenient than a divorce court.
+Being imbued with morality from the Hub, they only set an example of
+easy distances.
+
+It takes a good, solid foundation of religion for even a born Vermonter
+to stand against a sudden rush of money. This man seemed to start fair.
+He began his life with _us_. Next he went to Boston, the very spring and
+fountain of high moral ideas, where every law has a higher law to
+nullify it. He left his better half in the salubrious atmosphere, where
+she performed her domestic duties alone, while he was toiling down Erie
+railroad stock, and promulgating sweet sounds from the Grand Opera
+House. Bound together in conjugal sympathy, by ever-vibrating telegraph
+wires, what could have been more satisfactory and highly fashionable
+than these hymeneal relations?
+
+This is what Cousin Dempster has been saying to me with a queer smile on
+his lips, and something that seems almost sarcastic in his voice.
+
+Says he, "If this way of life is persisted in, and is held respectable
+in social circles, who has a right to find fault when sin and sorrow
+spring out of it? Who among the thousands who abandon honorable homes
+for personal pleasures shall dare to condemn him?
+
+"Look over the list of outgoing steamers any month in the year, and see
+how large a proportion of husbands and wives travel together. Society,
+so slanderous in other things, is wickedly tolerant here, and makes a
+thousand excuses for the separation of married people.
+
+"Children must be educated. Just as if a free-born American boy or girl
+can't learn all he or she is capable of knowing in his own native land!
+Just as if any woman, who loves her husband and means to be a good
+mother, would listen for a moment to the idea of taking her family into
+foreign parts while her husband is tied down to business at home.
+
+"Married people, who love each other, live together--temptations are
+serpent-like, but they seldom creep upon a hearthstone kept warm by
+domestic affection.
+
+"Parents who are willing to live apart for the sake of their children,
+and call it a sacrifice to duty, may not know that they are hypocrites,
+but other people know it. Scandal thrives upon such things, and where
+scandal thrives domestic happiness perishes.
+
+"The marriage relations are the soul of our social life; relax them,
+take away one grain of their holiness, and you blast the blossom from
+which wholesome fruit can spring. When love and truth dies out of
+marriage, its vitality is gone. God forgive the men and the women who
+dare to hold the most beautiful tie that links soul to soul, as a wisp
+of flax, to be rent or burned at the will of our most evil passions.
+
+"Can any human being make laws for himself and trample under foot those
+which have been for ages laid down by society, without meeting, sooner
+or later, with rebuke, and perhaps, ruin? Evil passions arouse evil
+passions. The profligacy and power of gold is sometimes most dangerous
+in a generous nature. In the hot sunshine of overwhelming good fortune,
+fiery passions are sure to thrive and tend to a poisonous growth. War is
+the mother of licentiousness. How much that men should avoid, and women
+shudder at, has sprung out of the civil war, which ebbs and flows even
+yet on the borders of our land! In that war men learned to be daring in
+other things than brave deeds, and women learned to be shameless, and
+glory in free speech, free actions, and free laws of their own devising.
+
+"These thoughts are forced from me by the violent death of a man who had
+the brain and the heart to be an honor to our State, whose capacity and
+cordial good-nature might have gained him the love of better men than he
+ever knew in his brief and fiery career, and who had the brain to
+accomplish great things in the future."
+
+I listened with breathless attention to what Cousin Dempster said. He
+spoke with feeling. I didn't think there was so much in the man. He got
+up from his chair and began to walk the room.
+
+"I cannot dwell upon this man's wildly brilliant career," says he,
+"without a feeling of melancholy. Here existed the capacities of a great
+man, perfect health, wonderful energy, struggling aspirations toward the
+right--which he might hereafter have reached--generous impulses running
+wild, strong affections, and overweaning ambition, all turbulent
+ostentations almost barbaric, and all hurled into nothingness by the
+blow of one bitter enemy.
+
+"As he had lived, so they carried him to his grave, arrayed gorgeously
+in his coffin, lying in high state, not by the sacred altar of a church,
+but in the Grand Opera House, which had so long been the centre of his
+magnificence. Buried in flowers snow-white, as if gathered for the tomb
+of a vestal, glittering with gold, with clouds of perfume floating over
+him--in all the pomp of a monarch he was taken from New York, and
+carried for a last resting-place to Vermont.
+
+"I wish it had been otherwise. Living as he did, dying as he did, with
+the ruin of so many lives involved in his fate, that last journey should
+have been taken in simplicity and quietness. The lesson his death
+conveys is too solemn for display, too mournful for anything but
+stillness. The elements of a great man left Vermont only a few years
+ago; New York has sent back the ruins. Let them rest in peace."
+
+Sisters, I did not think it possible that Cousin Dempster could get so
+fearfully earnest; his conversation has filled me with thoughts too
+solemn for careless utterance. In this man's death I hear a cry for
+merciful consideration--a solemn warning--a protest against the headlong
+speed with which this generation is trampling respectability under foot.
+This man's death is a subject of gossip now, when it should be a subject
+of mournful regret.
+
+I do not speak here of the man who killed him, or the cause of his
+death. One is a subject that no lady would care to discuss. The other is
+in the hands of the law, which should be a sanctuary for the accused.
+The evidence has been heard thoroughly, and a jury has decided on it,
+merciful or not, its verdict is final.
+
+But for Cousin Dempster, I should not have made this death the subject
+of a report, but some things that he has said startled me. Is it true
+that the alienation and separation of married people has become so easy
+and so fashionable? Can a husband and wife live apart months, years, and
+still keep up a pretence or the reality of affection, and be honored as
+respectable? I, for one, have no patience with such things. To me,
+marriage is a beautiful institution.
+
+Do not smile, sisters; I am not thinking of the great Grand Duke now. In
+fact I am not thinking of myself at all. Cousin Dempster's earnestness
+has impressed me with apprehension and melancholy; he places this
+subject before me in a new light.
+
+The man who is dead was in the full vigor of his life. The poor wept for
+him; he was good to them, and they believed that he had a kind heart.
+Sometimes that heart went back to the prayers of his mother. Had time
+been given him, something tender and good might have found a noble
+growth in his nature. We do not yet know, and never shall know, what he
+might have been.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII.
+
+SHE WOULD GO.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I have had a glorious and a refreshing season. I have
+felt, in the depths of my soul, that the eyes, of all Vermont were on me
+in a reflective way. As the moon is sometimes permitted to shine before
+the sun goes down, I have added the light of my little feminine luminary
+to the flood of public homage that surrounds the greatest and best man
+that our State ever gave to the world.
+
+Saturday night, February third, was Horace Greeley's birthday. A
+gentleman up-town, who thinks the world of that smartest of good men,
+just made a house-warming on the occasion, and invited so many artists
+and poets, and editors and statesmen, and people that Providence had
+labelled as something particular, that it is a wonder the roof wasn't
+blown off with the yeasting of so much genius.
+
+Of course the beauty and talent of old Vermont, wherever it could be
+found, was hunted up, and invited with unusual enthusiasm. Where beauty
+and talent could be found united in one person--modesty forbids me to
+point out an instance--of course an especial compliment was paid. My
+invitation had a picture of the man, whose birthday we went to
+celebrate, in the middle of the writing--a real good likeness, that I
+mean to put in a locket and wear round my neck in honor of this
+self-made man and of my own native State, which may have double cause to
+glorify herself when the sixty-first birthday of another person just
+standing in front of the Temple of Fame, with her foot on the
+threshold, shall come round. I say nothing, but in the female line
+Vermont has laid up oceans of future glory for herself.
+
+Well, the day came. Once more I drew forth my pink silk dress, and
+ironed out the flounces; one of them got a little scorched, but I looped
+up the spot with a bow and a bunch of roses, and found the scorch an
+artistic improvement. I twisted my hair in corkscrews over night, and
+slept with my eyes wide open, contented as a kitten, though the pull was
+tremendous. I frizzed up the other woman's hair, for which I had paid
+ten dollars in the Sixth Avenue, and made ready for the occasion over
+night in a general way.
+
+Of course Cousin Dempster and his wife were invited, being _my_ cousins,
+and so saturated with the family genius, that people are constantly
+expecting it to break out, which it hasn't yet, except in a general way.
+But Cousin D. made lots of money in the war, and money is thought almost
+as much of as talent by some people. Still, between ourselves, I don't
+think they would have been invited if they hadn't come from Sprucehill;
+which is taking a literary position next to the Hub since our Society
+has begun to publish my humble reports.
+
+Well, just at nine o'clock, if you had been in front of my
+boarding-house you might have seen a splendid carriage standing at the
+door, and that coachman, in his fur collar and cuffs, sitting high up on
+the driver's seat, and scrouching his head down while a storm of sleet
+and snow beat over him.
+
+If you had looked toward the house, three or four eager and curious
+faces might have been seen flat against every front window as a certain
+dignified and queenly person came slowly down the steps, with a white
+opera-cloak folded over her magnificent person, and a pink silk long
+train bunched up under it, lining-side out.
+
+The moment that carriage-door shut with an aristocratic bang you might
+have seen those faces turn from the window and look at each other--then
+noses turned up at sympathizing noses, giving out audible sniffs of that
+envy which the wonderful endowments of some persons are apt to engender
+in the inferior female mind.
+
+But if you had looked into that carriage you would have seen it packed
+comfortably as a robin's nest in blossom time. There was my pink dress
+floating round me in rosy billows; there was Cousin E. E.'s corn-colored
+moiré antique swelling like a balloon on her side; and there was Cousin
+Dempster rising like a black exclamation point up from one corner, and
+_that child_ drumming her blue kid-boots against the seat in another
+corner, and snarling because a gust of sleet came in with me before the
+fellow outside could shut the door.
+
+When I saw her, my blood riled in a minute.
+
+"Why, Cousin Dempster," says I, "children were not invited."
+
+"Children, indeed!" says the child, giving her head a fling: "I suppose
+Cousin Frost thinks that nothing but old maids can be young ladies--the
+idea!"
+
+"Daughter!" almost shrieked Cousin Emily E., a-catching her breath, and
+giving a frightened look over my way.
+
+"My child, how can you be so rude?" says Cousin Dempster, stamping down
+among the fur robes, and mashing my foot under the sole of his boot.
+
+I said nothing, but sat in dignified silence, wishing those two persons
+to feel that it was impossible the creature could mean me, but I
+trembled all over with righteous indignation, and wondered why that
+Bible benefactor, King Herod, had limited himself to boys, when he had
+such a glorious chance to sweep creatures like that out of existence in
+the female line. Oh! if I had been a Bible potentate!
+
+"She was so anxious to go, being born in Vermont," says Cousin Emily
+Elizabeth; "it seems as if she knew Mr. Greeley."
+
+"Reads the _Tribune_ every day," chimes in Cousin Dempster, giving me a
+pleading look.
+
+"I'll thank you to take the heel of your boot off my foot, if you have
+held it there long enough," says I, with the firmness of a martyr and
+the dignity of an empress.
+
+This wilted the whole party into silence, and we drove on, with the hail
+pelting against the windows, and lowering clouds inside.
+
+All at once we got into a long line of carriages, and moved on as if we
+were going to a funeral instead of a birthday. Then the carriage
+stopped, the door was flung open, and we stepped under a long tent that
+stretched from the front door down a flight of stone steps and across
+the sidewalk. A carpet ran down the steps to the carriage, and we walked
+up that into the house; then through a hall, and upstairs, where we took
+off our cloaks and titivated up a little in a room half full of ladies,
+and blocked up with cloaks and things. I let down Cousin E. E.'s dress,
+and she let down mine; then we shook each other out, took an observation
+of each other from head to foot, tightened the buttons of our gloves,
+and went into the hall.
+
+There stood Cousin Dempster, with his white gloves on, and a white
+cravat with lace edges around his neck, looking _so_ gentlemanly. We
+went downstairs Indian file, for a stream of people were going down on
+one side all crimlicued off most gorgeously; and another stream was
+going up, with cloaks and hoods on, so there was no locking arms till we
+got into the lower hall. Then we just tackled in. I took one arm, E. E.
+took the other, and _that creature_ followed after, looking like an
+infantile Black Crook in her short muslin skirts and bunched-up sash.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX.
+
+MR. GREELEY'S BIRTHDAY PARTY.
+
+
+The parlors were large and light, and crowded full. Just beyond the door
+I saw a man standing, with both hands at work, shaking out welcomes to
+his friends, as a chestnut bough rattles down nuts after a rousing
+frost.
+
+There he stood--the honored son of our dear old State--looking benign as
+Mr. Benjamin Franklin, and sweet-tempered as if he had fed on native
+maple-sugar all his life. I looked eagerly for his "old white coat," but
+he had on a bran-new black one; his hair, long and snow-white, fell down
+almost to his shoulders, that were rather broad than otherwise, which is
+needful considering the burdens that have been piled on them. I really
+think any stranger, going in there, would have known that this man owned
+a birthday by his face, it was so radiant with good-nature.
+
+By and by we hustled our way to the door. A man that stood there
+whispered something to Cousin Dempster, who whispered back. Then the man
+sung out--
+
+"Mr. and Mrs. Dempster--Miss Phœmie Frost!"
+
+Mercy on me, wasn't there a fluttering when that name rang through the
+crowd, as if blown by the trumpet of Fame. I felt myself blushing from
+head to foot, my heart rose into my mouth. I clung with feminine
+reliance on my cousin's arm, and, thus supported, prepared to endure the
+hundreds of admiring eyes bent upon me.
+
+Mr. Greeley came forward. The moment he heard that name he seized the
+two whitely gloved hands that I held out to him.
+
+"Miss Frost, of Vermont," says he.
+
+I pressed his hands. I could not speak. A little address, full of
+poetry, that I had been thinking over in my mind, melted into chaos. I
+could only murmur something about birthdays and long lives. Then some
+new people crowded me away, and I felt myself alone long enough to take
+a look at the rooms. They were gorgeous with pictures and flowers;
+radiant with gas, which fell like August sunshine through a thicket of
+vines, and flowers woven in among the burners in the chandelier, and
+dropping down half way to the floor.
+
+The marble slabs under the looking-glass at each end of the rooms were
+matted over with flowers, and from the top streamed down long feathery
+vines which ended in little bunches of red roses that swung loose before
+the glass, and left another vine there. Over the doors and windows these
+vines and flowers trailed themselves everywhere. Some beautiful pictures
+were on the walls. The centre one was of Greeley himself--just like
+him--bland and serene, smiling down upon the crowd as if he longed to
+shake hands over again.
+
+This picture was just crowned with a mat of white flowers, in which the
+year our Greeley was born, and the present year, were woven with bright
+red flowers. Down each side the feathery vines trailed and quivered. I
+tell you, sisters, it was beautiful.
+
+Before I could take in a full view, people had found out where I stood,
+and came crowding round me so close that I had to take in a reef of my
+pink silk dress, and they kept Cousin Dempster busy as a bee introducing
+them. So many people had read my writings, so many people had been dying
+to see me, it was enough to bring blushes to my cheeks and tears to my
+eyes. This, said I, is fame--and all Vermont shall hear of it, not for
+my sake, but in behalf of the Society.
+
+The rooms had been full of music all the time, but now the toot horns
+and fiddles stopped, and I heard the tones of a pianoforte from the
+further end of the room, then a voice struck in--loud, clear, ringing.
+We pressed forward, people made way for us, and we got into the ring.
+
+A young lady was standing by the pianoforte, singing "Auld Lang Syne."
+Greeley stood by her, holding her bouquet in his hand. How smiling, how
+satisfied he looked as the heart-stirring old song rang over him! Close
+by stood his only sister, Mrs. Cleveland, a fair and real handsome
+woman, dressed in blue silk, with a white lace shawl a-shimmering over
+it. She looked happy as a blue jay on an apple-tree bough, and made
+everybody welcome over again when Mr. Greeley had done it once--just as
+a kind, warm-hearted woman ought to stand by a brother she is proud of,
+and looks like.
+
+Near by were her two daughters, just the nicest girls you ever saw. One
+of 'em in a pink satin dress with lace over it, and the other in blue
+satin with lace--just lovely!
+
+When the lady who did "Auld Lang Syne" went away from the pianoforte,
+every lady in the room began to clap hands, they seemed to be so glad
+that Mr. Greeley had found time to have a birthday. Then Miss Cleveland,
+in the blue dress, sat down, looking sweet and modest as a white dove;
+and she sang, too, real sweet; and then the people began to clap hands
+again. It seemed as if music just set them off into tantrums of delight
+because our great white-headed Vermonter had ever been born.
+
+I joined in with a vim; for if there is anybody I like and am proud of,
+it is the man who was standing there smiling among his friends, with
+that great, lovely bunch of flowers in his hands, and a little one in
+the button-hole of his coat.
+
+The wife and two daughters of our statesman and friend were over in
+England, so that his family connections didn't spread as if he had been
+President of the United States. But then he had a great many honest
+friends, and that made up for it considerably. There stood Mr. and Mrs.
+A. J. Johnson, who had carpeted their stone steps, set up a tent over
+their hospitable door, and turned their parlors into a blooming garden,
+just to show the respect they had for him; and they did it beautifully,
+making his friends theirs. At any rate, I can answer for one; for any
+person who does honor to a Vermont man who has glorified his State, can
+count on the faithful friendship of Phœmie Frost during his natural
+life.
+
+At eleven o'clock, exactly, we all crowded around Mr. Greeley, and shook
+hands with him over again. Then we shook hands with Mrs. Johnson, who
+looked sweet, and was nice as nice could be; and with Mr. Johnson, and
+so on. After that, we all flocked out, with cloaks and hoods on, feeling
+that an evening like that was a refreshing season which will not be
+forgotten by some of us, so long as we live.
+
+One thing I forgot to mention--and I do it now, with tears in my eyes.
+In the front parlor, on a line with Mr. Greeley's picture, was one that
+made the heart ache in my bosom, and which will bring tears into your
+eyes, one and all, I know. It was the picture of Alice Cary. You have
+read her poetry; you know how good she was from that poetry; but I have
+learned some things about her here, that, as a Society, you should hear
+about. But I respect her memory so much that it must be in a report by
+itself. She was a great friend of Mr. Greeley's, and her shadow seemed
+to smile on him as it hung upon the wall.
+
+
+
+
+XXX.
+
+LEAP YEAR.
+
+
+Do you know that this is Leap Year? Do you begin to feel the glorious
+flood of liberty which it lets in upon the female women of this country?
+As a society and as individuals, let us press forward to the mark of the
+prize--I beg pardon.
+
+This is not exactly a religious subject, though it does relate to the
+hymeneal altar, at which we have never yet been permitted to worship--a
+lasting and burning shame, which I, for one, begin to feel more deeply
+every day of my life.
+
+True, my own prospects are brightening and glorifying, but circumstances
+have brought them, for the present, to a dead halt. But for the burst
+of golden sunshine let into my sad destiny by this opening Leap Year, I
+should be growing pale with suspense--for you know the great Grand Duke,
+though courteous and devotional, did not speak out in a perfectly
+satisfactory manner. I knew he meant it; for no robin's nest in laying
+time was ever so full of warm and brooding love as those blue eyes of
+his. But a cruel fate took him hence before the thrilling word was
+spoken, and left me trembling with doubt, pining in loneliness.
+
+I know the reason of this now; there is not a doubt that he has been
+anxious, like myself, but imperial royalty has its impediments. My
+Prince must bow to the exactions of a lofty station. I took up a paper
+the other day, and read something that made the heart leap in my bosom
+as a trout jumps after a fly. The Emperor has heard of the great Grand
+Duke's admiration. All Russia has heard of it and me. It is even
+reported that he has married a lovely and talented female, without
+waiting for the Emperor to say yes or no. The description answers, you
+will perceive. I felt myself blush, like a rose in the sunset, when I
+read it. "Lovely and talented." Sisters, there can be no doubt about it!
+
+I felt my cheeks burn and my heart broaden with a sense of coming
+exaltation. Why should the Emperor refuse? Are we not all queens in this
+country, and is not a woman of genius an empress among queens?
+
+I'm afraid the Emperor of all the Russias does not yet comprehend the
+great social system of our country, where the fact of being a woman has
+infinite nobility in itself--to which peculiar privileges are attached;
+for instance, the privilege of carrying pistols and shooting down men in
+hallways and street cars in a promiscuous fashion.
+
+As I have said--to be a woman in America is to be everything. That is
+why I think it unreasonable that Imperial nobility should be forbidden
+to match itself here. Once we had aristocracy of money, but since the
+war, when people became rich in no time by selling shoddy and things,
+that has levelled down like a sand heap. But one aristocracy is left
+now, and that is the aristocracy of mind. Genius is the nobility of the
+mind. Now as long as the Prince unites himself with that, what has any
+one, even his august father, to say against it?
+
+But there is no doubt I have given the Imperial heart some anxiety.
+_His_ manner was so impressive; his spy-glass was levelled at my
+countenance so often, that it is not to be wondered at if the violence
+of his passionate admiration did get about and fly on the wings of the
+wind to his Imperial home. There it was sure to make an excitement.
+American ladies have married lords and marquises in England, counts and
+princes in other countries, and make first-rate lordesses and
+marchionesses and princesses too. In fact, just as good as the born
+nobility, and better too; but up to this time it is left to a lovely
+woman of genius to exalt America into the region of imperial highness.
+Money--for your lords, etc., etc., etc., generally want that with
+American beauty and grace--money has done its utmost. Now genius comes
+in, and modesty crowns itself.
+
+I am satisfied that the great Grand Duke is only waiting, from a feeling
+of doubt and modesty. My heart compassionates him. Up to the first of
+January, I could do no more. Female propriety forbade it, but now--now
+all is changed. Modesty is disenthralled.
+
+It is Leap Year. St. Valentine's Day approaches. The windows of every
+book-store are a-blazing with valentines, burning with love, eloquent of
+the tender passions, pictorial and poetical.
+
+The Queen of England offered herself to Prince Albert. It must have been
+a touching scene. How modestly she suggested the flame that was kindled
+in her youthful heart, and still lies smouldering in the ashes of that
+good man's grave. I don't think she waited for Leap Year--but I will. No
+one shall say that Phœmie Frost has forgotten what is due to her sex.
+
+St. Valentine's Day emancipates the womanly heart. I have bought a
+valentine, white satin, surrounded by a frost work of silver lace,
+sprinkled with gold stars. On the satin is a little boy with wings,
+hiding behind a rose-bush, firing arrows through it from a bow which he
+lifts up roguishly. These arrows are aimed at an Imperial figure mounted
+on a wild horse, and running down a buffalo--a unique and beautifully
+suggestive idea. This was the poem which gushed with spontaneosity from
+my disenthralled mind:
+
+    Come back, come back, from the buffalo raid!
+      Here is fairer game for you;
+    At thy feet the lovingest heart is laid
+      That ever a Grand Duke knew.
+    A lady rich in womanly pride,
+      Whose soul clings unto thine,
+    Is ready to be an Imperial bride--
+      Kneel with thee at Hymen's shrine.
+    Come back, come back, or thy haughty sire
+      Will command, and all is lost;
+    But he cannot extinguish this holy fire
+      In the bosom of----
+
+Sisters, I ask you now, isn't this a gem? It isn't just the thing to put
+your name to a valentine, they tell me, but this is something deeper and
+more poetic than such things usually are. It means mischief, as Cousin
+Dempster says. It is a proposal, buried in roses and veiled in sweet and
+modest verse, such as a lady might almost send at any time with a few
+blushes. It will reach him out in that vast wilderness of dead grass,
+where he has been deluded off by Mr. Sheridan, and has risked his
+precious life in a terrific manner, shooting great, monstrous buffaloes,
+which are animals, they tell me, something like an overgrown ox, only
+the hair is longer, and they are kind of hunched-up about the upper end
+of the back, just as if the last city fashions among ladies had got to
+be the rage out there.
+
+Imagine my feelings, sisters, when I heard that the Grand Duke was off
+with that fellow and a squad of wild Indians, all in war-paint and
+tomahawks, hunting these terrific creatures. It almost made me feel like
+a widow. There he was, brought up so tenderly, eating broiled buffalo
+hump, and drinking champagne and things out in the open lots, as big as
+all out-doors, and sleeping in a tent. Think of it! With his own right
+hand he shot down twenty-five of these humpbacked monsters, and means to
+carry their skins home with him to Russia. I suppose Mr. Philip Sheridan
+will be for studying the military tactics of Russia from St. Petersburg
+to Siberia as soon as the great Grand Duke gets back, for he isn't the
+sort of fellow, folks tell me, to give up a chance like that. Governor
+Palmer, of Illinois, has, at any rate, given him leave of absence from
+the Chicago fires, and there isn't anything much to keep him from
+hunting in Siberia if he wants to.
+
+Well, I got my valentine all ready; directed it to the Grand Duke in a
+delicate, ladylike way, and took it with my own hands down to the
+post-office.
+
+"Be very careful of this," says I to a young man who stood at the
+post-office window, "and see that it goes straight to his Royal
+Highness; I want it to reach him the first thing in the morning on
+Valentine's Day."
+
+He looked at the address, and muttered to himself:
+
+"For His Royal Highness the Grand Duke of all the Russias: care of
+Philip Sheridan and a wild Indian whose name a refined lady could not
+bring herself to pronounce; Buffalo Plains, America."
+
+"My dear madame," says he, all at once, "this is no address at all; it
+would never reach the Grand Duke."
+
+I caught my breath.
+
+"Not reach him?" says I.
+
+"No," says he; "the Grand Duke has gone beyond the reach of the mails."
+
+"Goodness gracious!" says I; "but no matter about that, if he hasn't got
+out of the reach of the females."
+
+"But he has."
+
+My heart sank in my bosom like a soggy apple-dumpling.
+
+"What--all females?" says I. "Won't that reach him, anyway? it is
+important--very. Great destinies depend upon it."
+
+"I can put it in," says he; "but ten chances to one it will get into the
+dead-letter office."
+
+My heart grew heavier and heavier, but what could I do?
+
+"Put it in," says I; "live or die, it must go!"
+
+He took my valentine and pitched it off into a heap of letters, just as
+if it had been a dead leaf. It fairly made me faint to see it handled
+so; but the fellow turned his back on me, and I went away heart-sick.
+
+One comfort I had in all this--if my valentine could not reach him, that
+of no other female could; and my offer is sure to be first, though I
+shouldn't wonder if that girl who sent him her card tied round a canary
+bird's neck might try. She's forward enough, anyway.
+
+Then, there is another comfort--Valentine's Day don't cover the whole
+Leap Year, and there are other men than the great Grand Duke in the
+world. We females have a whole twelvemonths to try our luck in. Of
+course any of us would aim high the first months; but after that, the
+game will grow smaller and wilder, as a general thing, and our chances
+less.
+
+For my part, I mean to be up and doing. One disappointment isn't going
+to break my heart; I've had too many for that; but if human energy and
+human genius can avail anything against an adverse destiny, my signature
+will be changed before this year closes.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI.
+
+A MAN THAT WOULDN'T TAKE MONEY.
+
+
+Cousin Dempster is real good to me; no mistake about that. A day or two
+ago, he says to his wife, says he:
+
+"Supposing we take Cousin Phœmie down to an oyster lunch at Fulton
+Market. That is one of the lions of the city."
+
+I fairly hopped up from my chair when he said this, just as cool and
+easy as if he had been talking of rabbits lapping milk. What on earth
+had I to do with city lions, and such animals? Wild beasts like these
+are in no part of my mission, now are they?
+
+Cousin E. E. saw the scare in my eyes, and smiled.
+
+"I know it seems strange to people from outside," says she; "and it
+really is a dirty place; but somehow ladies and gentlemen have made it
+the rage."
+
+"Do the creatures rage fiercely?" says I.
+
+Cousin E. E. looked puzzled a minute, then she answered:
+
+"Oh," says she, "fashion takes queer twists sometimes; in this case it
+really is unaccountable. The people crowding into those wooden dens--and
+the eating done there is wonderful."
+
+"Eating!" says I, feeling my eyes grow big as saucers. "Eating! Do they
+feed before folks, then?"
+
+"Oh, yes; every lady goes; you never saw anything like it. Such
+Rockaways and other bivalves are to be found nowhere else."
+
+"Rockaways and bivalves!" thinks I to myself; "what kind of animals are
+they? Never heard of bivalves before in my whole life, but the other
+puts me in mind of old Grandma Frost's splint-bottomed rocking-chair. No
+need of saying rock-away to her, for she was always on the teater. But
+she's dead now, and the last time I ever saw her Boston rocker it was
+away back of the chimney, at the old homestead, scrouged in between the
+stones and the clapboards, with one rocker torn off and an arm broken. I
+couldn't help asking Cousin E. E. if she remembered that chair.
+
+"Oh, yes," says she; "somebody hustled it off into the garret the moment
+she'd done with it. I saw it there a year after the funeral, with the
+patchwork cushion of red and blue cloth moth-eaten and gray with dust."
+
+Now, my father owned the old homestead while he lived, and I took this
+as a slur on our branch of the Frost family. This riled me internally,
+but I couldn't contradict her, and felt myself blushing hotly, rather
+ashamed of the Frost family. But the truth is, as a race, we are none of
+us given to much antiquity. No female of our family was ever known to
+get over forty-nine in her own person, though many of them have lived to
+a wonderful old age. This was curious, but a fact. Such unaccountable
+things do sometimes run in families. But these are facts that I
+sometimes choke down--I did it now.
+
+"We were talking of something else, and got on to chairs," says I.
+
+"No uncommon thing," says Cousin Dempster, laughing.
+
+I laughed too, but that child turned up her sniffy nose, and, looking at
+her father, said:
+
+"The idea!" which wilted him down at once.
+
+"But these bivalves and Rockaways--what do they do with them?"
+
+"Why, eat them, of course."
+
+"Eat them? How?"
+
+"Raw."
+
+"Mercy on me! Raw?"
+
+"Well, Cousin E. E., it shan't be said that you are related to a coward.
+I'll go down to see these city lions; but when?"
+
+"Well, to-day," says Cousin Dempster. "Just come down to the office
+about noon, and I'll go with you."
+
+"Just so," says I, feeling a little shivery.
+
+"Would you like to go, darling?" says he speaking to his little girl, as
+if half afraid.
+
+"Me, papa, down to that horrid place all meat and butter, and fish and
+things? The idea!"
+
+I was so grateful to the stuck-up thing, that I'm afraid Cousin E. E.
+saw it in my eyes, for she sort of clouded over and said:
+
+"That, after all, she didn't think she cared to go, but that needn't
+keep Cousin Phœmie at home. Mr. Dempster would take her."
+
+"Well, just as you please," says he, a-taking his hat, "I'm at your
+service--singly or in groups. Good-morning."
+
+Well, in the afternoon, I asked Cousin E. E., in a kind of natural way,
+if she meant to go to that feed. But that child called out:
+
+"No, no, mamma, don't go; I won't be left alone."
+
+So Cousin E. E. said she had a bad headache, and thought she wouldn't
+go, but that needn't keep me.
+
+Now, sisters, I wasn't brought up in the woods to be scared by owls, as
+we say in our parts--and if that little upstart thought she would keep
+me at home by domineering over her mother, she soon found out her
+mistake, for in less than two minutes a young lady, of about my size,
+came downstairs, with her beehive bonnet on, a satchel in one hand and
+an umbrella in the other.
+
+"You will find the way easy enough," says Cousin E. E. "The cars take
+you close to the office, and you will get splendid oysters at the
+market."
+
+Oysters! the very word made my mouth water, for if there is a thing on
+earth that I deliciously adore, it is oysters--such as you get here in
+York.
+
+"Oysters!" says I, "why didn't you tell me that before?"
+
+"We did," says she; "of course we did!"
+
+I was too polite to contradict her; but I'll take my Bible oath that not
+one word about shell-fish of any kind had been mentioned that
+morning--nothing but a great city lion, Rockaways, bivalves, and animals
+like them. Still I said nothing, but went out encouraged by the idea
+that I was to have something to eat as well as the lion.
+
+It was afternoon, and the street-car wasn't overfull, so I took a seat
+in one corner and began to think over a piece of poetry that I have got
+into my mind, which shortened the way to Dempster's office wonderfully.
+In less than no time I seemed to get there, but he had just stepped out.
+One of the clerks said that he thought he had gone to the market for
+lunch.
+
+Oh, mercy! I felt as if my oysters were all out to sea again. I was too
+late.
+
+"Which is the way to the market?" says I.
+
+"I will show you," says he--which he did--walking by my side till I got
+in sight of a long, low, broad-spreading building that seemed all roof,
+and stone floors opening everywhere right into the street.
+
+"Now," says the young gentleman, "you won't help finding your way, for
+there is Mr. Dempster himself."
+
+He lifted his hat and bowed so politely that I felt impressed with a
+desire to reward him. Taking out my pocket-book, I handed him a ten-cent
+stamp, with a grateful and most benevolent smile on my countenance. I am
+sure of that from the glow I felt. He blushed--he seemed to choke--he
+stepped back and put on his hat with a jerk, but he didn't reach out his
+hand with the grateful spontaneosity I expected. His modesty touched me.
+
+"Take it," says I, "it is no more than you deserve."
+
+"Excuse me," says he; and his face was as red as a fireman's jacket.
+
+"Good-afternoon;" and as true as you live he went off without taking the
+money. I never saw anything like it.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII.
+
+A DEMOCRATIC LUNCH.
+
+
+As soon as I could recover from the surprise any New England woman would
+feel at a thing like this, I saw Cousin Dempster coming toward me.
+
+"Come, hurry up," says he. "You were so late, I thought perhaps you had
+misunderstood, and come directly here. This way; be careful where you
+step; Fulton market is not the neatest place on earth."
+
+I was careful, and lifting the skirt of my alpaca dress between my thumb
+and finger, gave a nipping jump, and cleared a gutter that ran between
+Cousin D. and myself. Then we walked into the market, with a whole crowd
+of other people, and trained along between baskets and square wooden
+pens heaped up with oranges, and things called bananas--gold-colored,
+and bunched-up like sausages, but awful good to eat. Potatoes, apples,
+books, peanuts, chestnuts, pies, cakes, and no end of things, were
+heaped on high benches on each side of us wherever we turned, till at
+last we passed through an encampment of empty meat-stands, and from that
+into a wooden lane with open rooms on one hand, and piles on piles of
+oysters on each side the door.
+
+Every one of these rooms had a great rousing fire burning and roaring
+before it, and a lot of men diving in amongst the oysters, with sharp
+knives in their hands.
+
+"Let us go in here," says Cousin Dempster, turning toward one of the
+rooms that looked cheerful and neat as a pin. The floor was sprinkled
+with white sand, and the tables had marble tops, white as tombstones,
+but more cheerful by half. As we went in, a man by the door called out,
+"Tuw stews!" Then again, "One roast--one raw on half-shell!"
+
+Another man began firing pots and pans at the heap of blazing coals
+before him the moment this fellow stopped for breath. All this made me
+so hungry that I really felt as if I couldn't wait; but I kind of
+started back when I saw ever so many gentlemen and ladies in the room,
+sitting by the tables and feeding deliciously. Some of the men had their
+hats on, which did not strike me as over-genteel. But, after this one
+halt, I entered with dignity, placed my satchel in a corner, and took an
+upright position on one of the wooden chairs. Cousin Dempster sat down,
+too. He took his hat off, which I felt as complimentary, and a touch of
+the aristocratic.
+
+"Now, what shall we have?" says he.
+
+"A stew," says I, with a feeling of thanksgiving in my mouth.
+
+Cousin D. said something in a low voice to the young man, who went to
+the door, and called out:
+
+"One roast! one stew--Saddlerock!"
+
+I started up and caught that young man by the arm, a-feeling as if I had
+got hold of a cannibal. Saddlerocks, indeed!
+
+"Young man," says I, "you have mistaken your party; we didn't ask for
+stewed grindstones--only oysters."
+
+He looked at me, at first, wild as a night-hawk, and seemed as if he
+wanted to run away.
+
+"Don't be scared," says I; "no harm is intended; it is an oyster stew
+that we want--nothing more. I'm not fond of hard meat. If you don't know
+how to cook them--which is natural, being a man--I can tell you. Now be
+particular--put in half milk, a considerable chunk of butter, not too
+much pepper, and just let them come to a boil--no more. I do hate
+oysters stewed to death. You understand?" says I, counting over the
+ingredients on my fingers--"now go and do your duty."
+
+"Yes'm," says he, and goes right to the door, and sings out: "One
+stew!--one roast!" so loud that it made me jump. Then he came back into
+the room, while I retired, with dignity, to my seat by the table.
+
+It seemed to me that Cousin Dempster didn't quite like what I had done,
+for his face was red as fire when I sat down again, and I heard him
+mutter something about the eccentricities of genius. Indeed, I'm afraid
+a profane word came with it, though I pretended not to hear.
+
+By and by, in came the waiter-man, with two plates of cabbage cut fine,
+and chucked a vinegar cruet down before me; then he clapped salt and
+pepper before Cousin D., with a plate of little crackers. Then he went
+away again, and came back with two plates full of great, pussy oysters,
+steaming hot, and so appetizing, that a hungry person might have made a
+luscious meal on the steam.
+
+Oh, Sisters! you never will know what good eating is till you've been
+down to the Fulton Market, and feasted on oysters there; you can't get
+'em first-rate in any other place. Try it, and you'll find 'em weak as
+weakness compared to these. Hot, plump, delicious! The very memory of
+them is enough to keep a reasonable person from being hungry a week.
+Talk of Delmonico's! I never was there; but if it beats this room in the
+Fulton Market in the way of shell-fish, I'll give up all my chances this
+Leap Year.
+
+Well, when we'd done eating, two pewter mugs were set on the table, and
+Cousin Dempster handed one to me. I've heard of these mugs as belonging
+to bar-rooms and over intimate with ale and beer--things that I wouldn't
+touch for anything on earth, maple-sap being my native drink--so I
+pushed the cup away, really ashamed of Cousin D.; but he pushed it back
+a-kind of laughing, and says he:
+
+"Just taste it."
+
+"Beer?" says I. "Never."
+
+Cousin D. lifted his mug to his lip, and drank as if it tasted good. I
+was awful thirsty, and this was tantalizing.
+
+"Try it," says he, fixing his bright eyes on me. "How do you know it is
+beer till you've tasted it?"
+
+"Just so," says I; "I didn't think of that?"
+
+I took up the mug, and sipped a cautious sip. Beer, indeed! That pewter
+cup was brimming over with champagne-cider, that flashed and sparkled up
+to my lips like kisses let loose. Then I bent my head to Cousin
+Dempster, and just nodded.
+
+Never think you have drank champagne-cider till you've taken it flashing
+from a pewter mug, after oysters, in Fulton Market; till then, Sisters,
+you will never know how thoroughly good-natured and full of fun a lone
+female can become. Some people might think champagne-cider like
+maple-sap with a sparkle in it, for the color is just the same; but it
+is considerably livelier, and a good deal more so, especially when one
+drinks it out of a pewter cup, and hasn't any way of measuring.
+
+Bold! I should think I was, after that. Bold as brass.
+
+"Come," says I, taking up my satchel, "I'm ready to see that city lion,
+the Rockaways, and the bivalves fed. They have no terrors for me now.
+I've got over that. Where is their dens, or cages, and how often do they
+feed?
+
+Cousin Dempster set down his pewter mug, and just stared at me with all
+his eyes.
+
+"What is it? What do you mean?" says he.
+
+"What! the lion, to be sure! Didn't you say that I would see one of the
+city lions when I came to Fulton Market?"
+
+That man must have been possessed. He leaned back in his chair, he
+stooped forward, his face turned red, and, oh! my how he did laugh!
+
+"What possesses you, Cousin D.," says I, riling up.
+
+"Oh, nothing," says he, wiping the tears from his eyes, and trying to
+stop laughing, though he couldn't; "only--only this isn't a menagerie,
+but a market. Did you really think there were wild beasts on exhibition?
+It was the market we meant."
+
+Then I remembered that E. E. had called me a lion once. Now it was the
+market, and there wasn't a sign of the wild beast in either case. There
+_he_ sat laughing till he cried, because I couldn't understand that
+ladies and markets were not wild animals. Says I to myself, "I'll make
+you laugh out of the other side of your mouth,"--so I turned to him as
+cool as a cucumber:
+
+"What on earth are you te-he-ing about? I only want to walk around the
+market and see what's going on. Isn't that what we came for?"
+
+Cousin D. stopped laughing, and began to look sheepish enough.
+
+"Is that it?" says he.
+
+"What else?" says I. "You didn't think I expected this great, big,
+low-roofed market to have paws and growl, did you," says I. "I would
+growl if the city were to set me down in the mud of this pestiferous
+place. So you thought I really meant it. Well, the easy way in which
+some men are taken in is astonishing. They never can understand
+metaphor," says I. "But the bivalves and Rockaways. What of them?" says
+I.
+
+"Swallowed them," says he. Sisters, the dizziness in my stomach was
+awful.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII.
+
+DEMPSTER PROPOSES A TRIP.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I have been in Washington. The great city of a great
+nation. I have seen the Capitol in all its splendid magnificence, its
+pictures, its marbled floor, its fruit tables, and its underground
+eating-rooms. I have seen the White House, and have had a bird's-eye
+view of the President of these United States.
+
+I will tell you how it happened. I was getting anxious and down in the
+mouth; my valentine had been given to the winds of heaven--no, _they_
+would have carried it safely through ten thousand herds of buffalo
+cattle--but it had been given to the mails, and they are _so_ uncertain,
+spell the word which way you will. Day after day I waited and watched,
+and sent down to the post-office to be sure there was no mistake in that
+department; but nothing came of it; no answer reached me. I became
+peaked and down-hearted, so much so, dear sisters, that Cousin Dempster
+got anxious about me, and one day asked me, in the kindest manner, if I
+would like to run on to Washington with him.
+
+"Run on to Washington," says I; "how far is it, cousin?"
+
+"Why," says he, "about two hundred and thirty miles, I should say."
+
+"Two hundred and thirty miles," says I, almost screaming. "Why, Cousin
+D., I couldn't do it to save my life."
+
+"Oh!" says he, "it isn't a very tedious ride."
+
+"Ride," says I. "Why, didn't you ask me just now to run on with you? How
+can I do both?"
+
+Cousin D. laughed, and began to rock up and down till he almost bent
+double; though what it was about I couldn't begin to tell.
+
+"Well," says he, "just get your trunk or carpet-bag packed, and I'll
+call for you in the morning. Emily Elizabeth can't leave home just now,
+and it will be a great pleasure to me if I can have you along."
+
+"If you'd just as lief," says I, "I'll speak to Cousin E. E. about it;
+under present circumstances, a young girl like me can't be too
+particular. I'm told that a good many married men have got a habit of
+travelling toward Washington in what seems like a single state, and it's
+wonderful how many of them have unprotected females put under their
+charge--sometimes, both ways. If E. E. has no objection, I'll be on hand
+bright and early."
+
+Dempster kept on laughing, and I went upstairs wondering what had set
+him off so, but when I asked Cousin E. E. if she had any objection to my
+travelling to Washington with her husband, she began to laugh too, as if
+it was the best sort of a joke that a York lady should be expected to
+care about her husband's travelling off with other feminine women.
+
+"Why," says she, a-wiping the fun and tears from her eyes with a lace
+handkerchief, "what do you think I care! We don't keep our husbands shut
+up in band-boxes here in the great metropolis."
+
+"No," says I to myself, "nor do you get much chance to shut 'em up at
+home, according to my thinking."
+
+"Besides," says she, with comicality in her eyes, looking at me from
+head to foot: "I should never think of being jealous of you, Cousin
+Phœmie."
+
+Here, that child looked up from a novel she was a-reading.
+
+"The idea," says she, which was exasperating; especially as Cousin E. E.
+kept laughing.
+
+"That is as much as to say you don't think I'm good-looking enough to be
+afraid of," says I, feeling as if a cold frost was creeping over my
+face. "Thank you."
+
+Cousin E. E. started up from her lounge, which is a cushioned bench
+rounded off at one end, and a high-backed easy-chair at the other; and
+says she:
+
+"I didn't mean that, cousin; there is no one for whom I have so much
+respect. It was on account of your high religious principle and
+beautiful morality that I was so willing to trust you with my husband."
+
+"With papa. The idea!" chimed in that child, giving her head a toss.
+"They'll think it's his mother."
+
+"My daughter!" shrieked E. E., holding up both her hands, and falling
+back into the scoop of her couch.
+
+"Oh, let her speak!" says I, feeling the goose pimples a-creeping up my
+arms. "I'm used to forward children. In our parts they slap them with a
+slipper, if nothing else is handy."
+
+"A slipper; the idea!" snapped that child.
+
+I didn't seem to mind her, but went on talking to her mother.
+
+"But here, in York, the most careful mothers wear button boots, and keep
+special help to put them on and off, so the poor little wretches have no
+check on their impudence."
+
+"Mamma," snapped the creature, "I won't stand this; I won't stay in the
+same room with that hateful old maid. I hope she will go to Washington
+and be smashed up in ten thousand railroads. That's the idea!"
+
+With this the spiteful thing walked out of the room with her head thrown
+back, and her nose in the air.
+
+"Let her go," says E. E., sinking back on her couch as red as fire. "The
+child has got her share of the old Frost temper. Now let us talk about
+Washington. Do you mean to go _incog._?"
+
+"Incog! Oh, no," says I, beginning to cool down. "We mean to go in the
+railroad cars."
+
+Another glow of fun came into Cousin E. E.'s eyes--she really is a
+good-natured creature; some people might have got mad about what I said
+to that child, but she didn't seem to care, for the laugh all came back
+to her eyes.
+
+"Of course," says she, "but do you mean to go in your own character?"
+
+"Why," says I, "don't people take their characters with them when they
+go to Washington?"
+
+"They sometimes leave them there," says she, laughing, "but this is what
+I mean; if I were you I'd take this trip quietly, and look about a
+little without letting people know how great a genius they had among
+them. By and by we will all go and take the city by storm."
+
+"Just so," says I, delighted with the plan, which has a touch of
+diplomacy in it--and I am anxious to study diplomacy under the
+circumstances, you know; "creep before you walk--that is what you mean."
+
+"Just pass as Miss Frost--nothing more--and make your own observations,"
+says E. E.
+
+"I will," says I. "It's a good idea. I don't think the people in
+Washington were over polite to my great Grand Duke, and I mean to pay
+them off, some day."
+
+"That's settled," says E. E. "Now you have no more than time to get
+ready."
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV.
+
+IN WASHINGTON.
+
+
+I hurried back to my boarding-house, packed up that pink silk dress and
+things, put on my alpaca dress, tied a thick brown veil over my beehive,
+and packed my satchel till it rounded out like an apple dumpling.
+
+We started that night. Cousin D. wanted me to go into a long car where
+people slept, he said; but I saw a good many men with carpet-bags going
+in there, which looked strange, and though I have great faith in the
+integrity of Cousin Dempster, a young lady in my peculiar circumstances
+cannot be too particular; I declined to go into that curtained, long
+car, and sat up in a high-backed chair all night, wide awake as a
+whip-poor-will, for Cousin Dempster was on the next seat sleeping like a
+mole, and his head more than once came down so close to my shoulder
+that it made me shudder for fear that people might not know that he was
+my cousin's husband, and snap up my character before I got to
+Washington.
+
+Well, at last we got out of that train, I stood with both feet in the
+heart of the nation, and a great, flat, straggling heart it is.
+
+"There it is--there is the Capitol," says Cousin Dempster. "Look how
+beautifully the sunshine bathes the dome and the white marble walls."
+
+I looked upward--there, rising up over a lot of tall trees and long,
+green embankments, rose a great building, white as snow, and large as
+all out-doors. The sun was just up, and had set all its windows on fire,
+and a great, stout woman perched on the top of a thing they call the
+dome--which is like a mammoth wash-bowl turned wrong side up--looked as
+if she was tired out with carrying so much on her head, and longed to
+jump down and have a good time with the other bronze-colored girls that
+show themselves off, just like white folks inside the building.
+
+Well, later that day, I went right up to that heap of marble, which in
+its length and breadth and depth filled my soul with pride and patriotic
+glory. I really don't believe there is another building like it on the
+face of the earth. Freedom, honesty, and greatness _ought_ to preside
+there.
+
+Why, sisters, there are whole rooms here of clouded marble, ceiling,
+floor, walls--everything polished like the agate stone in your brooch,
+and I do think that the hottest sun can hardly force a beam of warmth
+through.
+
+Down in the great wandering cellars you come upon staircases of
+beautiful marble, fenced in with railings of iron and gold and brass all
+melted together and called bronze, up which deer, as big as young lambs,
+are jumping, and branches of trees are twisted. There are ever so many
+of these staircases, and they cost one hundred thousand dollars apiece.
+Think of that! and mostly where it is so dark that you can't but just
+see them.
+
+"I hadn't only one day and night to look about in, so I went up there
+before Congress got to work, as I wanted to see things without having
+people know that I was there. But by and by a lot of men came swarming
+in, and I felt like making myself scarce.
+
+I went back to the hotel and got a little sleep.
+
+It was dinner time, and near candle-light when I woke up; and when we
+got through dinner, Cousin D. told me to hurry up, and we would take a
+look at the White House.
+
+"Shall I get out my pink silk?" says I. "Does the President expect me?"
+
+"Oh, no," says he; "no one is aware that we are here. We will drive to
+the White House, see all that is to be seen, and start home bright and
+early to-morrow morning."
+
+"Then the alpaca will do," says I.
+
+"Of course," says he; "anything."
+
+I wasn't sorry. This travelling all night is apt to take the ambition
+out of the most energetic character. The difference between pink silk
+and alpaca was nothing to me now.
+
+Well, in an hour after, the carriage we rode in stopped under a great
+square roof, set on marble pillars, which spreads out from the steps of
+the White House to keep people sheltered from the storm and sun when
+they get out of the carriages. It was dark now, and two great
+street-lamps were in brilliant combustion each side of the steps.
+
+Between us, sisters, that White House that we hear so much about is no
+great shakes of a building. Compared to the Capitol, it is just nowhere.
+
+Cousin D. rang the knob, which was silver, and a man opened the door.
+
+"We should like to see the House," says Cousin D.
+
+"Certainly," says the man. "Walk in."
+
+We did walk into a large room, with a few chairs and two or three
+pictures in it; nothing particular, I can tell you.
+
+"This way," says the man.
+
+We went that way, into a great room, long and wide as a meeting-house,
+choke full of long windows, and with three awful large glass balloons,
+blazing with lights, a-hanging from the roof.
+
+The carpet was thick and soft as a sandy shore, and had its colors all
+trampled in together, as if some one had stamped down the leaves of a
+maple camp into the grass as they fell last year.
+
+"The chairs and sofas and looking-glasses were bought when General
+Washington was President," says the man.
+
+"Mercy on me! you don't say so," says I. "They look rather skimpy for
+these times, don't they?" says I; but then his way of buying things and
+spending money was a little skimpy compared to the way Presidents spend
+money now; but, of course, we grow more deserving as we grow older.
+"Now, those red silk curtains that almost hide the lace ones, did they
+belong to Washington?"
+
+"Them? Oh, no; we change them every four years."
+
+"Then they go out with the President," says I.
+
+"We don't think that he will go out yet awhile," says the man, looking a
+little wrathy.
+
+"Well, I hope he won't, for great men are scarce in these times," says
+I, wanting to mollify him. He said nothing, and I followed him through a
+door into a smaller room, so full of green that it seemed like stepping
+out of a blazing sun into a fern hollow. The walls were green; the
+carpet was green as meadow grass; the sofas and chairs were cushioned
+with green satin. The glass balloon seemed to have a sea-green tinge in
+it, though it was blazing like a bonfire.
+
+Not a soul was in the room, and we went on to the next which was long,
+rounded off at the ends like a lemon, and blue as the sky. Down the tall
+windows came curtains of blue silk, sweeping over white lace. The chairs
+seemed framed in solid gold; their cushions were blue silk.
+
+"This is the celebrated blue room," says the man.
+
+"I've heard about it," says I.
+
+"And this," says he, "is the red room. The President has given a
+dinner-party to General Sickles this evening, and they are now at the
+table. Would you like to look in?"
+
+Before I could answer, we were standing in the red room, and looking
+through at a table crowded round with gentlemen and ladies, dressed like
+queens and princes, some of them looking handsome as angels.
+
+"That is General Sickles," says he, "a-sitting by Mr. Grant."
+
+I looked in, but could only see a face, not over young, turned towards a
+lady who was listening to him, as if every word he dropped was a ripe
+cherry. She had a good, honest face, and I liked her.
+
+"That is Mrs. Sickles, sitting by the President," says the man.
+
+"What, that girl! you don't say so. Why, he might be her father."
+
+It was the truth--a young, black-eyed thing, rather pretty and childish,
+sat there by General Grant--I knew it was Grant by his features--talking
+to him as if he had been her brother. Her dress was high up in the neck,
+but most of the ladies there wore them so low that I felt like turning
+my eyes away; but Cousin D. says that low-necked dresses always rage as
+a chronic epidemic in Washington, so I mustn't be surprised.
+
+"That is General Sheridan," says the man.
+
+"That little cast-iron image, General Sheridan!" says I, a-starting
+back. "The fellow that cured a whole tribe of Indian women of small-pox
+with bayonets and bullets! I don't want to see anything more! Just let
+us go away, cousin; I haven't been vaccinated, and he might break out
+again."
+
+"Hush! hush! he isn't dangerous," says Cousin D.
+
+"Dangerous!" says I, "just ask the Governor of Illinois. Wasn't it
+General Sheridan who dragged off the Grand Duke among the Indians and
+buffaloes? I tell you again I won't stay another minute in the house
+with that man!"
+
+Sisters, I kept my word. We departed at once.
+
+
+
+
+XXXV.
+
+GETTING INFORMATION.
+
+
+My dear sisters:--I made what people here call a flying visit to
+Washington, which means, I suppose, that the railroad cars go about as
+swift as a bird flies, which they do, if one is allowed to choose the
+bird--a white bantam, for instance, with clipped wings. Well, I really
+don't know much about the speed, only I was awful tired when we got out
+of the cars at Jersey City, and we had the lonesomest drive home just
+before daylight that two tired mortals ever undertook. The whole city
+was still as a graveyard, and put one in mind of those cities over the
+sea, dug out of the ashes in which they have been buried hundreds on
+hundreds of years.
+
+To me, sisters, nothing is more dreary than a great city shut up and
+full of sleeping people. Only think of it! half a million of human
+beings all lying in darkness, unconscious of both happiness or misery,
+just as if sleeping in their tombs, only that the first glow of sunshine
+brings them to life again. Did you ever think of it?
+
+Now, in the country the stillness is not so mournful--there is a sense
+of out-door freedom there. The leaves stir with life on the trees. The
+brooks murmur and gurgle and laugh by night as they do by day. The birds
+flutter now and then, and the winds whistle and whisper, filling the
+night with a stir of life. But here--here in a great city, a ghost-like
+policeman, or a poor straggling wretch who has no home but the street,
+is all that you see. Indeed, coming home before daybreak isn't a thing I
+hanker to do over again.
+
+Well, after pulling at the bell-knob till I'm afraid Cousin Dempster
+swore internally, we got into the house, and had a good long sleep
+before breakfast.
+
+"I'm so glad you've come," says Cousin E. E., "for the Liederkranz comes
+off to-night, and I was afraid we should lose it. Of course you'll go,
+Cousin Frost?"
+
+"Well," says I, "perhaps I can tell better when I know what the thing
+is. It's a crabbled sort of a word, that might belong to an aligator or
+kangaroo; and I don't care overmuch for wild-beast shows, any way."
+Cousin E. E. laughed.
+
+"Well," says she, "in some sense you are right. There will be a show of
+wild animals such as never roamed in field or forest, but none of them
+are dangerous; at any rate, in that form."
+
+"Are they in a circus, and is there a clown with a chalky face and red
+patches?" says I.
+
+"The circus!" says she, a-holding up both hands. "Why, it is to be in
+the Academy of Music, and the first people in the city are going."
+
+"To see them feed?" says I.
+
+"Well, that may be a part of it, but the principal thing is the parade."
+
+"But where do they feed the animals--not in the boxes with red velvet
+cushions, I calculate?"
+
+"Oh, how funny you are! Of course not; the supper is set out in Nilsson
+Hall, and is served _à la carte_."
+
+"What!" says I; "do they bring in fodder by the cartload for the
+creatures? Now, really, Cousin E. E., there is nothing astonishing about
+that to a person born and bred in the country. You and I have ridden on
+a load of hay, piled up so high that we had to bend down our heads to
+keep from bumping them against the top of the barn door, when the hay
+went in to be put on the mow; so we need not see the same thing meached
+over here in York."
+
+"Dear me!" said my cousin; "you are just the brightest and stupidest
+woman----"
+
+"Young lady, if you please," says I.
+
+"Well, young lady--that I ever set eyes on--can't you comprehend that it
+is a ball we are speaking of?"
+
+"A ball?" says I; "then what did you call it a Liederkranz for?"
+
+"The Liederkranz ball. It's a German word."
+
+"But I don't speak Dutch. How should I, not being an old settler of York
+Island," says I.
+
+"Well, never mind that. The Liederkranz is a masked ball."
+
+"A masked ball! Now what do you mean? I've heard of masked batteries,
+but they went out with the war."
+
+"There it is again; you won't take time to understand," says Cousin E.
+E., a-lifting both her hands in the air. "This is a ball where people go
+in character."
+
+I arose at once, burning with indignation.
+
+"Cousin E. E.," says I, "do you mean to insult me? What have you seen in
+my conduct to lead you into supposing that I would go to any ball that
+was out of character?"
+
+"Do sit down," says she.
+
+"Not in this house," says I. "It isn't my own dignity alone that I have
+got to maintain, but the whole Society of Infinite Progress is
+represented in my humble person."
+
+"But you are mistaken. Was ever anything so absurd! Do speak to her, Mr.
+Dempster. You know how far it is from my mind to give offence to Cousin
+Phœmie."
+
+Cousin Dempster, who had been rubbing his hands and enjoying himself
+mightily, now smoothed down his face, and spoke.
+
+"A masked ball, Cousin Phœmie, is an entertainment, you understand."
+
+"Just so," says I.
+
+"In which each person takes some character not his own."
+
+"All slanderers, are they?" says I.
+
+"No, no; they assume a character."
+
+"Oh!" says I, a-drawing out a long breath; "make believe have one?"
+
+"They dress the character, and act it."
+
+"Well?" says I, completely beat out.
+
+"Some dress themselves up as beasts and birds."
+
+"What?"
+
+"And some as tame animals."
+
+"You don't say so!"
+
+"The ladies put masks on their faces."
+
+"Masks! now what are they?"
+
+"Pieces of silk, or gold and silver cloth, with holes for the eyes, and
+a fringe over the mouth. Then over the dress they put on a great
+circular cloak, with a hood to it, and loose sleeves that hide the
+shape, so that a man don't know his own wife."
+
+"Oh, it's a hide-and-seek ball; but ain't some of the ladies in danger
+of losing themselves," says I.
+
+Cousin Dempster laughed, and his wife turned red as fire.
+
+"People who lose themselves at the Liederkranz, generally get found out
+in the end," says he.
+
+"But I must hurry down town. Will you go? Everybody will be there. It is
+the place to meet a prince in disguise."
+
+As Dempster uttered these words, my heart gave a great, wild bound, and
+my breath stopped. What if _he_ were to be at the ball in disguise,
+seeking a safe and private interview.
+
+"Yes, yes, I will go," says I, "but I don't know either! The mask and
+cloak!"
+
+"Never mind about them," says E. E.; "I have a couple ready, feeling
+sure that you would go."
+
+"Then it is settled," says Dempster, snatching up his hat. "I will be on
+hand. So good-morning!"
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI.
+
+THE LIEDERKRANZ BALL.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--That night about ten o'clock, three of the
+funniest-looking people you ever set eyes on might have been seen
+creeping--like black, and pink, and yellow ghosts--down Cousin
+Dempster's front steps.
+
+I had on a long yellow cloak, trimmed with black velvet, that just swept
+down to my feet and covered them up. Then over my face was a black
+velvet mask, with gold fringe, that swept down to my bosom like an old
+man's beard, and over that my hood was pulled so close that not a lock
+of my hair could be seen.
+
+Cousin E. E. wore a pink cloak, trimmed with white swan's-down, and her
+mask shone like silver.
+
+Dear sisters, you wouldn't have known me from the Queen of Sheba.
+
+Dempster was black all over--mask, cloak, and boots. It seemed as if
+half a dozen funerals had been rolled into one, and hung on him.
+
+Well, we crowded into the carriage and drove off. It seemed as if we
+never should get untangled from the drove of carriages that swarmed
+around the Academy of Music, and when we got in, and found ourselves
+struggling with the crowd, we almost wished ourselves back again.
+
+I looked around everywhere, as I went, for that tall and princely form;
+but the crowd was so thick, and the dresses so queer, that it seemed
+next to impossible to find out anything or know anybody. The lights from
+the great glass balloons poured down rainbows on the crowd, that moved
+and chatted and laughed till the noise was confusing as the dresses.
+
+"Step back, step back!" says Cousin Dempster, all at once, "the
+procession is coming."
+
+We did step back, and tried our best to see the procession; but the
+floor was pretty much on a level, and, though I stood on tiptoe, all
+that I could see was, now and then, the head of an eagle, or a bear, or
+a giraffe, rising above the crowd, while the music rang out in thunders
+of sweet sounds, and the people swarmed in and out of the little square
+pews in the galleries, like bees hiving on a hot summer day.
+
+Of course, I knew well enough that all this moving circus was
+make-believe, and that every wild animal had a man in him, just as every
+man has the shadow of some animal in his nature. But I couldn't help
+stepping back and shuddering a little, when a great big lumbering
+elephant rolled by, with his trunk curled up in the air, and almost trod
+on me.
+
+"Oh, mercy!" says I, with a little scream. "He's enough to frighten one
+out of a year's growth!"
+
+"Don't be terrified," says a voice behind me, and I felt an arm
+a-stealing around my waist; "I am here to protect you."
+
+I looked up. My heart stopped beating. The stranger was tall, majestic,
+and the eyes that shone through his mask were blue as robin's eggs. He
+had on a black cloak, and the mask covered his whole face; but how could
+I mistake the princely bend of that head, the breadth of those majestic
+shoulders.
+
+He drew me back from the crowd. I forgot Cousin Dempster, E. E., and
+everything else, in the ecstasy of that sweet surprise.
+
+"You have forgotten the roses," he whispered, with a look of loving
+reproach.
+
+I felt for the bouquet Cousin Dempster had given me--it was gone.
+
+"I must have dropped them as I got out of the carriage," says I. "But
+when did you come?" I added, in a whisper, tremulous with bliss.
+
+"Oh, I came an hour ago, and in the usual way," was his sweet answer;
+"but, not seeing the flowers, I doubted."
+
+"Ah! how I prayed that you would grow weary of that miserable buffalo
+hunt, and return!" says I.
+
+He seemed just a little puzzled, but at last broke out:
+
+"Oh, it's all a grotesque farce. Why should wise men turn themselves
+into wild animals, if it is only in sport? I never enjoy such parties
+for themselves."
+
+"I am glad to hear you say that," says I; "and more glad that you have
+left off hunting with Phil Sheridan; he might have led you into some
+Indian camp filled with Modocs, who would have shot you for sport."
+
+"Sheridan," says he. "Oh, he doesn't stay in one place long enough to do
+much harm."
+
+"Exactly," says I; "but he works quickly. Still, you are here, safe and
+sound; why should we waste time over him?"
+
+"True enough," says he; "so take my arm, and let us promenade."
+
+I took his arm, and clasping both hands over it after a fashion I have
+seen prevalent among young girls when they walk out with their lovers by
+moonlight, moved proudly through that throng--very proudly--for I knew
+that long cloak covered imperial greatness that would have astonished
+that assembly, had they known as much as I fondly suspected.
+
+"Tell me," says I, in a soft whisper, "did you receive a valentine?"
+
+"Did I receive a valentine?" says he. "Why do you ask?"
+
+"Ah!" says I, "do not question me."
+
+"But I must. Tell me something about it."
+
+"It was original. It was poetry," says I.
+
+"Poetry--and yours! How can you doubt its effect?"
+
+"I do not doubt. Are you not by my side?" I whispered.
+
+He drew my hand under his loose sleeve, and pressed it tenderly--so
+tenderly, that I did not know when the handkerchief it held escaped from
+my grasp to his; but, directly after, I saw him thrust something white
+into his bosom. It was my very best handkerchief, embroidered with my
+name; but I said nothing--how could I?
+
+We walked on. The crowd swarmed and hummed like bees in a clover-field.
+Now and then a great gray eagle flapped by, or a bear prowled along;
+but, after all, it was a clumsy make-believe, and didn't scare anybody
+much.
+
+By and by a lady came along dressed just like me--yellow and black all
+over. She stared at me, and I stared at her--just my height--just my
+air--modest, but queenly. There was a trifling difference--she wore a
+bunch of red roses on her bosom.
+
+After staring at me awhile, she drew softly round to the other side, and
+it seemed as if she was saying something to _him_. I can't tell you what
+happened next; for just then four great big gilt candlesticks walked
+into the middle of the room, and began to dance, in a way that fairly
+took me off my feet. It really was too funny. The style in which they
+hopped up and down, crossed over, and stalked about, was enough to make
+a priest laugh.
+
+"Isn't it awful queer!" says I, a-turning to the man who had come so far
+to tell me of his love.
+
+He was gone. I stood there alone in the crowd, my limbs shook, my heart
+sunk like lead. How had I lost him?
+
+Wild with a sense of widowhood, I wandered to and fro over that
+ball-room. Many people spoke to me; some gentlemen in disguise wanted to
+walk with me; but I evaded them all. Some I answered; to some I gave
+nothing but sighs. At last I felt tears stealing down under my mask, my
+strength gave way, I sat down on a cushioned bench in a fit of
+despondency. The cup of bliss had sparkled at my lips, and been dashed
+aside.
+
+What did I care for the men and women who were whirling, talking, and
+dancing around me!
+
+"Cousin, are you almost ready to go home?"
+
+It was Cousin Dempster who spoke; he had been searching for me high and
+low, and was shocked to find me sitting there alone. I said nothing,
+but, like that Spartan boy, gathered the yellow waves of my cloak over
+the vulture that knawed at my poor heart, and followed my cousin out of
+the crowd--still looking eagerly for that one noble figure, but looking
+in vain.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVII.
+
+HOW DID THE PAPERS KNOW?
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Would you believe it? Cousin Dempster had hardly got down
+to his business after the ball, when a telegram--I think that is the
+name of the thing that he said came flying over the wires--called him to
+Washington again. Cousin E. E. made up her mind to go with him this
+time, and nothing would satisfy her but that I must join in and cut a
+dash with them. After the strange way in which that majestic man in the
+black cloak had gone off with the yellowhammer of a female, I had felt
+so down in the mouth that nothing seemed to pacify me. If it really was
+the great Grand Duke, his conduct was just abominable. I wouldn't have
+believed it of him; taking off a lady's handkerchief in his bosom, and
+that the best one she had in the world, and not bringing it back again.
+Such conduct may be imperial, but it isn't polite, that I must say,
+though it wrings my heart to find fault with him. If he had brought it
+back the next day, of course it would have been different; but he
+didn't, and there I sat and sat, waiting like patience on a--on a stone
+wall, smiling, but wanting to cry all the time.
+
+"It'll do you good, and cheer you up," says Cousin E. E.
+
+"Maybe it will," says I, drawing a heavy breath, "but I don't seem to
+expect much. February is gone, and no answer to--"
+
+I bit my tongue, and cut off what it was going to say about that
+valentine, for that was a secret breathed only to you, as a Society, in
+the strictest confidence.
+
+"This time," says Cousin E. E., "there shall be no secrecy. The whole
+world shall know that the rising genius of the age is with us. The day
+we start, all the morning papers will announce that Mr. and Mrs.
+Dempster, of ----, have gone to Washington, accompanied by that
+celebrated authoress, Miss Phœmie Frost, who cannot fail to meet with
+every attention from the statesmen and high fashion of the Capital."
+
+"But how are the papers going to know?" says I.
+
+E. E. laughed.
+
+"Oh, Dempster will manage that; he's hand-and-glove with ever so many
+city editors," says she.
+
+"Oh!" says I.
+
+"There are some things that even genius itself don't know how to
+manage," says E. E., nodding her head, and smiling slyly; "but they can
+be done. As soon as we get to Washington, all the papers there will
+catch fire from New York, and the Senate will get up another committee,
+and vote you a seat in the diplomatic gallery by ballot. We'll break
+right into the Japanese furore, and carry off the palm," says she,
+kindling up like a heap of pine shavings when a match touches it.
+
+I began to feel the proud Frosty blood melting in my bosom.
+
+"The woman who writes is more than equal to the man who votes," says
+she.
+
+"There is no comparison," says I. "Women are women and men are
+men--nobody thinks of comparing rose-bushes and oak-trees--one makes
+timber and the other perfume; we shelter the roses, and let the oaks
+battle for themselves. So it ought to be with men and women--"
+
+Cousin E. E. cut me short.
+
+"That is beautifully expressed," says she, "but save it for one of your
+reports or literary conversations; my head is full of Washington."
+
+"And my heart is full of sadness," says I, beginning to droop again.
+
+"Nonsense, you will be happy as a bird when we once get a-going," says
+she.
+
+Cousin E. E. isn't a woman of great depth, but she knows a thing or two
+about fashionable life.
+
+The York papers _did_ announce to the world that a distinguished party
+had gone on to the seat of government, and, singular enough, it was done
+exactly in E. E.'s own words--a circumstance that rather puzzled me.
+What was more--the very day we got to Washington all the papers there
+did the same thing, which set us at the top of the heap at once.
+
+I hadn't the least idea of interfering with the Japanese that came to us
+from California, and in that way seem to be turning the world the other
+side about from what it used to be; but when genius takes the bit
+between its teeth, it's apt to scatter things right and left. I suppose
+it was the newspapers did it, but I hadn't been a day at the hotel when
+a letter come to us from the President's mansion, which invited us to
+come to the White House and see the Japanese presentation--in full
+dress.
+
+I declare I felt myself blushing all over when I read that. Did any one
+suppose that we were a-coming to meet those outside potentates half
+dressed? Some of them, perhaps, unmarried men.
+
+"The idea!" as that child would say. I showed the card to Cousin E. E.,
+who seemed to think it all right, so I said nothing, though the whole
+thing had riled me so it seemed as if I never should stop blushing.
+
+"What does it mean," says I.
+
+"We must go, Dick or Lottie," says she.
+
+"Go--how?" says I. "Haven't they got horses and carriages in this great
+city, that we must go in an outlandish thing like that?"
+
+Here E. E. broke into one of her aggravating titters; but when I gave
+her a look she choked off, and says she:
+
+"It means low necks and short sleeves."
+
+"Low necks and short sleeves! Why didn't they say so, then? What has any
+Dick or Lottie got to do with it? But it's no use; I won't wear anything
+of the kind. Those who want to have a shoulder-strap for a sleeve, and
+their dresses too short at one end and too long at the other, can; I
+won't--there!"
+
+"Oh! you are privileged; genius always is," says E. E.
+
+"That is, genius is privileged to be decent in Washington. Well, I'm
+glad of that," says I. "Some young ladies may like to go about with
+bare arms and shoulders--let them. I won't!"
+
+
+
+
+XXXVIII.
+
+RECEPTION OF THE JAPANESE.
+
+
+Well, sisters, that afternoon the distinguished party mentioned in the
+papers got out of a carriage, under that square roof in front of the
+White House steps, and walked with slow, stately steps into the
+ante-room that I told you of. One of them--a tall, imperial-looking
+person--was robed in a flowing pink silk, just a little open at the
+throat, where it was finished off with white lace with a snow-flake
+figure on it. A long curl fell down this lady's left shoulder, and there
+was a good deal of frizzing about the lofty forehead, and any amount of
+puffs back of that.
+
+The other lady--who naturally kept a little in the background--wore
+white satin, cut to order about the neck and shoulders, and a lot of
+white stones on her bosom and in her hair, that shone like fire in a
+dark night.
+
+The man at the door seemed to know us, for he said; "If it's Miss P.
+Frost and her friends, walk this way."
+
+We did walk that way, and drew up in that lemon-shaped room, which is so
+blue and white that you seem to think yourself in the clouds when you go
+in. Right in the centre of the room is a great big round ring of seats,
+cushioned all over with blue silk; and right up from the middle of it
+rose a splendid flower-pot, crowded full of flowers--white, pink, and
+all sorts of colors--with great long green leaves a-streaming over the
+edges, and broad, white lilies, that seemed cut out of ragged snow,
+a-spreading themselves among the green leaves.
+
+A hive of ladies, all in long-trained dresses, and necks according to
+order, were sitting or standing or moving across the room, looking as
+proud and grand as peacocks on a sunshiny day. Among them was the
+President's wife--a real nice, sociable lady--who looked just as she
+ought to in a black velvet, long-trained dress. In fact, of all the
+women in that room, I liked her the best, she is so sweet and kind in
+her manners. The minute we came in she turned round and gave us a warm,
+honest smile, which was about the only downright honest thing I've seen
+in Washington, as yet.
+
+"Miss Frost," says she, "I'm delighted to see you and your relations. My
+friend Senator Edmunds has told me about you!"
+
+"Thank you," says I. "No one need want a better recommendation than he
+can give. We think the world of him in our State."
+
+"I'm glad to hear that," says she. "We think a great deal of him too; in
+fact, Vermont honors herself in the Senate. But you are looking at the
+flowers; they are all Japanese, in honor of the Embassy."
+
+"You don't say so," says I; "did the Japanese bring the flowers along
+with them from Japan?"
+
+She laughed a sweet, good-natured little laugh, and says she:
+
+"Oh, no; we raise them in the hot-houses."
+
+Just then there was a bustle in the ante-room, and I saw a slow line of
+queer-looking little folks filing along toward the east room. Mrs. Grant
+had turned to talk to Cousin E. E., and I just slid out into the
+green-room, and stood inside the door to see what all the fuss was
+about.
+
+Standing against the great window, nearly opposite to me, I saw the
+President of these United States, with a lot of men around him in black
+clothes, and farther on stood another lot with their coats all covered
+over with gold and stars of precious stones a-hanging one after another
+on their bosoms, and some wore swords, and some didn't; but I tell you
+there was such a blaze of colors and flash of gold that it seemed to
+light up the great long room like sunshine, which was convenient, for
+there wasn't enough in the sky that day to light a family to bed.
+
+While I was wondering what all this magnificence and glory meant, Cousin
+Dempster happened to see me, and came up to the door.
+
+"What on earth does all that signify in a free country," says I. "It
+looks like a circus. Do they mean to ride in there? I don't see no
+horses; and it seems to me their hoofs will spoil the carpet when they
+come in. Are the Japanese people fond of horses?"
+
+"I don't know about that; the President is," whispers Cousin Dempster.
+"But never you mind that; he keeps 'em in his stables, and they're not
+likely to come here."
+
+"Then these fellows in the gold coats will only do rough-and-tumble, I
+suppose," says I.
+
+"Hush!" says Cousin D., looking round to be sure that no one heard me.
+"The rough-and-tumble has been pretty much done up in the Senate this
+winter."
+
+"Oh!" says I.
+
+"There will be a good deal of it in Philadelphia and Cincinnati, and all
+over the country, I'm afraid, for I don't think General Grant cares much
+about that sort of gymnastics."
+
+"Jim what?" says I.
+
+"Turning over and over from one side to the other!" says he.
+
+"I think he's right," says I. "A circus can't be much without horses and
+hoops, and that fellow with the painted face; but why don't the show
+begin, such as it is? What do they stand there for, looking lonesome as
+a cider-press in winter?"
+
+"My dear cousin," says he, looking at me sort of pitiful, "do remember
+it is the ambassadors of all Europe, to say nothing of South America,
+that you are speaking of."
+
+"Ambassadors," says I; "so you call them by that name here, do you?"
+
+"They represent governments, kings, and queens."
+
+"I've seen that done in the theatre beautifully. You remember when we
+went to see 'Julius Cæsar,' who wanted to be King of Rome; but I didn't
+know as they ever did such high-mightiness off on horseback, or through
+a hoop," says I.
+
+"But, Phœmie, these men are genuine. For instance, that gentleman with
+so much red and gold about him represents Queen Victoria."
+
+"What, in such clothes--hat, coat, and all the rest? I don't believe
+it," says I. "You won't impose upon me to that extent."
+
+"Not her person," says he, a-getting out of patience, "but her
+Government."
+
+
+
+
+XXXIX.
+
+THE JAPANESE.
+
+
+Well, sisters, that minute there was a commotion in the room. Those who
+had been leaning against the wall stood up, and the strange-looking men
+Cousin D. called ambassadors straightened up and fluttered a little, as
+peacocks spread their feathers when the sun breaks out.
+
+Before I could speak, in came the highest cockalorum among the Japanese,
+which wasn't very high after all.
+
+"Good gracious!" says I to Cousin D. "The man out there told me the
+ladies must all go into the blue room. Here I've been hiding behind the
+door, so as not to be seen, and the first Japanese stranger that comes
+in is a female woman! Goodness gracious! and so are all the rest!"
+
+"No, no," says Cousin D., "it's a man--they're all men."
+
+"With those Dolly Vardens on?" says I. "Do you think I was brought up in
+the woods, to take doves for night-hawks?"
+
+"It's the Japanese fashion," says he.
+
+"For men to dress in--well, skirts?"
+
+"Certainly. Don't you see that the lower skirt is formed into loose
+trousers that two or three of 'em wear?"
+
+I did look, and saw that the black silk underskirt some of these heathen
+Japanese wore was puckered up a little around the ankles, just enough to
+show off two peaked shoes, that must have been lovely wearing for a foot
+that was all great toe, but awkward for one that wasn't. In fact, I
+began to be awfully puzzled about the dress of the first one that came
+along, for above the skirt of purple silk was a Dolly Varden, all but
+the puffing out, of black silk, spotted over with white needlework. To
+top off all, this Japanee wore the funniest sort of a thing on the head,
+like a shiny black wash-bowl, with a hole in it, from which a stumpy
+black ball stuck up in the air--about the pertest-looking thing you ever
+saw. Around the edge was a white binding, all curlicued off with queer
+black figures, and a lot of stiff black stuff streamed down from behind,
+like a crow's tail.
+
+This dress was tied round the waist with a silk scarf, and to that hung
+a long, black sword, sideways, with the point sticking out behind,
+furious as could be.
+
+Only two of the Japanese were dressed in these frocks, figured off with
+white, with purple--well--skirts, under. Three others had thin
+purple--well--skirts, puckered up into baggy trousers, which showed off
+their peaked, hawk-bill shoes beautifully. These five high Japanese came
+marching one after another--Indian file--looking as solemn as eight-day
+clocks. Then came five more with black Dolly's, bound with purple, and
+with purple figures worked on the backs, and the underskirts puckered up
+into trousers. Every one of them had swords, and they all marched
+straight up to the President with them dangling by their sides.
+
+"There, do you see that," whispered Cousin Dempster. "Are you satisfied
+now? Women do not, as a general thing, wear swords."
+
+"They may be strong-minded," says I.
+
+Before Cousin Dempster had time to speak, the little Japanee that they
+called Iwakura had got right before the President. There he made a low
+bow, and, as if jerked by the same string, the whole row, one behind
+the other, bowed to each other's backs. Then Mr. Fish, a tall,
+fine-looking gentleman, they called Secretary of State, came forward and
+introduced the head Japanee to the President. Then came another bow, and
+another, and another, till the whole ten got into a row near the
+President. Then General Grant and Japanee Iwakura made beautiful
+speeches at each other. Then there came more bows--low, slow, and
+delightfully graceful--and then I gathered up the skirt of my pink silk
+and fled, like a bird, into the blue room, where the ladies were waiting
+like pigeons anxious for corn.
+
+After all, I think those Japanese must have been men. The ladies got
+into such a flutter as they came in, and took so much pains to make
+themselves agreeable, which it isn't likely they would have done if
+those scull caps and swords hadn't meant something masculine. Then there
+was more low bows, and we ladies swept back our trains, took steps and
+curtsied just as easy and graceful as they did, and Mrs. Grant talked a
+little with a Japanee. He told what she said to the others, and what she
+did say was just sweet and natural, which was a proof that she didn't
+consider the Japanese as strong-minded females in the least. So after we
+came out I told Cousin Dempster that I was satisfied that they were as
+great men as little fellows, five feet and under, could be, and I asked
+him, in confidence, if any of them were so unfortunate as to be
+unmarried?
+
+
+
+
+XL.
+
+THAT DIPLOMATIC STAG PARTY.
+
+
+It is wonderful, dear sisters, how one thing grows out of another in
+this world. When it got about that I had been invited to help the Mrs.
+President to entertain the Japanese dignitaries, every lady in
+Washington that was going to give a party sent me and my Cousin Dempster
+an invite, till we began to think no more of square letters, with
+monographs on them, than you care for chestnut burrs when the nuts have
+dropped out.
+
+But there was one of these documents that we rather jumped at, because
+it came from a man that was almost as good as born in Vermont. Maine is,
+after all, something of a New England State, and Mr. Brooks, member of
+Congress from New York, the man I spoke of, came from there, and had a
+seat in the Legislature of that State when he was only just of age. So
+we all rather took to him, as New England people will take to each other
+when they scatter off into other States, and do honor to the one they
+come from.
+
+The minute his square document came, Cousin Dempster said at once that
+he would accept, and I, who had done honors with Mrs. President, made up
+my mind there, right on the nail, to do just as much for the Brooks
+family.
+
+Well, I never took off my pink silk after we came from the White House,
+only bunched it up a little more behind when we went down to dinner, and
+after that screwed up my hair for a new friz, while I took a nap in the
+great puffy easy-chair that stood in my room; for this doing honors hour
+after hour is tiresome to the--well--ankles.
+
+Having my dress on, I took something of a nap, and seemed to be dragged
+out of my sleep by the hair, when E. E. came to call me, which was,
+maybe, owing to the tightness of the crimping wires that caught on the
+cushion when I jumped up, and gave me an awful jerk. But I soon got
+over that, and gave my hair an extra frizzle before I went out, which
+was improving to my general appearance, and very relieving to the head.
+
+Cousin E. E. had put on a span-new dress, observing, modestly, that a
+genius could appear in anything, but she hadn't the position which would
+stand wearing the same dress twice.
+
+"For the sake of New England," says she, "I mean to do my best," which
+she did, in silk, like a ripe cherry, with wave over wave of black lace
+over it, and a bunch of white stones on her bosom, burning like a
+furnace when the light struck them.
+
+Well, once again we packed ourselves into a carriage, and then, huddled
+up in waves of red silk, rolled off to Mr. Brooks's house, which isn't
+far from the President's homestead.
+
+"There don't seem to be many here yet," says I, as we got out of the
+carriage, and went up the high steps, holding our dresses with both
+hands.
+
+Before Cousin D. could answer, the door was opened, and the man inside
+waved his hand, which had a span-clean white glove on it, and told us to
+walk upstairs, which we did, dropping our dresses as we went, till they
+trailed half way down the steps in waves that the fellow with white
+gloves on must have thought sumptuous.
+
+Two or three young ladies were in the dressing-room, and that was all. I
+shook out my dress before the glass, gave my hair an extra fluff, and
+went into the hall, where Cousin Dempster was standing.
+
+"There don't seem to be many ladies here," says I; "in fact, none to
+speak of."
+
+"Oh," says he, "they're not expected. You and my wife are exceptions."
+
+"Just so," says I.
+
+"This is a stag party," says he.
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A stag party, where ladies sometimes manage to see and listen. You will
+have a chance from the back windows, I dare say; only sit low and keep
+still, the flags will conceal you."
+
+"Oh! it's a stag party at the table, and crouching dears all around,"
+says I, "is it?"
+
+Cousin Dempster laughed till he nearly choked.
+
+"That's capital," says he. "You are getting too bright for anything."
+
+I couldn't quite make out what I'd said that set him off so, but I
+suppose he did, for he kept on laughing all the way downstairs, and the
+fun hadn't left his face when he introduced me to Mr. Brooks, who was in
+the room we entered, talking with some ladies that had come to look on
+and help his daughter to talk to the Japaneses, who don't understand a
+word of English.
+
+Sisters, I really think we New England people ought to be proud of Mr.
+Brooks, for he's not only tall and large, and real handsome, but he's a
+self-made man, having worked out his own education by the hardest toil.
+He edited a daily paper before he was twenty years old; was a member of
+the Maine legislature when he was twenty-three; and travelled all over
+Europe on foot before he was twenty-five. He has been in Congress, off
+and on, twelve years, besides travelling all round the world between
+whiles, which brought him hand-and-glove with the Japanese, the heathen
+Chinee, and all the other outlandish people that we send missionaries
+to, and convert a dozen or so once in fifty years.
+
+Well, Mr. Brooks seemed real glad to see us, and was polite as could be;
+so was his daughter and all the other ladies, when they found out who it
+was they had among them. He'd been in Vermont, of course, before going
+round what was left of the world, and his praise of the Old Mountain
+State was something worth hearing. He asked about Sprucehill, and said
+that he had pleasant reminiscences of that place, having kept a school
+in one just like it in his vacations in college. Particularly he
+recollected a sugar camp where he used to drink maple sap, and eat sugar
+till it had been a sweet remembrance to him all his life.
+
+While we were talking in this satisfactory manner, the fellow in gloves
+sung out a name that got so tangled up in his mouth that it set my teeth
+on edge. Then came another, and another that I didn't listen to; for
+that minute I saw a pair of peaked shoes coming through the door, and
+above them Mr. Iwakura, with that glazed punch-bowl on his head, and his
+black and purple dress hanging limp around him. He bowed low and softly.
+Mr. Brooks bowed back; then this Japanee turned to bow again and again,
+till I began to tremble for his neck, but he went through it all like a
+man; and when the whole lot had been bowed to, Mr. Brooks introduced
+them to me and the other ladies.
+
+Mr. Iwakura seemed to remember that he'd seen me a-doing honors at the
+White House, for he bowed clear down till I thought his glazed
+punch-bowl would fall off, and his black veil stuck right out straight;
+but he rose again as if his joints had been oiled, and said something
+that sounded soft as cream, and sweet as maple-sugar, but what it all
+meant goodness only knows.
+
+Then another heathen Japanee stepped forward, and says he:
+
+"The Embassador wishes to say he is delighted to see a lady author, who
+is an honor to her country."
+
+Here I laid one hand on my heart, and bent my head a little, not exactly
+knowing what else to do; and I said, with what I hope was becoming
+modesty:
+
+"Oh! your Highness--is it Highness--Excellency, or High Cockolorum?" I
+whispered to the lady who stood next me.
+
+"Excellency," whispered she back again.
+
+"Oh, your High Excellency," says I; for, being by nature a conservative,
+I took what seemed best out of each. "You are too complimentary."
+
+With that I made him a curtsey that over-matched his bow, for there was
+more of it a good deal, on account of his smallness, and my height, in
+which we were both a little peculiar.
+
+The Embassador looked as if he hadn't time to answer; for he was busy
+bowing to the other ladies, and the rest of the Japanese all came up,
+and there was such a slow bending time among 'em that it was ten minutes
+before there was anything else done. Then we got a little mixed, and
+seemed to be ladies altogether, only those who were going in to dinner
+seemed to carry their own punch-bowls on their heads; as for dresses and
+so on, we were pretty much alike, and the master of the house in his
+black coat, and so forth, seemed the only man among us.
+
+By and by Mr. Iwakura came back to where I was standing, and the young
+man came with him to do up the talking.
+
+"I have never before seen a lady that wrote books," says he, in the
+sweetest manner; which the other repeated in English that wasn't half so
+musical.
+
+There was an inward struggle in my mind; the compliment was sweet, and I
+longed to keep it; but truth is truth. My foot is on the threshold; I
+have looked into the Temple of Fame, but am not yet what I hope to be;
+but the truth is, I haven't written any books, _as_ books, yet. It
+wounded me to say so, but truth is a jewel that I have resolved shall
+shine, like a railroad man's diamond, in my bosom, forever.
+
+"Your High Excellency," says I, with brave self-control, "my humble
+efforts have not yet been bound in covers, but they will soon increase
+to that extent. Have you no female authors in that Japanee country of
+yours?"
+
+When the young man expounded these questions to Mr. Iwakura, the eyes of
+his High Excellency began to sparkle from one sharp corner to the other,
+and he smiled blandly--
+
+"Oh yes! we have ladies who write in Japan; but not lines of wisdom,
+like yourself; they write poems."
+
+"Love poems?" says I.
+
+"Mostly," says he; and his little eyes lighted up from corner to
+corner--"love poems, home poems, and such things as ladies understand by
+heart."
+
+"The Japanese language is so sweet," says I, "the ladies cannot be very
+strong-minded that write it."
+
+"Strong-minded--what is that?" says he.
+
+"Manly, strong; sometimes fierce," says I.
+
+"His Highness does not quite comprehend," says the young man.
+
+"Then I must illustrate," says I. "For instance, if an American woman
+were to dress as near like a man as--well, I beg pardon--as his High
+Excellency and his friends dress like women, we should call them
+high-minded."
+
+"But do they? Shall we see any ladies like that?"
+
+"You will no doubt see females like that," says I, with dignity.
+
+
+
+
+XLI.
+
+THE DINNER.
+
+
+There was no more conversing just then, for the tall fellow in gloves
+was so busy, opening and shutting the out-doors, and gentlemen came
+pouring in so thick and fast that we all had to attend to them. I was
+sorry for this, as the conversation was taking a turn that would have
+been of interest to us as a Society. I was just going to ask about the
+marriage relations among the Japanese, and intended to enter into a
+delicate investigation regarding the present company. But a smart,
+handsome, bright-looking gentleman came in, dressed up to the nines; and
+before I could say another word to Mr. Iwakura, this gentleman was
+bowing to me, and I was making my best curtsey to him. I was just
+delighted, for he looks a soldier, every inch of him, standing up
+straight as an arrow, but bowing so graceful and easy.
+
+Then others came pouring in, and we ladies were busy as bees doing the
+honors.
+
+There was no end of generals that bowed to me that night. There was
+General Farnsworth, from Illinois State, about the tallest and most
+manly gentleman among them. The long, sweeping beard that fell over his
+bosom was something splendid. If that man wasn't born in New England,
+he ought to have been--that's all.
+
+But I haven't room nor time, in a short report, to give particulars
+about a hundred or so gentlemen. They were all men that you've heard of
+over and over again, for in his invitations Mr. Brooks had just skimmed
+the cream off from Congress, and it was something beautiful to see it
+pour itself through the parlors into the great dining-room, built on
+purpose for "that night only."
+
+It didn't take long for the parlors to empty themselves into that room
+when a whisper went round that dinner was ready. In less than five
+minutes after, another fellow in white gloves came sliding into the
+room, and spoke low to Mr. Brooks,--we ladies were left alone, looking
+at one another, like babes in the woods.
+
+A cat may look on a king, and ladies do sometimes look in upon stag
+parties. Well, I got a little restless, and began to wonder how the cat
+got a good look, and how I could get a peep at the feeding stags.
+
+While the rest were talking, I slid off to one of the back windows,
+which opened upon the great banqueting hall--you have seen that term in
+novels--and, hid under a cataract of stars and stripes, I saw and heard
+all that was going on, and a splendiferous sight it was.
+
+The great hall was hung every which way with flags. They rolled over the
+ceiling in waves, fell down the wall in festoons and curtains, striped,
+starred, mooned, crossed, tangled in gas lamps, looped up with flowers.
+
+Rings of gaslights dropped half way down from the roof, and from them
+baskets of flowers swung over the great, long tables that were just one
+glitter of silver and glass, flowers and fruit, at which a hundred or
+more gentlemen were seated.
+
+Great candlesticks, spreading out with branches of gold and snow-white
+candles, stood half way down each table, and rising up above them were
+tall pyramids of flowers, crowded in with pineapples, grapes, pears,
+oranges, and sugar things enough to feed all the children in Washington
+for a month. Smaller flower-pots, crowded in with fruit, were scattered
+every once in a while along the tables.
+
+Back of Mr. Brooks's chair was a banner with a lot of lions rampaging
+over it, and a harp worked in one corner of it. Over that was another
+banner, with a full moon and a baby moon blazing away on it, and all
+around them was a whole hail-storm of stars that seemed to catch fire
+from the gas, and burn of themselves.
+
+The whole room was light as morning, and gorgeous as a sunset. Sisters,
+believe me, the way those men were enjoying themselves was enough to
+make a genuine woman grind her teeth. The popping of corks as they flew
+from the bottles was loud and swift as the guns fired on a Down East
+training day, and the gurgle of wine as it foamed into the glasses was
+mellow and constant as the flow of that brook through the hemlock back
+of our old school-house.
+
+Then the talking, the laughing, the hail-good-fellow way in which
+everything was done, just aggravated me out of a year's growth.
+
+By and by Mr. Brooks got up and made a speech, welcoming the Japanee
+guests and praising Japan beautifully. Then he asked General Farnsworth
+to do the same thing over again, which he did in the most splendid way.
+
+Then Mr. Iwakura got up and poured out a soft, slow flood of words, that
+seemed sweet as new cider, with which the whole company was charmed
+almost to death, though there wasn't a soul that knew what it was all
+about, any more than I did.
+
+Then Mr. Iwakura sat down and gathered his purple frock over his knees,
+satisfied that he had done his duty, whether the rest understood it or
+not.
+
+Then they all drank wine till there was no let up to that sound of
+militia firing and of running brooks, except when somebody was melting
+soft-solder over somebody else, which they tell me, here in Washington,
+is the high privilege of a stag party.
+
+My opinion is that they are ashamed to compliment each other so broadly
+when ladies are by, knowing that no crowd of females could be brought to
+the pitch of glorifying each other after that fashion, or would stand it
+to hear so much flattery wasted on a lot of men when they were by.
+
+
+
+
+XLII.
+
+IN THE BASEMENT OF THE CAPITOL.
+
+
+Well, sisters, that chunky woman on the top of the great iron wash-bowl,
+that some giant seems to have turned upside down on the roof of the
+Capitol, has more to do than any other female I'm acquainted with, if
+she can keep the flock of men they call Congress in any kind of order.
+No wonder she has the look of the kitchen about her, and seem to be
+carrying a bundle of soiled clothes on her head for a wash in the
+clouds! for, of all the sloppy places I ever heard of, this great marble
+building seems to be the beatomest. Congressmen seem to be always
+getting out dirty clothes here, beside whitewashing every now and then,
+raking each other over the coals, and doing all sorts of kitchen and
+garden work.
+
+Cousin Dempster told me all this before I went up to see exactly what
+Congress was, and it certainly upset me, you may just believe. That
+great building, which might be cut up into half a dozen palaces for
+kings to live in, turned into a wash-house and national laundry! The
+very thought made me creep all over.
+
+I always like to investigate matters from the foundation, so the first
+thing I did was to go into the basement story of the building, and see
+what the kitchen arrangements amounted to. Of course Cousin D. could be
+of no use to me, and Cousin E. E. declined the subterranean raid, as she
+nippingly called it, which ended in my going into the underground
+department alone.
+
+Well, the first thing that struck me was the duskiness of the place; it
+was like travelling through a sunset that had no color in it. The whole
+building seemed to have put on a gray mantle and gone to sleep. I went
+upstairs and downstairs, travelled over miles of stone floors, and
+through forests of great stone posts that looked strong enough to have a
+world built atop of them. Once in a while I caught sight of a man
+scooting along in the dusk before me like a black ghost; and once I
+heard noises like the rush of a steamboat down below me, and began to
+suspect that the wash-house and lime-slacking department was lower down
+yet. I opened two or three doors, and looked into a good many dark and
+deserted rooms piled up with books and crowded full of all sorts of
+things. Once or twice I saw the head of a man popping up between piles
+of books, but no sign of washing, as yet.
+
+Well, I wandered on and on, till at last I came to a great kitchen that
+looked lively enough. Lots of men were moving about, fires were burning,
+and there was a lovely scent of roast chickens and boiled garden-sass--I
+beg pardon, vegetables. I would have gone in and asked some questions
+about the wash-tubs, but not a female woman was to be seen--and I hope I
+know what is due to my sex too well for any attempt to draw the
+attention of men in the service of their country by the presence of
+attractions that--well, I was going to say that the charm of high female
+society might have seemed a little out of place so low down in that
+stone wilderness. So I took a new turn, and came out in a grand eating
+department, crowded full of tables, where ever so many gentlemen and
+ladies were eating, talking, laughing, and drinking bottled cider till
+their eyes sparkled.
+
+I went into the room with that quiet dignity which some people have said
+was the greatest charm of your missionary, and spreading out my skirts a
+little, sat down by one of the tables. A very genteel young man came up
+to me that minute, as hospitable as could be, and asked with a bow what
+I would please to have.
+
+"Oh, almost anything that isn't too much trouble," says I.
+
+Says he, "There is everything on the cart."
+
+He pronounced "cart" with a drawl that riled me, for, if there is
+anything I hate, it is the stuck-up way some people have of twistifying
+common words: but I didn't want to rebuke the fellow too much, and
+answered in the bland and Christian way you have so often praised, my
+dear sisters, that I did not wish to stay long enough for them to unload
+a cart, but if he had just as lief as not, would take some baked pork
+and beans--that is, if there was any handy.
+
+The fellow shook his head.
+
+"No pork and beans!" says I; "do you call this national house-keeping?"
+
+That brought the fellow up to a sense of duty in no time. He snatched up
+a little thin book that lay on the table, read it a minute, and then
+went off. By and by he came back with a dish in his hand, on which were
+a few beans, all brown and crisped to death, with a skimpy slice of pork
+lying across the top.
+
+I took the dish in my hands, and examined it up and down, right and
+left, with an air that must have cut that fellow to the soul, if he had
+one.
+
+"You call that pork and beans?" says I, a-lifting my forefinger, and
+almost shaking it at him. "Why, young man, it looks more like a handful
+of gravel-stones."
+
+The young man spread his hands a little, and looked so confused that I
+began to feel sorry for him.
+
+"Never mind," says I; "no doubt you have had the awful misfortune of
+being born out of New England, and that is punishment enough. It is the
+fault of our Congressmen if the great New England mystery of baked beans
+has not been explained and elucidated in the national kitchen," says I,
+"most people do degenerate so when they once get out of the pure
+mountain air. But then our statesmen may consider this a woman's
+mission. Perhaps it is. There was a time when females understood such
+things, but we have got to hankering after offices and votes and
+rostrums, till such things have become nostrums--excuse the rhyme, if
+you don't happen to be a poetical young man," says I; "it isn't
+extraordinary that such things are neglected, and that the great New
+English dish introduced by the Pilgrim Fathers has degenerated into
+this."
+
+Here I pointed sarcastically at the pebble-stones, and, with killing
+irony, asked him to send me something to eat.
+
+He took up the dish, and seemed glad to go--no wonder, my words had cut
+him to the soul. By and by he came back, and handed me that thin book
+which hadn't half a dozen leaves in it, and, says he:
+
+"Will madam make her choice?"
+
+I opened the book, and tried to see what it was all about; but there was
+nothing to read. A lot of English words twisted out of all shape and
+meaning, with some figures cut up in short rows, were scattered over the
+pages as if they had been shook out of a pepper-box. The only thing I
+could make out that seemed to have a sensible meaning, was--beef. This I
+read out loud--glad to find one good wholesome word to light on.
+
+"Roast beef," says the fellow, and away he went.
+
+There was no use trying to get anything like reading out of that ghost
+of a book; so I sat still and looked on, wondering what brought so many
+ladies into the Capitol, as they are not considered Congressmen yet.
+
+
+
+
+XLIII.
+
+PHÅ’MIE DINES WITH A SENATOR.
+
+
+Dear sisters: I had moved my chair back a little, for it seemed rather
+lonesome sitting there with nothing but a table-cloth spread before me,
+and a castor on it, when a gentleman came in and sat down on the other
+side of the table, just as if I hadn't been there.
+
+He took up the skimpy book, and began to read, as if he understood every
+word of it--figures and all. By and by a young fellow came up to him.
+They whispered together a minute, and the gentleman kept pointing at the
+book.
+
+Just then, the young man that I had been so sociable with, came up with
+some dishes in his hand, which he set down on the table, then spread his
+hands a little, as much as to say, politely: "Set to, ma'am, and help
+yourself;" which I did.
+
+Sisters, the national kitchens want renovating. There is female
+missionary work here enough to keep half our Society busy for a year.
+That beef was never roasted by a fire. I'll take my oath of that. It
+never swung on an iron skewer, inside of a tin oven before a
+hickory-wood fire, since it was a born calf. There's no cheating me in
+such things. Why, this beef had a taste of chickens, and oysters, and
+baked pork about it, so strong that you couldn't at first tell which it
+was, or if its birthplace was a barn-yard, a hen-coop, or the salt sea
+ocean.
+
+Yes, there _is_ mission work in these subterranean kitchens. Still, if
+members of Congress know how to wash and whitewash so well, they might
+take the cooking in hand too. Perhaps they have, though.
+
+When men try a hand at woman's work, or women take up the business of
+men, it's apt to mix things up till you don't know which is which. I
+rather think the members have been down here, while the women were
+lecturing on politics upstairs. It looks like it, in both places.
+
+Well, I didn't want to find too much fault. Human nature could not stand
+the pork and beans, but I tried my best to put up with the beef, and
+make believe it was delicious.
+
+Just as I took up my knife the other young fellow came to the table, and
+set some dishes down before the gentleman. Then he took a knife and
+hacked away at a long-necked bottle till he got the cork loose, and let
+the whole affair, foaming and sparkling, into a glass. The sight fairly
+made my eyes sparkle, for I was awful thirsty, and the rich gurgle made
+me more so.
+
+"Sir," says I, a-holding out my glass to the young man, "if that's
+Vermont cider, and I seem to feel as if it is, I'll thank you for a
+glass."
+
+The gentleman looked up quickly; turned to the young man with a funny
+sort of a smile, and nodded his head, just as if it was anything to him.
+
+I'm not quite certain about it, but if that foaming stuff was cider, it
+must have been made from russet apples, for it brightened me up all over
+till every drop of blood in me seemed to sparkle.
+
+"It would be near about impossible to drink that through a straw, it
+bubbles so," says I, feeling it my duty to be sociable, and make the
+gentleman feel quite at home at the national table. "I think the cider
+is about the only thing that don't degenerate when it leaves New
+England."
+
+"The cider," says he, opening his eyes wide.
+
+"Yes," says I, holding out my glass again, "that keeps its own vim, and
+a little more so. Take another glass yourself, sir!"
+
+I thought as I was first at the table, and a lady, that he would expect
+a little extra attention, and gave it with my usual bland politeness.
+
+He smiled, and his eyes began to sparkle under the gold glasses he wore.
+
+"Certainly," says he, "you are very kind; from Vermont I think you
+said."
+
+"Just so," says I. "Sprucehill. Let me help you to a little of this
+roast beef, if I may call it so."
+
+"Thank you," says he, and that funny smile crinkled his lips again, "I
+am well served."
+
+It struck me as rather singular, that he, being a gentleman, didn't
+offer me any of the dishes on his side of the table; but he didn't, and,
+as a gentle rebuke, I said to the young man who stood behind him:
+
+"Please to pass some of those dishes this way!"
+
+The fellow blushed and hesitated, and looked at the gentleman in gold
+spectacles, who blushed a little, too, but said to the young fellow:
+
+"Certainly; why don't you pass them over to the lady?"
+
+There was something in a dish that looked a little like mashed potatoes.
+I helped myself with a spoon, and tasted it.
+
+"What is this?" says I. "Your potatoes taste awful cheesey."
+
+"It is not potatoes, but calf's brains au gratin," says he.
+
+"Calf's brains, a grating," says I; "calf's brains, and I eating them.
+Young man, I'll have you investigated for this! Calf's brains, indeed!
+do you think I'm a cannibal. Take the heathenish dish out of my sight."
+
+The gentleman laughed, and says he:
+
+"I will relieve you of it."
+
+Then he drew it over his way and began to eat.
+
+I declare, sisters, I couldn't bear to see that man finishing up the
+dish as if he liked it. He seemed to have brains enough of his own,
+without wanting to rob a spring calf of what little belongs to it. But
+he finished the dish and got up to go, making me a real polite bow as he
+went away from the table.
+
+When he was gone I beckoned to the young man.
+
+"Is that man from the Sandwich Islands, or where?" says I.
+
+"That gentleman! Oh, he's a Senator from the West," says he. "The
+whitewashing committee hate him like poison. He gives them enough to do,
+I can tell you. Awful in that direction."
+
+"You don't say so," says I. "Is that the man who has raised the price of
+lime and whiting to such an extent?"
+
+"That's the very man."
+
+"Dear me! and he eats brains--cheesey at that. I never saw anything like
+it."
+
+"Oh, that is a very popular dish, ma'am."
+
+"With Congressmen?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am, with Congressmen."
+
+"Especially?"
+
+"Especially."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder," says I.
+
+When I hitched my chair back, and took up my satchel, the man put a bit
+of stiff paper in my hands, with some figures on it. I thanked him and
+went out, feeling a little lighter than I had done, on account of the
+cider. The young man followed me a step or two, and seemed as if he
+wanted to say something; but that was a familiarity I had no idea of
+encouraging; so I passed on, determined to find the other kitchen
+departments, and set up a private investigation of my own. But at the
+foot of a flight of stairs, all made of spotted marble, I met Cousin
+Dempster, who was looking for me.
+
+"Oh, here you are at last! Where on earth have you been?"
+
+"In the kitchen and dining-room, so far," says I.
+
+"Kitchen--dining-room!" says he. "Oh! you have been into the
+restaurant--not alone, I hope."
+
+"Oh, yes," says I; "there was plenty of company; but the cooking is
+enough to try a person."
+
+"Why, did you order refreshments?"
+
+"Refreshments were offered to me," says I, "and I accepted them, as a
+free-born American woman has a right to do at her country's table."
+
+"What are you talking about?" says Cousin Dempster, almost angry. "What
+is that in your hand?"
+
+"A bit of paper that the young man gave me as I came out," says I.
+
+"But you should have given this up," says he, turning red.
+
+"What for?" says I.
+
+"Did you pay nothing?"
+
+"Pay! of course not. Who ever thinks of paying anything to the
+Government?"
+
+"You do not understand."
+
+"What?"
+
+"You have been into a restaurant," says he.
+
+"That's more than I know of, never having been in one in my born days."
+
+"And have come away with this!"
+
+"Look a-here, Cousin Dempster," says I; "does this great nation keep a
+boarding-house, or a tavern, in its Capitol? That's what I want to know.
+Do you think I mean to insult the country I was born in?"
+
+"It keeps a restaurant for the accommodation of members," says he, "and
+you've been in it. Just give me that check; the country don't feed its
+statesmen--at any rate, directly."
+
+I gave him the square bit of paper, and, when he left me alone, just sat
+down on those marble steps and waited.
+
+I don't wonder these investigating committees want to shirk their
+duties. I, being only a committee of one, and self-constituted, feel as
+if I'd had quite enough of exploring downstairs. But what on earth
+Cousin Dempster is making such a fuss about, I have no idea. One would
+think there was something dreadful on that square piece of paper by the
+way he acted; but he's like everybody else, I suppose, when he gets to
+Washington, and can't make himself more than half understood on any
+subject.
+
+
+
+
+XLIV.
+
+MARBLE HALLS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--In my last report I gave you a dim account of the
+underground department of Congress. In fact, it was so dim down there,
+that I couldn't see anything clearly. I hope this report will have a
+little more brightness in it; but of that I am not at all certain, for a
+downright honest look at anything here in Washington is like snatching
+at a handful of fog.
+
+After wandering over all that town of cellars and basements, in search
+of the whitewashing department and the washing-room, I came away without
+seeing a sign of them. It seems to me that the cooking and eating is all
+that one finds done openly here. About that, too, there is something
+that riles the New England blood in my veins. No wonder I couldn't make
+out half that those waiter chaps said to me.
+
+There, in the great kitchen of the first nation on the face of the
+earth, free-born American citizens sit down contentedly and eat French
+dishes, with bull-frogs in them, I dare say, and eat them, too, on the
+European plan. The European plan! as if the fine old fashion set by the
+Pilgrim Fathers was not good enough for their descendants! It's enough
+to curdle the blood in one's veins to see what our country is coming to,
+with a plan of broken-down old Europe in the very basement of our
+Capitol. Do our members of Congress remember the time when their fathers
+ate samp and milk on a table set against the wall, with one leaf spread?
+Sometimes the richest of them in our State got a little maple molasses
+with the samp, but oftener it was skim milk, and nothing else. But men
+were men in those days; I--that is, I have heard my mother say so--of
+course, I wasn't old enough to know exactly at what time samp and milk
+got out of fashion as a first-class domestic meal. I can't help but
+think, sisters, that the male sex began to degenerate while we were
+children, or we should never have been left in our native village to
+form a society, which seems destined to enlighten this generation,
+without increasing it.
+
+Well, sisters, Cousin Dempster found me sitting on those hard, beautiful
+marble steps, thinking over these things in a saddening way. He insisted
+on it that I should leave off my subterraneous investigations, as he
+called my travels in the basement, and see Congress meet.
+
+I declare, it's a Sabbath day's journey from one end of that great long
+marble building to the other. The marble stairs I had been resting on
+came up near the Senate chamber. Cousin Dempster said, "But perhaps we
+had better go over to the House first."
+
+"Whose house?" says I, getting out of patience; "I thought we had come
+to see Congress."
+
+"So we have," says he; "it will assemble in a few minutes, so we must
+hurry and get into the House."
+
+"Why don't Congress assemble in this building?" says I.
+
+"Of course it does, at the other end," says he.
+
+"Then what on earth do you want to take me into any other house for? I
+want to see Congress! As for the houses in Washington, they are no great
+shakes, after all. New York wouldn't take the best of 'em as a gift."
+
+"Cousin Phœmie," says Dempster, sort of impatient, "you are the most
+extraordinary combination of a woman I ever saw."
+
+I stopped short and made him a curtsey to the ground--slow, graceful,
+and infinitely sarcastic. He seemed to feel it keenly.
+
+"Judges, a little more competent than you are, have said as much
+before," I observed, scathing him through and through with my eyes.
+
+"I mean no offence," says he, "but really you are the brightest,
+and--and stupidest woman!"
+
+"Girl, if you please," says I.
+
+"Well, girl. In some things a child could teach you; in others, you
+fairly dazzle the brightest of us."
+
+"Thank you," says I; "just crown me with bitter-sweet, and have done
+with it. If there is anything that riles me more than another, it is a
+double and twisted compliment."
+
+"There, there! do be reasonable, and hurry along," says Dempster,
+a-trying to shuffle out of the whole thing; "don't you see the members
+crowding into the House?"
+
+"I haven't seen the house yet," says I, not half pacified.
+
+"Of course not--how can you, till we get there?"
+
+Cousin Dempster walked on, and, of course, I had to follow.
+
+"Wait one minute," says I, "while I look at this great round picture
+overhead. What on earth is it all about? The women up there look mighty
+unsafe. Now, what room is this, with its roof in the sky, and its floor
+solid stone?"
+
+"It is the rotunda," says he; "the national pictures are all around you,
+but we haven't time to look at them now--some other day."
+
+I couldn't help looking back, for such a room I never saw in my born
+days. It was like a stone park roofed in so high up that the pictured
+women overhead seemed perched among the clouds. Over them the light came
+pouring like water down a cataract, filling the broad space below as if
+it had been all out of doors.
+
+But I had no time to see more, for Cousin Dempster led me through a
+hallway and into another round room, except at one end, where a gallery
+ran straight across and then curved around the whole room, hooping it in
+like a horseshoe. In front of the straight gallery ran a row of stone
+pillars--tall, large, and shiny as glass--spotted, too, like the
+leopards in a show, and towering up like the pillars in Solomon's
+Temple, which the Queen of Sheba travelled so far to examine. The idea
+that she took all that trouble to get acquainted with Solomon, is just
+ridiculous. Why, it would have taken the hymeneal monarch a whole
+lifetime to have introduced her to his family in a decorous way.
+Besides, if he provided for his own household out of the government,
+only think how busy he must have been in finding places for the
+relations of all his wives! No doubt he let the Queen of Sheba see his
+Temple, and left her to be entertained by two or three hundred of his
+wives. Not being a ladies' man, what more could he do?
+
+Well, as Cousin Dempster says, I do sometimes let my pen run away with
+me; but when it turns toward the Scriptural history of my sex, I let it
+run.
+
+
+
+
+XLV.
+
+RANDOLPH ROGERS' BRONZE DOORS.
+
+
+"Well," says I to Cousin D., "what room do you call this?"
+
+"Oh, this is the old House," says he.
+
+The old house! Sisters, there are times when I think Dempster is beside
+himself. I did not deign to answer him, except with a look that would
+have stopped the sap running from a young maple in the brightest April
+day you ever saw. He didn't seem to mind it, though, but went on as if I
+hadn't pierced him with my eyes.
+
+"These doors," says he, swinging back the half of a door that seemed to
+be made of brass and gold and powdered green-stone pounded together, and
+cut into the most lovely pictures that you ever set eyes on--"these
+doors open to the new House. They are by Rogers, and cost thirty
+thousand dollars."
+
+"Thirty thousand dollars for these two doors, Cousin Dempster! I have
+just been a-wondering if you were crazy, and now I know you are."
+
+"Upon my word," says he, "that is just what they cost."
+
+"What! thirty thousand dollars?"
+
+"Thirty thousand dollars."
+
+I bent forward, and looked at the door--close. It was sunk deep into
+squares, and each square had a picture of men and women that seemed to
+be busy at something.
+
+"What is it all about?" says I.
+
+"Every picture is taken from something connected with the history of our
+country," says he.
+
+"You don't say so," says I. "Who did you say made them all?"
+
+"Mr. Rogers, a sculptor from Ohio. One of the great geniuses of the age,
+and one of the finest fellows that ever breathed."
+
+"Do you know him?" says I.
+
+"Yes," says he. "I got acquainted with him in Florence, years ago, when
+Elizabeth and I went to Europe on our wedding trip. He was then a rising
+man, hard at work on the art that he has since done much to ennoble. I
+am glad to see his great genius embodied here, where it will live as
+long as the marble on the walls. The country has honored itself in this
+almost as much as it has disgraced itself in placing some of the vilest
+attempts that ever parodied art in conspicuous places here."
+
+Cousin Dempster's face turned red as he spoke--red with shame, I could
+see.
+
+"It is enough to make an American, who understands what real art is,
+ashamed of his country," says he.
+
+"But what do they do it for?" says I.
+
+"Because two-thirds of the members sent here do not know a picture from
+a handsaw! but impudence can persuade, and ignorance can vote. Why, I
+once heard a Member of Congress speak of the statues in the Vatican as
+coarse and clumsy compared with the attempts of a female woman who could
+not, out of her own talent, have moulded an apple-dumpling into
+roundness."
+
+Cousin Dempster had got into dead earnest now. He knew what he was
+talking about, and I couldn't help feeling for him.
+
+"Some day, Cousin Phœmie," says he, "I will take you round and show you
+the abominations which have been set up in this building--a disgrace
+both to the taste and integrity of the nation. You will understand the
+impudent pretension for which our people have been taxed in order that
+the National Capitol may be made a laughing-stock for foreigners, and
+those Americans who are compelled to blush for what they cannot help."
+
+"Cousin Dempster," says I, "why don't the press take these things up and
+expose them?"
+
+"That is exactly what I want," says he. "It is for that very purpose I
+want you to go around among these distorted marbles and things. Your
+Reports may do some good."
+
+"But I don't quite understand them myself," says I, blushing a little.
+
+"Trust genius to discover genius," says he. "You could not fail to see
+faults or merits where they existed. All the arts are kindred. Poetry,
+painting, sculpture, go hand-in-hand. You understood the beauty that
+lies in these doors at a glance."
+
+"One must be blind not to see that," says I.
+
+"Of course; well, cousin, we will give a day to these things before we
+go home; but now, hurry forward, or we shall be too late to see the
+House open."
+
+"Just as if there was a house in all Washington that wouldn't open for
+us if we chose to knock or ring," I thought to myself, but said nothing,
+for Dempster was walking off like a steam-engine, and I followed down
+one long hall, and up another--all paved with bright-colored
+stones--till it seemed as if I were walking over a rock carpet.
+
+
+
+
+XLVI.
+
+WAS IT A MEETING-HOUSE?
+
+
+Dear sisters:--At last we came to some wide marble stairs, with a twist
+in the middle, and they led us into another long hall with a stone
+carpet, out of which some doors covered with cloth were opening and
+shutting all the time for folks to go through.
+
+Cousin Dempster swung one open for me, and I went into what looked like
+a meeting-house gallery, with long seats a-running all around it,
+cushioned off with red velvet, or something. Right over what seemed to
+be the pulpit, was a square gallery by itself, which I took for the
+singers' seats, but it was full of men--not a female among them--and
+they all seemed busy as bees laying out their music for use.
+
+Cousin E. E. was sitting near this gallery. She beckoned to me, so I
+went in. I sat down by her and whispered:
+
+"I didn't know we were coming to a meeting. Dempster never said a word
+about it."
+
+"Hush!" says she. "The chaplain is going to pray."
+
+I did hush, and saw the congregation come in and walk down the aisles
+and take their seats. Some brought books that seemed like Bibles under
+their arms; and all of them took off their hats, as was proper.
+
+One thing struck me as peculiar: no ladies came into any place but the
+galleries, and up there they whispered and laughed in a way that made my
+blood run cold.
+
+By and by a man came in, walked down the broad aisle, and went up into
+the pulpit.
+
+Two or three men were sitting in the deacons' seat,--which ran along
+below the pulpit, and they began to whisper together--a thing I didn't
+like in the deacons of a church.
+
+The minister put his hands together beautifully. The congregation stood
+up, as good Presbyterians ought to do, and I stood up too, with my arms
+folded, and bending my head a little, while a solemn prayerfulness crept
+over me; but the next minute I dropped both arms and opened both eyes
+wide.
+
+The minister was coming down the pulpit stairs. The congregation sat
+down. The deacons each took up a pen--so did the singers, who hadn't
+sung a note yet.
+
+"What _does_ this mean?" I whispered to Cousin E. E.
+
+"The prayer is over," says she.
+
+"Over!" says I. "Why, the minister hadn't begun to tell the Lord what
+sinners we all are."
+
+"Oh!" says she, almost laughing out in meeting, "that would be too heavy
+work for one man. Only think how much of it there is to represent in
+this place."
+
+"Cousin," says I, "your levity in this sacred place shocks me."
+
+"Sacred place," says she. "Oh, Phœmie, you will be the death of me."
+
+"Have you no regard for your own soul?" says I, in an austere whisper
+that ought to have riled up the depths of her conscience.
+
+"My soul, indeed!" says she, with her eyes and her lips all a-quivering
+with fun; "as if people ever thought of such things here."
+
+I dropped into my seat--her sinful levity took away my breath.
+
+The woman absolutely began to talk out loud, and didn't even stop when a
+man got up in the congregation and began to exhort. In the distress her
+conduct gave me I did not hear just what he said, but at last he held
+out a paper. A handsome little boy came up and carried it toward the
+pulpit and gave it to one of the deacons.
+
+Up to this time I had thought the congregation Presbyterians, but the
+boy puzzled me. I remembered the little fellow in red at that High
+Church service, and thought perhaps the good old New England stand-by
+meeting had got some of these new-fangled additions to their board of
+deacons. The thought troubled me, but not so much as the conduct of
+that congregation. The ladies in the gallery behaved shamefully--I must
+say it. They whispered, they laughed, they flirted their fans and
+flirted with their lips and eyes. Sometimes they turned their backs on
+the congregation downstairs. They kept moving about from one seat to
+another. In fact, I cannot describe the actions of these females. The
+idea of piety never entered one of their heads--I am sure of that.
+
+There must have been a good many notices and publishments to give out;
+more than I ever heard of in our meeting-house, for ever so many papers
+were sent up to the pulpit, where another minister sat now ready to
+begin his sermon.
+
+I must own it, there was some confusion among the congregation in the
+body of the church. The members moved about more than was decorous, and
+there was whispering a-going on there as well.
+
+In Vermont the minister would have rebuked his congregation--especially
+the flighty females around me.
+
+I was saying this to Cousin E. E. when that man in the pulpit took up a
+little wooden hammer that lay on the desk before him, and struck it down
+with a force that hushed the whole congregation into decency at once.
+
+I was glad of it, and in my innermost heart said "Amen!"
+
+By and by a man got up to exhort. He must have been brought up as a
+clerk in some thread-needle store, I should think, by the way he
+measured off his long, rolling sentences, that seemed to come through
+the bung-hole of an empty cider barrel; and his arms went spreading out
+with each sentence, as if he were measuring tape, and meant to give
+enough of it.
+
+"Who is that?" says I, whispering to Cousin E. E.
+
+"That," says she, "is a gentleman from ----."
+
+"No doubt he's a member," says I; "how earnest he seeks for protection!"
+
+"Of course he is a member or they wouldn't let him speak," whispers she.
+
+"I know that," says I. "The Presbyterians don't allow any but members
+to speak in their meeting, of course; but it seems to me they do a great
+deal more talking than praying here, or singing either."
+
+"Oh, I don't believe any one but the chaplain ever thinks of praying
+here, and he cuts it short as pie-crust."
+
+"Don't be irreverent," says I.
+
+Cousin E. E. got up from her seat; so did Dempster.
+
+"Come," he said, "I am tired of hearing about salt."
+
+"Especially if the salt has lost its savor," says I, hoping to draw both
+their thoughts to the Scriptures, and get them in a proper frame of mind
+for the occasion.
+
+"The tax is what I want it to lose," says he, and I saw by his manner
+that thoughts of humility and prayer were far from him; so, rather than
+join in this mockery of holy things, I followed him out of that
+beautiful and sacred edifice, softened, and, I hope, made better by the
+service in which my soul had joined.
+
+"Well," says Cousin Dempster, when we stood once more on the stone
+carpet of the hall, "how did you like the House?"
+
+"What house?" says I.
+
+"The House of Representatives, to be sure," says he.
+
+"When I have seen it, I can tell you better," says I.
+
+"Oh, nonsense! you have seen it," says he, "in full session, too."
+
+"Look a-here, cousin," says I; "all this morning you've been talking
+about old houses and new houses, as if this heap of marble was a green,
+with buildings all round it. I've seen the place you call a
+rotunda--halls, with scrumptious stone carpets on them, and as fine a
+meeting-house as Solomon need have wanted. Now, if you want to show me
+that house where the Representatives meet, do it, and no more
+parsonizing about it."
+
+"But, cousin, I do assure you, we have just come from it. You have heard
+the members speaking."
+
+"I have seen a meeting-house, and worshipped in it," says I.
+
+"Are you really in earnest?" says he.
+
+"Would I, the member of a church, trifle on a sacred subject?" says I.
+
+"Oh!" says Cousin Dempster, a-leaning his back against the marble
+wall--"oh! hold me, or I shall laugh myself to death."
+
+I wish he had. There!
+
+
+
+
+XLVII.
+
+EASTER.
+
+
+My dear sisters:--Christmas isn't a New England institution, and High
+Churches are not indigenous to the Down East soil. The Pilgrim Fathers
+took a notion against that species of holidays, and their descendants
+were forbidden by law to make mince-pies and such like, in celebration
+of that particular day. In fact, Christmas was turned out of meeting,
+and Thanksgiving adopted in its place. As for High Churches, in the good
+old times there wasn't a steeple to be seen. The meeting-houses were
+spread out on the ground, roofed in like barns, and quartered off inside
+into square pews, like a cake of gingerbread. The only thing that looked
+like a steeple in those days was the minister, when he stood up to pray.
+Sometimes he leaned a trifle backward to let the congregation see that
+there was no chance that he would ever bow down to that old English
+Church, against which the dust from his feet had been shaken.
+
+The deacons ranged in that long seat under the pulpit, with iron-clad
+faces and hearts, that had grown rocky in their uprightness, were such
+men as you don't meet often nowadays. They not only shook the dust from
+their feet against the Church of England, but scattered a good deal on
+the Quakers and other sects that crept in from the Old World, with an
+idea that they might have a sneaking notion of their own where trees
+were so thick and men so upright; but you and I know they found out
+their mistake.
+
+Our blessed old forefathers sought Christian toleration for themselves
+when they came into the wilderness, not for anybody else. They knew
+exactly which was the shortest way to Heaven, and meant that other
+people should follow it straight up.
+
+Having cast off the old Church of England, and sang Thanksgiving hymns
+on Plymouth Rock--which after all, sisters, wasn't much of a rock to
+brag of as to size--of course our forefathers weren't likely to drag any
+of the worn-out institutions along with them, so, as I have said, they
+dropped Christmas, set their faces against steeples, turned their altars
+into cherry-wood communion tables, clad their souls in iron, and New
+England was purified from the dross of the Old World.
+
+This is why Christmas amounts to nothing among us.
+
+New England has always been an independent part of the United States.
+The footprints of the Puritans are not quite worn out yet, and in
+turning our back on saints and such, we have nigh about forgotten that
+our part of the country had anything to be thankful for, except a fine
+grain harvest and abounding hay crop.
+
+Well, not knowing much about Christmas, sisters, you will be glad to
+hear something about Easter, which comes at the end of Lent, and is a
+time of rejoicing in this city, I can tell you. Let me explain:
+
+Lent is a wonderful still time among the church people who are given to
+fish and eggs, and morning service for weeks and weeks while it lasts.
+But the last three days are what I want to tell you about; for during
+the time when hard-boiled eggs are so much the fashion, Cousin E. E. and
+myself were in Washington, where people rest a little from parties, and
+eat a good many oysters in a serious way, but could no more get up a
+regular Easter jubilee than they could tell where the money goes to that
+ought to build up the Washington monument, but don't.
+
+No; Cousin E. E., who keeps getting higher and higher in her church
+notions, was determined to spend her Easter at home.
+
+"Easter! what does that mean?" I seem to hear you say. "Is it a woman,
+or was it named after one? Is it--"
+
+Stop, sisters, that question is too much for me; I don't know. Wasn't
+there a handsome woman of the Jewish persuasion who put on her good
+clothes and came round the king, her husband, when her relations were
+all kept out of office, or something of that kind? Perhaps this Easter
+is named after her; but then it seems to me as if the names weren't just
+the same. Anyway, the three days they call Easter mean a solemn thing
+that we haven't thought enough of in our parts, up to this time.
+
+It means those three days when our Lord lay in the tomb. The first day,
+sisters, is held in remembrance of a death that was meant to make men
+holy. That was suffered for you and me. It is called Good Friday, and a
+great many people in these parts hold it as the most solemn day of all
+the year. I think it is. My own heart bows itself in dumb reverence as
+the thought of all it means settles down upon me. I wonder that so many
+years of my life have gone by without giving the day a thought. Surely,
+sisters, Christ did not die for the Catholics and Episcopalians alone.
+
+Well, sisters, I did not mean to preach or exhort out of season, but my
+heart has been touched, and out of its fulness I have spoken.
+
+"Are we a-going to your High Church?" says I to Cousin E. E. when she
+came to my room Friday morning, and asked if I was ready.
+
+"No," says she; "even that does not reach my ideas of what is due to the
+occasion. We will go still higher--to St. Stephen's."
+
+"Catholic, isn't it?" says I.
+
+"Yes," says she, with a sigh, "the Mother Church. You will, at least, be
+interested."
+
+"I never was in a Catholic meeting-house," says I, "but to-day I feel
+like worshipping anywhere, cold as it is."
+
+"Not so cold as our Lord's tomb," says she, shivering a little.
+
+I, too, felt cold chills a-creeping over me.
+
+"Come," she says, "it is time."
+
+
+
+
+XLVIII.
+
+A CHURCH HIGHER YET.
+
+
+Sisters, we never spoke a word all the way to St. Stephen's Church,
+which is not a mite higher, and not near so handsome as a good many
+other meeting-houses we had to pass. A crowd of people were going in,
+and we followed into the darkness; for the whole space was full of
+gloom, like a foggy sunset. Here and there lights shone out like stars
+in a cloud, just enough to make the gloom strike home. The church was
+shaped like a cross, and had more than one altar in it. That which stood
+at the head of the broad aisle had just lights enough around it to make
+its whiteness ghostly, and to tremble over a great picture back of it,
+where figures in some harrowing scene seemed to come and go in the foggy
+air.
+
+Yes, the air was foggy and thick, with sweet-smelling smoke, that came
+from some brass lamps a couple of little boys were a swinging back and
+forth by chains linked to them; and there, standing right in front of
+the altar, was a man all draped out in black robes, and a white
+overdress, praying. Sisters, it was awful solemn; I couldn't but just
+keep from sobbing right out.
+
+"Look!" says E. E.; "isn't the chapel of the Virgin beautiful?"
+
+I did look; and there at my left stood an altar covered with flowers,
+and blazing with lights starting up like a crown of glory through the
+darkness.
+
+"Why is that altar so bright, while all the rest of the meeting-house is
+almost dark?" I whispers to E. E.
+
+"That is the chapel of the Virgin, and there lies the body of Christ."
+
+"The body of Christ!" says I, with a start.
+
+"Yes," says she, bowing her head. "You cannot see it, for the flowers
+cover it, as we strew them over the graves of those we love; but the
+holy body of our Lord is there, waiting for the resurrection."
+
+"Waiting for the resurrection!" says I. "How can you say that, E. E.,
+when our Lord was resurrected almost nineteen hundred years ago?"
+
+"Oh!" says she, shaking her head and whispering, "that was so; but the
+body of Christ is there this minute, under the flowers."
+
+"Cousin E. E., are you crazy? Do you believe that in earnest?"
+
+"I do," says she a-folding her hands and dropping down her head.
+
+"But how--how can it be?"
+
+"I cannot explain, dear cousin; but it is so. It is, indeed."
+
+"E. E., are you a Roman Catholic?--do they believe that?"
+
+"Every one of 'em."
+
+"And are you a Roman Catholic?"
+
+"Not yet," says she; "you know well enough that I belong to the
+Episcopal Church; but my pilgrimage is not ended."
+
+Cousin E. E. bent her head and spoke low. I felt the old Pilgrim blood
+rile in me; but just as I was a-going to speak again, a low, mournful
+noise went a-rolling through the meetinging-house, that chilled me down
+like ice-water. It came from behind the great white altar, which looked
+to me like a big tombstone with night-fog floating over it. Through the
+fog I saw two rows of wooden seats, with high backs; and in them sat
+men, all in black and white clothes, singing dismally. No--it wasn't
+singing, and it wasn't reading; but a long, rolling drawl, in which a
+few tones of music seemed buried and were pleading to get out. With this
+dreary sound, came the sobs and mournful shivers of the cold wind
+outside, which made my blood creep.
+
+It was too much; I could not bear it. Tears came into my eyes like drops
+of ice; I felt preceding shivers creeping up my arms.
+
+"Do let's go home--I feel dreadfully," says I, catching hold of Cousin
+E. E.'s dress.
+
+"Wait," says she, "till they have done chanting the Psalms."
+
+I couldn't help it; but sunk down on my knees, covered my face with both
+hands, and let that awful music roll over me. It seemed like a call to
+the Day of Judgment.
+
+At last the sound died off; the wind outside took it up dolefully, and
+seemed to call us out into the cold air. We went, feeling like ghosts,
+and never spoke a word all the way home. How could we, with that awful
+feeling creeping over us?
+
+
+
+
+XLIX.
+
+EASTER SUNDAY.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--It seemed to me as if I never could go into that Catholic
+meeting-house again; but when Sunday came, E. E. got up so cherk and
+bright, that I couldn't say "No" when she wanted me to start with her to
+St. Stephen's meeting-house.
+
+"You will hear no more crying and sobbing," says she, "everything will
+be bright and beautiful; no more penitential psalms; no more darkness.
+Christ has risen!"
+
+My heart rose and swelled, like a frozen apple thrown into hot water,
+when I got into the meeting. It was raining like fury out of doors, but
+inside everything blazed with glory. The great white altar flashed and
+flamed with snow-white candles, bunched like stars in tall candlesticks,
+branched off with gold. Two great candles, as thick as your waist,
+burned like pillars of snow afire inside, on each side of the steps. Up
+amongst the golden candlesticks were two square Maltese crosses--like
+the cross we are used to, only one end is cut off short to match the
+others--all of white flowers, with just a little red at the tips, as if
+a few drops of innocent blood had stained them. Then there were
+beautiful half-moons made of milk-white flowers lying on beds of purple
+flowers, but there was no other color on that altar.
+
+On an altar which I had not seen in the darkness, when I was there
+before, a lamb--as large as life, made out of flowers so white that it
+seemed as if they must have grown in heaven itself--stood among the
+lights that shone, like crowded stars, out from behind it. Across its
+shoulders this lamb carried a cross so blood-red, that it chilled me
+through and through.
+
+Above this altar hung a great cross six feet high, which seemed to float
+in the air. It was made of gas-drops that quivered into each other, and
+struck out colors that the fire seemed to have drank up from the
+flowers, and turned into light that was glorious.
+
+Over this cross floated a crown of fire, that seemed to tremble and
+shake with every gust of air, as if it had just floated down from
+heaven, and, meeting the cross, hovered over it.
+
+I had but just time enough to see all this, when from the other side of
+the great altar, came a lot of boys, walking two and two, with white
+shoes on their feet, and white dresses--I should have called them frocks
+if it had been girls that wore them--all fastened with crimson buttons,
+and crimson silk scarfs were thrown across their shoulders. Then came a
+lot more, dressed in scarlet frocks and white shoes; and after them
+another class in white, with purple scarfs across their shoulders.
+
+These boys--they were real handsome little fellows--stood themselves
+around the altar. Then came two men, all in black and white, and after
+them four others, dressed like kings and princes, all in scarlet and
+gold, and lace and precious stones.
+
+These men knelt down on the steps of the altar. Then everybody in the
+meeting-house knelt too. After a few minutes they got up, and out from
+somewhere in the meeting-house, a low roar of music burst over us, and
+with it came a rush of voices singing out, "Lord, have mercy on us!
+Lord, have mercy on us."
+
+Then there was a lull, and after that a whole torrent of gushing music,
+with an undertone of rolling sounds, and out of the noise came these
+words that seemed to catch up one's heart and fly away with it:
+
+"Glory to God on high, peace and good-will to men!"
+
+Oh, how this rush of sound rose and swelled, and glorified itself! It
+seemed as if you could see Christ rising from the sepulchre, and all the
+angels of heaven rejoicing over it.
+
+Then came more music. I cannot tell you what it was like, only it made
+my heart stir and throb, as if it wanted to break loose and mount
+upwards, singing as it went.
+
+At last a low voice sung, all alone, clear and high as a bird in the
+air. After that, deep, deep silence settled on the whole congregation,
+and everybody dropped down on their knees. Then one of the men in
+scarlet and gold went a step higher on the altar, and took from it a
+gold cup, which he held high up in one hand. Out of this cup he lifted a
+round thing that looked more like a cracker than anything else, and held
+it up between his thumb and finger. I was going to ask E. E. what it was
+all about, but she was bending forward, with her face almost on the
+floor, and everybody around us was taking an extra kneel, which I did
+not understand. Everything kept still, the congregation bent close to
+the floor, and everybody seemed to be thinking to themselves for as much
+as ten minutes. Then the whole congregation lifted its head. The boys
+in red and white frocks swung the brass lamps, which sent clouds of
+sweet, white smoke up amongst the flowers, and out came another burst of
+music, louder, sweeter, and more triumphant than anything I had heard
+yet. It just carried me right off from my feet.
+
+After this, one of the crimson and gold men on the altar turned round,
+and spread out his arms. Two others caught hold of his dress, and held
+it out on each side, and dropped it again. The boys in white and scarlet
+and purple made themselves into double lines, and walked out of the door
+they came in by. The leading scarlet and gold man took the gold cup in
+his hands, and followed after, and the other men in their sparkling
+dresses--with those two in black and white--walked beside and behind him
+while he carried it out.
+
+There was a little stir in the congregation after this, but by and by
+the man who had stood on the steps of the altar and carried out the cup,
+came back in another dress, and went up into a little cubby-house of a
+pulpit, where he preached a beautiful sermon, which I didn't understand
+a word of, and then Easter was over in that church.
+
+When we got out of church I felt like a bird with its wings spread out
+wide. It was raining like Jehu, but I didn't care for that; the music,
+the flowers, the bursts of light had made me feel like another creature.
+Even the stormy sky looked splendid. But when we got home, I began to
+think over what I had seen and heard, and as soon as Cousin E. E. seemed
+to feel like talking, I put a few questions to her.
+
+"Cousin," says I, "who were the men that came out there, all glistening
+with gold and things, and stood on the steps of the altar?"
+
+"Them? Why, they were the priests."
+
+"Oh! And the one who held that cup in his hand--wasn't he something a
+little more particular than the rest?"
+
+"He was the arch-priest."
+
+"You don't say so! But what was that round thing he lifted out of the
+cup?"
+
+"That? Why, Phœmie, that was the Host!"
+
+"There was a host of people on the floor, of course; but I mean the
+little thing he held up between his thumb and finger?"
+
+"That?" says Cousin E. E., a-lifting up both hands, as if I'd done
+something dreadful. "That is the holy wafer."
+
+"The what, Cousin E. E.?"
+
+"The body of our Saviour."
+
+"Oh, cousin, how can you?" says I, a-feeling myself grow cold all over.
+
+"It is so, Phœmie. As yet you may not understand the mystery, but in
+time you will see it."
+
+I couldn't answer her, she was in such solemn earnest; but then and
+there I made up my mind that we should have to talk over that matter in
+earnest before long, for I felt the Pilgrim blood riling up in my bosom.
+
+"Do Episcopalians believe that?" says I.
+
+"Those that take a high stand do," says she.
+
+"Well," says I, "we won't talk that over just now. But whose boys were
+those that swung the lamps and stood round the altar?"
+
+"Oh, those were the acolytes."
+
+"Any relations to the boys we saw at morning service?" says I.
+
+"Oh, they are all the same."
+
+"Mercy on me!" says I; "what a large family of boys--and so near of an
+age, too!"
+
+E. E. lifted her head and gave me the ghost of a smile--that was all. I
+believe she felt that talking was a sin just then, and I felt a little
+that way myself.
+
+"That music was splendid," says I, "and the flowers. I don't think I
+ever was in any meeting-house that seemed so close to heaven. But then I
+always had a hankering after such things. And why not? If God gives us
+music and flowers, light and sweet odors, can it be wrong to render them
+back to him? Cousin, I never knew what power there was in such things
+till now."
+
+"Phœmie," says she--and a queer smile came over her face--"I shouldn't
+wonder if you go back, at last, a High Church woman. Then what would the
+Society say?"
+
+I felt myself turning red--as if I, Phœmie Frost, could change in the
+religion of my forefathers!
+
+"No," says I; "there I am firm as a rock; but with firmness, I hope,
+cousin, that I join toleration. It seems to me that our Pilgrim Fathers
+made a mistake when they expected all mankind to think with them, and
+another mistake when they put aside the holiest and most solemnly
+beautiful days of all the year--those upon which our blessed Lord was
+born, suffered, and ascended into heaven.
+
+
+
+
+L.
+
+THAT MAN WITH THE LANTERN.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I am back in Washington. So is Cousin E. E. and Dempster,
+who has got a case before Congress; and when a man has that he just
+makes up his mind to take permanent lodgings in a sleeping-car, and make
+his home by daytime in a railroad section.
+
+You never saw anything like the hurry in which such men live. As for the
+married ones, their wives scarcely see them at all unless they catch 'em
+flying with a railroad ticket in one hand, and a carpet-bag, swelled out
+like an apple-dumpling, in the other.
+
+To us women this kind of life is tantalizing--very.
+
+When Cousin D. came up from Wall Street, all in a fume, and says he:
+"Come, ladies, if you've a mind to go to Washington, just pack up and
+get your things," we both rushed into the street like crazy creatures,
+and came back with our pockets crammed, and our hands full of hair-pins,
+bits of ribbon, lengths of lace, and so on. These we huddled into our
+trunks the last thing, drew a deep breath, and said we're ready, half
+scared to death with fear that D. might cut short the hour he has been
+kind enough to give us, and start off alone--a thing he was just as like
+to do as not, being a man.
+
+It's astonishing how much can really be done in an hour. When our time
+was up we had five minutes to spare, and sat with our satchels in our
+laps, waiting for Cousin D.
+
+This time, being with E. E., I just said nothing, but let things drift,
+which, after all, is about the easiest way to get along. Instead of
+going in among the easy-chairs, as we did before, they took me into the
+sleeping-car, which is a great long affair, with what we call bunks, in
+our parts, made lengthwise on each side, with a narrow hall running
+between. The bunks had curtains, and looked ship-shape when they were
+once made up; but it was funny enough to see great tall men spreading
+sheets and patting down pillows for female women to sleep on.
+
+Cousin E. E. and I had a little mahogany pen, with two bunks in it,
+which is considered extra genteel, and we went to bed, first one and
+then the other, not having room enough for more than one to undress at a
+time. When our clothes were hung up, and we inside the bunks, the pen
+was choke full, and off we rattled, with a jounce now and then that made
+you catch your breath. It was like sleeping in a cradle, with some great
+hard-footed nurse rocking you in a broken trot.
+
+I had just begun to get to sleep, when what do you think happened?
+
+The door was pushed open, and a man looked in. I started up, riled to
+the depths of my woman's soul. Never before, since I was a nursing baby,
+had any man looked on my face after it was laid on my pillow.
+
+What did the creature mean?
+
+I scrouched down in the bunk, pulling the sheet over my head, and peeped
+through an opening, half scared to death.
+
+That man had a lantern in his hand, a dark lantern, with the fire all on
+one side. It glared into my bed like a wicked eye.
+
+"What, oh, what _do_ you want?" says I. "Remember, we are two innocent
+females that seem to be unprotected, but we have a gentleman outside--a
+strong, tall, powerful man. Advance another step and I scream."
+
+The man opened his mouth to speak; his one-eyed lantern glared upon me;
+he smiled as if overflowing with good intentions.
+
+"Go away," says I, speaking in a tone of command from under the
+bedclothes, "or if it is my purse you want, take it; but take that evil
+eye from my countenance."
+
+The man took the little pocket-book from my trembling hand; he opened it
+with cold-blooded slowness, took out a long strip of printed paper
+Cousin Dempster had told me to take care of, and tore it in two before
+my face. Then he put one of the pieces back, while I lay shaking and
+being shook till the teeth chattered in my head.
+
+"Spare me," says I, with the plaintive wail of a heroine. "Take all I
+have, pocket-book and all, but, oh, spare me; spare me!"
+
+He held my pocket-book towards me. I shivered, I shrunk; my hand crept
+forth like a poor timid mouse, and darted back again.
+
+The man--this stealthy railway burglar--seemed touched with compassion.
+My helpless innocence had evidently made an impression even on his
+hardened nature; he laid the pocket-book gently on the pillow, and
+modestly turned his one-eyed lantern away, pitying my confusion, and
+feeling, as any man with a heart in his bosom must, that I was scared
+out of a week's growth.
+
+I breathed again. My heart swelled with thankfulness that a great danger
+was passed. I pushed back the blankets, and looked out while a timid
+shudder crept over me.
+
+The man was there yet, stooping down to Cousin E. E.'s bunk. I heard
+paper rustle. Had he spared me to rob her? Why didn't she scream? Why
+didn't she command the creature to leave her presence?
+
+Robbery was nothing, but that cool way of breaking in upon two sleeping
+females had the ferocity of a wild beast in it. Was he killing my
+cousin--smothering her with pillows so that she could not scream out?
+The thought drove me frantic. My arms were goose-pimpled like a grater.
+
+"Why don't you order him out? Why don't you scream for Dempster?" says
+I, feeling a thrill of hysterics creeping over me. "If you don't, I
+must.
+
+"All right," says the burglarious wretch, giving us the dark side of his
+lantern, and slamming the door. Then all was mournfully still. I half
+rose and leaned over my bunk, pale, breathless.
+
+"Oh, cousin! speak to me if you are alive," I pleaded.
+
+"What is it; what is the matter, Phœmie?" says a sleepy voice from
+below.
+
+"Ah, thank Heaven, you are alive!" I cried, a-clasping my hands in a
+sweet ecstasy of gratitude. "Did he attempt to strangle you?"
+
+"He. Who?"
+
+"Why, that man. That prowling monster, with the one-eyed lantern!"
+
+"Oh, he only wanted my ticket; he meant no harm," says she, more than
+half asleep.
+
+I drew back into my bunk, and let her go to sleep. Ignorance _is_ bliss.
+She felt safe, and I left her. Why should I disturb her innocent rest
+with the knowledge that a railroad she trusted in was infested through
+and through with brigandation. If she knew the truth, I was certain that
+E. E. would never be coaxed or reasoned into travelling again, so I
+determined to keep a still tongue, and never mention this attempt at
+burglary again to any human creature.
+
+I have made up my mind to one thing, though. Phœmie Frost will never
+travel again without a pistol under her pillow. What good object can any
+man have in smashing into the midnight dreams of two innocent females,
+and wanting to examine their pocket-books? I tremble to think what the
+feelings of the great Grand Duke would be if he had heard of the
+terrible danger I have been in.
+
+Of course I never closed my eyes again till the long train of cars crept
+like a great trailing snake into the depot at Washington.
+
+
+
+
+LI.
+
+MRS. GRANT'S RECEPTION.
+
+
+Sisters, Washington is splendid just now. In New York the winter seems
+to have frozen up all the sap in the trees; not a bud on the limbs, not
+a tinge of green even on the willows, which are the trees of all others
+that give out their greenness first in the spring, and keep it latest in
+the fall. The trees that grow in the Park were brown and naked when we
+left the city.
+
+Here the buds are a-swelling. The willow-trees are feathered over with
+leaves as soft and pale as the down on a gosling's breast. The
+beech-trees are covered over with soft, downy buds, that float on the
+air like full-grown caterpillars. Even the ragged old button-balls are
+shooting out leaves like sixty, and the young trees at the Smithsonian
+Institution, and the old ones below the Capitol of the nation, are
+bursting into greenness, while the grass seems to spring up fresh in
+your path as you walk along.
+
+I declare it is a satisfaction to breathe the air which is kissing so
+many buds and flowers open; and I feel sort of guilty in doing it, when
+I know that the hollows around Sprucehill are choked up with dead
+leaves, if not with drifted snow, and it will be weeks yet before the
+maple-sap will take to running.
+
+Nature is an institution that I hope I shall always be fond of and
+appreciate; but men and women are, after all, the noblest work of a
+beneficent Creator, and, from the delicate greenness and the soft airs
+of spring, I turn to them.
+
+At two o'clock, yesterday, Mrs. President Grant had a grand reception at
+the White House. There hasn't been the ghost of one while Lent kept
+people down to a fish diet and morning meetings; but now, when the
+flowers of Easter-Sunday have all withered up, people begin to visit one
+another again, and this grand reception at the White House sort of opens
+the way and sets the fashions a-going once more.
+
+Well, when the time came, Cousin E. E. and I were on hand. My pink silk
+dress was a little rumpled; but I shook it out and smoothed it down.
+
+Cousin E. E. came out like a princess, in pale lilac-colored silk, with
+a whole snow-storm of lace crinkling over it. I declare, sisters, she
+looked fresh and sweet as the first lilac that blows! I was really proud
+to introduce her as my relation.
+
+Cousin Dempster, having a claim, had to go to the Capitol; so E. E. and
+I went together--no gentlemen being absolutely necessary to a daytime
+reception, you know.
+
+Well, we got out of the carriage as light and chipper as two birds. The
+driver held out his arm to keep our dresses from touching the wheel, as
+they streamed out after us; and I must say Vermont didn't suffer much as
+to ladies when we walked, with the slow dignity befitting persons with
+the eye of a State upon them, into the blue room, where Mrs. President
+Grant recepted. Well, I reckon the ladies were two to one against the
+men in that blue room, and it just looked lovely!
+
+In the centre of the room stood the round, blue silk sofa, I have told
+you about, cut up into seats, and rising to a point in the middle, as if
+a silk funnel had been turned bottom-side up there. On the nozzle end of
+this point a great white flower-pot stood, a-running over with pink and
+white flowers, rising in great clusters one above another, till they
+brightened the whole room with a glow like early morning.
+
+In front of this ring sofa the Mrs. President stood, looking just as
+smiling and sweet as a bank of roses. She had on a pink dress--no, not
+exactly what we call pink--but the color was soft and rosy as a cloud;
+snowflaky lace floated around her arms, and shaded her neck, which was
+plump, and white, and pretty as any girl's. She hadn't a sign of a
+flower, or anything on her head; but the soft, crinkly hair curled down
+to her forehead sweetly, and she seemed almost like a young girl.
+Everybody there said that they never had seen her look so handsome.
+
+Well, there she stood, with a nice little lady on one side, helping her
+recept; and she did it sweetly, which was likely, she being the wife of
+Senator Morton, of Indiana, one of General Grant's biggest sort of guns.
+You have heard of Senator Morton, of course. He was a first-rate fellow
+during the war, when he just buckled to and raised a half a million of
+dollars on his own account for the Government, which was grand in
+itself, and accounts for the way the people in Indiana almost worship
+him.
+
+Well, this lady was his wife. She looked young, and was dressed
+nicely--not just like a girl, but as if she had her husband's dignity to
+take care of, as well as her own good looks.
+
+When we got to the door of this room, a gentleman came up, and, after
+making a bow, wanted us to tell our names. Cousin E. E. answered:
+
+"Mrs. Dempster, of New York, and Miss Phœmie Frost, of Vermont."
+
+He didn't seem to hear distinctly, but bent his head; and says he:
+
+"Miss, did you say?"
+
+I flushed rosy-red, and my eyelids drooped, for I was thinking of the
+Grand Duke.
+
+"At present," says I.
+
+Then the gentleman called out so loud that everybody could hear him:
+
+"Mrs. Dempster--Miss Phœmie Frost."
+
+I say, sisters, did you ever see a cage full of canary-birds flutter
+when a cat was looking through the wires? If you have, that can give you
+some idea of the buzz, hum, and rustle that was going on when we came up
+to the front of that round sofa, and gave Mrs. Grant and Mrs. Morton one
+of those sliding curtsies that set off a long-trailed dress so well.
+
+Mrs. President Grant smiled sweetly, and held our her hand. I took that
+hand, I pressed it kindly--for I like that woman, whom poverty could not
+daunt, and sudden prosperity could not spoil. She's a good, motherly,
+nice woman, and my heart warmed to her as I took her hand in mine.
+
+"Miss Frost, I am delighted to see you back in Washington," says she;
+"especially as the weather promises to be so pleasant."
+
+"In some places we are apt to forget the weather, finding everything
+bright and pleasant without regard to it," says I.
+
+When I spoke, the ladies around crowded up to listen, and looked at each
+other, smiling. One or two gentlemen came up, too, and when I bowed my
+head and walked on, giving common people a chance, one of them came up
+to me, and says he:
+
+"Miss Frost, I think I have the pleasure of claiming you as a
+constituent," says he.
+
+"A what?" says I.
+
+"A constituent," says he, a-smiling softly.
+
+"No," says I; "I don't remember being connected with any family of that
+name."
+
+"But you are from Vermont?"
+
+"I am proud to say 'Yes,'" says I, a-bowing my best, in honor of the old
+State.
+
+"Then I have some claim on your acquaintance," says he. "My name is
+----."
+
+I reached out my hand. The fire flashed into my eyes. "Our United States
+Senator?" says I.
+
+"I believe the people have given me that honor," says he.
+
+"And honored themselves in the doing of it," says I.
+
+I declare the man blushed, showing that high parts and extraordinary
+knowledge haven't made him conceited. But I hadn't said a word more than
+the truth. Vermont, of all the States of the Union, I do think, has done
+herself credit in her choice of Senators. There isn't in all the Senate
+a man that either of 'em cannot hold his own with, and I don't believe a
+rough or ungentlemanly word or action has ever been on record against
+either of them."
+
+Before he could answer, a gentleman came and spoke low to him. Then he
+said, with a pleased look:
+
+"This is Mr. ----, our other Senator, Miss Frost, who is, I am sure, as
+glad to welcome you here as I am."
+
+I turned, and saw a tall, spare man, with the kindest, mildest, and most
+speaking face I ever set eyes on. His voice, too, when he spoke, was
+just benign. I gave him my hand. If I looked half as glad as I felt, he
+must have seen the warmest sort of a welcome in my eyes. I felt honored
+by an introduction to these men. Not because they happened to be my own
+Senators, but because they are men of heart and brains, capable of
+understanding what the people want, and both honest and strong enough to
+maintain what they understand. I write this without hesitation, knowing
+that there isn't a society or household in Vermont that will not agree
+with my way of thinking about them.
+
+I don't think much of beauty in a man, but there's no dreadful harm in
+being good-looking, and in that respect our Senators pull about an even
+yoke with each other, and can't be overmatched by many States in the
+Union.
+
+Well, we walked about the room, and had a good deal to say concerning
+the Old Mountain State, while the crowd went in and out down the east
+room, through the parlors, and into a great, long greenhouse, blazing
+out with flowers that grew so thick and smelled so sweet that I longed
+to stay there forever. But by the time I was ready to leave, the company
+had thinned off, and Cousin E. E. was waiting for me, a little out of
+sorts, for somehow I had lost her in the crowd; but she soon came to,
+and when I told her our Senators were going to call on us at the hotel,
+she chirked up. After all, Cousin E. E. _is_ a good-hearted creature as
+ever lived.
+
+
+
+
+LII.
+
+REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--My ambitious longings are satisfied. I have stood before
+the Mrs. President of these United States, and in that august situation
+sustained the honor and dignity of our Society in a manner that I hope
+will meet with your united and individual sanction. Mrs. Grant has had a
+great many ladies of one kind and another standing by her side as
+honored guests of the nation, but I do think the literary strata of the
+Union has never been fully represented before. I do not say this
+vaingloriously--far be it from me to claim anything on my own
+merits--but when the reputation of our Society is concerned, I am ready
+to stand up among the best, and hold my own even in the national White
+House.
+
+That I have done according to the best of my abilities, and, I trust, to
+the satisfaction of the Society, but I claim no credit for it. Any of us
+young girls can bow and smile, and give out words that melt into a vain
+man's heart like lumps of maple-sugar, and that is about all that is
+expected from the female women who perform Society in Washington, and
+real pretty, smart women most of them are; but after all, they are only
+accidental females, and get there just because their husbands happen to
+be elected to a place, and wouldn't even be heard of if some smart man
+hadn't given them his name--more than as like as not--before he knew
+himself how much it was worth.
+
+Now you will understand, sisters, that no man, though he should happen
+to be smart as a steel trap, and pleasant as a willow whistle, can give
+extra brains or sweet manners to a wife who hasn't got 'em in her own
+right. So there is a chance that some short comings in the female line
+are not very uncommon.
+
+The senators and judges and cabinet people are, as a general thing, the
+picked men of the nation, but they choose their own wives, and some of
+them haven't half so much taste in the fine arts, to which many of this
+generation of women belong, as they have knowledge about politics.
+Still, these ladies are what they call representative women, and,
+nationally considered, are the cream on cream of American society. That
+is a fact, too, as far as they represent their own husbands. By marrying
+great men, or those who are merely fortunate, they are only lifted more
+clearly into the public view, where their virtues and their faults are
+held up for general examination. Still, it is wonderful how popular some
+of them get to be, and how soon they learn the duties of their places.
+
+Sometimes a first-rate woman happens to marry a first-rate man, and
+takes her place by his side naturally. A good many such women have
+earned a place for themselves in society quite equal to any their
+husbands have been chosen to hold by the people.
+
+Mrs. Madison, Mrs. Polk and Miss Lane were among these, and, as a
+perfect lady, well known for years and years in Washington, Mrs.
+Crittendon, the widow of Senator Crittendon--formerly Mrs. Ashley--is
+always mentioned side by side with her husband, and stood quite as high
+among women as he did among men. In my opinion, there is a senator's
+wife from Minnesota that can hold her own with the handsomest and
+highest of those that have gone before; but as she is extra modest too,
+I give no names.
+
+Then there is another, I will say it, who has done honor to her position
+and credit to her husband, and that is Mrs. Ulysses Grant. She is just a
+good, honest, motherly woman, pleasant to look at and pleasant to speak
+to. She acts out what she pretends to, and pretends to be just what she
+is. If this woman hasn't pulled an even yoke with her husband, both in
+the war and after the war, no female of my acquaintance ever did. It's
+of no use talking, I like that woman.
+
+But I am a-going at a rate that wants pulling up, so I tighten the
+bridle and take a new turn.
+
+What I began to write about was, a reception at Mr. Horatio King's,
+which always takes off the first skimming of cream from Washington
+society.
+
+Mr. King is a New England man, and was born and brought up in Maine,
+which lifts him almost to a level with us of Vermont.
+
+In fact, in the way of statesmen and authors, I am bound to say that
+Maine pulls an even yoke with the Green Mountain State. So far as
+authors are concerned, I'm afraid she goes a little ahead of us.
+
+The city of Portland was just a nest of authors before they took wing
+and settled down in other places.
+
+John Neal, one of the most splendid men and brilliant writers that ever
+put an American pen to paper, was born there, and has spent most of his
+life in his native place.
+
+N. P. Willis was born in Portland; so was Sebe Smith, who called himself
+Jack Downing in his letters.
+
+Longfellow's family was rooted in that town long before he honored it by
+being born.
+
+James Brooks, who was for years a pillar of strength in Congress, and
+who started the first newspaper correspondence ever thought of, in the
+_Portland Advertiser_, which he edited before he was twenty years old,
+was a native of Portland, which city he represented in the legislature,
+then travelled all over Europe on foot, and settled down in New York
+before he was twenty-six. After this he spent twelve or fifteen years in
+Congress--earned a place, second to no man there, as a statesman,
+travelled over Europe three times, visited Egypt and the Holy Land, and
+finished his travels by a trip round the world, taken between the
+sessions of Congress. Beside this, he never ceased to be the leading
+editor of the New York _Express_, and his book about Japan, China, and
+so on, which Mr. Appleton, of New York, has published, is one of the
+best books of travel extant.
+
+Beside all these, Mr. King made his first literary start in Portland,
+where, as a young man, he edited a weekly paper. But he has lived most
+of his after-life in Washington, generally holding a high position
+there. During a portion of Mr. Buchanan's administration, he was
+Postmaster-General of these United States, and at all times he has been
+considered a man worth knowing.
+
+
+
+
+LIII.
+
+A LITERARY PARTY.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Of course I, being a young girl of New England, felt
+myself at home in Mrs. King's house the minute I entered it. There is
+something in the air of a dwelling like that, pure and breezy, like the
+morning winds on the Green Mountains. I felt myself growing frank and
+cheerful as I got into the hall. The parlors were crowded full--three of
+them--with people that one liked to look at, and longed to know; for
+every face had an idea in it, and, beyond that, a good many were right
+down beautiful.
+
+But beauty by itself isn't enough to get an invitation here, and good
+clothes count for just nothing, though there was plenty of them, and I
+didn't feel as if my pink silk was too much. Something a little more
+austere, in the velvet or alpaca line, might have been more appropriate
+to the occasion. Still, there was a rosy brightness about my silk that
+had a tendency to give a glow of youthful thoughtlessness to
+intelligence, and combine an idea of high fashion with genius.
+
+Mr. King, and his daughter, a proper, pretty stylish lady, stood near
+the door when I went in, with the train of my dress streaming back into
+the hall, and some natural rose-geranium leaves circling my brow in a
+way that was calculated to remind an observing person of Miss Corinne
+when she was crowned in the Capitol at Rome.
+
+Mr. King come forward to meet me with his hand held out. He is a thin,
+spare man, with the sweetest and kindest look in his face that you ever
+saw. I had intended to just touch his hand, and make a sweeping salute,
+half bow, half curtsey, that would take in the whole admiring crowd; but
+his frank, smiling welcome just took me right off from my feet, and I
+gave his hand a good, hearty New England shake that made him feel to
+home in a minute.
+
+Mr. King led me into the parlor, and gave me a soft seat among the
+cushions of a sofa in the middle room, just as Solomon must have waited
+on the Queen of Sheba. Then, feeling that the eyes of more States than
+Vermont were upon me, I spread out my skirts, leaned one arm on the sofa
+cushion, and settled myself just as Mr. Brady had done it when I sat to
+him for a picture; thus adding an artistic feature to the fashionable
+and intellectual embodiment of my first appearance. Thus, with downcast
+eyes and a modest demeanor, which must have been attractive, I waited
+for the literary programme that lay before us.
+
+It commenced beautifully. Mr. King took his place under the chandelier
+of the middle room, and welcomed his friends with a very poetic and
+touching little speech, which ended in a farewell which almost brought
+tears into my eyes. This was his last reunion for the year, and he
+seemed to feel the breaking-up a good deal, and his kind voice shook
+when he mentioned the possibility that death might carry off some of the
+friends who had brightened his home, before they all met again.
+
+When Mr. King sat down there was dumb silence for a little while; for
+the whole crowd seemed to feel all he had been saying, deep in their
+hearts. But this soon changed into smiles and a soft rustle of dresses,
+for a nice elderly gentleman got up and made a delightful speech, full
+of cheerfulness and nice friendly feeling, which brightened the whole
+crowd up like spring winds in a flower-garden.
+
+After this, another pleasant gentleman arose with a written poem in his
+hand, which he read under the gaslight, filling the whole room with the
+sound of his friendly voice.
+
+The poem was written to Mr. King. It was full of sweet thoughts and
+grateful thanks for all he had done to make his friends happy. But he
+blushed like a girl, for its praises seemed to take him by surprise,
+and, like all men of real talent, he is modest as can be.
+
+The lady who wrote this sweet poem was Mrs. Neeley, who has been writing
+to the Washington papers ever so long, in a way, too, that any woman
+might be proud of. She sat directly behind the gentleman who read her
+poem, and looked real nice in her crimson velvet dress.
+
+After this a lady got up and read something mournful about three curls
+of hair that a man had taken from his wife's head--golden when she was a
+child, brown when she was a bride, and snow-white when she lay dead.
+
+There was a sort of sob went through all the rooms when this poem died
+out. Then, after a little, every lady began to cheer up and laugh; for
+the same lady was reading a poem, half Dutch, half English, about a dog
+howling, which was so funny that I almost forgot my dignity as the
+representative of your Society, and near about clapped my hands--a thing
+I should have regretted to the day of my death.
+
+This dog poem set everybody into a state of high gleefulness and some
+music struck up in the front room, which could be heard a little now and
+then above the hum and rush of conversation that set in with the crowd,
+where artists, authors, and statesmen, and scientifics mingled in, and
+chatted promiscuously, saying such bright and wise and witty things,
+that they fairly made my eyes snap. I cut in, too.
+
+What is the use of being the emissary of a literary, scientific, and
+moral institution, if one can't hold up her end of the yoke in
+conversation? I did my best, sisters. An artist stood near me; I talked
+with him about pictures till, I do believe, he thought that I had been
+born in Rome, and cradled with Michael Angelo--an old fellow, that both
+painted and made marble men in Italy years ago. Then I had something to
+say about flowers to an agricultural bureau scientific, and about the
+chemistry of something to a savant or savan, or a word like that, of the
+Smithsonian Institution. I tell you, sisters, it was sharp work; but I
+flatter myself you were not in any way disgraced.
+
+By and by I was introduced to the Chief Justice of the Court of
+Claims--about as smart a lawyer, and clear headed a judge, as can be
+found in these parts, I can tell you. He was not long ago United States
+Senator from Missouri, and has left his mark among the statesmen there;
+but his genius lay as much in expounding the laws as in making them. He
+has written some capital law-books, too, and could mate with any judge,
+statesman, or author that came across his track. His wife joined in a
+little now and then, as only a right down sensible and handsome woman
+could. It does one's heart good to see a great man and most lovely woman
+mated so for once.
+
+That was just what I did in Mr. King's parlors, and, when we stopped
+talking, it struck me that the gentleman knew a great deal more of
+literature than your missionary has yet learned of statesmanship or law.
+In fact, an evening in Mr. King's parlors does teach one humility, and I
+begin to discover that a person may be capable of writing poetry, and
+making a fair report, without being able to teach science to a
+professor, jurisprudence--I hope I have got the word right--to a judge,
+or high statesmanship to a senator. In fact, in the present state of
+society, it seems to me that the best of us have got to live and
+learn--live and learn.
+
+
+
+
+LIV.
+
+DRESSING FOR A PARTY.
+
+
+My dear sisters:--You have no idea how many kinds of parties there are
+in Washington. Some are called receptions, because they take place in
+the daytime, in houses where every mite of sunshine is shut out, and the
+gas set to blazing as if it were midnight. That is, night isn't turned
+into day here one bit oftener than day is turned into night.
+
+Then there are ladies' lunch parties, where the daylight is allowed to
+shine in; and picnics, where one gets a little too much of it, besides
+being tired to death, and nothing to show for it.
+
+Besides these, there are political parties, where men get up
+entertainments that are called caucuses, which no lady is allowed to
+join in. Besides dinners and breakfasts, and so on, without end, which
+makes life in this city just one rush and tumult--to say nothing of
+Congress, which is just that, and a good deal more so.
+
+Last week, Cousin E. E. and I had so many invitations that we didn't
+know what to do with them. We should have had to go out to three
+breakfasts, two dinners, and six parties a night, if we had attempted to
+do more than read them all. For since Mr. King's literary reunion, the
+popularity of your missionary has increased like a rolling snowball, and
+her invitations came by the peck and half bushel.
+
+Well, out of this heap, there was one or two places that I felt like
+honoring with my presence. So E. E. and I sat down and wrote a little
+note--all ladies write _little_ notes nowadays--and relieved the intense
+anxiety of the people who had invited us, by saying, in the most polite
+way, that we would come.
+
+This act of kindness had its reward in the feeling that we had relieved
+more than one anxious host, and given certainty of a brilliant success
+to parties that must necessarily have been in doubt until certain of our
+coming. With my usual modesty, I say "our," wishing to give E. E. her
+little chance, you know.
+
+The invitation we resolved to honor was from one of the foreign
+ministers. Of course I expected that there would be a good many
+religious people there, and, as I hadn't mingled much with persons who
+were over pious for some time, I anticipated a refreshing season; for a
+foreign minister must have a noble missionary spirit, and, no doubt,
+came to Washington on purpose to reform the members of Congress, which
+is a work of Christian mercy, if ever there was one.
+
+For this reason, my spiritual nature was aroused, and I was burning with
+desire to help in the noble cause, and let foreign nations know that we
+had women in this country that could be at once brilliant and devout,
+celebrated and conscientious; in fact, women who could gracefully
+combine two characters, hitherto supposed to be opposite.
+
+Yes, I was resolved to go to this ministerial reunion. Had I not been at
+Mr. King's literary gathering, which lifted me, as it were, out of a
+frivolous, fashionable life into the purely intellectual, and now,
+should I refuse to bathe my soul in the purer element of high Christian
+fervor? No, a thousand times no!
+
+On a religious occasion like this, I felt that a modest dress--simple
+black alpaca, for instance, with a pink bow at the neck--would be about
+the thing; but Cousin E. E. got almost huffy about it.
+
+"Why," says she, "at the Foreign Minister's a full toilet is expected,
+always. It is but proper respect."
+
+"Cousin," says I, "no one can have more respect for the ministerial
+functions than I have; no one ever attended meeting more faithfully. Am
+I not a missionary myself? Do you think I would or could fall short of
+the mark of the prize of the high calling? If alpaca isn't the thing, I
+am open to reason and pink silk."
+
+"That will do," says she, a-brightening up, "looped up with black velvet
+and bows, and _décolletté_."
+
+"Dic o' nonsense?" says I, riling a little.
+
+"Well, low neck and short sleeves," says she.
+
+"At a meeting of ministers?" says I. "Cousin E. E., are you crazy?"
+
+"Well, do as you please," says she, "only I tell you it will be
+expected. I intend to be very low, with a strap for a sleeve, and all my
+jewels."
+
+"I shall be content with the jewels of the soul," says I, with an
+austere rebuke in my voice; for if there is anything that riles me up
+more than another, it is flashy dressing where one's mind should be
+given up to solemn thoughts. "Cousin E. E., there are times when levity
+of dress and lightness of speech are to be excused, but this isn't one
+of them. Put a bridle on your tongue, and something more than a strap
+over your shoulder."
+
+E. E. colored up, and gave her head a toss.
+
+"Phœmie," says she, "you are past finding out. Do as you please, and
+just let me do as I please."
+
+I lifted my forefinger in gentle warning; for, with all her fashionable
+crotchets, E. E. is a good soul as ever lived, and I don't want to be
+hard on her, feeling that great minds should be forbearing, especially
+in religious matters. So we parted good friends, and I went into my room
+to get ready for the solemn occasion.
+
+I took out my pink silk dress--for the alpaca was a little rusty--and
+laid it out on the bed. Then I ripped some black velvet ribbon from
+another old dress, and tied it up into bows that looked scrumptious as
+new. After that I brushed my hair out straight, and braided it in an
+austere fashion appropriate to the occasion. Not a friz or a curl was to
+be seen; for this once I threw aside the other woman's hair, and was
+from head to foot myself again.
+
+"Neat, yet genteel," says I to myself, when my dress was on and the
+black bows in place. "Nothing flash or frivolous, though everything
+refinedly elegant. No minister, be he ever so strict a disciplinarian,
+can find fault with me. I suppose the critics of all the religious
+papers will be there. Well, let them draw my portrait; I am ready for
+the ordeal."
+
+With these high thoughts in my mind I went downstairs; but the sight of
+my cousin made me step back with both hands thrown up. She was just on
+fire with jewelry and precious stones. They flamed out on her neck,
+twinkled in her ears, and shot fiery arrows through her hair. Her cheeks
+were rosy red, and her eyes had shadows about them that had come since
+she went down to dinner. Perhaps she had taken a nap in a dark room,
+though. The dress she wore was soft and white and floating, like a cloud
+in the sky; and there was black lace mixed with it, and roses tangled up
+with that. I declare to you, sisters, if that woman had been going to a
+worldly party, she couldn't have been titivated off more than she was.
+It riled me to look at her.
+
+Advice scorned isn't to be offered again. I said nothing, but let E. E.
+go on in her frivolous career.
+
+
+
+
+LV.
+
+FOREIGN MINISTERS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--We entered the carriage, where Dempster took the front
+seat, just buried up in his wife's dress, and sat there like an
+exclamation-point gone astray. As for me, I sat upright and thoughtful,
+resolved to do my duty in spite of their shortcomings.
+
+We reached a large brick house; before it a line of carriages kept
+moving like a city funeral, only people were all the time a-getting out
+and walking under a long tent that sloped down from the front door.
+
+"There will be a full Conference," says I, in my heart, for I was too
+much riled up by E. E.'s dress for any observation to her.
+
+One thing struck me as peculiar. None of the ladies wore their bonnets,
+and a good many had white cloaks on, huddled up around them as if they
+had been going to a party.
+
+If I hadn't known the house belonged to foreign ministers, I really
+should have thought from the look of things that we had lost our way,
+and got into somebody's common reception. As it was I got out of the
+carriage, and went up the steps with my bonnet on, and holding up the
+train of my pink silk, feeling that so much appendage was out of place.
+
+A colored person in white gloves opened the door, and waving his hand
+like a Grand Duke--oh, how that word goes to my heart--said:
+
+"Front door, second story."
+
+Another time I should have known that this meant that I could take off
+my things there. But now I felt almost certain that the ministers were
+holding a prayer-meeting, or conference, or something in "the front
+room, second story," so I went upstairs with a slow and solemn tread,
+feeling that the rustle of my pink silk was almost sacrilege.
+
+I went into the room and looked around. It was full of women,
+wonderfully dressed women, all in low necks and short sleeves, and white
+shoes--laughing, giggling women, who looked over each others naked
+shoulders into a great broad looking-glass crowded full of faces that
+couldn't seem to admire themselves enough.
+
+I stopped at the door. I scarcely breathed. What could all those
+rosy-cheeked, bare-armed ladies be doing in that house?
+
+I asked this question, of course, of Cousin Dempster, who came into the
+hall a-pulling his white gloves on.
+
+"Dempster," says I, in a low voice, "what does this mean? Where are the
+ministers?"
+
+"Oh, they are in the back room. You didn't expect them to be turned in
+with the ladies, did you?"
+
+"Well," says I, "it is customary in our State now, though it was not
+formerly, when the men sat on one side at prayer-meetings, and the girls
+on the other, but I didn't think that notion had got to foreign parts."
+
+I don't think Dempster heard me clearly, for that minute his wife came
+out of the room, blazing like the whole milky-way of stars.
+
+"Why, Phœmie," says she, a-holding up both the white kid gloves she had
+just buttoned on, "you don't mean to go down with that bonnet on?"
+
+"I should think you would be ashamed to go into a conference or a
+prayer-meeting with it off," says I, severely.
+
+E. E. stared at Dempster, and he stared at her. Then he hitched up his
+shoulders, and she gave her hands a little toss in the air.
+
+I didn't seem to notice their antics, but went with them downstairs,
+where I heard the sound of music, which didn't strike me as so sacred as
+it ought to be. Besides, there was a buzz and a hum like a hive of bees
+swarming, which was puzzling.
+
+When we went into the great, long room, that seemed running over with
+light, the crowded state of the congregation astonished me. There wasn't
+seats enough for one quarter of the worshippers.
+
+Sisters, I was the only one present who had studied the sacred decencies
+of a bonnet and shawl. The rest were dressed--well, they weren't dressed
+at all about the arms and shoulders, which shocked me dreadfully; the
+mere presence of a lot of ministers ought to have made women more
+decorous.
+
+Would you believe it, the people round the doors stared at me as if they
+had never seen a beehive bonnet, with feathers floating over it, before.
+
+Some people might have felt shocked at so many eyes turned on them, but
+I was in the straight and narrow path of duty, and their looks passed by
+me like the idle wind. If they didn't understand the solemnity of the
+occasion, I did.
+
+"There is the Minister," says Dempster, "let us pay our respects."
+
+"Why," says I, "there don't seem to be either a reading desk or pulpit
+here!"
+
+I don't think Dempster heard me, for he began to edge our way through
+the crowd, till we got clear into the room, which was so full of flowers
+and lights and music that I began to think the foreign ministers were
+keeping up Easter-Sunday yet.
+
+A gentleman was standing near the door with some ladies around him.
+Dempster took us straight up to him.
+
+"Your Excellency," says he, "Miss Frost. Miss Phœmie Frost, of Vermont."
+
+I didn't think that exactly a proper place to be introducing people in,
+and measured off my bow accordingly, and passed on without troubling
+myself about the ladies around him, who seemed to wonder at it. As if I
+wanted to know them!
+
+When we got into the crowd again, I whispered to Dempster:
+
+"Do tell me where the foreign ministers are!"
+
+"The Ministers! Why you have just been presented to the very highest of
+them," says Dempster.
+
+"What, that man," says I, "with precious stones a-twinkling on his
+shirt-bosom, and a bit of red ribbon in his button-hole, who seems to
+have cut up his words with a chopping knife? You couldn't make me
+believe that, Dempster!"
+
+"But it is, upon my honor, Phœmie; and those gentlemen standing around
+him are all Ministers, or persons sent out with them. Almost every
+civilized nation is represented here to-night."
+
+I looked around at the persons Dempster pointed out--some were young,
+some old, some you could understand, others you couldn't; most of them
+were talking and laughing with the ladies around them. I didn't see a
+downright serious face in the whole crowd.
+
+"Them ministers!" I said, scorning Dempster's attempt to deceive me.
+
+"Every one of them is a Minister now, or means to be."
+
+"Dempster, I don't believe you."
+
+"Well, ask some one else whom you can believe," says he, a-turning red.
+"Here is Miss ----, she can tell you."
+
+I didn't hear the name clear, but Dempster introduced me to a young lady
+that had just sat down by me.
+
+"Are those men who are chatting and laughing so, really ministers?" says
+I to her.
+
+"Most of them are; the rest are connected with the Legation," says she.
+"Elegant, don't you think so?"
+
+Before I could ask her what newfangled society had been got up under the
+name of Legation, a young gentleman with a round gold glass screwed into
+one eye, came out from the hive of ministers, and walked toward us,
+moving along slow and lazy, as if walking were too much for him.
+
+The girl was all in a flutter when she saw him a-coming our way. She
+looked at me as if I had a seat that she wanted for some one else, but I
+didn't move; and after shaking out her dress as a cross hen flutters its
+feathers, she pretended to look the other way, as if she didn't care a
+mite whether the young minister came up or not.
+
+Oh, the airs some of these school-girls put on is disgusting.
+
+The young divinity student came up with a sort of half-dancing step.
+
+"Miss," says he, a-bowing and chewing up his words as if he'd a piece of
+sweet flag-root in his mouth, "delighted to--aw--aw--have the honor of
+seeing you here--am, indeed."
+
+She bowed, she prismed up her mouth, waved her fan a trifle, and says
+she--
+
+"Of course you ought to have expected me. I am a little exclusive, but
+always make a point of coming here."
+
+The young--no, he wasn't over young, but did his best to look so. Well,
+this foreign student just turned his glass on me, his impudent little
+eye stared right through at my bonnet. Then he looked at that finefied
+girl, and they both smiled at each other.
+
+This riled me.
+
+Then a couple of young ladies crowded by us, laughing a little. The
+divinity student turned his glass--eye and all--upon them, then he
+turned to the young creature by my side, and says he, curling up his
+wisp of a mustache:
+
+"Now, really, miss, what is the reason all the American young ladies
+have the manners of chambermaids?"
+
+I felt my Yankee heart spring straight up into my New England mouth; but
+the foreign snipe wasn't speaking to me, so I sat still and listened for
+what that young creature would say.
+
+"The manners of chambermaids!" says she, "did you mean that?"
+
+"Really--yes--I think they have, you know."
+
+"Well, I will not contradict you, for you generally are right," says
+she, as meek as Moses--yes, Moses in the bulrushes, "but not quite all,
+I hope."
+
+The mean thing couldn't keep from trying to wring a compliment for
+herself out of this insult to the general American female.
+
+The fellow had sense enough to see what she wanted, and he gave it to
+her.
+
+"Aw--aw--of course there are a few lovely exceptions, you know," says
+he, a-bowing so low that his eye-glass dropped out of his poor little
+eye that looked like a green gooseberry without it. "I speak of American
+women, generally, as having the manners of chambermaids."
+
+I couldn't hold in one minute more. No coffee-grounds, twice soaked,
+ever riled up like my temper.
+
+"If _you_ find American ladies acting like chambermaids," says I, "it's
+because they feel compelled to adapt themselves to the company they are
+in."
+
+Here I bent my head with a low, dignified bow, and waved my fan with a
+calm but decided motion.
+
+That little humbug of a young lady looked half scared to death. The
+divinity student ground his glass into his eye, looked at me from head
+to foot, and says he:
+
+"Aw, aw!" and walked away.
+
+The girl looked after him as if she wanted to cry, but just then a great
+whirl of music burst from the next room, and I thought the meeting was
+about to organize, when a tall fellow, with his mustache quirled up like
+an ox-horn, came tetering up to the young female by my side.
+
+"May I have the honor?" says he.
+
+The girl turned her head sideways, and rolled up her eyes like a pullet
+drinking.
+
+"It is a quadrille, Count," says she, "and I never join in one."
+
+"A quadrille, pardonne! You are right. When you daunce--if you
+daunce--why, of course, you daunce a round daunce."
+
+The fellow flung out his white hands, making a little dive forward with
+each word; then he saw my face, which must have spoken volumes, and
+slacked off his antics. I don't think he liked the cut of my smile, for,
+crooking up his elbow, he leaned forward, and says he:
+
+"May I be honored with a promenade?"
+
+She took his arm, and the two fluttered off into the crowd, which was
+pouring off into a large room beyond the one we were in.
+
+"The meeting is going to commence now in good earnest," I thought. "I'll
+try and get a seat where I can hear."
+
+Cousin Dempster and E. E. came up, and I joined in. The lecture-room was
+long, and lighted up beautifully. Right in front of the door was the
+singers' gallery, hung round with red cloth, and over that hung great
+wreaths of flowers, but I saw neither pulpit nor reading-desk.
+
+"Where will the minister be?" I whispered to Cousin Dempster.
+
+"Oh, he will open the ball."
+
+"Open the ball! What _do_ you mean?" says I. "A minister dancing! I
+won't believe it."
+
+"Why, they all do," says he, innocent as a lamb. "No better dancers in
+Washington."
+
+Sisters, what _do_ you think of that? Was I to blame when I insisted on
+leaving that house at once? Would you have had me sit by and witness
+this degradation? "No," says I to Cousin Dempster, "I won't stay. If
+ministers of the Gospel will do such things, I, as a New England
+woman--girl I mean--would be committing a sin to look on."
+
+"But you do not understand. They are Foreign Ministers, sent here by
+other nations, which they represent."
+
+"So much the worse--how dare they set such examples?" says I.
+
+"Ambassadors! can't you understand?"
+
+"Of course I understand. All ministers are ambassadors from the Lord;
+but I never heard of their dancing, except that Shaking Quakers do now
+and then, which is a part of their religion, and they are only elders,
+anyhow."
+
+"But there is no religion in these things!"
+
+"I should rather think not," says I, a-walking resolutely toward the
+door. "Now it's of no use explaining and apologizing to me. Dancing
+ministers ain't of my sort. I'm going right straight home."
+
+Sisters, I went.
+
+
+
+
+LVI.
+
+GOOD CLOTHES.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I told you in my last Report that there were three or
+four invitations that I had made up my mind to accept, for I have got so
+now, that it is my privilege to pick and choose who I will honor and who
+I will not.
+
+Well, the person I distinguished this time was just one of the
+handsomest and nicest ladies that you ever sot eyes on. Everybody that
+knows her says that. No bird pluming itself on an apple-tree limb full
+of blossoms was ever more graceful; no church member could be more
+kind-hearted. She is just a sumptuous young woman who worshipped a
+true-hearted, high-minded father with all her might and honored him in
+all her acts. It is a great pity she wasn't born in Vermont, but that
+cannot be helped now. I wish it could.
+
+Of course I felt it a privilege to represent your Society before a lady
+like this; for it seems to me as if she were born to be an ornament to
+this great nation. I say this because I really think she is good as good
+can be. Miss Kate Chase, though she did marry a United States Senator,
+will always be best known to the country as Chief Justice Chase's
+daughter, and a compliment to her is a compliment to him, which I, as a
+distinguished wom--I beg pardon, young girl--could pay, and still
+preserve that reputation for correct deportment which, I am proud to
+say, follows me wherever I go.
+
+Well, not wanting to keep Mrs. Sprague in suspense, and feeling that she
+might be pining for my autograph to lie uppermost in the great dish, all
+gold and stone pictures, which she keeps full of letters and cards and
+things, I wrote her a sweet little letter, in my finest hand, with a
+green and red "P. F." twisted together on the straw-colored envelope,
+saying that I would come.
+
+After that I felt calm and content, knowing how much happiness I had
+given.
+
+Cousin Dempster and E. E. had an invite too. I really hope they have
+sense enough to know the source from which all these attentions come,
+but sometimes I doubt it. Still, they do look up to me.
+
+The night came, and found me ready. E. E. had told me that when Mrs.
+Sprague gave a party, her guests almost always came out in span-new
+dresses. Her entertainments were _the_ entertainments of the season.
+Nobody had yet been able to come up to her, let them try ever so much,
+and people dressed accordingly.
+
+Of course I wasn't going to be behindhand on a fashionable occasion like
+that, where a certain person was sure to be an object of special
+admiration and envious criticism, so I went to work at once, and turned
+my pink silk wrong side out with my own hands.
+
+Then I took an hour or so of solitary shopping, and had the things I
+bought carried straight into my own room, for I had given out that I had
+a sick headache, and wanted to sleep--a fib so delicate, that it seemed
+almost conscientious, besides being worth forgiving on account of its
+originality.
+
+Well, I worked away like everything, determined to show the world, for
+my own private enjoyment, that genius wasn't limited to writing, but
+would sometimes break out in silks and laces and flowers, with
+astonishing effects. So my heart rose, and my fingers flew.
+
+That headache of mine lasted three days, without intermission. During
+this season of affliction, my meals were brought up on a hotel tray, and
+I took care to order them myself--the toast and tea, which cousin sent
+up at first, not being quite satisfactory as a persistent diet.
+
+At last my dress was ready. E. E. said _she_ had ordered hers from
+Worth, ever so long ago, expecting that something super-elegant might
+turn up, like Mrs. Sprague's party. I didn't ask who Worth was, not
+thinking a masculine mantua-maker worth inquiring about; but I kept a
+close mouth about my own toilet--that word needs explaining, sisters.
+With us it means a half-moon table, curtained down, and ruffled over
+with spotted muslin, and set under a looking-glass. But here it means
+your whole dress-frock, boots, everything that you wear from top to toe.
+This is why the word "toilet" comes in so naturally in my Report. But
+understand, it does _not_ mean a table--quite the contrary.
+
+You should have seen me when I came out of my room that evening. Up to
+this I had been harmonious in my dress, but newness was the thing here,
+so I had studied the grandly poetical harmony of contrasts. My aim had
+been something poetical and striking.
+
+My pink silk had turned beautifully. It looked good as new, if not more
+so; the fresh lining hunched it out behind, till a good-sized baby could
+have sat on it, as such little fellows billow themselves among the
+clouds in an old picture. Contrast, I have told you, was my
+idea--novelty my object. Pink and white roses I had worn, black velvet,
+too, and natural geranium-leaves, which are given to wilting fearfully;
+so I cast these things all aside, and looped up my dress with pond
+lilies, of a rich orange color.
+
+Sisters, the effect was wonderful. The broad green leaves on the pink
+ground, the yellow flowers clustering amongst them. The lilies of red
+gold entwining my head was a picture in itself--to say nothing of the
+tall and elegant young person who, as I may write, carried off the
+dress.
+
+You should have seen Cousin E. E. when I swept into the room, where she
+stood ready, my pink silk rustling, my golden lilies on the high quiver,
+my hair crinkled in front, curled behind, and looped up with those
+yellow flowers. Sisters, her surprise was really a tribute.
+
+I did not deign to ask her how she liked my dress. The look that
+followed her first surprise was clouded with the envy she did not dare
+to speak. I was seized with a desire to punish such malice, and swept up
+and down the room, looking back on my train, as a peacock spreads his
+tail-feathers in the sun.
+
+E. E. looked ready to burst. She saw that her own dress was nowhere, and
+resented it in angry silence. So I kept on walking slowly up and down,
+in order to bring her into a reasonable state of mind, which Christian
+exertion, I am sorry to say, failed.
+
+Dempster came in, and he, too, was struck dumb with admiring surprise.
+He looked at me, then at E. E., but said nothing. Still the comparison
+must have been humiliating to a man who really does take some pride in
+his wife.
+
+
+
+
+LVII.
+
+THE PARTY OF THE SEASON.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--The carriage was full to overflowment; E. E. and I filled
+it with the sumptuosity of our garments. Dempster was nowhere. Now and
+then the carriage jolted his head into sight--that was all.
+
+Mrs. Sprague lives in a great, square corner-house that looks rich and
+respectable--two things that do not always come together in these days,
+when people creep into society, and build themselves up there on the
+property that should belong to the Government. It has some wide, jutting
+windows, and plenty of room inside.
+
+The hall-way was crowded full of ladies, and so was the stairs. Some
+were going up, and some were coming down. The first in shawls and
+cloaks, the others with their arms and necks uncovered, or with just a
+shadow of lace on them, nothing more.
+
+The great square chamber that we went into was as full as a bee-hive.
+Silks swept and rustled against each other like oak-leaves when the wind
+shakes them. The great looking-glasses were full also--you saw a crowd
+of handsome faces coming and going in them all the time. Each glass was
+like a picture always changing.
+
+The bed was covered over with cloaks and shawls, but you could see that
+the bedstead was beautifully carved, and the pillow-cases were ruffled
+all round and edged with lace. On a table near the door was a case of
+shiny black wood, curlicued with gold, and lined with velvet. In it was
+a lot of gold things, essence bottles, knives, scissors with gold
+handles, and glass cases with gold lids. It lay open, and anybody could
+use the things that wanted to; I didn't, but had a good look while E. E.
+was titivating in the crowd before the glass.
+
+My dress must have carried out the grand idea in my mind when I made
+it, for all the ladies stopped, and gave me a good, long look before
+they went out, and I could see smiles of approbation dancing about their
+mouths. My triumph commenced, sisters, even in the dressing-room.
+
+Dempster was waiting for us, and we followed him downstairs into the
+largest and handsomest room I've seen in Washington City.
+
+It was just afire with lights. The great curving window was crowded full
+of flowers; every table in the room blazed out with them. Two
+folding-doors, like those we have in a Vermont meeting-house, opened
+into another great room, just as rainbowish with light, and smelling
+just as sweet with flowers--I never saw anything like it.
+
+A crowd went in with us, and we had to wait till they let us go up to
+Judge Chase and Mrs. Sprague, who stood in the front room.
+
+Goodness gracious, what a female woman that is! No willow tree was ever
+half so graceful, and, as for manners, the nicest woman I ever saw is
+nowhere to her. Her dress--well, I really cannot say that it didn't pull
+an even yoke with mine--at any rate the contrast between us was
+striking, nothing could have been more so. But I can say, without
+vanity, the crowd as it came in stopped to look at mine quite as much as
+it did at hers. Original taste, you know, sisters, is everything; then
+literary genius united with taste isn't easily matched. Still, Mrs.
+Sprague's dress was well worth noticing.
+
+"What did she wear?" I hear you say.
+
+Sisters, your wishes are laws to me.
+
+This lady, for she _is_ a lady, every inch of her, as I have said, was a
+complete contrast to your missionary. Her dress had three colors; blue
+satin in front, wreathed across with a wreath of rosebuds and leaves
+over each flounce. Running up each side were other wreaths, fastening
+down the edges of a long train of white silk, that was fastened in a
+wide box-plait at the back of the neck, and swept away to the carpet,
+where it fell and floated like a snow-drift scattered over with roses,
+for they were done in needle work all over the white robe, and seemed to
+grow there. The dress was cut square about the neck, and filled in with
+lace. She had half-sleeves, too, a thing I was glad to see, for some of
+the stuck-up persons who came there with no sleeves, and their dresses
+cut short about the neck, might have taken it for a rebuke. Thank
+goodness, I didn't.
+
+Mrs. Sprague wore some jewelry. A wreath of blue stones with white ones
+that shone like rain-drops in the sunshine, was fastened in her hair,
+and hung quivering in her ears. She had gold bands, full of fiery
+stones, on her arms, and some gold thing fell down to her bosom, set
+with something that looked to me like half-ripe cherries. Pink coral, E.
+E. said it was.
+
+There now, you have Mrs. Sprague's dress, and you have mine. I say
+nothing. Certainly hers was handsome. I am not the person to draw
+comparisons, but, from the notice given to mine, I had no reason to be
+dissatisfied.
+
+Chief Justice Chase stood by his daughter, and shook hands with me in
+the most friendly manner--he was quite impressed, I can assure you. He
+was large and tall--in fact, grand in his appearance. His smile was
+enough to make any one long to know more of him. It reminded me a little
+of the great Grand Duke's, which made my heart beat a little sadly.
+
+We moved into the crowd. There I saw a lot of those foreign ministers.
+One of them bowed to me. I gave him a dignified bend of the head. This
+messing-up of divinity and parties goes against my ideas of propriety.
+
+A Vermont minister would be turned out of his pulpit if he ventured to
+show himself in a worldly gathering like that.
+
+"What are you so dignified about, Cousin Phœmie?" says Dempster. "Didn't
+you see the minister bowing to us?"
+
+"Yes," says I, "but I don't mean to encourage backsliding and worldly
+amusements in Christian leaders. They have no business here."
+
+"But they are not particularly Christians," says he.
+
+"I should think not," says I; "and the Churches that sent them here
+ought to know how they are going on."
+
+"But the Churches did not send that gentleman. It was the Queen."
+
+"Exactly," said I; "and isn't she the head of the Church. No, no,
+cousin, you can't make excuses for them."
+
+"But their mission is political," says he.
+
+"Of course," says I. Church and State--I understood."
+
+A whole lot of candles, white as snow, were burning over the wide doors.
+That opened into another long room where a great picture, worked with a
+needle, years and years ago, hung on the wall, and crowds of people were
+moving about. Then came a storm of music, and I saw one of the ministers
+teetering off with a lady as if he were going to dance again.
+
+"I declare I won't look on," says I to Dempster; "take me somewhere
+else."
+
+He did take me into a little room full of books, and there--standing
+round a table on which a great giant of a china bowl stood, filled to
+the brim with punch, on which slices of lemon floated temptingly--we
+found some more of them ministers, each one with a full glass in his
+hand.
+
+Sisters, I stood there like a monument, and saw them drink that punch
+with my own eyes--more than one glass apiece, too. Ministers, indeed!
+
+While we stood watching them in one door, they went out by another, and
+then Dempster took us in.
+
+E. E. sat down on a sofa; so did I. Dempster went up to the great bowl,
+and began to dip out the punch with a big silver ladle as if it had been
+soup. He filled two glasses. A slice of lemon floated on each one; they
+looked deliciously cool, and I was thirsty. Sisters, I took that glass,
+and I drank of the punch. After that I began to feel more charitable
+toward the foreign ministers. In fact, I rather think a sweeter and more
+benevolent feeling came over me in all respects, for a soft mistiness
+settled on the crowd, and the dancers were peculiarly mazy. I felt
+myself smiling blandly, and, in fact, glided into a state of dreamy
+enjoyment that was pleasant.
+
+The music stopped; the dancers locked arms, and moved toward an open
+door through which a fresh flood of light was pouring. We followed into
+a great tent, hung all round with damask linen. Two long tables, loaded
+down with great vases full of fruit and flowers; steeples, and towers,
+and baskets, made out of candy, and running over with sugar things;
+peaches, and grapes, and all sorts of fruit, natural as life, but candy
+to the core--all delicious and gorgeous and--well, I haven't language to
+express it; but the whole thing was sumptuous.
+
+All down and around these two long tables great wreaths of flowers and
+leaves, half buried in moss, made a border of bloom, and over them the
+light came pouring, while the music sounded nearer and nearer, and the
+crowd poured in.
+
+Really, sisters, I can say no more. That whole scene was more than I can
+describe. It just sent me home dizzy with bewilderment.
+
+
+
+
+LVIII.
+
+DOWN THE POTOMAC.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--The Father of our Country was a great man--no doubt on
+that subject. He conducted a war on small means and with few men, which
+gave us a country that will be a crowning glory of all ages, if we don't
+melt down and go to nothing under the hot sunshine of our own
+prosperity. He was a great man and a good boy, not because he cut down
+the cherry-tree and wouldn't lie about it, for good boys and great men
+are not made out of one action, but a harmonious character which
+produces many good actions.
+
+Then again, I am not so certain that the action was what it is cracked
+up to be, anyway. In the first place, good little boys don't cut down
+their father's fruit-trees. Generally, they like to climb them a great
+deal better, especially when the cherries are ripe. I know that--being a
+girl, who could have borrowed a hatchet and made myself immortal by
+chopping instead of climbing to pick half-green cherries, which I did,
+and tore my frock, besides getting a pain in the--well, heart, which two
+things betrayed me just as the little hatchet betrayed George.
+
+Now, when my mother asked me what the mischief I'd been about, I didn't
+think of saying I couldn't lie, because I could, and longed to do it;
+but I knew that New England women would find me out and give me double
+"jessie" if I piled a whopper on top of the green cherries and torn
+frock, so I told her I didn't know, being conservative--took my whipping
+like a man and a trooper, scorning to cover up two sins under one pious
+truth.
+
+I didn't follow George Washington's example, for two reasons. First, I
+had never heard of the hatchet; and again, the story don't wash to a
+degree that is expected of high-priced morality. When the youthful boy,
+Father of our Country, said he _couldn't_ lie, he was a-doing it that
+very minute. What boy ever lived that couldn't lie? Lying is born in
+'em, and they take to it as naturally as a kitten laps milk.
+
+The fellow that wrote that story was a botch. Why didn't he make little
+George say, "Father, I won't tell a lie; so there--I cut down the
+cherry-tree with my little hatchet."
+
+There would have been something heroic and above-board about that--a
+struggle against temptation foreshadowed, and a brave determination to
+stand up to the rack, fodder or no fodder, worthy of a boy that meant to
+be father of the man, who in his turn was the father of his country,
+thus doing up all his paternity in a wholesale way. But to say he
+couldn't was so sneakingly good that I don't believe it of him. In fact,
+I don't believe one word of the story.
+
+Put that down on the records of your Society.
+
+Of course, one never thinks of George Washington, that a nice boy,
+showing a hatchet, does not come in as the first picture.
+
+The reason I happened to think of it was an invitation to go in a
+Government steamboat down to Mount Vernon, Washington's old homestead,
+and see the tomb where he was buried.
+
+Of course I wanted to go. When the President of these United States gets
+out a Government steamboat on purpose to carry a distinguished New
+England female down to the tomb of her country's forefathers, it's an
+honor she's bound to accept.
+
+I did accept it with enthusiasm, and at once invited Cousin Dempster and
+E. E. to go with me, for it always gives me pleasure to act as a sun to
+their moon.
+
+The Japanese were invited to join me on the boat, and as many as two
+hundred other people were allowed to go down, which I was rather glad
+of--they being amongst the best--and my nature being social, as you
+know.
+
+Well, between nine and ten in the morning, we drove up to the Navy
+Yard--a place where the Government builds the ships that are always
+being altered, and mended, and made worse than they were before. It's
+like a village on the water, is this Navy Yard, with a high wall around
+it, and a gate big enough for our carriage to go through, which it did,
+taking us down to the water in fine style.
+
+"Do you want to go on board the 'Tallapoosa'?" says a man on the wharf.
+
+"The 'Tallapoosa'!" says I to Dempster. "What outlandish thing is that?"
+
+"The steamboat," says he.
+
+"Well, why don't they call it a steamboat?" says I; "such airs!"
+
+With that, I jumped out of the carriage, taking a neat dancing step as I
+touched the ground, and spread my parasol.
+
+Just then another carriage drove up, choke full of little dark men.
+
+"It is the Japanese," says Dempster.
+
+"The Japanese! How can you say so?" says I. "Where are their punch-bowl
+hats and stiff veils?"
+
+"Oh," says Dempster, "they have given those things up, and dress just as
+we do now."
+
+"Dear me!" says I, a-looking into the carriage from under a slope of my
+parasol. "How funny they look with stovepipe hats, and boots, too--oh
+my!"
+
+The Japanese were getting out of their carriage, but they seemed as if
+afraid of straining too hard on their clothes, and stepped on the ground
+as if it was paved with eggs.
+
+Bang!
+
+"Oh, goodness gracious!"
+
+It was I that screamed out these words, and I hopped up at least half a
+yard from the ground, for somewhere, close by, a great gun went
+off--roaring over the water, like thunder.
+
+"What does that mean? Does anybody want to murder us?" says I, shaking
+like a poplar-leaf.
+
+"No, no," says he, "they are only saluting us."
+
+"Saluting _me_?" says I. "How dare they? Of course they knew I should
+jump and scream. So loud, too! No young girl would stand it."
+
+With that, I lifted my parasol, and walked across the plank on to the
+deck of that steamboat, and sat down.
+
+Them Japanese came after, and sat down close to me. Mr. Iwakura looked
+at me, and I looked at him. He smiled, and I smiled. This Japanee knows
+how to smile with his eyes, and that's more than a good many other men
+can do.
+
+Then I felt it my duty to talk a little, as these Japanese had been
+invited on my account; so, thinking that he would expect something
+original from me, I said:
+
+"I think we shall have a pleasant day, Mr. Iwakura."
+
+"Yes," says he, in real cunning English, looking as if he appreciated my
+little speech.
+
+"I really hope," says I, "that you and your friends will feel quite at
+home."
+
+He said "Yes," again, and smiled.
+
+That smile was catching.
+
+"I wonder if Mr. I. left a wife behind to languish for that peculiar
+expression? If not--"
+
+I checked these roving thoughts as incompatible with former ideas.
+
+The steamboat was puffing and blowing, and giving a scream now and then.
+It began to tremble--it veered and made a slow plunge down the river.
+The decks were crowded with ladies and gentlemen--all smiling
+happy--that seeming to be overjoyed to have the pleasure of coming with
+me.
+
+The Potomac River is just lovely. All the trees along its banks were
+budding and feathering out with greenness. We passed by a town. Then a
+great round heap of stone walls, that they called the Fort. The grass
+was green around it, and some soldiers came out on the walls to look at
+us as we swept by.
+
+It was pleasant; I felt the occasion to be something like that on which
+that Egyptian woman went down the River Nile in a row boat; so I lowered
+my parasol as we passed the Fort.
+
+At last the steamboat made a dead stop in the river. We were right
+opposite Mount Vernon. I looked at the sacred old place from the water.
+It was lovely in itself, standing there on a high knoll, carpeted with
+soft spring grass, and with tall trees a-bending over it. The sunshine
+lay on the water and the shore, but that old house was a good deal in
+shadow, and all the more pleasant for that.
+
+Some smaller boats came up to the steamboat. We got into them and went
+ashore.
+
+
+
+
+LIX.
+
+MOUNT VERNON.
+
+
+Mount Vernon had looked lonesome enough till now; but when we all landed
+it was like a picture. We wandered about; we broke up into little
+crowds, and the whole place was alive with happy people.
+
+Mr. Iwakura and the rest of the Japanese walked slowly up the road.
+Dempster, E. E., and I went with them till we came to a tomb dug into
+the bank, with an iron fence before it.
+
+Iwakura took off his stove-pipe hat and held it, just as if he had been
+at a funeral. The rest did the same, looking sad and touchingly solemn.
+
+I dropped my parasol low, to hide the tears that came gushing up to my
+eyes, without warning. Cousin E. E. began to sob.
+
+I turned away, longing to creep off into some dark corner, and have a
+good cry all by myself.
+
+A good many of the people had gone up to the old homestead which is
+spread out low on the ground, and has a stoop with pillars running all
+along the front. From this stoop you can see the bend of the river and
+the blue of its water through the trees. There was a well near by that
+put me in mind of home; a lot of girls were drinking from the bucket,
+and chirruping together like birds around a spring.
+
+I didn't like the sound just then, and went into the hall-way of the old
+homestead. There was nothing worth while in it but a great, big, heavy
+key, covered with rust, and big enough to knock a man down with.
+
+"This," says a gentleman, a-standing close by me, "is the key of the
+Bastille."
+
+I jumped back.
+
+"What!" says I--"that old prison in Paris, where men were buried alive,
+without trial?"
+
+"The same," says he. "Lafayette gave it to General Washington."
+
+I felt myself shuddering, but said nothing. The subject struck me dumb.
+We went upstairs into the chamber where Washington died. It was not over
+large, and low in the joints; but the windows looked out on the trees
+and the river, which took away some of its gloominess. Nothing but a
+bedstead, with high, spindling posts, was there.
+
+"Did he die on that?" says I to a gentleman near me.
+
+"No," says he, "but on a bedstead just like it."
+
+I turned away. What business had a sham bedstead in that room? The idea
+of it riled up something besides sympathy in my bosom. I had rather see
+bare walls than a bedstead _like_ the one he died on. Why don't they
+take it down?
+
+We went into the parlor. It isn't over-large, and looks cheery. An old,
+coffin-shaped piano was there, with broken wires; some old china plates
+and dishes were piled together. That was about all.
+
+I couldn't stand it. The tomb had sunshine about it, and wasn't half so
+gloomy. The hall-door was open, and I went out. A little way from the
+house was Washington's flower-garden, where a few jonquills and crocuses
+were spotting the earth with yellow. Near that was a large brick house,
+long and low, crowded full of plants which had flowers on them.
+
+This wasn't Washington's greenhouse, but a brand new one, which looked
+like a spring bonnet worn with a ten-year old dress. This riled me too.
+It seemed to me that the old homestead should be kept just as Washington
+left it. Newfangled improvements are an aggravation.
+
+Before I came away from Washington there was a good deal of talk about
+the lady who lives here and takes charge, but I couldn't for the life of
+me find out anything that seemed extravagant or wrong about her. The
+truth is, the ladies of this country have spent years collecting money
+to buy Mount Vernon, and make it a place sacred to the nation, but they
+failed in obtaining a fund large enough to maintain it with honor.
+
+The society give this lady no remunerative salary, and nothing but a
+pure missionary spirit could keep her in that dull and mournful place.
+If she raises money enough to keep the homestead in repair, it is all
+any one ought to ask, and all the nation wants. But for my part, I scorn
+this quiddling way of making money. There is a meanness about it that
+disgraces the nation.
+
+The thing that should be done is this: put the whole concern into the
+hands of Congress. It ought to belong to the nation. Washington was not
+the saviour of a lot of women only, but of the whole country. Let the
+country have possession of his old home, and appropriate all the money
+needed to keep it in perfect order, as Washington left it. If the women
+of America raised money enough to buy the estate for no better purpose
+than to peddle out a sight of Washington's tomb for twenty-five cents a
+sight, and keep flowers to sell, they have sent their patriotism to a
+mighty small retail market.
+
+Well, in the afternoon we all went on board the steamboat again, and had
+a good time running up and down the river, which is just one of the
+things I should like to do every day; for the day was bright enough to
+keep one out-doors forever, if it would only have lasted so long.
+
+When we had got out of sight of Mount Vernon, a band of music came on
+deck, and played like anything, while we went down into the cabin, one
+party at a time, and ate dinner, which tasted delicious, I can tell
+you--to say nothing of the bottled cider, and such like, that kept the
+corks a-flying about like bullets.
+
+It is wonderful what smartness that cider gives to a person. It sparkles
+through one like the first spring sap in a maple-tree.
+
+When I went on deck again, my limbs felt springy as a steel trap, and I
+couldn't help dancing along, for a band of fiddlers and toot-horns was
+a-pouring out music, that, joined to the cider, was enough to make one
+want to dance with her own grandfather.
+
+They did dance, sisters--I own it, with shame and contrition. I joined
+in with the other young girls, and flatter myself they know by this time
+what a genuine Virginia reel is.
+
+Forgive me, I know it wasn't just the thing for a church member to do,
+especially while returning from that tomb; but bottled cider and
+fiddlers must be a stronger power in the hands of the Evil One than
+anything I have tried yet; and more church members, and ever so much
+older persons than me, just made that deck shake with their dancing,
+half the way up that beautiful river.
+
+Still, my head aches this morning, and I have a sort of backsliding
+feeling. The truth is, Tombs and Virginia reels don't seem to gibe in
+together.
+
+
+
+
+LX.
+
+MR. GREELEY'S NOMINATION.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--What do you think of the dear old Mountain State now?
+Have you reason to be proud of her, or have you not? Do you understand
+what she has done lately in the way of literature--in the female line, I
+mean--and now, only think of it, the next President of the United States
+is expected from that sacred and hilly soil.
+
+I know that Vermont will be almost tickled to death about this. It will
+be a crown of glory to her mountains, and a song of rejoicing in her
+valleys. The sap in her maple-trees will start earlier, run brighter,
+and sugar off more gloriously than it has ever done before. Up to this
+time, Vermont has never had her share of honors at the national Capitol,
+but now her time has come.
+
+I am so glad I went to Mr. Greeley's birthday party, and I haven't a
+doubt that a great many other persons feel pretty much as I do about
+it. When I shook hands with him there, and saw him standing in the midst
+of his friends, with his kind face looking smooth and enticing as a
+sweet baked apple, I little thought it might be the next President of
+these United States that was enjoying himself over a birthday. But
+things do get tangled and untangled dreadfully in this world of
+ours--don't they? and the most uncertain thing on this side of sundown
+is any man's destiny. The most certain thing is the popularity of
+success. It seems to me now as if I think considerable more of this
+great Vermonter than I did last week, but what has he done to make
+me?--that's what I should like to know. He's just the same man; has just
+as many faults--no great new supply of virtues. In fact, what has he
+done this week more than he did last, that I should feel a sort of honor
+and glory in being his friend?
+
+I have been putting these questions to myself, and the answer makes me
+feel a little meachen. I am the missionary of one of the most august
+bodies that can be found in this or any other country. I represent a
+body of blameless, heroic ladies, whose glory it is to be above
+prejudice, and capable of self-judgment--ladies that are ladies, and
+wish to set an example of Christian womanliness to their own sex and the
+rest of mankind, feeling that "the eyes of all Vermont are upon them."
+
+I am all this, yet I feel the humiliation of thinking all the better of
+a man because a great hullabaloo of other men have declared before the
+world that they want him for President of these United States. This is
+weak, but natural--natural, but awfully weak. Why should we let crowds
+of men we never saw judge for us? But then, how are we to judge for
+ourselves?
+
+After all, this self-government is a difficult thing to carry out. What
+man really does govern himself?--either through his brain, or heart,
+some one else governs him. He gives himself up by the wholesale to a
+crowd, or by retail to his own family.
+
+In the parlor of our hotel last night there was nothing but confusion
+and commotion. I went down there with Cousin E. E., for we all felt the
+glory that had settled down on us in a reflected way, and longed to
+enjoy it before folks. So down we went, trying to look as if nothing was
+the matter, but feeling the smiles quivering and playing about our lips
+like lady-bugs about an open rose.
+
+The parlors were full. Everybody had something to say. Some were
+smiling, some looked ready to cry, and others looked grim as gunlocks;
+but most of the faces we saw were beaming like a harvest moon.
+
+As for me, I felt--yes, as the poet says, "I felt--I felt like a morning
+star."
+
+"Well, Miss Frost, how do you like it?" says a little mite of a woman,
+with pink ribbons spreading out on her bosom. "What do you think of the
+nomination?"
+
+"Think?" says I. "Why, this is what I think--the sun will rise and set
+on the top of the Green Mountains like a crown of glory, after this."
+
+"Will Vermont go for him?" says another, cutting in.
+
+"Will the mountains stand on their old rocky base?" says I. "What a
+question!"
+
+"Then you think it will?"
+
+"Think! I know it will. When did that glorious old State neglect one of
+her own sons?"
+
+"But it's so strange!" snivelled the little woman.
+
+"Strange!" says I; "what is strange?"
+
+"Why, that Mr. Greeley should be nominated."
+
+"Well," says I, with cutting irony, "do you think it strange that the
+people of this country should choose an honest man once in a while?
+ain't we always ready to reward merit? Haven't we done it in the
+military way with General Grant? Haven't we a right to go into a new
+field? First the sword, now the pen."
+
+"Oh! not that; but--but--"
+
+"Well, but what?"
+
+"He's so--so peculiar."
+
+"Yes, he is," says I, "if integrity, simple good faith, and sound sense
+is peculiar--and I begin to think it is."
+
+"Do you know him, Miss Frost?"
+
+I drew myself up, and that feeling I have spoken of came over me. It was
+a temptation, and--well, I and Mrs. Eve are a little alike in our
+feminine weaknesses; I'm glad I have Bible support in the disposition to
+fib a little that comes over me.
+
+"Do I know him?" said I. "Yes, intimately."
+
+"Ah!" says she.
+
+"You can judge how intimately," says I, smitten with compunction, and
+craw-fishing down into a deceiving truth, "when I tell you that I was an
+honored guest at his birthday party."
+
+"You don't say so!" says she.
+
+I didn't feel bound to remind her that I had said so, and only drew
+myself up a trifle, and waved my fan back and forth with a dignified
+movement.
+
+"And you really think well of him? But, then, he is an editor, and
+authors always have a sort of affinity for gentlemen of the press," says
+a pert young creature, twisting her head on one side, and coming up to
+me.
+
+"I think well of him," says I, "because he is a man that has worked his
+way up in the world by the hardest; studied wisdom from the type he was
+setting, when he had no time for books; worked like a Trojan to support
+himself days, then sat up half the night to improve his mind. Mr.
+Greeley is in all respects a self-made man. This nomination is but the
+proper and natural crown of a busy life like his, of integrity like his,
+and of wisdom like his."
+
+"You talk earnestly," says a gentleman, coming up into the little crowd
+that grew thick around me.
+
+"Because I feel earnestly," says I, a-doubling up my fan, and laying
+down the law with it. "I don't pretend to know a great deal about
+politics, but I do know something about the history of my country, and
+it has never been better governed than when self-made men have ruled
+over it; but here is something more--the editor of a great daily journal
+is gathering up knowledge and wisdom every day of his life. He has
+opportunities for watching events and judging of actions that prepare
+his own mind for the exercise of power when it comes. "Why," says I,
+warming up, "the greatest statesmen that you have are editors and
+self-made men. The fact is, men who have worked their own way in the
+world, haven't time to be rogues, and very seldom are even grasping. It
+is your lazy fellow, who lives by the cunning that he calls wits, who is
+not to be trusted. For my part, as two candidates have to be in the
+field to have a good run, I am glad that those Cincinnati folks had the
+sense to take a man right out of the bosom of the people to govern the
+people. Brought up so close to the public heart, he'll know how it
+beats. Having been a working man, he'll know how to feel for toilers
+like himself, just as General Grant now feels for the soldiers."
+
+"You talk like a book," says the young lady, a-twisting her head the
+other way.
+
+"I didn't know till you told me, miss, that books did talk," says I,
+opening my fan again.
+
+"Oh, yes, they do," says she, giggling.
+
+"Bound to talk, I suppose," says I, a-smiling in my usual bland way.
+
+They all laughed at this, but the girl looked around as if she wondered
+what it was all about.
+
+I just made a little inclination of the head, and went on:
+
+"We were speaking of self-made men, I think," says I; "such men have
+drifted away from New England, like shooting stars. Wherever they may
+shine, New England is proud of them, and claims them as her own; for
+this reason; and because I love my country, I am glad Horace Greeley is
+on the highway to be its next President. With him and Grant running neck
+to neck, I shan't care much which beats."
+
+
+
+
+LXI.
+
+WOMEN AND THINGS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I wish you could have seen that stuck-up thing, with all
+the color taken out of her hair, perking herself up for an argument with
+me. All the people in the room had crowded round us, which set her all
+in a flutter.
+
+"Oh, pray excuse me," says she, a-shaking her curls, "we are broaching
+into politics, and I assure you," says she, a-primming herself up, "I
+know nothing about such subjects."
+
+"Why," says I, "you speak as if ignorance were something to be proud
+of."
+
+"I--I do not pretend to know anything of politics, at any rate," says
+she, a-coloring up with inward madness.
+
+"Indeed, what is politics," says I. "The history of the present? Why
+should the most refined lady on earth be ignorant of one period of
+history more than another?"
+
+"Politics are things going on at the present time, and no real lady is
+expected to take interest in them," says she.
+
+"What is the present time? The breath we are drawing--nothing more. That
+very breath has now gone into the past, which is history. All the rest
+is guess-work and prophecy," says I.
+
+"Dear me, how strong-minded you are," says she, giving her curls a toss;
+"I suppose you would be splendidly eloquent on Woman's Rights too."
+
+"No," said I, "all my life I have had more rights than I have known how
+to use, so I leave that question to persons who have no better field of
+ambition. Mine happens to be of a different kind. I want to make women
+wise, good, generous, faithful to duties that come down to them from
+their mothers. I want to improve women, miss, not turn them into
+contemptible men."
+
+"By talking politics?" says she, as saucy as a sour apple; "what is the
+good of that if you don't go in for voting?"
+
+"What is the good of any knowledge which may be turned into blessings by
+woman's influence?" says I, blandly.
+
+"Then you believe that women ought to have influence in politics," says
+she.
+
+"I think that women should have influence everywhere," said I, "but only
+as women. We are governed through the heart, and those finer portions of
+the intellect that people call taste. Men plant the grain and timber of
+every-day life with their strong hands, which God made for that very
+purpose. We women fill in the hollows and crevices and swelling banks
+with flowers and ferns and delicate shade-trees, which make the vigorous
+work of their strong hands beautiful."
+
+Sisters, I said this to that stuck-up girl because I wanted to express
+an opinion on this subject--first, because it was my opinion, and again,
+because I know that it is yours, going as you do for it in a spirit of
+feminine spontaneosity. I don't want the nature of our Society
+misunderstood. We are not Woman's Righters, nor Woman's Wrongers, but
+straight out women, wanting nothing better on this earth than to be just
+as God made us, with a full, free, and generous development of all the
+femininities that belong to the sex.
+
+For my part, I don't want to be a man; his work is too rough and hard
+for me. His thoughts have too heavy and coarse a grain. His clothes
+wouldn't fit me any better than his thoughts and duties.
+
+We being women, according to a beneficent God's intention, have got
+enough to occupy a whole life in the same path that our good old New
+England mothers trod. We don't want to get out of that path into any
+other, and we don't mean to entice the children that are growing up
+amongst us into an idea that pure-thinking, hard-working womanliness
+isn't the highest and best destiny that God has yet given to his
+creatures.
+
+I have no patience with women who scorn their own sex so much that they
+would rather turn into weak, meddlesome men than work, study, bring up
+children, and live as high-souled, loving women should. As for voting
+and all that, it's just turning gold into brass, and getting nothing but
+the baser metal for change.
+
+Why, influence is a thousand times sweeter and more certain than legal
+power, and that is given to every woman who loves and is beloved.
+
+As for my part, I should be ashamed if I couldn't persuade ever so many
+men to do any right thing I wanted. Shouldn't I be a fool to swap off
+that influence for the rights that only one man owns for himself?
+
+If women want power, let them be sweet, good, and persuasive, wise
+enough to have their opinions command respect, and bright enough to
+enforce them pleasantly. That is the way to move nations, if the mind of
+woman ever can do it. At any rate, it is the way to govern families and
+make them respectable in the next generation; and out of families
+nations are made.
+
+"Have you ever noticed one thing?" says I to the people about me.
+"Whenever women get dissatisfied with themselves and hanker after the
+rights of men, the very foundations of life seem to be breaking up all
+around us. Marriage ties fall into ashes like fire in hatcheled flax,
+morals are burned up, families torn to pieces, and society falls into
+revolt against law and religion. When women begin to hanker after votes,
+they hanker after divorces too, and, while they want unlimited power
+with men, throw away the noblest of all power over men--that of honest
+respect and a sacred consciousness of protecting."
+
+If women will break through all the delicate safeguards and childlike
+purity which keeps them so much above men, that they are aspired after
+and worshipped, let them take the consequences. To be hustled in
+conventions, hissed off from platforms, and received with hidden sneers
+by three-fourths of mankind, doesn't seem to me half so pleasant and
+respectable as the friendship of one's neighbors, and the love of one's
+own family; but, if they like it better, I haven't the least mite of an
+objection. Only such things force an honest woman into awful bad
+company once in a while, and it sometimes happens that ambition leads
+them to shake hands with persons that sweet charity itself could never
+persuade the best of them to touch with a ten-foot pole.
+
+"Don't think," says I, "that I go against female progress, or would stop
+its infinite capabilities--far from it. There are questions mixed up
+with this subject that ought to have our warmest sympathy and most
+ardent help. Female labor is one of them, and in that lies the greatest
+moral question of these times.
+
+"When a woman finds herself doing the work nature carved out for her,
+with a man crowding her out, doing no more, yet getting double pay, only
+because he happens to be a man, it is a burning shame and disgrace to
+both sexes. If that injustice can't be swept away by fair means, I go in
+for trying any that a female woman can handle without bringing herself
+down to a level with the males who seem to be as sick of being men as
+some of our sex are of being women.
+
+"Still, it seems to me that the best way of doing this is by such
+appeals for justice as have brought the women of New York State more
+freedom than they know what to do with. At this day there is no legal
+slavery for any woman in the great Empire State. The fact is, the women
+there have got their feet on the necks of the men. But this don't
+satisfy them, and they are all the time crying out for more, as the
+Scripture says, like the leeches--which is a passage of Scripture that I
+never have quite understood, because leeches in our day suck your
+_blood_ without asking, and I never yet heard of one who went farther
+than a bite in the way of crying out.
+
+"Excuse me," says I, drawing breath, "if I sometimes digress, and turn
+down a Scripture path in search of scientific truth or illustration. I
+was saying that a woman in New York State is to all intents and purposes
+master of herself--herself and husband too. If she has money when a poor
+fellow marries her, it is all her own to do with as she has a mind to,
+just as much as if she had never been married at all. But he has to
+support her, anyway, keep up the house, pay all the bills, settle her
+debts, if she is mean enough to make them, and she can be hoarding up
+her own money all the time, while he has no more right to touch a cent
+of it than the man in the moon.
+
+"More than this; when he dies, she comes in for a full third of his real
+estate for life, and has half his personal property, to sell, give away,
+or do with as she pleases. If _she_ dies, he cannot touch a red cent.
+Then, again, she can sell all the real estate that belongs to her,
+without so much as asking his advice, but he cannot sell an acre or a
+wood-shed, and give a clear title, without her written name to the deed.
+Then, again, if he earns money, the law makes him support her; if she
+earns money, he has no right to a cent of it.
+
+"Poor, downtrodden creatures are these women of New York State--don't
+you think so," says I. "Is it a wonder they get dissatisfied with their
+hardships, and hanker after more power, more freedom, and less work?
+When marriage is so profitable, is it strange that some of them want a
+great deal of it, and go through the divorce courts three or four times
+with a rush, picking up scraps of alimony and leaving scraps of
+reputation along the way.
+
+"If it wasn't that I mean to stand by my own sex through thick and thin,
+I should say that the laws lean a trifle over on the woman's side in
+York State; but, being a woman, I keep a lively thinking, while the
+other poor, downtrodden souls rush to the women's rights meetings, and
+wring their hands in desperation over the wrongs I have just explained."
+
+"But what has this to do with your Society?" says Cousin E. E.
+
+"Everything. We are in for Infinite Progress. We want women to be all
+that God intended them to be--the full companions and helpmates of men.
+We want them to cultivate all the Christian and kindly virtues, not only
+because they make women lovely and beloved, but because men are
+humanized, softened, and made better by such help and such
+companionship. When men seek peace, rest, the inspirations of prayer,
+they turn at once to us for tender guidance and sympathy. Would they do
+that if we elbowed them at the polls, or held knock-down arguments at
+the primary elections? No, no! If we can soften human misery, strengthen
+weakness, make women wiser and men better, it is all that the best woman
+among us can ask."
+
+Sisters, I had got too much in earnest. I felt the blood come like a
+dash of wine into my face. It seemed to me as if I were on a platform,
+lecturing, and the thought covered me with confusion, like a crimson
+garment. I bent my head slightly, and went away dreadfully ashamed of
+myself.
+
+
+
+
+LXII.
+
+A TRIP TO ANNAPOLIS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Another of those pleasant excursional entertainments
+which this nation gives to genius in the female line has been offered to
+me, and I accepted. For my part, I think the country ought to be
+encouraged in giving these little testimonials to her favored children.
+She hasn't done much of that in former years, but has practised a good
+deal more on foreigners than she has ever thought of doing where
+home-made writers are concerned.
+
+Them Japanee potentials always seem to go along when an entertainment is
+got up for me, and, if that didn't rather mix things up, I should be
+glad of it; for Mr. Iwakura is just splendid in his black coat and
+stovepipe hat, and talks beautifully with his little black eyes; I feel
+it in my bones he has not left a heathenish impediment behind, or
+anything that ought to stand between him and a wife who might carry
+fresh missionary spirit into his benighted land.
+
+Of course, all the other Japanees were on hand, and seemed to feel proud
+and chipper, as if the party had been made for them instead of me; but I
+didn't mind that a bit. Even if they did think so, what harm? There is
+so much happiness in delusions, that I wouldn't rob those nice-looking
+heathens of one for the world.
+
+Besides the Japanees, a very distinguished party had been invited to go
+with me, and I couldn't help but feel the whole thing a triumph.
+
+There was Postmaster-General Creswell, with a head of hair and a beard
+that warmed you, it was so silky and bright. There was his wife, too, a
+real pretty creature, with manners as sweet as her face; and Mrs. Fish,
+almost a mate for a lady I will not name for queenliness; and Governor
+Cook with his wife. Besides these, there were lots of young people, and
+old people, and middle-aged people, filling car after car, till we had a
+whole train all to ourselves. The party was large, but so is a genuine
+New England heart, and I managed to make them all welcome in an
+off-handed, queenly way, which I hope was understood. It certainly was
+by Mr. Iwakura, who lifted his stovepipe hat and bowed like a native
+Vermonter before he sat down.
+
+Sisters, I do think there is a meaning in that--a Japanee isn't likely
+to study the elegancies of our manners for nothing. Still, I wish he
+wasn't a heathen. The Greek Church of Russia sat heavy on my conscience,
+but a heathen! I shall have to meet all this politeness with the icy
+chill of Christian reserve, unless--the thing is possible, for, to love,
+all things are so--that heathen should adopt our religion with the
+stovepipe hat.
+
+There was a thing that troubled me a good deal before I came away from
+the hotel that morning. I have been told that Mr. Grant and our Vermont
+statesman have got up a little spirit of rivalry about being
+President--a thing I never dreamed of, they seemed such good friends,
+and, till now, I thought Mr. Grant had kind of half invited his old
+friend to take the chair. But it isn't so by any manner of means, and
+I'm afraid there may be some little dispute about it in the end, which
+will be unpleasant to those who like them both.
+
+Now, sisters, here comes in the benefit of being a female, which is
+great in such perplexing cases. Female women are not expected to be
+consistent, and they're not expected to take sides for any great length
+of time. They can just climb any fence that comes handy, and sit on it
+with the dignity of hen turkeys at sundown if they have a mind to, and
+no one has a right to scare them up. But, considering myself as an
+exceptional female, whose duty it is to have ideas, I scorn the fence,
+and come right up to the crib, corn or no corn.
+
+It is a duty I owe to the State, and from that I shall never turn aside.
+Besides--I own it boldly--in this case duty and a hilarious state of
+pleasure unite and make me jubilant as a Fourth of July salute. I like
+Greeley because he is first-rate as an author, an editor, and a man. I
+admire Grant as a brave soldier and as a man too, but then, the old
+State! I don't care who knows it--from this day out, white is my color.
+
+But, feeling this in my very bones, how could I accept the great
+national compliment of a special train filled with admiring friends from
+the Government, which is General Grant?
+
+I spoke of this to Cousin Dempster, and, says he:
+
+"This makes no difference in the world. Take all you can from the
+Government. That is high patriotism."
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"Cousin," says I, "it kind of seems to me that this special train is a
+sort of a trap. How can I, a free-born Vermonter--national in some
+respects, and brimming over with first-class patriotism, but Vermont to
+the back-bone--first and foremost, lead off a party like this, one car
+choke full of Mr. Grant's cabinet people. Now, if Mr. Greeley and Mr.
+Grant should rile up against each other--which I hope they won't--don't
+you see that I am in an awful mixed position?--the National Government
+on one side with that stupendous soldier at the head, and that great
+white-hatted Vermonter on the other?"
+
+"That is, you want to be neutral," says Dempster.
+
+"Well, yes--kind of neutral," says I, "and a little for both."
+
+"Not exactly on the fence, but cautious," says he; "keep your boat in
+harbor till the tide rises and the wind blows, then hoist sail and catch
+up with the old craft that has been tugging on in shallow water?"
+
+"No," says I, feeling the old Puritan blood beginning to boil up. "That
+may answer for some people, but not for me. An idea has just struck me;
+a woman's political ideas should be suggested, not proclaimed."
+
+Without speaking another word, I put on my things, went right down to
+Pennsylvania Avenue, and bought a soft white hat, a little broad in the
+brim, which I turned up on one side. Then I went into a milliner's
+store, carrying it in my hand, and made a woman curl a long white
+feather over the crown, which gave the whole affair a touch of the
+beehive, stamping it with beautiful femininity.
+
+With this hat on my head, and a double-breasted white jacket over my
+black alpaca, I took my honored place in the cars that day.
+
+Of course I sat in the cabinet car, feeling myself the sole
+representative of Vermont in that august company. The ladies looked at
+me sidewise when I came in; some of the cabinet men half winked at each
+other and tried to smile. But that white hat was no laughing matter, and
+they wilted down before it.
+
+
+
+
+LXIII.
+
+AMONG THE CADETS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--The train started, and there I sat in my glory till we
+got to Annapolis, just the sleepiest town, crowded full of the oldest
+houses and the slowest people that I ever saw in my born days. Some
+colored persons were dawdling around the depot, and a few lazy white
+folks passing down the street, stopped to look at us as we got out of
+the cars. Especially my white hat and double-breasted jacket seemed to
+take them.
+
+Once I heard something that sounded like the beginning of a cheer, but
+the voices were so lazy that they couldn't carry it out, so it muttered
+itself to death, and that was the end of it.
+
+Twenty of the Japanees were with me when I alighted from the car and
+spread my white parasol, which hovered like a dove over us, for I made
+it flutter beautifully as we passed along.
+
+The cabinet people followed after, and just as we were forming to go
+down street, like a military training, my white hat and feather leading
+them on, a gentleman came up to us and began to shake hands all round.
+He was a tall, genteel sort of a person, with light hair and a beard
+soft and silky as corn tassels; but all under his eyes, blue powder
+marks were scattered, as if he'd spent half his life firing off Fourth
+of July powder salutes, and had burst up on some of them.
+
+While I was wondering who it could be, Mr. Robeson, who has some
+dealings with navy yards and shipping, come up to where I stood, and
+says he:
+
+"Miss Frost, allow me to present Commodore Worden, the gentleman who
+distinguished himself on the first Monitor."
+
+Sisters, that minute the powder marks on Worden's handsome face were
+glorified in my eyes. I reached out my hands. I pressed his, my beaming
+eyes covered him with particular admiration. Feeling as if I were the
+colonel of that company, I longed to lift my white hat and give him a
+military salute. What I did say was significant.
+
+"Worden," says I, "when certain events come about--I say nothing, but
+this hat and jacket are typical of what I mean--when these great and
+luminous events fill the hemisphere your glorious bravery on that iron
+flat-boat shall have its full record. I will myself send your picture to
+the great Grand Duke of all the Russias, and if there is a higher notch
+in the public shipping than you have, I know nothing of the friend whose
+colors I wear if anybody stands before you. I have seen the picture of
+your Monitor. To my eye it looks like a flat-iron, with the handle in
+the water; but it did good work, and so did you. Grant knows it. My own
+immortal statesman will appreciate it."
+
+Commodore Worden bowed, and smiled, and squoze my hand so long that I
+began to feel anxious about my white gloves. But he dropped it at last,
+and we all moved on, my white feather waving in front, just like that
+which King Henry of Navarre wore in battles. Only mine was a peaceful
+emblem, dyed in the milk of human kindness, and curled up in the
+sunshine of prosperity.
+
+We marched through dull streets and round deserted corners, cutting in
+and out every which way till we came to a large gate, which shut the
+Navy Yard out from the rest of mankind.
+
+Then we filed through into a beautiful meadow, with the grass cut short,
+sprinkled over with trees, and cut into footpaths. Part of it was
+bounded by water, the rest by rows of handsome houses and great
+buildings that looked like factories shut up for want of work.
+
+The minute I and Mr. Iwakura walked through the gate, bang! went a
+cannon; bang, bang, bang! seventeen times.
+
+"What on earth is that?" says I, turning to Dempster, who was just
+behind me.
+
+"It is a salute for us," says he.
+
+"Us!" says I, with accents of disdain that put him in his place at once.
+
+"For you, then," says he, smiling in a way I didn't like, for, having no
+envy in my own disposition, I cannot endure it in others.
+
+Mr. Iwakura and I walked on slowly. He looked at me and smiled as the
+guns kept going off, till I counted seventeen; then they stopped and I
+was glad of it, for I remembered that our meeting-house bell tolls once
+for every year, when a person dies, and I felt a little anxious about
+the number of guns they might pile on to live folks. But they stopped
+short at seventeen, which is an age no girl need be ashamed to own, and
+which showed how young some persons can look in spite of hard literary
+toil.
+
+Well, first we went into Commodore Worden's house, where Mr. Iwakura and
+I were introduced to Mrs. Worden and some other ladies. Then the rest
+came in for a little notice, and we filed off into the grounds again,
+where there was a general training of boys in blue jackets, with buttons
+and things, all armed with guns, which they handled like old militia
+men. Sometimes, when they poked their guns right at us, I kind of got
+behind Mr. Iwakura, who, being small, wasn't much of a shelter, but
+better than nothing. In fact, I was rather glad when this part of the
+fun died out.
+
+After this, we went into one of the big houses where the blue boys live,
+and a whole lot of little, make-believe ships were shown to us, and two
+Japanee boys told Mr. I. how they were worked--which would have been
+interesting, only we didn't know a word of that language, nor much about
+the baby-house of ships, and didn't listen to what was said in English.
+
+Then the boys in blue and buttons went into the meadow again, and got
+out a lot of small cannon, and banged, and ran in lines and squads down
+to the river, as if they were awful mad with the water and meant to dam
+it--dam it up, I wish you to understand, for even indirect profanity
+isn't in my nature.
+
+After this, we all went down to a great, lumbering old ship, which is
+all the home these blue boys have the first year they come to the
+Annapolis school, which, being a sailor institution, gives them a taste
+for creeping into holes and sleeping on a yard or two of rope swung to
+the ship's beams--which may be pleasant fun, but doesn't look like it.
+
+Sisters, it was getting along in the day, and, though in a certain sense
+spiritualized by genius, I was hungry. Mr. Iwakura, too, had a pitiful
+look in his black eyes; but a storm of music called us from hankering
+thoughts, and we all streamed, at a faster double-quick than the boys
+could show, into the great dining-room of one of the big houses. A
+splendid table was set out there, which we gathered round like a
+half-starved regiment on training-day. Then began such a practice in
+cider bottles, flying corks, and cider foaming and fizzing into glasses,
+as beat all the cannon and howitzer blazings of the day--for that ended
+in something, and the rest didn't.
+
+It is astonishing what effect eating and drinking has on the feet; I
+could hardly keep from dancing all the way from that dining-hall to the
+other building, which is kept especially for dancing. Well, we did
+dance, for the music just took one right into the midst of it, want to
+or not. Besides, we hadn't been to a tomb, and nobody had been killed,
+so we just went in for it. My alpaca dress isn't over long, and I wasn't
+afraid of showing my feet when there was no train to tangle them up. We
+danced with our bonnets and hats on--we ladies, I mean--and the way my
+white feather rose and fell and fluttered over the rest was enough to
+wake up the American heart in every bosom present.
+
+
+
+
+LXIV.
+
+AMERICAN AUTHORS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--You have heard of Mr. Shakespeare, a writer of old
+England, who died, years and years ago, in a little country place in
+England. He was celebrated for several things besides writing. Going to
+sleep under trees is one of them; shooting deer that belonged to
+somebody else--who took him up and made an awful time about it before a
+justice of the peace, who fined him, or something--is another. Then,
+again, he married an elderly girl, and forgot to live with her ever so
+long. While she stayed at home, he went up to London, and wrote plays
+and played them before her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, who ought to have
+reminded him of his married elderly girl, being her own royal self of
+that class, only not married. There is no reason to think she did have
+much influence in that direction though, for that particular queen was
+more celebrated for keeping husbands away from their wives than bringing
+them cosily together.
+
+The truth is, from the very first--when she got up a series of romping
+platonics with Lord Seymour, her step-mother's husband, to her last,
+gray-headed old flirtation with the young Essex--her taste ran against
+the practical idea of husbands living with their own wives. That
+non-matrimonial creature may have tried her power on Shakespeare--who
+knows?
+
+Sisters, there is one part of this man's life and character that may
+shock your religious feelings. _He wrote plays_; _he acted plays too_;
+and that female queen encouraged him in it. Now, ever since I went to
+see the "Black Crook," I scorn myself for ever having one mite of
+charity for such things, and I haven't the conscience to say one word in
+their favor to you, as a Society. Still, this Mr. Shakespeare did write
+some things that might have sounded tolerably well in a lecture or a
+sermon that wasn't too strictly doctrinal.
+
+Last night I was talking with a lawyer from away "Out West," who spoke
+real kindly about Mr. Shakespeare's writings, and seemed to think if he
+had put off being born until now, and settled "Out West," where he could
+have given him a hint now and then, he might have made a first-rate
+literary man. "Even as it is," says he, "I do my best to make him
+popular, for he wrote some very readable things--very readable, indeed.
+For instance, not long since, in an exciting slander case, I quoted
+these lines, with a burning eloquence that lifted the judge right off
+from his bench:
+
+    "'He,' says I, 'that steals my purse, steals stuff;
+    'Twas something, t'aint nothing, t'was mine,
+    'Tis hisen, and has been slave to thousands;
+    But he that hooketh from me my good name,
+    Grabs that which don't do him no good,
+    But makes me feel very bad indeed.'"
+
+"Is that the genuine old English that Mr. Shakespeare wrote in?" says I.
+
+"Oh, that is the beauty of it," says he. "Shakspeare was no doubt a very
+respectable writer, but perfection is the watch-word of modern progress.
+Of course one doesn't introduce a quotation of his without all the
+modern improvements. Shakespeare--"
+
+"_Mr_. Shakspeare," says I, determined to keep up the dignity of
+authorship with my last breath.
+
+"Well, Mr. Shakspeare would have made a very superior writer if he had
+lived in this country and been fostered by an American Congress."
+
+"An American Congress," says I. "What on earth did that ever do for
+writers?"
+
+"Why, don't it publish books for the members to give away. Isn't that
+encouraging literature?"
+
+I said nothing, never having read one of the books in my life, and never
+having seen any one that had.
+
+"Then," says he, "hasn't every man that can write the life of a
+President of these United States before his election, been made an
+ambassador, or counsel, or something? Didn't Pierce send Hawthorne to
+Liverpool, not because of his transcendant genius, but for the reason
+that he had written a paltry life of himself?"
+
+"_Mr._ Hawthorne," says I, with expressive emphasis.
+
+"And didn't General Grant send Colonel Badeau to London, after his life
+was taken by that young man?"
+
+"I give in," says I; "the literature of this country has been fostered
+beautifully. Hawthorne was rewarded for degrading the finest genius this
+country has ever known, by writing a commonplace life of a ordinary man;
+and Adam Badeau was made a colonel, and is now figuring in London,
+because all the talent he ever had was crowded into such a book. Yes, I
+give in. But one thing is to be relied on, each of the Presidents
+struggling to rule over this country next, has brains enough to write
+his own life. Grant has written his out with a sword, and Greeley can
+handle his own pen. He won't have any debts of that kind to pay off, and
+I'm awfully mistaken if the authors of this country won't stand almost
+as high with him as corporals in the army do now. In his time bayonets
+will be stacked, and pens have their day. During the next four years I
+shouldn't wonder if Mr. Shakspeare might have a little chance if he were
+alive."
+
+"That puts me in mind," says the Western gentleman, "that a statue of
+Shakspeare is going to be unveiled in the New York Central Park
+to-morrow."
+
+"To-morrow?" says I; "then I'm off to New York to see it done. By and
+by, when we have put all the British authors in marble, some one born in
+America may get a chance."
+
+"But Shakespeare belongs to the world," says Cousin Dempster, who was
+sitting near me.
+
+"All men or women of genius belong to the world," says I, "just as far
+as the world knows them; but the country in which a great man or woman
+was born, and has lived and written, is the place where he should be
+first honored. Have we done anything of that kind yet? I'm not saying
+one word against Mr. Shakespeare; his monument ought to be in the most
+beautiful spot we have; but let the next statue be that of some
+first-class American. Mr. Shakespeare belongs to us as much as he did to
+England, because when he lived England was our country, and he belongs
+to us now. But since then we have cut loose from the Old World, and
+built up a powerful nation, where great authors, both men and women,
+have worked out their own birthright of genius, with no help but the
+power God has given them--worked it out, too, with not half the
+recognition that our Government and our people, to their shame be it
+spoken, have given to coarser and weaker intellects from over the sea."
+
+"Why, Phœmie," says Cousin Dempster, "don't get so excited; do you know
+that you are talking like a book?"
+
+"It must be an English book if any American takes much notice of it,"
+says I; "but rile me up on this subject, and I don't know or care how I
+talk. In our part of the country we are Americans to the backbone, and
+we mean to keep so."
+
+"Well, but this statue of Shakespeare was first thought of by the actors
+who have been living over his plays years and years--Booth, Wallack,
+Wheatley, and your dead and gone Halleck, set it a-going.
+
+"What Shakespeare did for theatres, theatre people know how to
+acknowledge. They have some spirit; but what author ever comes forward
+and asks a place for his fellow-author? How can they expect the country
+to be generous to them when they do nothing for each other?"
+
+It kind of took me down when Cousin Dempster said this, and not having
+anything to observe, I said nothing, but got right up, and says I:
+
+"If we mean to start for New York, it's time to be getting ready."
+
+
+
+
+LXV.
+
+THE STATUE OF SHAKESPEARE.
+
+
+Well, sisters, we got to New York in time, and went right up to Central
+Park, which was just one garden of flowers, all in full bloom. The
+trees, too, were of a bright, lovely green, and the little lakes blue as
+a baby's eye, sparkled and rippled wherever the sun shone and the wind
+swept over them. A wide green circle, with lots of trees shading it, and
+great heaps of bushes heavy with pink and white flowers everywhere
+around it, was just alive with men and women. They were all in their
+Sunday go-to-meeting best, some on the grass, some in carriages, and all
+chatting, laughing, and enjoying themselves mightily, but crowding
+toward one spot.
+
+Under these trees, where the grass was greenest, and the flowers
+brightest, there was a sort of pyramid, covered over with star-spangled
+banners of bright silk. Sweeping round that, like a ring cut in two,
+were platforms with rows on rows of seats, built against flag-poles,
+from which ever so many flags were a-streaming out on the wind. These
+seats were crammed and crowded full of people. The centre platform was
+roofed in, and just running over with men holding fiddles, drums,
+twisted horns, trumpets, great puffy bass viols, and everything else
+that could turn music into thunder, and thunder back into music.
+
+There was an inside circle nearer to the pyramid, and our tickets took
+us there, among the greatest people of the country, which was an honor I
+felt in behalf of the society. This was the penetralia, which, I
+suppose, from the first syllable, was got up especially for authors. I
+took my seat in that honored place, and, spreading my white parasol,
+looked about me, feeling the exaltation of my position in a modest way,
+but willing that others should make their little mark even if I was
+there.
+
+Well, the first thing that came was a crash that made me hop right up,
+and near about break my parasol. No wonder; for more than a hundred men
+were just flooding the air with music, that rose and fell and fluttered
+till the trees and bushes shook under it. I do believe the sweetness and
+the thundering outbursts would have inspired me to break into some good
+old tune myself, if there hadn't been so much rustling and talking and
+flirting all around me. As it was, there arose a clatter of confusing
+sounds that gave one's nerves a jerky feeling that I for one haven't got
+over yet. I do wonder why city people have no better manners. I should
+just as soon think of speaking out in meeting, as of chattering when
+others wanted to listen to music.
+
+Well, after a hard tussle between the people and the music, the people
+came out first-best--more shame to 'em. Then a gentleman they call Judge
+Daly--a real nice-looking person--got out and reached out his arms
+toward the pyramid, wrapped up in flags.
+
+The minute he did this all the people began to stamp and clap their
+hands, and fling out their handkerchiefs as if they had gone crazy. The
+more he tried to speak, the more they stamped and clapped and shouted;
+and he kept a-bowing real graceful, till by and by they stopped and let
+him speak.
+
+Then he went right on and told them all about the statue, which ought to
+have been done and put up on the day that Mr. Shakespeare was three
+hundred years old, only the statue wasn't ready then, but that was of no
+account, when we considered how beautiful the whole thing was, and what
+an honor it would be to American art. Judge Daly was all alive with this
+idea, and spoke splendidly. When he had done, I just laid down my
+parasol, and clapped my hands till a pair of three-button gloves gave
+out. Sisters, that one clap cost me just three dollars and fifty cents.
+
+When Judge Daly sat down, a gentleman walked up to the pyramid, and
+stood by it looking awful pale and anxious, as if the thousands and
+thousands of eyes bent on him had drawn all the blood from his body. He
+was a fine, handsome-looking man, and somehow I took a shine to him at
+first sight.
+
+All at once his face flushed up, and I saw that he held the end of a
+rope in his hand. While I was a-looking and wondering, he gave the rope
+a jerk, and down come those silk flags, all in a wild flutter, and there
+stood Mr. Shakespeare as if he'd just stopped to rest a minute after
+walking, and had been struck with an idea which he was thinking over.
+His head was just a little bent, and he held a book up against his
+bosom, with his finger between the leaves.
+
+Mr. Shakespeare must have been a proper handsome man about two hundred
+and seventy-five years ago. No wonder that elderly young lady fell in
+love with him. I could have done it myself, not because I am elderly,
+far from it, but because he was--well, I suppose because he was
+Shakespeare, and awful handsome at that.
+
+Queen Elizabeth must have given him the suit of clothes he wears; for
+when I said his trousers were too puffy and short for my liking, and his
+cloak nothing to speak of in the way of a covering, a gentleman near me
+said the dress was Elizabethan.
+
+This rather set me against the memory of Mr. S. He ought to have died
+rather than take anything from that cruel, hard-hearted old--I was going
+to say old maid, but refrain, not wishing to be hard on her, cruel as
+she was.
+
+Oh, mercy, what a shout that was. It seemed as if every heart in that
+great crowd had burst out in a glow of admiration. Mine just fluttered
+like a night hawk. I stood up and whirled the white parasol over my
+head; more than that, I split the other glove, and was glad of it.
+
+That Mr. Ward had been working eight years on the statue he had just
+uncovered, and our enthusiasm was his best reward. There he stood face
+to face with the people, who were to give him pain or cruel
+disappointment. I felt for him. No wonder his face turned white and then
+red as fire. Years of labor for one hour of triumph. He deserved all the
+praise he got, and that was stupendous.
+
+The statue was now all uncovered, and the sunshine lay upon it. Sisters,
+it is beautiful; but one thing troubles me--the color. Was Mr.
+Shakespeare of that complexion, or has the great man been darkened out
+of regard to the Fifteenth Amendment and Mr. Sumner? When a man is
+statued in bronze, does he always turn out a mulatto? I don't like the
+idea--it's carrying the Civil Rights Bill too far.
+
+Judge Daly had made a present of this statue to the park, in his speech.
+Now Mr. Stebbins, the President of the Park Commissioners, came forward
+and thanked him for it in the nicest way. He was just the man to do it,
+though he is a broker and banker; for he cares quite as much for art as
+he does for gold. Wherever he finds genius, this man spends his money
+like dew upon it. It was he that gave Miss Kellogg her first start in
+music, and a good many other stragglers have secretly been helped by him
+when they felt almost like giving up. For my part, I honor and glorify
+such men.
+
+The next thing I saw was a grand-looking old man, with a long, white
+beard falling over his bosom, and soft, white hair floating about his
+head. I held my breath when this man arose, and while the crowd yelled
+and shouted and made the ground tremble under me, I looked at him with
+my heart in my eyes. What Shakespeare was to England, this old man is to
+America--the best part of the land that gave him birth. He made a long
+speech, a beautiful speech. I have read his poems, so have you; but the
+poetry of his spoken words, of his voice and looks, is grander than
+written language, and nothing that I can write will give you the least
+idea of it.
+
+For my part, I hope that the next statue set up in the park will be that
+of William Cullen Bryant. What is the reason that we should wait till a
+man is dead before we give back something for the genius with which he
+has honored his country? The readers that may come up three hundred
+years from now owe him no more than we do. What are we waiting for,
+then? When Mr. Bryant sat down, there was another earthquake of
+applause, which had but just time to stop, when it burst out again for
+Edwin Booth. The best actor, and one of the handsomest men you ever saw,
+came forward and read a long piece of poetry, which just made the blood
+stir like wine in your veins. There was a double gust of genius in this
+poem; because the poet Stoddard wrote it, and then Booth gave it the
+fire of his soul and the music of his voice, which seemed to float and
+whisper around the statue long after the crowd had scattered itself over
+the park.
+
+
+
+
+LXVI.
+
+RACING DRESSES.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Don't be startled; don't hold up your hands in holy
+astonishment when I tell you that I--Phœmie Frost--your moral and--I say
+it meekly--religious missionary, have been to a horse-race. I am shocked
+myself now, in the cool of the morning, not exactly because I went, but
+from what happened after I got there.
+
+Have I done wrong? Can a missionary, without knowledge, do her duty? If
+she knows nothing of sin, how can she warn against sin?
+
+Then, again, is the running of swift horses sinful?
+
+Sisters, I am troubled. The more one knows, the more one is perplexed
+and put about. It is so easy to condemn things by the wholesale that you
+know nothing about. One can speak so positive about them, for total
+ignorance admits of no argument, and is entirely above all evidence.
+That is why ignorant stubbornness is so self-satisfied and comfortable.
+
+After all, I begin to think that "ignorance is bliss." Is there anything
+on this earth more snoozily comfortable than a litter of white pigs
+revelling with their mother in a mud-puddle--say in August? What do
+these contented animals care for the mud that soils their whiteness,
+with the pink skin shining through--rosy pigs, as one may call the kind
+I am speaking of. Think of them muzzling about in the rily water, free
+as air; then turn to your learned pig, chained to a master by the forced
+action of its own intellect--poor thing! obliged to play cards with its
+fore-foot, teach geography, and cipher out numbers like a
+schoolmaster--and then say if ignorance isn't bliss! Look in the little
+black eyes of the animal, and see the sad and hungry look that knowledge
+has brought to him!
+
+To know is to want--to want is to suffer.
+
+Where was I? Speaking about horses, naturally I wandered off down to
+other grades of animals--the laziest, largest, best-natured creatures of
+all--but, as you may observe with propriety, not suggestive of
+horse-races, which I admit and apologize for.
+
+Well, right or wrong, I have been to the races at Jerome Park, which is
+a hollow among the hills, clear out of New York, and the other side of
+Harlem River. There, every spring and fall, the best horses owned about
+here are set a-going like wildfire, and the one that beats is thought
+the world of.
+
+The park isn't much of a piece of woods, after all; a good-sized maple
+camp in Vermont has got twice as many trees, but then a good deal of it
+is turned out to grass. Then, again, a level turnpike curls in a ring
+all round one of the hills, and on the top of that is a kind of hotel,
+or long tavern, with a tremendous stoop stretched around it, where the
+upper-crust of fast horsedom crowd in to see the creatures run.
+
+On the other hillside, right against the tavern, is a great long, open
+shed, with seats after seats sloping down from the inside, where the
+lower-crust of fast horsedom crowd in from the railroads, and so on.
+They have to pay for going in, but, for all that, haven't a right to go
+across to the upper side, which must be aggravating.
+
+All the men that go to the upper-crust tavern wear a huge round thing
+with a ribbon fastened to their coats, and strut awfully under them, as
+if they were the crowning glory of all creation. Maybe they are; I don't
+know, not being highly educated in horsiness.
+
+Well, Cousin Dempster has one of these medals, which he hitched to the
+lappel of his coat that morning. Cousin E. E. had been fidgeting awfully
+all the week about a dress she was bent on wearing, and when it didn't
+come home from the dress-maker's till late the night before, I really
+thought she would take a fit right before us all. But the dress came at
+last, and then she wheeled right round the other way with joy.
+
+"Such a dress!" says she. "There won't be anything to match it. All my
+own idea, too"
+
+Here she tumbled a cataract of silk from a great paper box, and shook it
+out till it fluttered like the leaves on a young maple-tree.
+
+"Isn't it superb?" says she; "peacock green and peacock blue
+intermingled like a poem, sloping folds up the front breadth two and
+two, bunching splendidly behind, frilled, flounced, corded, folded,
+trailing, and yet demi to a large extent. Cousin Frost, Cousin Frost!
+did you ever see anything so original, so--so--"
+
+"Scrumptious," says I, a-helping her out, "peacock green and peacock
+blue; if we only had the half-moons on the train now."
+
+She looked at me earnestly; her soul had taken in the thought, and it
+burned in her eyes.
+
+"Oh, why didn't I think of that?" says she.
+
+I smiled. It takes genius to understand the fine irony of genius. Cousin
+E. E. is bright, but the subtle originality of a new thought isn't in
+her. That usually does in a family what this Government is trying so
+hard for--centralizes itself in one person.
+
+It is not difficult to say where this supreme essence condenses itself
+in our family. Still, I do not object to other members making their
+little mark, and if E. E. can make hers in the peacock line, why not?
+
+To my fancy, that dress was a nation sight too much. It was all in a
+flutter, silk heaped on silk. E. E. tried it on, and fairly waded in
+silk when she walked. There was neither elegance nor simplicity in it,
+nothing but a sickening idea of extravagance and money.
+
+E. E. looked like a peacock, walked like a peacock, and seemed to feel
+like one. She took a little mite of a bonnet from a box that came just
+after the dress, and put it on. It was shaped like the small end of a
+loaf of sugar, with a pink rose and a bunch of green and blue feathers
+on the top, bee-hivy in height, but brigandish in shape, slightly
+pastoral, and a little military.
+
+"Isn't it stylish?" says she, setting it on the top of her curls and
+puffs, with such an air.
+
+"Original," says I, "but you know which is _my_ color."
+
+E. E. laughed till the feathers shook on her head.
+
+"Oh!" says she, "Dempster and I are prudent. After the middle of July
+perhaps we may--"
+
+"Till then," says I, "you'll sit on the fence peacock fashion."
+
+We had more words, for E. E. is nobody's fool; but just then Cecilia
+came in, and I made myself scarce.
+
+
+
+
+XLVII.
+
+THE FIRST HORSE-RACE.
+
+
+Well, we started for the races in high feather. Cousin D. had just got
+his open carriage cushioned off beautifully. His horses had rosettes on
+their heads, and little looking-glasses about as big as a dollar
+flashing between their ears.
+
+Cousin E. E. wore the peacock dress and the brigandish hat. The parasol
+had a red coral handle, and, to own the truth, no horse on the
+race-ground looked faster than she did.
+
+I followed her modestly. My pink silk seemed to grow brighter when it
+settled down against her green and blue; my white hat was looped up on
+one side with a white cockade, and the white feather streamed out banner
+fashion. With me all was simplicity, patriotism, and whiteness--pure as
+the distinguished individual of whom they were a delicate typification.
+
+The drive up to that race-ground was just too lovely for anything. The
+horses fairly flew. The wind just shook the white fringe on my parasol,
+and kept my emblematical feather dancing after my hat. Cousin Dempster
+drove, and that girl Cecilia sat high up on the front seat by him, with
+her short dress ruffled and pinked about the bottom like a full-blown
+poppy; her--well, ankles visible to the knees, and all her hair floating
+out loose and crinkly. I say nothing, but ask you, as females of
+experience, what kind of a woman will that stuck-up child make, in the
+long run?
+
+The race ground was gay as a general training when we got there. It had
+rained lately; the trees and grass were green as green could be, and
+thousands of red-birds, yellow-hammers, blue-jays, and golden-robins,
+seemed to have settled down around the long tavern, the hill-side, and
+under the old trees. I declare, the sight was beautiful.
+
+Cousin D. had to show his badge and thing at the gate; then we drove up
+to the long tavern with a dash, hopped gracefully out of the carriage,
+and walked right in among the great crowd of gentlemen and ladies
+chatting, laughing, and moving about the long stoop.
+
+Sisters, I do try to be humble, but it is awful hard work. When I went
+into that crowd, with my pink silk trailing and that white feather all
+afloat, the whole congregation seemed to break into groups and hush up,
+just to look at me. I didn't pretend to notice this delicate ovation,
+but walked slowly forward, and with a becoming blush on my cheek, while
+E. E. and that child kept bowing and shaking hands with everybody they
+met.
+
+After I had seated myself in one of the great splint-bottomed chairs
+that stood in dozens on the stoop, the crowd felt at liberty to go on
+again--and it did. A flock of birds couldn't have twittered and tittered
+and flitted more joyaceously than the females crowded together on that
+stoop.
+
+But I soon had something else to look at. Down in front of the hotel a
+lot of horses were prancing to and fro, up and down, breaking into a run
+here, wheeling round, going back, standing still, and generally cutting
+about in a promiscuous manner, as if they were dying to have a dance in
+the street.
+
+Sisters, in all your born days, you never saw anything like those
+horses! Slender, smooth as glass, with eyes like balls of fire, they
+just took the shine off from everything in the horse line that I ever
+set eyes on. But the animals were nothing compared to the funny-looking
+creatures that rode them. A circus was nothing to them--neither is a
+theatre. Some of them were dressed in red, some in yellow, some in blue;
+one had on purple--all fitting just as tight as the skin to a rabbit's
+back. Each one had a boy's cap on his head; and, in fact, they all
+looked like boys out on a spree. There was a place just above the long
+tavern where most of these fellows always took their horses after a
+little run and blow--that was a little, cubby house, built up high from
+the ground, in which some men stood like captains on a steamboat.
+
+By and by there was a stir among the horses and a hustle among the men.
+
+"They're going to start! they're going to start!" says everybody to
+everybody else. A flag on the little house seemed to break down. Then
+off the whole lot flew like a flock of wild birds. The flying horses
+rushed along the road, beating time on the hard ground, and fairly
+taking the breath from one's lips.
+
+I gave a little scream, and jumped up. The whole crowd rushed forward,
+and seemed as if it would pour itself over the railing of the long
+stoop.
+
+"Where have they gone?" says I. "What has become of 'em?"
+
+"Here they come--here they come," shouted the whole crowd, answering me
+all at once.
+
+And they did come skimming along the road like
+wildfire--flash--flash--now two horses abreast--now one ahead--now
+another--then a sudden pull up, and the brown horse had won. Now it
+seemed to me as if the whole squad came up pretty much at the same time,
+but the whole crowd fell to clapping hands over the brown horse. I
+clapped too, and swung out my handkerchief as well as the rest; for when
+a multitude go into a thing like that it just sets one wild.
+
+Then the flag took another fall, and off went another squad of horses,
+and around the hill they went out of sight. Then came a stormy sound of
+hoofs, and another streak of lightning dash in which a chestnut-colored
+horse showed his head first, and then came another rolling thunder-clap
+from the crowd, and "Joe Daniels has beat," ran from lip to lip, as if
+"Joe Daniels" had been up for the Presidential election and got all the
+votes.
+
+Then the people cooled down, and, after a long wait, there was another
+rush, as if a whole training band had broke loose. We had hardly time to
+draw a deep breath, when they all came sweeping round in front of the
+long tavern, two of 'em just a little ahead, running so even and so
+fast, that I really believed that both of them beat the other, till the
+crowd began to clap and shout Alarm, which frightened me, for I thought
+something dreadful had happened; but Dempster hushed me up, saying it
+was the name of the horse that had won the race, and he was glad of it,
+for his friend Travers was one of the warmest-hearted, kindest fellows
+in the world, and ought to have a horse win every day of his life. This
+friendly little speech set me clapping my hands, both for the horse
+Alarm, his orange-colored rider, and the jolly-hearted man who owns
+him.
+
+There was a great commotion after this. The whole crowd was in a wild
+whirl of excitement. All the ladies were talking about gloves and pools,
+and gentleman riders, while the gentlemen talked fast, looked eager, and
+were restless as caged birds. Something was going to happen now, I was
+sure of that.
+
+"Do tell me what is the matter," says I to a gentleman that cousin had
+just introduced to me, "everybody is so excited."
+
+"Yes," says he, "all on the keyvive."
+
+What queer names they do have for horses. Alarm had just come in ahead,
+and now Keyvive.
+
+"What kind of a horse is the Keyvive?" says I.
+
+He didn't seem to hear me. No wonder, for that very minute five horses,
+with such nice-looking fellows on their backs, took a start, like a
+flock of wild deer, and went up the road so swift that before I could
+see them they were gone.
+
+"It is the hurdle-race," says the same gentleman, "splendid--splendid;
+what a leap!"
+
+His eyes were bright as stars; they fairly danced in his head.
+
+I sprang up, for a great wind seemed to be rushing around the hill. Then
+I gave a scream, for some wicked person had built a fence right across
+the road, and those five horses were galloping like mad right toward it.
+
+"Oh, stop them--stop them--for mercy's sake!" says I, a-clasping my
+hands, and pleading wildly to every one around. "They'll be killed--they
+don't see that awful fence."
+
+While I was screaming, the whole five horses came, one after another,
+sailed right over the fence, dived down like hen-hawks after a chicken,
+and away toward another fence that choked up the road. Before I could
+shriek out, and warn them, over they came, like a whirlwind, without
+touching the fence or seeming to care--over, and away up the road,
+taking one's breath with them.
+
+"Mercy on me! what a providential escape!" says I to the gentleman;
+"what wicked wretch could have heaped up things in the road? I do hope
+they'll be found out and sent to State's prison. Why, it's just as bad
+as blocking up a train of cars. Such nice-looking riders, too!"
+
+The gentleman looked a trifle puzzled, then he smiled a little funnily,
+and says he:
+
+"Perhaps you do not understand that this is a 'hurdle-race.'"
+
+"No," says I; "they told me that it would be horse-racing--nothing worse
+than that."
+
+"Well," says he, "it is nothing worse than that, only a little more
+dangerous, and to you ladies more interesting, because the riders are
+all gentlemen."
+
+"What, those men in the caps, gentlemen--not circus-riders, nor
+nothing?"
+
+He laughed, and says he:
+
+"I dare say no one of them has ever been in a circus since he left off
+tunics, but they have learned to hunt, and love these hard leaps."
+
+"You don't mean to say that they skiver over such fences on purpose?"
+says I.
+
+"Indeed they do, and build them higher and broader every year."
+
+"You don't say so," says I, feeling my eyes open wide.
+
+"They love the peril, for that increases the excitement."
+
+"What if some of them were to be flung head over heels?"
+
+"Oh, that has happened."
+
+"Not to-day?"
+
+"Yes, but fortunately the man was not killed."
+
+I felt myself a-growing pale.
+
+"But they don't know of it. Everybody is laughing," says I.
+
+"Yes, it is generally known, but that is a part of the excitement. In a
+crowd like this, it is difficult to realize trouble or death."
+
+"How strange!" says I, putting the handkerchief that I had torn with
+hard shaking into my pocket, with a deeply penitent feeling.
+
+"It is strange," says he; "but this is no place for deep feeling, or you
+would not see so many smiling faces around you, for a gentleman who owns
+some of the race-horses, and came up only a day or two ago to see them
+tried, is lying dead in his home now."
+
+My heart sank. I felt tears crowding up to my eyes. Death in one
+place--all this gorgeous confusion and wild gayety here. A lonely widow,
+weeping bitter tears; all these gay fluttering young people reckless and
+happy, in spite of it.
+
+I arose, and looked around me. No one seemed to feel this man's death.
+Never in my whole life had I been in such a whirlpool of gayety. There
+was not a sad or thoughtful face in the crowd. Yet many of the persons
+there had known the man who lay dead in the city. I had never heard of
+him till then, but no smiles came to my lips after that mournful
+knowledge reached me. In the midst of all this hilarious gayety I felt
+the shadow of human suffering creeping over me, and I rode home from the
+race-park in sad silence.
+
+
+
+
+LXVIII.
+
+OFF AGAIN.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--New York City is full of epidemical contagions.
+Horse-racing is one of them. Every spring and fall it rages fearfully,
+especially among the female women who wait for the races--dress up for
+the races, and come out with splendiferous spontaneosity, whenever the
+fast horses are ready to run.
+
+I have been up to see the creatures rush once, and sent you my report,
+which, owing to verdancy of mind caught from the Green Mountains, was
+only skim milk to which I now pour in cream with a liberal hand. To own
+the truth, it takes more than one visit before a regular New England
+young lady can understand the inns and outs of a horse-race.
+
+Now, I dare say you think it a sort of agricultural fair for
+animals--for the horsey kind meant to show off their beauty, try their
+speed, and encourage farmers to go in for improvement.
+
+Exactly, and a good deal more so. Why, sisters, it's gambling--just
+gambling, open handed and above board, in which the upper-crust female
+women of New York take a hand with the men, and glory in it. But I mean
+to tell you all about it in the regular way, and shall do it as I go
+along.
+
+You never saw such a crowd of carriages, wagons, buggies, and queer
+horse machines as crowded along the road when we got within three or
+four miles of the race-course. When we come to the long bridge that runs
+across the Harlem River, there were two lines of carriages stretching
+before and behind us, just as far as we could see, horses that tossed
+their heads and champed their bits, and shone like satin under harnesses
+mounted with gold and silver, with little looking-glasses flying in and
+out over their heads, and hoofs that struck the ground like the feet of
+a Vermont girl when she dances from the heart.
+
+All these carriages were filled as if they were on the way to a high
+jubilation, choke full of ladies, with parasols hovering over them like
+wild birds taking wing, and great clouds of silk, lace gauze, and shiny
+stuff a-billowing over the sides, till you could but just see the silk
+cushions they leaned against. Then, again, some were crowded over with
+gentlemen, mostly in white hats--which delighted me--some with cigars in
+their mouths--some not--but every one of them just boiling over with
+good-nature and fun.
+
+This was the way we went. Cousin Dempster has made a good deal of money
+in Washington--contracting, or something--and he got a spick-span new
+open carriage for this high occasion--a carriage made soft as a bird's
+nest with brown satin cushions, and that glittered outside like a crow's
+back whenever the sun struck it.
+
+We had a great big fellow, in new plum-colored clothes on the driver's
+seat, and another genteel youngster by his side--all plum-color and
+hat-band, like the coachman. Inside, there was Cousin E. E. with a
+pea-green dress on, all flounces and fringe, and overskirts piled up so
+high behind that she couldn't lean back, and your missionary, Miss
+Phœmie Frost, in her pink silk (turned again), and the white hat with
+plumes of snow, which bespoke at once her good taste and her most sacred
+political preferences, which would keep going on both sides all I could
+do.
+
+There, in the front seat, with his back to the horses and his face to
+us, sat Dempster, looking out with envy and bitter feelings on the men
+in buggies, that were laughing like fun, and smoking like New England
+stone chimneys. At such times I do not think that Dempster appreciates
+all the sweet benefits of female society.
+
+Last and least, I am sorry to say, was that child, Cecilia, with a pink
+parasol about as big as a good-sized toadstool, fluttering before her
+face, and all in a storm of flounces above her knees, with nothing but
+kid boots and silk stockings below.
+
+I do wonder what possesses Dempster and E. E. to train that child along
+wherever they go! She is just the aggravation of my life.
+
+Well, with our open carriage yeasting over with green, pink, white, and
+blue, which Dempster broke up with a lean streak of black, we rolled
+through the gate of the race-grounds and came up, with a magnificent
+sweep, to the back door of the club house, when E. E. and I gave a neat
+little jump, and tipped gracefully around the long stoop, right into the
+upper crust society of New York.
+
+Sisters, it was like wading right into a flower-bed! Everybody there had
+on her good clothes--I may say, her bettermost clothes of all. Red,
+green, purple, blue, white, black--every color or shade of color to be
+found in the sky, in flowers, in fruit, or in water, rustled against
+each other. Sisters, it was gorgeous! But one thing struck me as
+peculiar--most of these female ladies had the loveliest pink color in
+their cheeks all the time. While my face was turning red and white, as I
+grew warm or comfortable, theirs kept one steady pink. Ladies with hair
+as yellow as gold had ink-black eyebrows and lashes--things we never see
+together in the country. I don't understand it. Well, we had but just
+got seats on the largest stoop when the people below us let off a squad
+of horses that seemed to fly; for the mud was soft as mush on the road,
+and their hoofs made no more noise than as if they had trod on velvet.
+
+Just before these horses made their first dive, Dempster came up to us
+with a person who carried a white hat in his hand, and held it out as if
+he wanted something put into it. I thought that somebody had been
+cheating the poor fellow, for there was nothing but little, crumpled
+bits of paper in the hat. Of course I did not want to equal these
+treacherous people in meanness, so I took out my pocket-book and dropped
+a five-cent piece into the hat, smiling benignly on the good-looking
+suppliant as I did it. I really was ashamed of Cousin E. E.; for instead
+of giving the poor fellow a trifle of money, she just nipped up one of
+the crumpled bits of paper, and, opening it, called out, laughing like a
+girl:
+
+"I've drawn the favorite! Oh, isn't that splendid!"
+
+I declare I was mortified by such silly nonsense, and wanting to keep up
+the credit of the family, dropped another five-cent piece in the hat,
+and nodded toward E. E., as much as to say: "Never mind; I give it for
+her."
+
+Instead of thanking me, the man stared and turned a trifle red, as if
+the gratitude that filled his heart were trying to burst through his
+face. It was a noble feeling, and I appreciated it by another kind nod
+and smile.
+
+Then he held out the hat to "that child," and she, too, snatched up one
+of the papers and began to giggle over it. I declare you might have
+lighted a candle by my face, it burned so.
+
+"Is there no end to such meanness?" thought I, and once more I opened my
+pocket-book.
+
+"No matter, Phœmie, I'll attend to that," says Cousin Dempster, waving
+his hand at me.
+
+Out came his pocket-book then, and he took from it a handful of
+greenback-bills, which he gave to the man, who laughed as if he were
+half-tickled to death, and well he might be, for Dempster was as
+extravagant as the female portion of his family had been mean.
+
+"Here is the last number, and our pool is complete," says he, taking a
+bit of paper from the hat, and dropping it into my lap. "Don't trouble
+yourself, Phœmie, it's all right."
+
+I did trouble myself, in spite of his smiling face. Charity is one
+thing, and ostentation is another. After my gift, which I must say was
+liberal enough, there was no need of such a display as Dempster made. No
+wonder the man looked pleased as he marched away, with the money in one
+hand, and that white hat in the other.
+
+When the horses came rushing by again, and made a sharp halt just above
+the house, the man came up to us choke full of pleasure, and wanted to
+look at my paper. I thought he was taking liberties, but gave him the
+mite of paper, and drew back in my seat, in proper fashion.
+
+"Your horse has won," says he; "Mid-day has the race by a length."
+
+With that he laid a roll of bills in my lap, and went away, bowing low,
+till his white hat almost touched the floor.
+
+"Mercy on me! what does this mean?" says I, a-taking up the money. "Is
+the man crazy?"
+
+"It means that you have won the pool," said Dempster.
+
+Before I could ask him what on earth he meant, Cousin D. was swept off
+by a crowd of ladies, and three sandy-haired horses were put upon the
+run. I could not tell one horse from another, they were so alike; but
+they all were long and lank, with hind legs that looked as if all their
+strength lay in that direction to a wonderful extent, and the way they
+threw them out was surprising.
+
+About this time I saw a great many white hats flying about, and men had
+pocket-books in their hands, while ladies talked wildly about gloves and
+neckties, and clapped their hands when the horses rushed by, and the
+word "pool" was in everybody's mouth--in fact, it was Bedlam let loose.
+
+
+
+
+LXIX.
+
+THE STEEPLE-CHASE.
+
+
+Sisters:--This horse hurdling is something that just lifts you right off
+your feet. All that I had seen was nothing to what was to come. All
+along the winding road, and the lots each side, some men went to
+building fences, till every few yards were fenced in, and yet seven
+long-legged, long-bodied, and not over fleshy horses, with riders in
+white, in blue, in yellow, and striped brown and yellow, were ready for
+another start, which they made like a thunderburst.
+
+On they came, flying and flashing through the lots, like a flock of
+birds, right up to the first fence. I sprang up--everybody sprang up,
+wild and anxious--I expected to see the whole grist of them pitch
+head-foremost against the rails, when up they all rose, and away they
+went straight over, and off like a shot to the next and the next,
+clearing one after another, before you could draw a deep breath. Across
+lots, down the road, in and out they went, jumping fences, now abreast,
+now in a swift line, till they came up all at once to a pond of water.
+
+I screamed right out, and felt myself growing cold, for they were
+rushing toward it full split, and it was wider across than the
+mill-stream back of our school-house.
+
+"Stop 'em, stop 'em! They'll be drowned, they'll be killed!" I screamed
+out, just crazy with fear.
+
+No one minded me; the whole crowd was too busy watching those wild
+riders to mind me if I had yelled like an engine whistle. They came
+rushing up nearer--nearer, almost in a line, as if some enemy were
+ahead, and the whole squad meant to ride right through and trample
+everything down. They were close by the water now, with a low fence that
+side. On they rushed--a whole cloud of hoofs ploughed up through the
+air, and those seven horses went shooting like sparrows over the fence
+and across the water. Their hoofs struck fire from the stone wall on the
+other side, and away they went, pell-mell, their riders shooting out
+colors like a broken rainbow, and the crowd cheering them on as if it
+had been a sham fight on training-day.
+
+On they flew like a young whirlwind, though one bay horse they called
+"Blind Tom" fell short. The rider, trying to bring him up, was pitched
+over his head, at which the crowd was hushed, but burst out again when
+Blind Tom left the poor fellow behind, and dashed on with the other
+horses neck and neck round the fields, leaping a fence or two, before
+the poor stunned rider could roll over and pick himself up.
+
+Oh, it was too droll--that plucky horse, dashing along with the rest,
+shooting over the fences, up to time, and acting like a soldier charging
+under command. I could just have gone down and kissed the splendid
+creature, and the whole crowd--thousands and thousands--set up shout
+after shout that you could have heard almost on the Green Mountains.
+
+Another horse came out first best on the second round, but a couple of
+men, right behind me, insisted that Blind Tom ought to have the
+money--what money I didn't understand--but I agreed with the men, if
+there was anything that a horse could accept, Blind Tom was the animal
+for the money.
+
+Sisters, there don't seem much that is wrong about this. You can't see
+any amount of deep iniquity in it, can you now? I didn't discover
+anything poisonous to the moral character; but then we female women
+don't always see deep enough into great social and religious questions,
+and horse-racing is one.
+
+What do you think the gloves and neckties meant? What hidden sin lay
+buried under the pools? What, after all, took that great multitude up to
+that beautiful hollow among the hills? Gambling, my dear; male and
+female gambling, nothing more, nothing less. The horses run for money.
+The jockeys ride for money. The men bet money, hats, gloves, hundreds,
+thousands, on this horse and that. Everybody gambles, and everybody
+likes it.
+
+Sisters, that poor man's hat was a pool; there wasn't a drop of water in
+it; still it was a pool. The two five-cent pieces I threw into it were a
+dead loss to charity. The scraps of crumpled paper meant dollars. The
+heap of bills that I tucked away in my pocket-book, innocent as twenty
+lambs, was money that I had won gambling, ignorantly, innocently.
+
+With Christianity at my heart, and gambling money in my pocket, I feel
+demoralized as a church member; yet I must confess it exhilated me as if
+I had been on the top of a high mountain, and was looking down with
+delicious dizziness. I a gambler, I a diver into pools no larger than a
+man's hat, but dangerous as the bottomless pit! I cannot realize it; and
+when realized, it seems to me as if I couldn't be properly penitent.
+That sort of thing doesn't seem so awful to me as it did before I got
+into it, in this pleasant, innocent, and sweetly promiscuous manner.
+
+Is this "rolling sin like a sweet morsel under the tongue"? Am I getting
+faithless to the trust with which I set forth on this city mission?
+
+This much I will say in my own behalf: horse-racing, if pernicious, is
+awfully pleasant, and horse-betting (gloves and neckties I mean)
+is--well--ditto.
+
+_Such_ a ride home as we had! Trees and grass, cool and green--no dust.
+The sun going down, and throwing red shadows across the fields.
+Carriages crowded full of smiling people, horses wild to pass each other
+and get home; yourself deliciously tired, with half a dozen swift
+horses chasing each other through your brain, and trampling down your
+conscience.
+
+Well, sisters, I may have been wrong, but frankness is my peculiarity,
+and I should like to try it all over again, just once. Don't think hard
+of it, but I should.
+
+
+
+
+LXX.
+
+PREPARING FOR SEA.
+
+
+Dear Sisters:--With an aching head and bitter taste in my mouth, I take
+up my pen to write. Myself, and not myself, I sit here as if I had just
+come out of the upheaving of an earthquake. If I write anything of what
+happened yesterday, it must be sensational; for, of all sensations that
+ever riled up a human constitution, that I felt while out to sea beat
+all that I ever knew or heard of.
+
+I have been out to a yacht race.
+
+Horse-racing is a science not unknown, in its rudiments, to our rural
+population. You can remember when we took our first lessons, bareback,
+with a rope-halter looped around the horse's nose for a bridle. No--that
+was our second lesson; the first was on father's old grey horse, which
+was blind of one eye, and had a natural saddle curved into his back.
+Being a mite of a child, I sat in that hollow like a bird in its nest,
+hung on to the mane with one hand, and held a crooked stick before the
+eye that could see when I wanted the creature to turn. In this way I
+began my horse-alphabet. First, we waded through the plantains and
+burdocks, at a slow walk, with a stumble now and then, which set my
+little heart to quaking like a swampy bog trod upon. Then I grew
+venturesome, and the old grey warmed into a soft trot, which shook me up
+like anything, but was more exhilarating than the walk. With my bare
+feet pressed close to the animal's side and my fingers gripped into his
+mane, I began to rattle my stick timidly against his shoulder; at which
+he broke trot and racked himself off into a canter, which made my heart
+leap with every fall of his hoofs, and filled it with the courage of a
+trooper.
+
+Didn't we wade through the burdocks and sweet ferns then! Didn't we ride
+round and round that pasture lot, without giving the dear old beast time
+for a bite of grass or a fair nip at the sweet ferns! Didn't my crooked
+stick rattle and my hair fly out in the wind! Didn't my mother scream
+after me, and my father rush out like a crazy man, with both arms spread
+out, and try to head Old Grey off! Of course he did. But the dear old
+horse didn't want to give up, and I didn't mean that he should; so he
+shied, and, of course, having nothing to hold him in by but the tuft of
+hair and the stick, he left father behind, and, I do believe, kicked up
+a trifle, just to show his independence.
+
+That was my first lesson on horseback. On the second, my father insisted
+on haltering the creature, which gave me a pull at his head, and mane,
+too, which rather interfered with the use of my crooked stick, and
+bunched me up, till father called out to me to sit up straight--which I
+did, at last, going it with both hands on the halter, and the hair
+blowing about my face like a veil. That morning Old Grey and I jumped a
+brook a full yard wide, and cleared both banks beautifully.
+
+After that I did a great deal of bareback riding, along the road and in
+the pasture lots, and could sit and ride like a trooper before I ever
+got into a side-saddle or knew what a curb-bit was.
+
+Sisters, that is the way to learn things--begin at the beginning, and
+get a firm, steady seat before you attempt to cut a dash. The lady that
+can't sit her horse handsomely without regard to bit or stirrup, needn't
+set herself up as much of a rider--at any rate, in our part of the
+country.
+
+So much for one kind of racing. Now for the water-course.
+
+We used to send little boats, dug out with a jack-knife, under paper
+sails, down that brook by the school-house, and see them swamped among
+the cowslips or capsized in the eddies, when we were in the A B C class.
+Some of us went far enough to sail down the mill stream in a canoe dug
+out of the trunk of some big tree. In fact, I have a remembrance of
+crossing a large river in a scow pushed forward with awful long poles.
+But beyond these rudimental experiences, ship-rowing is not indigenous
+to the Green Mountains, as a general thing, and I do not see how it can
+ever become a Vermont institution, yet awhile. Therefore I say,
+horse-racing you can understand, but ship-racing is really a novelty in
+the Mountains.
+
+Now, a yacht, sisters, is nothing more or less than a baby schooner,
+which has two masts, or a sloop, that has one, built up slender and
+graceful, with a cock-pit, which is in the stern, and a cooking-room,
+which is in the bow, and all the other fixings which make it as much
+like a ship as a first-rate baby-house is like an old homestead.
+
+Dempster has been to Washington, and got some contracts or something,
+and what does he do but come home one hot day when we were all just
+sweltering in white loose gowns, and says he:
+
+"Girls, what do you say to going down to the Regatta?"
+
+"The Regatta," says I, "what is that--anything cool?"
+
+"Why, it is a race given by the Yacht Club," says he, "and of course it
+will be cool if we go out to sea."
+
+"Well, I don't object to seeing, if that will make things cool," says I;
+"but how a club can race, except when it is in a policeman's hand, I
+can't begin to make out."
+
+Cousin D. gave one of his long, hearty laughs, and says he:
+
+"Now, really, Phœmie, don't you understand what a club is?"
+
+I felt the blood rise up into my face.
+
+"Don't I know what a club is?" says I. "Well, I should rather think so.
+There are hickory clubs, oak clubs, yellow pine knots, that answer
+pretty well, and locust clubs, but how a little ship can be turned into
+a club beats me!"
+
+"Oh, it isn't one ship that makes the club, but a good many," says he,
+"crack ships, too."
+
+I just dropped the two hands I had been holding up, quite out of breath.
+
+"So a good many ships make one club, do they?" says I.
+
+"Just so," says he. "When a lot of men join together for any particular
+thing, it is called a 'club.' There is the Jockey Club, the Union Club,
+the Rural Club, the Union League Club, the Yacht Club."
+
+"Oh, for mercy's sake, do stop before you club me to death," says I,
+clapping both hands to my ears. "We have got timber enough in Vermont,
+but clubs of any kind are not in our line. Just tell me what you want of
+us, and we'll say Yes or No."
+
+"Well, I want you to get into my new yacht, and go a little way out to
+sea," says he.
+
+"To see what?" says I.
+
+"The Regatta."
+
+"Can't you for once speak honest English?" says I.
+
+"Well, a Yacht Race," says he.
+
+"That is, little ships running races," says I; "but where?"
+
+"On the Atlantic Ocean," says he.
+
+My spirit rose. I have seen the East River and the upper bay, and more
+than once have caught a view of the Long Island Sound from the
+car-windows, but a live ocean--a great, broad, heaving ocean, with waves
+roaring up thirty feet high, is an object we do not often get a chance
+to contemplate on the slopes of the Green Mountains. Would I go and see
+that? Wouldn't I?"
+
+"Then you will go?" says Cousin Dempster.
+
+"Go!" says I, "yes, if I have to walk afoot with snow-shoes on."
+
+"Well, then, get your yachting clothes ready," says he.
+
+"Pink silk?" I suggested.
+
+"Oh, no; something that can stand the water," says he.
+
+"Say black alpaca, with a white hat and plumes--principle and patriotism
+before anything else," says I.
+
+"That will be lovely on the blue waves," says Cousin E. E. "I will wear
+a blue feather, and Cecilia shall turn up her Leghorn flat with an
+anchor."
+
+"That's just the thing," says Cousin D., with maritime enthusiasm. "I
+have had the yacht painted white, and on her long white pennant you will
+find a name all Vermonters love particularly, and the world generally."
+
+"What is her name?" we all said right out at once.
+
+"The Vermonter," says he, straightening himself up proudly.
+
+We all sprang to out feet, and clapped our hands with the wildest
+enthusiasm.
+
+"I'm not afraid to dare the wildest storms on the ocean with that
+craft," says I.
+
+"Nor I."
+
+"Nor I."
+
+Sisters, it was a spontaneous outburst of pure state patriotism--even
+that child Cecilia seemed to feel it--for ten minutes after she was busy
+as a bee, sewing a silver anchor on her Leghorn flat, and that day, for
+the first time, I kissed the child with spontaneosity.
+
+
+
+
+LXXI.
+
+YACHT-RACING.
+
+
+Sisters:--When you go to a yacht-race, the first step is peculiar. You
+get into a carriage or a car, and ride down to the docks. Then you steam
+off in a ferry-boat to Staten Island, get into a thing they call a yawl,
+which floats like a cockle-shell, and carries two or three people, and
+row off to one of the cunningest, prettiest, slenderest, most
+scrumptious little ships you ever set eyes on, sitting on the water like
+a white duck with its wings spread.
+
+Some black-walnut steps fell down the side, over which I climbed, with
+my heart in my mouth, and jumped into a little pew, with a sofa running
+round it, and some light cross-legged chairs ready for visitors.
+
+The sun was hot overhead and up from the water, so I just went down into
+the prettiest little cabin you ever saw, all finished off with shiny
+wood, like a lady's bedroom, and carpeted with sky-blue, with a pale
+touch of gray in it. Right by this were two lovely little bedrooms, all
+blue and cloud color, with snow-white beds and cloudy curtains. There
+were four beds in the cabin, too, built into the wall, and lots of
+silver things were shining on brackets and silver hooks.
+
+A sofa, all cushioned with blue, ran down each side of the cabin, and on
+one of these I took my place while the rest came in.
+
+Cousin D. had invited a dozen people to try his new yacht, and when they
+all came swarming in, it was cheerful as a beehive.
+
+Some cramped themselves in the cockpit, some flung themselves on the
+long sofas of the cabin, some got under the sails, cosey as birds in a
+tree, two and two; but I always remarked that two men and two women
+somehow never got together; they were sure to split up one of each sort,
+just as they are apt to do on land.
+
+Well, the yacht spread her sails, made a graceful dive and off she went,
+her canvas snapping and her colors flying. A whole squad of other
+vessels set sail too, and off we went like a flock of birds.
+
+The water of the bay was blazing like quicksilver. Some white clouds
+cooled the sky a little, but everything around was sweltering with
+hotness. On we went, fleet and cheerful, sending up the water in
+sparkles, and flying toward the ocean, with green banks on each side of
+us, and that gloriously hot sun heating up the air like a furnace.
+
+By and by we passed a couple of great stone forts, and came out into the
+ocean. Oh, what a broad blaze of sky and water--blue and silver
+everywhere, blue and silver!
+
+On these waters, far out, lay a crimson ship, settled down like a
+mammoth red bird, and around that a crowd of little vessels, with their
+sails spread ready for flight. Ever so many steamboats, crowded with
+people, waited a little way off for the race to begin.
+
+One of these steamboats had the President of these United States on
+board, and hung out its flag that all the world might know where to find
+him. We didn't try, but kept modestly down among the small craft.
+
+By and by there was a fluttering among the yachts around the red ship;
+then a gun banged off, then another, and away the whole flock went,
+flying across the water in a white cloud.
+
+After it went the steamboats, ploughing and snorting through the water,
+and after them a whole storm of sailing craft, all on the wing, each
+dashing up foam like fury.
+
+Now the wind rose higher, and seemed to cool the air, while it spread
+out all the sails as they flew before it. This seemed to bring in a
+whole army of little waves from the great ocean, and, as true as you
+live, every wave had a white hat on.
+
+I jumped up and fairly clapped my hands when I saw these waves trooping
+in, battalion after battalion, all tossing up their white hats and
+dancing forward, as if the winds were singing Yankee Doodle behind them.
+
+Then the party in our yacht gave a shout.
+
+"They are rounding the spit," says Cousin D. "Do look, Phœmie."
+
+I did look, but saw nothing particular--who could? What would one spit
+be in a whole ocean of water.
+
+Then came another shout.
+
+"They have marked the boy."
+
+"Goodness, gracious," says I, "is there a boy overboard? Do fling out a
+boat-hook or something!"
+
+"Do not disturb yourself, Phœmie," said Cousin D.; "that particular boy
+has been swimming in one spot these ten years."
+
+"And alive yet?" says I, feeling my eyes widen like saucers.
+
+"Just as live as he ever was," says he.
+
+"You don't say so," says I. "Can we see him from here?"
+
+"Yes; yonder!"
+
+Cousin D. pointed toward something in the water, black, with a red cap
+on. There did not seem to be much danger of his sinking, for he kept his
+head high, and a good many boats were near enough to keep him up. I lost
+sight of him, and watched the vessels flying off again. But somehow,
+when they came in sight once more, my enthusiasm was all gone, and I
+began to feel limp and dreadfully discouraged. I haven't had such an
+uproar about my--well--heart, since the Grand Duke sailed, and that was
+very different, a sort of affectionate flutter, while this is beyond
+ex-pres-sion.
+
+Sisters, at the end of the last sentence, my head fell into one of those
+blue cushions, and I have a dreamy feeling that waves with white hats on
+were bowing to me right and left.
+
+I have lifted my head again. The yachts are coming in full split. As
+each comes up, the steamboats and vessels give a yell that makes the sea
+tremble, and scares all the birds in the neighborhood. One time they
+shriek--that is for the _Gracie_. Then there was a deep, long howl--that
+was for the _Jantha_. Then there was a yell, a shriek, and a howl, all
+together, which was for the _Vixen_.
+
+What yacht beat, I don't pretend to know, but it comes to me as if in a
+hideous dream that it was the _Vixen_.
+
+The next thing I have on my mind was, a table set out in the cabin, and
+the popping of corks from long bottles, with a sound that made me quiver
+all over. Then I recollect that some one was persecuting me with offers
+of something nice to eat, for which I shall loath them as long as I
+live.
+
+Sisters, I did _not_ see a single ocean wave thirty feet high--far from
+it--but those I did see were quite high enough. If you don't believe me,
+go to a yacht race, that's all.
+
+
+
+
+LXXII.
+
+MUSIC THAT IS MUSIC.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I love music. My soul was brought up on Old Hundred, and
+refreshed from time to time with Yankee Doodle. The lively tones of a
+fiddle drove me wild with delight, in my foolish, school-girl days; and
+I cannot keep my feet still when one rattles of money-musk or the Opera
+Reel even now, when enthusiasm is delicately toned down into graceful
+ease.
+
+The truth is, Nature is full of music, and we who live in a mountainous
+country know how much of it is to be found outside of instruments and
+the human voice. In fact, the sweetest music I ever heard has come to me
+through the woods--not from the birds, but the whispering leaves. Have
+you ever listened--with your heart--and learned, by the faintest sound,
+the different voices of the trees--the quick, soft rustle of the maple;
+the stronger sound of the oak-leaves; the weird, ghostly shiver of the
+pine-needles? I know little of music, if anything out of heaven can
+touch a human soul more tenderly than these sounds. Then the birds--what
+joyous or solemn music they can make! Have you never felt your heart
+leap to the singing of a robin among the branches of an apple-tree in
+full blossom, or shiver and grow sad at sunset, when the cry of a lonely
+whip-poor-will comes wailing through the dusk?
+
+There is the music of trees in the spring, when their blossoms are sweet
+and their leaves are just unfolding--soft, cheerful, happy music, full
+of tenderness and love. Then there is the low, drowsy music of the
+summer-time, when bumble-bees and lady-bugs and humming-birds fill the
+warm air with greedy droning as they plunder the wild flowers of honey.
+
+Did you never close your eyes, half go to sleep, and listen to them,
+with a lazy consciousness that you could rest and enjoy, while those
+little, busy creatures were singing at their work? I have, a thousand
+times.
+
+Then comes the fall, when the hills are burnt over with red and gold and
+brown. How the full, rough-edged leaves strike together, with a sound of
+copper and brass--with a rustle and shiver that makes one think of
+military funerals. Then comes the swift, rustling sound of ripe nuts
+rattling from burs and husks; the coarse, bass voices of the crows among
+the naked stubble-lots; the mellow crash of corn-stalks, as the cattle
+tread them; the slow, liquid grinding of cider-mills, and the sharp
+sound of the hackle, where flax is broken for the spinning-wheel.
+
+After this, comes stormy music--fierce, high winds, whistling sharp and
+shrill through the long, naked branches of the woods, which answer them
+back with moans and sighs and wild shrieks that make you shiver at night
+and hide yourself under the bed-clothes.
+
+When I was a little girl, sisters, my heart rose and fell to music like
+this till I suffered terribly, sometimes, without speaking a word to any
+one--for these are feelings which one never does talk of--there is no
+language that I ever learned which will express them. But I have never
+heard any music that could reach my soul like that which God gives us in
+the blossom season--the summer, the fall of late fruit--and the bleak,
+hard winter, when the clash of ice against ice has a sound that no man
+or woman can reach.
+
+This is my idea of music, and that is scattered far and given to all men
+alike. You can't gather it up and deal it out in great, thundering
+gushes. It isn't to be got for five dollars a ticket. In fact, the best
+and sweetest things we have are given to the poor and rich just
+alike--free, gratis, for nothing.
+
+
+
+
+LXXIII.
+
+HUBBISHNESS.
+
+
+Sisters:--The music I have just been writing about is not fashionable by
+any manner of means. Boston, the great central hub of all creation,
+can't bottle it up or engage it by the ton to astonish all creation
+with. She must have the manufactured article, and has sent all over the
+world to get it.
+
+Every fiddler, flute-player, drummer, and curlecued horn-man in Europe
+has been brought over here to thunder-out and roll-off billows of sound
+for people to pay for and wonder at.
+
+We have a Niagara of waters that astonishes the world. Now the people of
+Boston are determined to give us, in a great, wild, conglomeration of
+voices, a full Niagara of sound.
+
+I am New England all over, from the top of my beehive-bonnet to the sole
+of my gaiter, but--confidentially, among ourselves--don't you think
+Boston takes a little too much on herself? That narrow-streeted,
+up-hilly city isn't all six of the New England States by a long shot.
+
+My opinion is that Boston is putting on airs, and I for one don't mean
+to put up with it. I hate stuck-up people, and I despise stuck-up towns.
+
+Of course it is my duty to see all things in behalf of the Society, and
+to do my best to lay them before you. I cannot say that my ideas of
+Boston have not toned down considerably since I came to New York. Still
+New England is New England, and Boston is Boston, if she does now and
+then make a tremendous old goose of herself, and sometimes threatens to
+cackle the hub all to pieces.
+
+Cousin Dempster hasn't much to do in summer-time, so he was on hand for
+the Great High Jubilee; and E. E. was just crazy to go; for she is what
+you call musical, and goes right off the handle whenever a fellow that
+can't speak English plays on the piano or sings to her in some language
+that she don't know a word of.
+
+Well, we went, and found Boston just running over with people. Every
+house along the crooked streets had one or two flags a-streaming from
+the roof, or out of the windows--star-spangled banners tangled-up with
+red and yellow and all sorts of colors; some with eagles, some without,
+but making every street gorgeous, as if the Fourth of July had burst out
+before its time.
+
+The Coliseum is a tremendous building, big enough to roof-in forty
+thousand people, and leave room for the whole swarm of drummers,
+toot-horners, piano-thrashers, blacksmiths, anvils, and swivel-guns,
+with a thousand people to blow, thrash, and blast them off, and twenty
+thousand singers behind, ready to pile in the thunder of their voices.
+
+The Coliseum is grand, barny in its structure, and all outdoorish when
+you get into it; but there is a good deal to see before you do get into
+it. The streets were just jammed-up with people when we came in sight of
+the great building, which stands out in a bare piece of ground, without
+a tree near it, and the hottest sun you ever wilted under beating down
+on everything around it, till I felt as if approaching the mouth of a
+great New England brisk oven, heated to bake a thousand tons of beans
+in. The streets were blocked with people.
+
+The little wooden bridges built over the railroads were creaking under
+the tramp of a never-ending crowd. The street cars were crowded like
+beehives till the horses could not move, and some of the cars broke
+down, choking up the track.
+
+Female women, with red books in their hands, scrambled through the
+crowd. Little tents and shanties were scattered all about, everybody
+talked fast and loud--some in one language, some in another. It was like
+going into the Tower of Babel, with all the languages in full blast.
+
+From one of the shanties we heard the sound of a loud, eager, wild
+voice, as of some fellow going to be hung, and wrestling for his life.
+
+"What is that?" says I to Dempster. "What on earth are they doing in
+there?"
+
+"Oh, it's a prayer-meeting," says he; "some man is wrestling with the
+Lord in behalf of sinful souls."
+
+"Oh, that's it," says I, just disgusted: "Well, I hope he'll get through
+with his wrestling before we come this way again. To haul religion and
+force prayers into such a crowd as this, is making a farce of
+Christianity. We have churches for such things, and the calm of a holy
+Sabbath set aside for the service of God. Who has time to think of such
+things here?"
+
+"Oh, it takes all sorts of men to make a world," says Dempster, pushing
+his way through the crowd, while E. E. and I followed, with that child
+a-dragging after us.
+
+We went at the rate of three feet in as many minutes, and that
+wrestler's voice was wrangling over us all the time. If the angels
+caught one sentence, I'm sure they must have clapped their wings to
+their ears and left the hub to take care of itself.
+
+
+
+
+LXXIV.
+
+THUNDERS OF MUSIC.
+
+
+Well, at last we crowded and fought our way into the Coliseum, which was
+pretty well filled up when we got through the entrance.
+
+It was a sight, I must say that. Before us was a whole mountain-side of
+benches, rising one above another till you could hardly see the end of
+them--benches, benches, benches--crowded down and running over with
+people, all in a state of bewildering commotion--humming, whispering,
+and rustling together like ten millions of bees in a mammoth hive.
+
+You never saw so many female women together in your born days. Think of
+it, thousands and thousands with crimson books fluttering in their
+hands, as if each woman had caught a great red butterfly and was holding
+him out by the wings. All these female women were rigged out in gorgeous
+dresses, rustling, moving, and flaming with all sorts of colors, like a
+hillside covered with gorgeous flowers, broken up with a dash of
+blackness now and then, as if a thunder-cloud had settled down amongst
+them. These black patches were the musicians, the flower garden was the
+singers--almost all female women, with fans, and voices, and red books
+in motion.
+
+Below were the people, crowded together by the acre, all jolly, smiling,
+and looking as if Boston were ready to burst her tire and whirl on her
+own bare hub, with all her spokes a-whizzing.
+
+Flags streamed and blazed on the walls, the roof, and around the
+pillars. All the stars in the skies seemed to have been torn down,
+scattered on a blue ground, and hung over that great building. It was a
+grand sight, I must say that--grand, but hubby.
+
+It was the German day, Cousin Dempster said. England had had her turn,
+France had flared up, and now Germany was to splurge just as much as she
+was a mind to.
+
+Well, Germany did splurge, but she began with a loud, deep, woe-begone
+rush of music, that seemed to roll out from a graveyard where everybody
+lay uneasy in his grave and was begging to get out. This ended off when
+the day closed with a dreary, low complaint, as if they had begged long
+enough and gave up. Now and then they broke in with a grand crash that
+made me start from my seat, and went off in a low wail, with a storm of
+music between.
+
+Something lively followed the first moan. Then a lady got up and sang
+all alone by herself, and her voice went floating through that great
+barny place, full, loud, and clear, as if ten thousand nightingales--not
+that I ever saw or heard a nightingale in my life, but I persist in
+it--as if ten thousand nightingales had broken loose in a swamp of wild
+roses.
+
+"Who on earth is that?" says I to E. E.
+
+"Madame Puschka Leutner," says she, clasping her hands. "Isn't she
+delicious?"
+
+Then out E. E. drew her handkerchief and set it flying.
+
+"I never heard anything like it, so strong, so sweet, so spreading,"
+says I, flirting out my own handkerchief with enthusiasm. "The human
+voice is something worth while in the way of music after all."
+
+It was no use saying more, for up jumped all the thousands of people in
+that great encampment, out went a swarm of white handkerchiefs, flocking
+together like a host of frightened seagulls, and the roar of the people
+went up like thunder.
+
+Then a great band of men, mostly with yellow beards and rosy faces, got
+on their feet, and went at the fiddles, the twisted horns, the drums and
+things, like crazy creatures, and the way the music rose, and swelled,
+and thundered out was enough to drive one crazy.
+
+Once more that great crowd burst in with yells and shouts, and a wild
+storm of praise. Then one of the yellow-haired men stood up alone with a
+wide-mouthed toot-horn, made of bright brass, in his hand. After looking
+around a minute, he just put the horn to his mouth, and blew a slow,
+long blow. Then he went at it tooth and nail, bringing out great round
+tones that seemed as if they never would grow faint or die away.
+
+I have heard a great many toot-horns in my life; in fact, I have blown a
+tin one myself to call the men folks in to dinner; but never did I hear
+anything like that. It was what Cousin E. E. called wonderful--so-low.
+
+I couldn't quite agree with her there, for to me it seemed wonderfully
+loud and riotous, but it was enough to make one in love with brass
+toot-horns forever.
+
+By and by something happened that just took the starch out of my New
+England soul. There, in the midst of all those dashy singers, one
+hundred and fifty men and women of the colored persuasion rose up in a
+human thunder-cloud, and broke into that noble song of freedom, which is
+a glory to one New England woman, and a glory to New England, for no
+better thing has been written since the "Star Spangled Banner:"
+
+    "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming Lord."
+
+Oh, sisters! there mightn't have been the highest-priced music in those
+colored voices, but the words are enough to wake up a dead warrior; they
+went through and through me as the wind stirs a forest. It was something
+to hear those dusky-faced freedmen chanting the glory of their own
+emancipation--something better than music, I can tell you. But the
+thrill of the thing was all gone when twenty thousand white people, with
+drums, trumpets, fiddles, organs, everything and every creature that
+could make a noise, thundered in, and bore all the sentiment off in a
+wild whirlpool of thunder.
+
+I do wish the white people would stop helping the colored population so
+much. They only drown them out and stifle them. Why couldn't the
+jubilant darkies be left to sing their own song, and rush on with old
+John Brown without being whirlpooled up in twenty thousand white voices.
+They could have stood their own without help, I reckon.
+
+There was a little resting spell after the darkies sat down; then came a
+great heaving crash and storm of music. Everything from a jew's-harp to
+an organ was set a-going, and behind them thousands of women sent up
+their voices amid a crash of anvils, the thunder of guns, and the
+ringing of bells that plunged one headlong into a volcano of sound that
+was neither music, nor thunder, nor an earthquake, but altogether a
+stampede and whirlwind of noises that engulfed you, body and soul.
+Ring--crash-bang--thunder rolling, rolling--oceans in tumult--whirlwinds
+of sound--armies crashing together--the world at an end!
+
+That was what it seemed like to me. Sisters, I haven't a nerve left in
+my body; my temples throb, my heart feels as if it had been blown up
+with brass horns. There is a drum beating in each temple. Oh, if I could
+only hear a robin sing, or a brook in full flow--anything soft, and
+low, and sweet--it would be a relief.
+
+
+
+
+LXXV.
+
+SARATOGA TRUNKS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Do you know where Long Branch is? I reckon not, owing to
+its being a sandy slip, cut off from the edge of New Jersey, and not
+much of a place over two months in the year; it hasn't got into the
+geography books as a school item of importance, though, if a President
+or two more should settle in there, it might lift it a notch higher.
+
+But in duty bound, I am here in pursuit of my great social mission, and
+can tell you, confidently, that Long Branch is a great watering-place,
+brim full, and running over with fashion once a year, when the hot sun
+drives all the upper-crust people out of New York, and everybody that is
+anybody feels the want of extra washing.
+
+When I speak of watering-places, do not understand that I mean a tavern
+corner with some brook emptying itself into a huge wooden trough for
+horses to drink out of. Of course, that is our Vermont idea; with a
+willow-tree shading the trough. That, no doubt, gave the name here. But
+the two things are no more alike than trout streams are like the broad
+ocean.
+
+I ask no questions, always finding it best to wait and watch, and learn
+for myself; but when Dempster asked me if I would like to go down to a
+watering-place in New Jersey, I asked him if there wasn't Croton Water
+enough in the pipes for all the horses they kept.
+
+Dempster laughed, and said it was salt water he was thinking of, and
+asked, right on that, if I had got a bathing-dress?
+
+"A bathing-dress," says I. "Goodness, gracious, no. When I bathe, as a
+general thing, I--that is--I take off--"
+
+Here I broke off, and felt myself turning red. I declare, Cousin
+Dempster has a way of putting things upon you for explanation, which I,
+as a single lady, with expectations, of course, find embarrassing.
+
+Just then, E. E. came in, all of a flurry about her trunks; she wanted
+more and must have 'em, she said. Seventeen Saratoga trunks, and a
+basket or two, were just nothing to what she needed. Dempster must go
+out and get half a dozen more. Why, her fluted skirts alone filled three
+trunks.
+
+Dempster went. To own the truth, he is an obedient creature as ever wore
+coat and--well pocket-handkerchiefs. It wasn't long before a lot of
+trunks--big enough for country school-houses--were piled into the hall,
+and then Cousin E. E. began to revel. Her bed was crowded and loaded
+down with skirts, dresses, shawls, bonnets, round hats, broad flats,
+peaked caps. You never saw such heaps and mountains of clothes; such a
+litter of small things; such stacks of boots and shoes.
+
+It really seemed as if she was fitting out an army of feminines. Even
+Cecilia was down on her knees packing, and E. E. was deep in a high
+trunk with her slippers half dropping from her feet as she punched
+things in and pressed them down. The help, black and white, kept running
+up and downstairs like hens with their necks wrung. Every few minutes
+there came a ring at the door, and paper-boxes and bundles were set down
+in the hall, and struggled upstairs when any of the help thought it
+worth while to bring them, which was once in about ten minutes, all
+morning.
+
+I think Dempster made a cowardly attempt to get out of the way, but it
+was of no use. On such occasions men are wanted, especially when the
+bills come in, and E. E. knows her privileges.
+
+
+
+
+LXXVI.
+
+THE DOLLY VARDEN.
+
+
+As I stood looking on, wondering if cousin really meant to turn the
+house inside out, and set up a village of trunks somewhere on the
+sea-shore, that hard-working creature lifted her face, and looked at me
+deploringly.
+
+"Oh, Phœmie," says she; "are you packed? How cool you look."
+
+"Packed," says I; "oh, yes; I always keep my pink silk folded."
+
+"But your summer things, are they ready? Surely you'll have a Dolly?"
+
+"No," says I; "its years since I have thought of a doll, and I haven't
+the least idea of going back to my play-house days."
+
+"But I mean a dress," says she, lifting her head out of the trunk, and
+wiping the swe--well, perspiration from her face. "A Dolly Varden. Don't
+you understand?"
+
+"A dress, and some Miss Dolly Varden, all at once! Now I can't think
+what dress you mean; and, as for that young person, I don't know her
+from a bag of sweet corn. How should I? Never having been introduced!"
+says I.
+
+E. E. just sat back on the floor, and drew a deep breath.
+
+"Oh, Phœmie," says she, "you are so stolid about some things. Why, it is
+only a dress I mean."
+
+"Then what did you drag in that young person for?" says I.
+
+"Because she gives her name to the dress."
+
+"I'm sure the dress ought to be very much obliged to her. That is if she
+came by the name honestly," says I.
+
+"And it's all the rage now. You must order one, Phœmie."
+
+"What, the dress or the girl?" says I.
+
+Cousin E. E. got out of patience, and sprung up red in the face. Across
+the room she went, slopping along in her slippers, flung back the lid of
+the trunk that seemed to be overrunning with poppies, marigolds, and
+morning-glories, and, giving something a jerk, brought up a puffy, short
+gown of white muslin, blazed all over with great straggling flowers--the
+morning-glories, poppies, marigolds that I had seen bursting up from the
+trunk.
+
+"There is a Dolly," says she, a-shaking out the puffy, short dress, as
+if it had been a banner.
+
+"Not by a long shot," says I, laughing. "It may be a whopping big doll's
+dress; in fact, it looks like it, for what woman on earth would ever
+think of wearing that? Why, the flowers would set her on fire."
+
+"This is for Cecilia," says she, "but I have one just like it, and mean
+to wear it if you've no objection?"
+
+"Not the least in the world," says I. "It isn't my mission to stop
+peacocks from strutting and showing their half-moons if they want to."
+
+E. E. laughed. She is a good-hearted creature, and I set store by her
+after all.
+
+"I will try this on," says she. "They are all the rage, I tell you. Try
+one, Phœmie; your tall figure would set one off splendidly."
+
+"Do you really think so?" says I, beginning to take a notion to the
+great bunches of flowers which did stand out from the white ground with
+scrumptious richness.
+
+"I am sure of it. No one carries off a dress so well," says she, "and it
+will be expected of you. Distinguished persons are so criticised, you
+know."
+
+I looked at the dress again; the flowers were natural as life; the
+muslin was wavy, and white as drifted snow.
+
+"But the cost?" says I. "A burnt child dreads a blisterous
+contamination. That pink dress of mine is a scrumptious
+garment--palatial, as one might say, but costly. The value of
+twenty-five yards of silk is a load for any tender conscience."
+
+"Oh, a Dolly doesn't take half as much," says E. E.; "besides short
+skirts are the style on the sea-shore. The expense really isn't very
+enormous. In fact, almost any one can afford a Dolly."
+
+I yielded. Human nature is weak, and I had a letter yesterday from uncle
+Ben, saying that the hay and corn crops are promising. Besides, there is
+a sort of reason just now why I should be a little self-liberal in the
+way of dress. As Cousin E. E. says, people do expect something better
+than alpaca and calico of high genius--especially when the form is tall,
+and the figure commensurate to the genius.
+
+"But have I time? That French dressmaker will want three weeks, at
+least."
+
+Cousin E. E. saw by this that the austerity of my economical education
+was giving way; so she jumped up, flipped the slippers from her feet,
+and was soon buttoning her boots and tying her bonnet, ready for a
+start.
+
+"Where are you a-going?" says I.
+
+"Where they'll take your measure and send the Dolly home to-morrow
+morning, or down by express. Leave it to me, and you shall have
+something really beautiful."
+
+"Let there be plenty of flowers," says I.
+
+"Of course," says she, "bright, rich colors."
+
+"Hollyhocks," says I, "are my favorites; dandelions and feather-edged
+poppies come next; then a vine of trumpet flowers tangling the bunches
+together, would look scrumptious."
+
+"I see you enter into the spirit of it," says she; "but have you got
+everything else?"
+
+"Everything else? Of course I haven't. Who has, in fact? But my pink
+dress is turned wrong side out, and packed."
+
+"Have you a flat?" says she.
+
+"A flat! I? Not that I can call my own. Dempster has introduced half a
+dozen, but I don't claim them."
+
+"Oh, I don't mean men, but a broad straw flat that answers for a bonnet
+and an umbrella."
+
+"No," says I; "I have a Japanese thing that opens like a toad-stool,
+and shuts like a policeman's club. Will that do? That Japanese
+embassador gave it to me, with such a tender look. I never open it that
+his smile does not fall upon me like sunshine in a shady place."
+
+"That will be distinguished; take it, by all means. But you will want
+the straw flat, and a bathing-dress as well."
+
+"Now, Cousin E. E., says I, "what do you mean?"
+
+"Why, you mean to bathe, of course?"
+
+"Cousin E. E., have you ever seen a Vermont lady--not to say a woman of
+genius--who did not bathe?" says I, with dignity.
+
+"But you will go into the water?"
+
+"To a certain extent," says I, "that has always been my habit."
+
+"But the ocean--salt water?"
+
+"Well," says I, "salt water is beyond me; but if that is the fashion
+down at Long Branch, I don't object to a trifle of salt."
+
+"The bathing is delightful," says she. "At the turn of every tide you
+see parties in the water all along the shore."
+
+"Parties in the water--_parties_?"
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen."
+
+"What!!"
+
+"Children, too."
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen bathing together! Cousin, you--well, if I were
+telling a story like that to a congregation of born idiots, they might
+believe me--that's all."
+
+"But it is true."
+
+"And you call this a civilized country!" says I, blazing with
+indignation. "Emily Elizabeth Dempster, do you mean to say that men and
+women--gentlemen and ladies--go down to the salt water and bathe
+together?"
+
+"Indeed they do."
+
+"I don't believe it! I won't believe it! If my great-grandmother were to
+rise from her grave and swear to it, I would tell her to go back again
+and hide her face. Somebody has been imposing on you, Cousin E. E."
+
+"Believe it or not, it is the truth," says E. E. "Ask Dempster."
+
+"Ask Dempster! Do you think I have lost every grain of modesty, that
+such an outrageous question should pass my lips?"
+
+"Well, believe it or not, as you like," says she, "I haven't time to
+prove it; only it isn't worth while to scout at what every one does, and
+you are a little apt to do that, Phœmie."
+
+"So, if I lived among hottentots, I mustn't object to rancid-oil on my
+hair--but I think I should, anyhow."
+
+"Well, well; get on your bonnet, or the Dolly Varden will never be
+finished in time," says she, laughing.
+
+I put on my beehive, and we both went right down town. On our way we saw
+a wire woman standing in a broad, glass window, with a dress on, that
+took the shine off from anything I had ever seen in the way of a dress.
+
+"There is a Dolly," says E. E., "and really, now, I do believe it would
+fit you."
+
+We went into the store, had the wire woman undressed, and her Dolly
+carried up-stairs, where I put it on, behind a red curtain, with a
+chatty female woman hooking it together, and buttoning it up in puffs
+and waves that made me stand out like a race-horse with a saddle on. The
+girl was French, with a touch of the Irish brogue--just enough to give
+richness to the language.
+
+I asked her what was the reason of it, and she said in their
+establishment a great many of the upper crust Irish came to trade, and
+she had caught just the least taste of a brogue in waiting on
+them--which was natural, and accounts for the accent so many of these
+French girls have, which I must own has puzzled me a little.
+
+When my dress was on, E. E. and this French girl led me up to a great,
+tall looking-glass, and stood with their hands folded, while I took an
+observation. The French girl clasped her hands, and spoke first:
+
+"Tra jolly," says she.
+
+"No," says I, "that is not exactly my state of mind--composed I may be,
+but not jolly, by any manner of means."
+
+"She means that the dress is beautiful," says E. E.
+
+"Oh!" says I, "why didn't she say so then?"
+
+"Well, she did, in her way."
+
+"Magnifique," says the girl, cutting the word off with a squeak.
+
+"Why can't you open your mouth wide enough to say magnificent," says I,
+"if you like it so much; nipping off words with a bite isn't one thing
+or another."
+
+"Oh, but it is, beside the dress, that figure," says she, a-spreading
+her hands.
+
+After all, the girl did manage to express herself. I was sorry for not
+understanding her at first.
+
+Before I could say this, Cousin E. E. got out of patience.
+
+"Does the dress suit? for we have no time to throw away," says she.
+
+"Suit," says I, turning round and round with slow enjoyment of that
+queenly figure in the glass. "Of course it does. Why, cousin, it is
+superb; the bunching up is stupendous. Then the pattern--a whole flower
+garden in full bloom."
+
+"Then it had better be sent home at once, for we must go early in the
+morning," says she, short as pie crust.
+
+I paid for that Dolly Varden with satisfaction. It might have been
+dear--I think it was, but there were no extras, and I knew what I was
+about from the first. Besides it was a smashing affair, rain-bowish,
+beautifully puckered up, and blazing with flowers.
+
+Well, we went into the street, and then Cousin E. E. began:
+
+"One minute, Phœmie; I want some hair pins."
+
+We went into the next door and got the hair pins, then out again. After
+walking about fifty feet she broke out once more:
+
+"Dear me, I forgot the black ribbon."
+
+In she darted through another door, and came out stuffing a bit of
+twisted paper into her pocket. Ten feet more and she turned square
+about:
+
+"Some pins, Phœmie; I must get some pins."
+
+So we kept darting in and out of doors till there wasn't another in the
+street, and went home with both our pockets stuffed full of pins, lace,
+gloves, combs, buttons, and a general assortment of other small things,
+all of which E. E. had forgotten till the last minute.
+
+That night I left her plunged headforemost into a huge trunk, with a
+sloping roof, her feet just touching the ground, and complaining
+bitterly because Dempster was not at home to help press the things down.
+
+
+
+
+LXXVII.
+
+STARTING FOR LONG BRANCH.
+
+
+Early the next morning a big wagon-load of trunks drove from the door.
+Then a carriage came up ready to take us to the boat. It was awful hot,
+and the air in that house was so close one could hardly breathe. The
+parlors were all shut up. The stone girl and that other fellow had white
+dresses on, and for once made a decent appearance. The chairs and sofas
+were all done up in linen, the blinds were shut, and the whole house
+looked like a church whose minister had been sent off on his travels at
+the expense of an adoring congregation.
+
+E. E. and I stood in the hall, I with a satchel in my hand, she with a
+little brown affair buckled on one side of her waist.
+
+That child was a-standing in the open door, watching the men pile the
+trunks on the wagon.
+
+"Mamma," she called out, as the man drove away, "I'm sure they have left
+a trunk, for I counted, and there was only nineteen."
+
+E. E. ran to the foot of the stairs.
+
+"Dempster, Dempster!"
+
+Down came Dempster, looking hot and worried.
+
+E. E. called out:
+
+"Do stop the wagon, something is left."
+
+Dempster ran into the street, stopped the man, and stood in the hot sun
+counting over the trunks. His face was in a blaze when he came back.
+
+"It's all right," says he, "twenty of them, full count. Come, get into
+the carriage."
+
+E. E. moved forward a step or two, then halted.
+
+"The basement door--is it bolted?"
+
+Dempster dived down to the lower hall and up again, panting for breath.
+
+"The scuttle," said E. E., pointing upwards.
+
+Dempster rushed upstairs, banged away at the roof, and ran down again.
+
+E. E. drew down her veil, and tightened her shawl.
+
+"Oh, Dempster, have you locked the wine-cellar?"
+
+Again Dempster made a rush into the depths of the earth, and came up
+again dripping with swe--well, perspiration.
+
+"There, I think everything is safe now," he said, offering E. E. his
+arm.
+
+She took it a moment, then dropped it suddenly.
+
+"Dear me! Dempster, you haven't been near the stable, and I haven't a
+doubt it is wide open!"
+
+Dempster said something between his teeth which I tried my best not to
+hear; then off he went down the pavement, looking as if he would give
+the world to knock some one down. By and by he came back, panting like a
+mad dog.
+
+"Anything more!" says he, savage as a jack-knife, wiping his face with a
+white pocket-handkerchief.
+
+"Yes, dear," says E. E.; "I'm afraid I left my parasol--just run up and
+see."
+
+Dempster went, and came down with the parasol in his hand.
+
+She took it, and got into the carriage. I followed, and "that child"
+dived in after me. Dempster had his foot on the step, when E. E. broke
+out again:
+
+"Oh, darling, what shall I do?--Snip has been left behind. I think you
+will find her in the bath-room."
+
+Dempster dashed the handkerchief across his face, ran up the steps in
+desperate haste, and by and by came out with E. E.'s little black dog in
+his arms.
+
+E. E. reached out her arms, but Cecilia snatched it from her father.
+That moment a policeman went by, and E. E. leaned through the carriage
+window.
+
+"Why, Dempster, you have forgotten to see the policeman."
+
+Dempster followed the man, diving one hand down into his pocket. I saw
+him draw out some money, which the man took; then poor Dempster came
+back on a run, and plunged into the carriage.
+
+"Drive on--drive on, I say--or we'll be too late for the Long Branch
+boat!"
+
+The man did drive on, but E. E. jerked the check-string.
+
+"Oh, husband, do oblige me just this once--I have left my longest back
+braid on the bureau!"
+
+"No," says Dempster, "I'll be--"
+
+I put my hand over Dempster's mouth.
+
+"Dempster," says I, "if you ever want to be a Christian, this is the
+place to begin in, for here patience can have its perfect work."
+
+My gentle rebuke had its effect. Dempster got out of the carriage, and
+once more mounted those stone steps.
+
+By and by he came back with a long braid of hair trailing from his hand.
+Then he planted his foot on the carriage step with decision, and says
+he:
+
+"Drive on!" which the man did.
+
+
+
+
+LXXVIII.
+
+THAT HAIR-TRUNK.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--We are here at Long Branch, bag and baggage--Cousin
+Dempster, E. E., myself, and that creature Cecilia, who is more trouble
+than the whole of us put together. We came down in--not on--the
+_Plymouth Rock_, which is nothing of the sort, but a steamboat, as long
+as all out-doors, with room enough for a camping-ground for the next
+generation on the decks, and rows of staterooms that would line the main
+street of Sprucehill on both sides, and have some to let. There was a
+whole lot of fiddlers and horn-players on board that began to play the
+minute we came in sight--a compliment that I should feel more deeply if
+it hadn't become so common; but somehow wherever I go, those musical
+fellows start up, and grind and blow till one almost begins to wish for
+the privacy of an obscure position.
+
+Fame is beautiful, and reputation is the glory of genius; but when they
+are sounded out by fiddles in broad daylight, and blasted over creation
+by wide-mouthed toot-horns, innate modesty shrinks within itself.
+
+I really felt this way when a squad of music-grinders burst out in high
+jubilee the moment my foot touched the deck. It was a compliment, of
+course, but the sun was pouring down upon us, hot as a fiery furnace.
+
+The express-men were smashing our twenty-two trunks on deck end
+foremost, caving one in every minute or two, and I felt too hot and
+anxious for reciprocity when the musicians struck up, for all the genius
+and ambition was just burned out of me.
+
+When we got aboard, the thermometer was running up so fast that another
+hitch would have made it boil right over. Those glass things ought to be
+made longer at both ends.
+
+I haven't a blinding faith in express-men since I saw three of E. E.'s
+best Saratoga trunks stove in, so I let the music storm on while I kept
+watch of my own hair-trunk, which came down from my grandmother on the
+father's side, who fed the calf that gave up the skin that covers that
+trunk only with its innocent life. She fed it with skim-milk from her
+own saucer, and set store by the trunk on that account up to the day of
+her death. Then she willed it to me in a codicil, that being more sacred
+than the original testament, she said, which I cannot understand--all
+testaments, old or new, being first in my estimation.
+
+Well, of course, I kept watch of that trunk, and when I saw a great
+broad footed Irishman take it from the wagon and pitch it ten feet on
+deck, I just shut my parasol, clenched it in the middle, and went up to
+him.
+
+"How dare you pitch my property on end in that way?" says I.
+
+"I hain't touched none of your property," says he, a-wiping his forehead
+with the cuff of his coat. "Never see a bit of it."
+
+"That trunk is my property," says I, pointing toward it with my parasol,
+which I still held belligerently by the middle.
+
+"Well," says the fellow, eyeing the trunk sideways, "it does look sort
+of pecular, but still I reckon it's nothing more 'en a trunk, after
+all--one of the hairy old stagers--but only a trunk, anyhow!"
+
+"Sir," says I, with emphatic dignity, for the honor of my ancestors was
+concerned, "that is a traditional trunk--a testamentary bequest from my
+grandmother--who was revolutionary in her time."
+
+"What," says the man--"what is that you say?"
+
+Here a real nice-looking gentleman came up to where I stood, and says he
+to the man:
+
+"You should be more careful, the trunk is evidently an heirloom."
+
+"You are very kind," says I, relenting into a bow; "it's only a
+hair-trunk--grandmother's loom went to another branch of the family."
+
+"Well, anyway, I'll put the crather by itself, and bring it to yez safe,
+marum, never fear," says the Irishman; and with that he sat down on my
+blessed grandmother's trunk and wiped his face again. Then he waved his
+dirty hand and motioned that I should go away, which I did, and found E.
+E. spreading her skirts out wide on a settee, and looking as innocent as
+twenty lambs if any one seemed to turn anxiously toward the extra seat
+she was covering up for me.
+
+I took the seat thankfully, spread my parasol, and tried to catch a
+mouthful of air, but there wasn't a breath stirring. The water in the
+harbor was smooth as a looking-glass. The sky was broad, blue, and so
+hot with sunshine that it blistered one's face to look up.
+
+I put a blue veil around my beehive, and wilted down into my corner of
+the settee. Dempster stood by us blowing himself with a broad-brimmed
+hat, but not a breath of air he got.
+
+"I'll run down and see how the thermometer is," says he. "Never--never
+did I swelter under such a stifler in my life."
+
+Off he went, swinging his hat. In a few minutes he came back again,
+panting with the heat.
+
+"It's a hundred," says he.
+
+"What?" says I.
+
+"The thermometer," says he.
+
+"And is it that which makes things so hot?"
+
+"Of course," says he, "one hundred is as much as we can bear."
+
+"Then, why on earth don't they get rid of some? What is the use of
+piling-up things to this extent? For my part I never will travel on
+boats that carry these red-hot thermometers again. It's as much as one's
+life is worth. Nitro-glycerine is nothing to it; that blows you right
+straight up, but these other things pile on the heat and never come to
+an end."
+
+Congress ought to put a stop to such dangerous freights being piled-up
+in steamboats. It's enough to breed suicides on the water.
+
+Dempster wanted to laugh, I could see that, but his face just puckered
+up a little, and it was all he could do in that line. So he took a
+camp-stool, pulled his new white hat over his eyes, and fell into a
+soggy sort of sleep. There he sat, kind of simmering, like a baked apple
+in the mouth of an oven, till the steamboat stopped on the end of a
+sand-bank, and gave a lazy snarl, as if it was glad to get rid of us.
+
+After this they packed the whole cargo of live people in a line of cars,
+and sent them off sweltering through the sand with the engine roaring
+before them like a fiery dragon.
+
+
+
+
+LXXIX.
+
+AT THE BRANCH.
+
+
+By and by, we came to Long Branch, where the engine gave another long
+whoop, and were turned out into the sunshine again among stages, wagons,
+carriages, and all sorts of wheeled creatures, all looking as if they
+had been in a whirlwind of red dust.
+
+Cousin Dempster had sent his carriage ahead, and there his handsome bay
+horses stood sweating themselves black, and dropping foam into the dusty
+road. We got in, helter-skelter--no one cared which was first--and were
+driven toward the sea-shore.
+
+When we got in sight of the water the horses made a sudden turn, and
+wheeled into a wide, dusty street, that runs right along the edge of the
+water. It was an awful grand sight, but the waves didn't seem to have
+strength enough to move, only gave out a lazy sob once in a while, as if
+they were tired of carrying so many loafing ships about that hadn't
+spirit enough to flap their own sails.
+
+Long Branch is a real nice place after all; and just the broadest,
+coolest, and most scrumptious tavern in it is the Ocean Hotel, which
+stands just back of the sea-shore, stretching its white wings widely,
+from the centre building a quarter of a mile, I do believe, each way.
+Before the house is a great green lawn, with walks and carriage roads
+cut through it that lead from the house to the high bank, against which
+the ocean keeps beating all the year round.
+
+On each side the walks are great white marble flower-pots--vases they
+call them here--choke full and running over with flowers and vines, and
+great broad-leaved plants that looked cool and green, hot as it was.
+
+"Oh," says Cousin E. E. "Isn't that beautiful? So fresh, so bright, it
+is like a moving garden."
+
+So it was. All along those deep verandahs that run clear across the
+front of the hotel in double rows, were swinging baskets full of flowers
+and cool green leaves--hundreds of them--brightening the whole broad
+front of the hotel, and under them was a crowd of people--gentlemen,
+ladies, and children--reading, chatting, sleeping in the great easy
+willow chairs, or walking up and down on the soft grass.
+
+Sisters, I know now exactly the way an Arab feels when he finds a bright
+spring--which they call an oasis--in the deserts of Sahara, and hears
+the leaves shiver and the waters murmur. This hotel looked cool, still,
+and refreshing like that. All the front was in shadow, before it lay the
+deep blue water. Inside was Mr. Leland, a potentate among hotel-keepers,
+ready to make us at home.
+
+There it was again. Ovations will follow me. I had but just taken off my
+dusty clothes, bathed my face and hands with cold water, and stepped out
+on the verandah, when a storm of music burst out from a little
+summer-house on the grass. Wherever I go this sort of ovation follows
+me. Music and flowers seem to be my destiny. No matter where I roam, in
+all the steamboats and hotels they send storms of homage after me. Well,
+I am grateful, and I hope bear these honors with Christian meekness.
+
+I have been riding all along the beach. The sun has gone down and the
+ocean ripples to the softest and blandest wind I ever felt. The vessels
+that move on it show signs of life now. Their great white sails bend and
+strain with a look of power. The day has been hot, but a cool wind comes
+off the water, and you breathe once more.
+
+Sisters, do not be led to suppose that the Ocean Hotel, large and grand
+as it is, means all Long Branch. Why, there is a mile of hotels and
+cottages running along the beach, all swarming over with people. As you
+ride up the street you pass dozens and dozens of little summer-houses,
+full of young people looking out at the sea, which comes in with a slow
+rush and swell now that leaves a lonesome feeling in the heart.
+
+
+
+
+LXXX.
+
+THE RACE-COURSE.
+
+
+There is a race-ground three miles from here, where everybody is going
+this morning, though the weather is hot and the ocean is sound asleep,
+with great silver scales of sunshine trembling over it.
+
+New York has come down in crowds to Long Branch, and all the hotels have
+emptied themselves on to the race-course. Three miles of road are
+covered with moving carriages, wagons and stages--one cloud of yellow
+dust rolls along the road without a break. Every carriage is gay with
+brightly dressed ladies. Thousands go up or down on the railroad, whose
+engine stops and pours out clouds of black smoke close by the race
+track. From the cars a stream of people now on to the course, packing
+themselves into the benches of the Grand Stand, or scattering on the
+grass around it.
+
+When we got into the enclosure fifteen thousand people were waiting,
+some in the hot sun, others in the hot shade, all choked with dust and
+sweltering with heat.
+
+We were late. There was but one thing that we wanted to see: the race
+between Longfellow and Harry Bassett--two of the swiftest horses in the
+country.
+
+If horses could gamble I should call these two beautiful creatures
+black-legs, and the gayest of gamboliers; but as they can't do it
+themselves men and women do it for them.
+
+This time twenty-five thousand dollars was to go to the swiftest
+horse--twenty-five thousand dollars--enough to build a meeting-house.
+Doesn't it make you tremble in your shoes; but that isn't all. Everybody
+was betting with everybody else, just for the fun of betting.
+
+I saw a little shaver there, ten years old, who boasted that he had won
+three pair of gloves from a little girl of eight.
+
+The cream of that fifteen thousand skimmed itself off and consolidated
+in a handsome square building that they call the Club House. We went
+there, of course, and soon got seats among a crowd of upper-tenists on
+the roof, which took in a view of the whole race-ground.
+
+One or two horses, with funny little fellows on their backs, were moving
+up and down before the Grand Stand, but no one seemed to care about
+them. Harry Bassett and Longfellow were all they wanted in the way of
+fast horses.
+
+Sisters, don't fancy now that Longfellow is of a poetic, or even
+literary, turn of mind. Nor do I want you to think that his owner named
+him after our great New England poet because he was fired with
+admiration of his genius. Nothing of the kind. I don't suppose that "old
+Kentucky gentleman" ever read a line of Longfellow's poetry in his
+life--may be, though I hate to think so, he never heard of him--at any
+rate this great, long, swift, beautiful animal was named after himself,
+and nobody else. His body is long and slender, very long, and that is
+why the colt got his name. I wish it had been the other way, but it
+wasn't, and truth is truth. In fact, I'm afraid literature isn't
+appreciated on the race-course. It takes all the romance out of one to
+know that this grand young horse was named after his own body, and not
+after our great New Englander.
+
+Never mind about the name now, Harry Bassett is coming down the road,
+and slackens his speed in front of the Grand Stand. A beautiful,
+beautiful animal, with limbs like a deer, and a coat smooth as satin,
+colored like a plump ripe chestnut. Fifteen thousand people clap their
+hands, stamp their feet, shout, cheer, and flutter out their
+handkerchiefs as the horse goes by.
+
+Sisters, you never saw anything like it. A camp-meeting, where every
+man, woman, and child was just converted, might be a comparison, with
+drawbacks.
+
+Harry Bassett took all this cool as a cucumber. It didn't disturb a hair
+on his glossy coat. The creature knew that he was being admired, and
+liked it--that was all. Down he came by the Grand Stand, past the Club
+House, where he got another ovation and another whirlwind of white
+handkerchiefs, and, wheeling round, walked back again and gave the other
+horse a chance.
+
+Longfellow came next--a little larger, a little longer, and heavier in
+the limbs--a splendid horse; but he did not take my fancy as Harry
+Bassett did. From the first minute I wanted that chestnut beauty to
+beat; there was something about him, I can't tell what, but he suited
+me.
+
+I was half put-out with Longfellow for being such a grand, powerful
+fellow. When he came opposite the Grand Stand, out flew the
+handkerchiefs and out rolled the thunder, just as it had when Bassett
+went by. Both the animals were so handsome that you couldn't help
+clapping your hands.
+
+Bless you, the splendid creature didn't care a cent for it all. The
+crazy applause passed him like wind. He liked the fresh air, and gloried
+in a swift run, on his own hook; twenty-five thousand dollars were
+nothing to him. But he showed off his magnificent proportions and
+allowed the hot sunshine to stroam over his brown coat with the most
+abominable indifference.
+
+I insist upon it, Longfellow is a noble horse, but not so handsome or so
+lithe in his movement as Bassett. If these two creatures should ever
+come to Sprucehill, I know you will all stand by me in what I say--but
+then every one of you would be turned out of meeting if you only looked
+at a race-horse through a spy-glass.
+
+Well, when the two handsome beasts had shown themselves off long enough,
+they drew up together and made ready for a start. A red flag was
+floating close by them. There was no noise now; not a man in all those
+benches clapped his hands. Instead of that, the whole crowd seemed
+afraid to breathe.
+
+The red flag fell. The two horses started close together, and kept so
+once round the course; then that long-bodied fellow began to stretch
+himself a little ahead. They passed us like two arrows shot from one
+bow, Longfellow's head showing first. Once more they went round. Now a
+roll of wild, thundering noises followed them. Longfellow was ahead; you
+could see a gap of light between them. Beautiful Harry Bassett tried his
+best; but that long-bodied trooper just flew, and came out yards ahead.
+
+I declare it riled me. I know that the chestnut beauty could have beaten
+if something hadn't been the matter with him. Poor fellow! he looked
+awfully down in the mouth when he was ridden up right into the whirlwind
+of noises that rejoiced over that other horse. It seemed to me as if he
+knew the pain and humiliation of defeat, just as well as if he had been
+human; I am sure he did. Still, sisters, I stand by Harry Bassett.
+
+Oh, mercy, how hot it was coming home those three dusty miles! How tired
+and thankful I was when we got safely into the Ocean Hotel, with plenty
+of lemonade and ice-water, with a cool wind blowing up from the water.
+
+Sisters, I sometimes think you do not quite appreciate all the
+sacrifices that I make for you. The great want of our society, has been
+a thorough knowledge of what is going on in the wide world outside of
+Vermont and the Hub. That deficiency I am determined to make up by extra
+mission duties in the direction of general human nature. In order to
+prove or condemn a thing, one must see it in all its features. If
+ignorance were goodness, the universe would be crowded with pious
+people. But it isn't any such thing; and your pioneers and missionaries
+who mean to teach, musn't be afraid to learn. Now, there is a good deal
+to be said about races, and if 'twere not for the betting--which is
+gambling, under another name--I should rather like it. A noble horse in
+full training is a brave sight; and, next to a noble man or woman, I,
+for one, am glad to see him put forward. There isn't a bit of harm in
+swift running; but then twenty-five thousand dollars lost and won
+between two horses, is a snare and a delusion that the noble beasts have
+nothing to do with. I do not like that, and am quite sure that you will
+make it a subject of particular denunciation. I hope you will. Not that
+such things have ever found a mite of countenance in Vermont; but horses
+are raised there, and that may lead to something dreadful. If a patch of
+ground level enough for a race-course can be found in the State, some of
+these New Yorkers will be for fencing it in; and the way they are
+progressing here, some ambitious fellow may be wanting to charter the
+Green Mountains for a hurdle, for horses all but fly in these parts.
+
+Understand me--I am not blaming the animals--they are just splendid; but
+betting, especially among women, is my abomination. It is an open gate
+through which feminines slide into a habit of gambling. I don't like it,
+and the sooner our American feminine women know my opinion, the sooner
+they will be ready to turn back and consider what they are about.
+
+
+
+
+LXXXI.
+
+CLIMBING SEA CLIFF.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--You are right. My mind has been too much in the world. I
+have been led into walks of life that do not accurately jibe with the
+pious experiences of former days. I confess my shortcomings with
+humiliation, and am resolved on a season of mission duties in another
+direction than horse-races. They are exciting, and give one a
+high-stepping inclination. Still, my motive is good.
+
+"Try all things, and hold fast to that which is good," is scriptural,
+but on some occasions may be temptations, especially when the thing that
+is good happens to be disagreeable, and the other is awfully enticing.
+
+Any way, sisters, I am determined to do my duty in every walk of life,
+and the foremost duty this moment takes me far away from Long Branch,
+puts me on two steamboats and two short snatches of railroads, which
+land me at the foot of a great, sandy, high-sloping hill--some people
+call it a bluff--but which religious people of several denominations
+call "Sea Cliff Grove."
+
+Now, Sea Cliff Grove is a sacred institution, lifted high up toward
+Heaven, and bathed in an especial odor of sanctity, conglomerated from
+ever so many different churches, and so centralized in a place that may,
+to the fanciful mind, be considered a city set on a hill.
+
+Indeed, it is. If Jordan is a hard road to travel, Sea Cliff Grove is an
+awful hill to climb, even in a covered stage, with two long, thin horses
+dragging the blessed pilgrims upward with all their might.
+
+Before we got clear up, there was now and then an encouraging glimpse of
+brightness from the dome of the tabernacle, covered over with tin, which
+blazed and sparkled and shone in the hot sunshine, till it set one's
+brain to sweltering. If it hadn't been for a cool fringe of trees
+running along the edge of the hill, it seemed to me as if the whole
+bluff must have burned up, and gone off in a blaze of glory. That dome,
+which looked like a great cone, roofed in with milk-pans set on edge,
+was the crowning glory of a new tabernacle--not the one built without
+hands, for it took a great many hands to build this great, rambling
+affair, besides the cottages and tents and long, open stoops, that look
+out on the sea from morning till night.
+
+Among these tents and little houses and the great tabernacle, the man
+who drove us took his ten cents a-piece, and set us down, and wheeled
+about, singing "Old Hundred" to his horses, and swinging his whip with
+slow solemnity as he lumbered down hill again.
+
+Then we started off afoot in search of Cousin Dempster's cottage, for he
+had sent on ahead, and hired one of the little cubby-houses for us to
+stay in till the religious season was over.
+
+We found our cubby-house at last, but somebody else had got their nine
+points of the law out of it. So the man sent on beforehand had pitched a
+tent on the grass, which we went into like Indians just returned from a
+hunting-party--dusty, thirsty, and sort of wolfish for something to eat.
+
+We took off our bonnets, and pinned them by the strings to the walls of
+the tent, which were of the best tow-cloth I ever saw out of Vermont.
+Then we shook ourselves, as hens do when they have been rolling in the
+dust, and pushed back our hair with both hands, which E. E. said was
+making a rural toilet worthy of the occasion. Then I, with the kindest
+intentions, shook out E. E.'s--full panier--and found it puckered-up
+with green burdock burs, which she had got on from the weeds on her way
+to the tent. These I picked off, one by one, while she was stamping her
+foot with a spirit that shocked me dreadfully in that sacred place, for
+all around us the people were singing and praying, and shouting
+"Hallelujah" and "Amen" and "Glory," in a way that made the pious
+teachings of my grandmother rile up within me. I looked upon the burdock
+burs as a judgment upon Mrs. Dempster, especially as I hadn't any
+puckerings in my dress to catch them in, and she had brought all her
+wordliness on her back.
+
+
+
+
+LXXXII.
+
+FIGHTING FOR THE BODY.
+
+
+By and by the shouts and noises hushed up a little, and there was a
+stampede, like a rush of cattle, in the grounds.
+
+"Come," says Dempster, "or we shall get nothing to eat."
+
+"Does that mean dinner?" says E. E., with a hungry look.
+
+"Just that," says Dempster, "so look sharp; for here it is every man for
+himself, and the----"
+
+"Dempster!" said I, stepping back with pious horror, "do you know where
+you are?"
+
+"Exactly; but I know, too, that unless we look sharp, we shall feel flat
+when we get to the dining-hall and find everything swept off."
+
+We took the hint. I lifted the skirt of my alpaca dress gently, between
+my thumb and forefinger, just enough to give an idea of the ankle
+without revealing it, and went out of the tent, imbued with the spirit
+of the place, but humiliated with worldly craving.
+
+Sisters, if the denizens of this Sea Cliff are only half as earnest in
+their souls' salvation as they are in replenishing poor, frail human
+nature, there will be a glorious harvest of regeneration this holy
+season. The way they poured out of the tents, the houses, the long
+stoops, and through the bushes was fluttering and noisy as the flight of
+ten thousand chickens from a barn-yard. Still the crowd did not break
+all at once from the spiritual to the temporal wants of human nature.
+They kept on praying and singing in breaks and snatches clear up to the
+dining-hall, when the old earthly Evil One got uppermost, and each man
+seizing a knife and fork, went at the first dish he saw, and held on to
+it with one hand, while he did double express duty with the other.
+
+Sisters, this crowd of sinners sanctified, and to be sanctified, was
+made up of about the hungriest mortals that I ever set eyes upon. The
+way those safety-seeking souls took care of their bodies was
+regenerating, I can tell you. For my part, after seeing every dish swept
+away from before me, with Christian fortitude becoming to the place, my
+carnal nature rose uppermost, and, seizing upon a plate of summer
+squash, I held on to it valiantly, while E. E. snatched a potatoe with
+its jacket on, from a flying dish, and Dempster wrestled with one of the
+saints for a plate of bread, as Jacob wrestled with the angels; only
+this saint was six feet high, wore a hood-brimmed straw hat, and carried
+off the plate of bread in his hands, after all.
+
+I greatly fear Cousin Dempster didn't meet this test of a meek and lowly
+spirit with the fortitude of a martyr. In fact, I'm afraid he said
+something beside "Amen" between his grinding teeth, when that plate
+disappeared.
+
+As for E. E. and myself, we got a spoon between us, and dined on the
+squash, generously giving up the potato to Dempster, with an admonition
+which did not seem to suit him much better than that stone-cold
+vegetable.
+
+Well, when we had vegetated the inner man to this extent, and watched
+the swarm of hungry eaters devouring the food like a cloud of ravenous
+locusts, Cousin Dempster laid down his potato-peel on the table with
+mournful sadness, and said, plaintively:
+
+"This is all we are likely to get; let us go."
+
+"Wait," says I, "some one is going to return thanks."
+
+"What, for two spoonfuls of squash and one hollow-hearted potato for
+three of us? Never!" says Dempster.
+
+Really, sisters, the spirit will have a tough job before it brings the
+proud nature of Cousin Dempster into a state of perfect sanctification.
+E. E. and I gave him a beautiful example, and looked as humbly grateful
+as two hungry female women could, over a double spoonful of watery
+squash; I fear he did not appreciate it though, for when a deep Amen
+rolled down the hall, after the thanks were given, he meanly growled
+out--well, a very peculiar word, that made my heart jump into my mouth.
+In any other place, I should write out boldly that Cousin Dempster--but
+in that out-door sanctuary--no, the secret of what he said shall go with
+me to my grave.
+
+
+
+
+LXXXIII.
+
+LIONS AND LAMBS.
+
+
+Sisters:--The tabernacle under that tin roof will hold, well packed, six
+hundred anxious souls--each with a weak, human body attached. The seats
+are all cushioned with the softest pine, and have luxurious board backs.
+A stage rises grandly for the ministers of many churches who harmonize
+and fraternize like lions and lambs, each shepherding his own flock and
+drawing converts into his fold, wherever he can find a straggling sinner
+on his knees. The dining-room all at once emptied itself into the
+tabernacle; the ministers mounted the stage, and out in front came a man
+whose first words woke you up like the blast of a war trumpet.
+
+A stout, smart, almost grand-looking man, who looked over the crowd as
+if he owned every man and woman in it, and meant to regenerate them in
+flocks, or turn them over to what-you-may-call-him at once. His dark
+face, broad forehead, and silver-gray hair looked strong, if not
+handsome. His light eyes gleamed out from behind a pair of gold
+spectacles, and when he got in earnest his heavy brows drew together and
+left deep lines between them which made him look stronger yet.
+
+"Who is that?" I whispered to Cousin D.
+
+"Inskip," says he, "the greatest gun amongst them."
+
+"Dear me!" says I.
+
+There was no time to say more, for that great gun was pouring a hot
+storm of eloquence into the crowd, and stirring it up as a north-easter
+lashes the hemlocks on our mountains. Sisters, the scene was wonderfully
+impressive. I felt the old revival spirit in all my bones. When he
+stopped a minute for the crowd to say Amen, the word rattled out like a
+discharge of guns on a training day.
+
+By and by his discourse grew warmer and more startling. He just pitched
+headforemost into the cause, and stirred up that great congregation like
+a tornado. The Amens grew noisy, and were let off from lip to lip like
+fire-crackers on a Fourth of July. Then some one sang out "Hallelujah!"
+and another "Glory, Glory, Glory!" till the whole congregation broke
+into a young earthquake. Some started up, some rocked on their seats,
+and half a dozen fell to the ground, trembling, praying, and shouting
+"Hallelujah."
+
+There was a mixture of all sorts of people in the crowd, which made it
+yeast over like a baking of bread when the rising is lively. When one
+got a-going the rest set in. Half the crowd were crying and the other
+half clapping hands.
+
+Then Mr. Inskip rested a little, and a real handsome young gentleman
+stood up and sung beautifully. When he got through, the crowd joined in,
+every man, woman, and child singing on his own hook, which was noisy,
+and might have been harmonious if half of them had settled on the same
+tune, which they did, but cut across each other and sung out "Glory,"
+when they forgot everything else, which made the music a little uneven.
+
+Of course when a crowd like that gets a-going in a full blast of
+eloquence, stirring up consciences, and dancing and thrilling along the
+nerves, there is sure to be a whirlwind of magnetism heaving souls
+against each other till they cry out with the shock.
+
+I looked around; the crowd was all in commotion; every face burned with
+excitement of some kind, for under that man's voice human nature was
+stirred, aroused, lashed into a fury of wild enthusiasm. Female women
+grew pale, and trembled on the hard seats; men wilted down into
+childish softness; children cried and shouted.
+
+Before the stage was an open space, left free for sinners under
+conviction to come up and beseech the thrice-regenerated ministers to
+exhort and pray for them. Into this space those mostly stricken in the
+crowd, came like sheep looking for a shelter, some sobbing, some
+praying, some half sullen, as if the man's eloquent pleading for souls
+had forced, rather than persuaded them into that "Pen of the Penitents."
+But with each new convert, Brother Inskip broke forth in a new place,
+and the crowd shouted "Glory!" "Amen!" "Hallelujah!" till you could not
+hear yourself think.
+
+The enthusiasm was catching. I felt it blaze and tremble over me from
+the crown of my head to the sole of my foot, and when a young minister
+joined in, and poured the notes of a beautiful hymn on the tumult, my
+heart fairly swelled with the glory of it.
+
+I looked around for my cousins.
+
+There was Dempster, with the eyes fairly dancing in his head, clapping
+his hands like an overgrown boy, though he did drop them when he met my
+look, and turned his head away, half ashamed of his own feelings.
+
+I looked around for E. E., who sat with her mouth half open, while sobs
+came through her trembling lips.
+
+"Oh, cousin, cousin, what shall I do? Have I really been regenerated, or
+has the Lord sent me here this day to be made a new creature?"
+
+I did not answer her; there was no chance for free thought or cool
+reason in a crowd like that. In fact, I began to feel like a vile
+sinner, myself, and as if being unregenerated was the duty of every
+female woman every time a camp-meeting offered a good opportunity.
+Seeing E. E. crying there as if her heart were breaking up, and both men
+and women wild with joy or grief all around me, I just caved in, pulled
+out my handkerchief, and sobbed with them, though what on earth we were
+all crying about I couldn't have told to save my life.
+
+The truth was, the more some women cried the more others shouted; and
+when the meeting was over, everybody told everybody else what a
+refreshing time they had experienced under Brother Inskip's preaching,
+which was true as the Gospel, if tears refresh the soul as rain does the
+earth.
+
+
+
+
+LXXXIV.
+
+EXPERIENCES.
+
+
+After the preaching was done, the crowd broke up into sections and had a
+half-dozen prayer-meetings and spontaneous love-feasts, where men and
+women, and sometimes little children, got up and told all the strangers
+within hearing how wicked they had been--with tears, and sobs, and
+groans, that made one's heart ache. Still one and all of them seemed to
+enjoy their own depravity and put themselves down as such horrible
+sinners, that any amount of praying could not have dug them out of the
+degradation into which they dived headforemost and seemed to revel in,
+for a thousand years at least.
+
+Everybody told his experience.
+
+Among the rest, a young man from the Hub, slim as a beanpole and fiery
+as a race-horse, prayed and shouted, and sung, and blazed away at the
+crowd, like all possessed. His straight, black hair was parted down the
+middle of his forehead, and his mustache rose and fell like fury as the
+words of warning came like red-hot shot through his lips.
+
+"Who is that?" says I to Cousin Dempster, who was listening with all his
+heart.
+
+"That," says he, "is Corbett, the young fellow who shot Wilkes Booth
+through the crevices of the old barn in which he had taken shelter."
+
+I shuddered all over, and I'm afraid the spirit of prayer had a shock.
+
+That young man was about the last person I should have expected to see
+praying, storming, and exhorting at a camp-meeting. He told us all how
+he had become so sanctified by the Lord, that small-pox could not touch
+him, though he went into the midst of it and nursed people down with the
+deadly disease, right straight through.
+
+In fact, he seemed to think sanctification a certain preventative
+against small-pox, only I suppose you must be sure to get the genuine
+thing, just as he had got it.
+
+Then another little fellow got up and told us that he had been an awful
+bad boy in his early days, and learned to chew tobacco and drink
+cider-brandy when he wasn't more than knee-high to a grasshopper. That
+the cider-brandy and tobacco had stuck in and defiled him through and
+through, till nothing but saving grace could have washed him clean and
+made his soul white as a lamb, which it then was, Glory hallelujah.
+
+All the congregation chimed in here and struck up a solemn chorus of
+Glory, Glory, Glory, Glory, which ended in a rejoicing "Amen," when the
+young man informed us that religion had reformed all his depraved
+tastes, and now he both hated and despised cider-brandy, tobacco, and
+all the abominations he had formerly hankered after.
+
+Before the young man sat down, another was on his feet, brimming over
+with sympathy.
+
+"I too," says he, "have got an experience which urges me to bear
+testimony that what our precious brother says is true. I know it. I feel
+it in my own soul, for I, too, have met with regeneration, whereby all
+things with me have become new. Why, brethren, before I got religion I
+couldn't bear the sight of tomatoes, cooked or raw. They were an
+abomination to my unconverted mind; but now that I have got religion,
+there isn't a wigitable that grows, which I set store by as I do
+tomatoeses. So I can testify that old things pass away, and everything
+becomes new."
+
+After bearing this testimony, the man wiped his mouth with one hand, and
+sat down, his head meekly bowed.
+
+"Cousin," says I to E. E., "as camp-meetings do not belong to our
+special persuasion, and as I do not feel the regenerating spirit grow
+strong in my bosom just at present, supposing you and I go back to the
+tent? Don't you see it is getting to be after dark now, and we have had
+an awfully warm day in all respects."
+
+Cousin E. E. arose, looking heavy-eyed and worn out.
+
+"Yes, Phœmie," says she, "I have gone through a good deal, and feel the
+nothingness of everything but religion. Oh, cousin, if one could always
+feel as we do here."
+
+I shook my head, but only answered:
+
+"Come, cousin, we can hear the still, small voice better alone in our
+tent."
+
+She yielded, and we started to make the best of our way out of the
+crowd, but five or six thousand persons swarmed around that regenerating
+camp-ground, and it was some time before we got safely into our own
+tent. Then I sat down by Cousin E. E., drew a deep, long breath, and
+said, "Thank goodness," with all my heart.
+
+
+
+
+LXXXV.
+
+THE SECOND DAY.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I have been two days at this camp-meeting, fasting,
+because I have given up the fight about something to eat, and awake all
+night because the hot weather almost drove me into the anxious seat,
+from dread of a hotter place.
+
+I hope you are satisfied with the way I have been walking this straight
+and narrow path of missionary duty. I wish I could say quiet path, but,
+being of an honest turn of mind, I must say it is both steep and noisy.
+Just at this minute a prayer-meeting and revival is going on in the next
+tent to ours and the groaning and shouting is enough to drive one crazy.
+The tent is crowded full of women and children, and I don't know which
+jump the highest or make the most noise.
+
+Well, I am not a wife--which you know is not my fault; neither am I a
+mother, which, under the circumstances, I am grateful for; but why
+little boys and girls should be brought here, and put in the way of a
+second birth, puzzles me. One event of that kind ought to be enough for
+any family of moderate ambition. In fact, I know of people who would do
+without any, with Christian fortitude. But here we are--men, women, and
+children--trying to save each other with all our might, and doing it in
+a way that brings strangers together with a jerk sometimes.
+
+Just as we were coming into the camping-ground this morning, where the
+whole road was beginning to swarm again, a nice old lady, in a gray
+dress, and with a little, white muslin shawl pinned over her bosom, came
+up to me, and, lifting her meek eyes from under her sugar-scoop bonnet,
+informed me that the Spirit was upon her. She was exercised with a sense
+of duty regarding my sinful condition, which was miserably apparent in
+the white feather that curlecued itself around my hat, and the cut of my
+gaiter boots that had heels enough to send a dozen souls to everlasting
+ruin.
+
+I looked down at my boot, which is a scrumptious one, and said, with
+thankfulness, that I couldn't see anything in them that should carry the
+souls off; besides, they could be heeled again.
+
+The woman shook her sugar-scoop bonnet at me, mournfully, and said
+something about a wicked and perverse generation, as if all mankind were
+standing in my gaiter boots, and she was rebuking it in a lump.
+
+"Oh, sister!" says she, "if I could only make you see with my eyes, and
+hear with my ears! Why will you be so perverse? Have you no fear of the
+eternal flame that burneth and burneth forever?"
+
+"Fear!" says I, a-looking up at the hot sun, and wiping my forehead. "I
+should think so! If all creation has a hotter place than this, I'm too
+big a coward to hurry that way. If there is an ice-house in the
+neighborhood, I should prefer that by all manner of means, by way of a
+punishment, if I deserve any."
+
+"Ice!" says she, solemnly. "Ice! have you never read the Scriptures?"
+
+"Several times," says I, with sarcastic forbearance. "My father had a
+book of that kind, which he sometimes opened."
+
+She could not understand the delicate irony of this answer; but pressed
+forward like an old camp-meetinger as she was.
+
+"Did that good father never read of a place where a drop of water could
+not be found to cool a certain person's tongue?" says she. "If not, your
+paternal ancestor fell short of his duty. It is no wonder his child
+should have gone half through life without a ray of saving grace, and
+with a white feather in her hat."
+
+Sisters, I was riled. "Half through life," says I. "Madam, do you know
+how old I am?"
+
+She looked at me half a minute, with all the eyes in her head; then,
+with the cool air of a woman counting money, said, "about for--"
+
+Sisters, I _cannot_ repeat the audacious falsehood of that creature's
+calculation. It was enough to rile up venom in the heart of a born
+cherubim. If ever a fiend took the disguise of a sugar-scoop bonnet, I
+have encountered one. A heart of stone lay under the innocent folds of
+that muslin half-shawl.
+
+"Madam," said I, with a look of overpowering indignation, "you must have
+begun and ended your arithmetic in multiplication. Take off half of the
+years you have mentioned."
+
+The woman smiled so knowingly, that I longed to-- Well, no matter, she
+smiled, and says she:
+
+"At any rate, you are not too old for the mercy-seat."
+
+"I should think not," says I.
+
+"Look yonder."
+
+I looked at half a dozen children jumping, kneeling, praying, and
+singing before the revival tent, which had been so full of worrying
+noises all night long, that none of us had got a wink of sleep.
+
+"Look," says she; "unless you are born again, and become like one of
+these, there will be no chance that you will ever enter the kingdom of
+Heaven."
+
+I looked at the lovely children, and I looked at her.
+
+"Excuse me," says I, "the object don't seem quite equal to the trouble.
+I have no notion of going backward in my life. In the first place I was
+too handsome a baby in the beginning to hanker after a change, and since
+then--I say nothing; but really, I have seen a good many people that
+claim to have been born again, and, so far as I can judge, they don't
+look a mite better, or a day younger, after taking all the trouble,
+which is discouraging."
+
+"Discouraging!" said the woman; "why, you are talking of regeneration!
+Come--come with me to the anxious-seat--hundreds are flocking there
+now."
+
+"Excuse me," says I, "if you please. Crabs may change their shells, and
+snakes creep out of their skins--I rather think they do sometimes--but
+born-again females look so much like the old pattern, that it don't seem
+to me worth trying after one is grown up."
+
+"Many an older person than you are has been born again," says she.
+
+"You don't say so," says I, a-fanning myself with a palm-leaf, for every
+drop of blood in my body grew hot when she talked about my age, and I
+was mad enough to bite a tenpenny nail in two with my front teeth.
+
+"Yes, I do say so, humble as I am," says Sugar-scoop. "Look out there.
+See those women in Israel--three precious souls, just gathered into the
+fold. For two days they have been constantly at the redemption-seat. The
+spirit is upon them now. Their souls are struggling to be free. Before
+another morning they will be born again."
+
+I looked at a group of women she pointed out, and the human nature
+within me yeasted over. They were three of the homeliest creatures I
+ever set eyes on--long and lank, with faces like sour baked-apples.
+
+"Oh, my beloved sister," says Sugar-scoop, a-laying her cotton-gloved
+hand on mine; "can you look on that heavenly sight and not pray to be
+like unto them?"
+
+I shook the cotton glove from my arm, and the hand that was in it, just
+as St. Paul shook off the viper.
+
+"Like them, madam--like them! If I were one-half as lank and homely, I
+should want to be born again once a week, at least."
+
+Sugar-scoop lifted both hands in awful horror.
+
+"There are souls," says she, "given up to eternal darkness, I fear. Oh,
+sister, how I tremble for yours!"
+
+I was trembling with indignation. What right had this woman to assault
+me in this fashion? I did not know her; she did not know me. My white
+feather was a badge of noble patriotism; my gaiter boots fitted a foot
+that has been an object of encomium with every shoemaker who has been
+honored by taking its measure--to say nothing of a glance given it by
+imperial eyes. Does religious zeal justify uncivil intrusion? What right
+had this sugar-scoopy woman to exhort me? How did she know that my heart
+was not already in the right path?
+
+I asked this very question:
+
+"Madam," says I, "by what right do you pretend to teach me, a stranger,
+of whose life you can know nothing?"
+
+"I'm in the service of the Lord," says she, "looking up lost sheep. When
+I find one, torn and draggled with sin, it is my duty to drive it into
+the fold, where its fleece can be worked white as snow."
+
+"But how can you tell? By what authority do you claim the right to judge
+of a person you have never seen?"
+
+"Are we not told to go out into the highways and the hedges, and force
+them to come in?" says she.
+
+"Whether they want to or not?" says I.
+
+"Exactly," says she; "their not wanting to come into the fold shows the
+state of wickedness into which they have fallen."
+
+"But how do you know that I am wicked?" says I.
+
+She looked at me a long time, as if the idea were new to her. She had
+been so eager in raking up sinners, that it seemed to hurt her feelings
+to think that any human being she met wasn't on the high road to--well,
+what's its name?
+
+"That feather," says she, "isn't a mark of regeneration."
+
+"No," says I, "but it is the badge of a patriotic idea."
+
+The creature didn't take in this delicate political hint. In fact,
+anything fine or keen is sure to puzzle your woman of one idea.
+
+"Where do you go to meeting?" says she, as abrupt as a cracked stick.
+
+"Where my father did, generally," says I.
+
+She looked at me queerly from under her sugar-scoop.
+
+"Haven't backslid, nor nothing; because, if you have, remember, before
+it is too late, that the last state of a backsliding sinner is worse
+than the first."
+
+
+
+
+LXXXVI.
+
+THE BLACKSMITH'S CONVERSION.
+
+
+Before I could answer that audacious woman, a man came along with green
+spectacles on his eyes, and a broad straw hat on his head.
+
+"What, sister, hard at work? got hold of a case, I reckon; but press
+forward to the mark of the prize."
+
+"Oh, brother," says Sugar-scoop, "can't you stop a moment, and sow a
+morsel of seed on this barren rock. This is a precious sheep."
+
+"Lamb, if you please," says I, quickly.
+
+"No," says she, as smooth as oil, but no doubt boiling over with inward
+spite, "I have eyes, and can see. Sheep is the word. She is a precious
+sheep that, perchance, has once been in the fold, but is wandering far
+away from the straight and narrow path."
+
+"A backslider," says he, eying my face over his spectacles.
+
+"Hardened," says she.
+
+"Take her to the anxious-seat. Brother Blank is just the man for her
+case. You've heard of Brother Blank, just from the West, and burning
+with zeal. Heard of the way he converted a blacksmith out there--a
+great, stout, burly, unregenerated fellow. Why, compared to him, this
+poor, sinful creature is just nothing. That was a mighty work. What, you
+never heard of it? Well, I was there, and heard all about it on the
+spot.
+
+"You see, Brother Blank, who belongs to the Methodist wing of this
+camp-meeting, was sent out by the conference to a sparse Western
+district, where the meeting-houses were a good way apart, and there was
+any amount of horseback riding to be done. On the cross-roads, near one
+of the stations, there was a blacksmith shop, where a great, two-fisted,
+tough old sinner was blowing up red-hot coals into red-hot flames,
+morning and night, which ought to have reminded him of the eternal fires
+which threatened him, but only kindled his wicked soul into fierce
+rebellion against God.
+
+"Now this fellow had an awful spite against the ministers, and never let
+a new one pass his shop, without going out with his leather apron on,
+and a hammer in his hand, to scare the pious soul half to death with
+abuse, if nothing worse. When Brother Blank came on the district, he had
+to ride by the four corners like the rest; but he was a brave soldier of
+the Cross, and rode a first-rate horse, besides being a tall, powerful
+man in body as well as in spirit. I rather think he had heard of the
+blacksmith, but that made no difference to him, he neither rode faster
+nor slower when he came in sight of the shop, but looked straight ahead,
+and trusted in the Lord.
+
+"The moment Brother Blank came in sight, that miserable heathen brought
+his hammer down on the anvil with a crash, flung it across the shop, and
+went out with his fists clinched, his great bony chest bare, and his
+eyes blazing like sin.
+
+"'Hallo!' says he, standing right in the middle of the road.
+
+"'Hallo!'
+
+"Brother Blank drew up his horse, and says he:
+
+"'What's wanting, my friend?'
+
+"'I want you to just tumble down from that saddle, and pay toll,' says
+the old sinner. 'No minister passes this corner without stopping to take
+a thrashing from these.'
+
+"Here the blacksmith held up two clinched fists, hard and black as
+sledge-hammers.
+
+"'No nonsense; but get off, I say,' he bellowed out.
+
+"Brother Blank had a heavy whip in his hand, with a short plump lash,
+which he began to play with.
+
+"'Get down, I say!'
+
+"Brother Blank got down and laid the bridle on the neck of his horse.
+
+"'Now step out here and take it like a man,' says the blacksmith. 'The
+last two ministers were such puny fellers, there was no fun in thrashing
+them; but you're something worth while. Stand out, I say.'
+
+"While he was talking, the fire-blowing wretch rolled up his red flannel
+shirt-sleeves to the elbow, and went at Brother Blank with both fists.
+
+"Now, sisters, Brother Blank is a true Christian--meek as a lamb in
+prayer and persuasion, but the sight of that audacious old sinner riled
+up the natural man in him awfully. He stepped back. His right arm swung
+out, and that whip-lash curled round the fellow's bronzed neck like a
+garter snake. Again and again the lash fell, now across the red face,
+now across the naked arms, but generally left great red welts, like the
+bars of a fiery gridiron, across his chest.
+
+"Blind with the blows, and crazy with rage, the fellow struck out
+fiercely, but the lash stung him at every point, and at last he was glad
+to yell for quarters. Then it was that Brother Blank remembered that his
+mission was to convert sinners.
+
+"'Down upon your knees,' says he, pointing to the dusty road with his
+whip--'down upon your knees, and pray the Lord to forgive your sins.'
+
+"Down the fellow went, plump on his two knees, and down Brother Blank
+went beside him right in the dust of the street; and the way he wrestled
+for that blacksmith's soul was a lesson to all faltering Christians.
+
+"'Lift those blood-shot eyes to Heaven and pray,' says he, and his voice
+was tender with compassion.
+
+"'I won't. Pray for me,' says the sinner.
+
+"He did pray. All the old Adam had left Brother Blank's soul when he
+laid down that whip. It was flooded now with the milk of human kindness.
+In a voice, strong as his right arm and clear as his conscience, he
+poured forth a petition to Heaven, so loud, so powerful, so full of
+Christian force, that the blacksmith began to tremble on his knees, the
+two hands that had been clenched like sledge-hammers clasped themselves,
+till the palms met and were uplifted to Heaven as a child pleads with
+its mother.
+
+"By and by another voice--hoarse, deep, and earnest--joined with the
+prayer of Brother Blank. All that it said was, 'God be merciful to me a
+sinner;' but that was enough, for there was that stout old reprobate
+with his face to the earth, his broad chest swelling with repentance,
+and great tears making furrows through the cinders and ashes on his
+cheeks, penitent as a child, and meek as a spring lamb.
+
+"When Brother Blank saw this, his feelings came forth in a grateful
+shout, tears leaped down his own cheeks, and in one voice these two men
+thanked God for the soul that had been saved."
+
+When the man with green spectacles had finished his story, he took out a
+silk handkerchief from the crown of his hat and wiped his own eyes;
+then turning to the Sugar-scoop, says he:
+
+"Let this encourage you to persevere to the end, for 'while the lamp
+holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return.' If this person is
+hardened in the perversity of a depraved nature, think of the
+blacksmith, and do not despair."
+
+"Did that heathen blacksmith hold out?" says I, so interested in the
+cindery wretch that I passed over his comments about my perversity.
+
+"Hold out!" says he; "I saw him at a camp-meeting three years after, and
+heard him tell the story with his own lips. Brother Blank himself was
+sitting on the speaker's stand, and the blacksmith pointed him out to
+the people, and called on him to say if it was not his prayers that had
+snatched him as a brand from the burning.
+
+"Brother Blank got up and walked with a lazy motion down the platform.
+Putting both hands behind him he smiled benignly down on the agitated
+face of his old enemy. Then he looked around on the congregation, and
+spoke:
+
+"'Yes,' says he, 'I really do believe that I was the humble instrument
+of mauling some grace into that precious brother's soul.'
+
+"Sisters, that was a glorious moment for Brother Blank; think of it--a
+human soul turned heavenward in the midst of its wrath; persevere with
+this one. Leave her not till she is brought to the anxious-seat, and so
+by regeneration to membership with the church."
+
+"But I am a Church member," says I.
+
+"A Church member?" says the man with spectacles.
+
+"Certainly," says I.
+
+"In good standing?" says the woman, dropping her underlip.
+
+"A missionary from one of the first societies in the world," says I,
+with becoming dignity.
+
+The woman with the sugar-scoop bonnet looked at the man with spectacles,
+and the man with spectacles looked at the woman with the sugar-scoop
+bonnet. Before they could begin again I bowed my head with a lofty and
+dignified air, and walked away; which, I take it, was something of a
+rebuke to people whose religious zeal runs ahead of their good breeding.
+
+I have left that camp-ground and descended a hundred or two feet nearer
+the earth again, without feeling the worse or very much the better for
+it. The path of duty is sometimes awful steep. I found this precipitous
+to a wonderful extent. I really think nothing but the saving grace of
+church-membership kept me from the anxious-seat; but the opportunities
+of a new birth are not unlimited, and when one is folded and tethered
+among the lambs, there is a little awkwardness when you are exhorted to
+have it all done over again by a new minister and another church.
+Fortified with a certificate of church membership, I passed through the
+whirlwind and storm of this camp-meeting, with that graceful dignity
+which has won the high post you have kindly imposed on me.
+
+True, sisters, the pressure brought to bear upon me was long, strong,
+and persistent. A fierce raid was instituted against my back hair and
+the soft puffings of my frizzes in front. My white hat was a terrible
+source of trouble to those who want regeneration in nothing but
+religion; and the feather seemed to get more notice than the preaching
+did wherever I happened to take it.
+
+
+
+
+LXXXVII.
+
+THAT OVATION OF FIRE.
+
+
+Sisters:--I give you this little dash of camp-meeting, because I wish to
+level myself gradually and gracefully down to the gay sinfulness of Long
+Branch again, where the salt air is revivifying, and our return is a
+source of complimentary jubilation at this no-end of a hotel. We came
+here in the ten o'clock boat--that floating mansion-house, which Mr.
+James Fisk left as a memorial of the public good a splendid sinner can
+do when he is active and oriental in his taste.
+
+I am used to these things now; but it was gratifying as we drove up in
+Dempster's carriage from the railway to hear a glorious burst of music
+swell out from a round summer-house on the lawn. A serenade of that kind
+was what I had not expected, and my heart swelled with not unworthy
+triumph when I listened. The moment that crowd of musicians saw my white
+feather, they struck up "Lo, the Conquering Hero comes," with a soft and
+touchingly subdued sweetness, which threw an exquisite femininity into
+the air, and plainly marked out its object.
+
+Feeling this, I bowed a graceful recognition to those superior
+performers, who answered with a prolonged blast from the most curlecued
+of the long toot-horns as our carriage swept down the curving road that
+forms a horse-shoe--just a little broad at the heel--in front of Messrs.
+Leland's hotel.
+
+Feeling that many admiring eyes were upon me, I stepped with dignity
+from the carriage, and walked with a downcast look, which I did my best
+to make unconscious, through the gay crowd that had gathered in front of
+that long portico, only just to get a glimpse of me as I went in.
+
+Sisters, I had compassion on these people, and walked with slow
+gracefulness through their midst, determined to give even the humblest a
+chance to see how true genius can deport itself when ovations of music
+and respectful admiration recognize its greatness.
+
+There was a great publisher present when we got back to the hotel. I
+have no doubt that he listened to the music of that band when it gave me
+this harmonious reception, and I hope he indirectly felt the compliment
+reverberate back on himself. It was an honor he deserved to share with
+me, or any other high-bred, intellectual person to whom he had opened a
+golden pathway to the Temple of Fame through his numerous art journals.
+
+I had an idea of the gentleman in my mind, and tried to single him out
+from the crowd of persons standing in silent homage on the balcony as I
+passed into the hotel, but I think he was not there.
+
+Before the day was out, I could give a good guess at the reason why he
+did not appear to claim the honor of my acquaintance. He was meditating
+a delicate little surprise for me--one of those poetic fancies that take
+root only in highly artistic minds. By and by you will hear what it was.
+
+In Washington, and at the Grand Duke's reception at Sandy Hook--why that
+strip of salt water, which lets ships in and out from New York to the
+Atlantic Ocean, is called a hook, I cannot make out, for the life of me;
+and as for its being sandy--well, in my opinion, it is deep, salt water,
+and nothing else. But, as I was a-saying, in Washington, and at Sandy
+Hook, the largest guns of the nation did me homage. Here I am received
+with bursts of music from the middle of a home-lot belonging to the
+hotel; but this evening the crowning glory of an ovation was given me by
+the great publisher, who, unseen, and with the most delicate attention,
+startled me into a wild enthusiasm of gratitude.
+
+By guns on the water, by guns on shore, and by enchanting strains of
+music, my appearance in society has been heralded. Now the cap-sheaf has
+been placed on all these honors by a compliment of fire combined with
+the most exhilarating music. On Saturday nights, every hotel along the
+beach is crowded from ground-floor to gable, and gay as a spring
+morning. Then the husbands and brothers and beaux come down from New
+York, till all the trains run over with masculine humanity. When the
+cars come in, it really is a sight to behold. Out from a long train of
+cars rushes a swarm of men, with here and there a feminine sprinkling,
+carrying carpet-bags, satchels, umbrellas, and little baskets of fruit.
+Then they cluster in a thick, black cloud around the depot, like bees
+swarming from their hives. The streets all around are choked up with
+carriages, hacks, omnibuses, wagons, and all sorts of wheeled things, in
+which drivers sit, on the sharp watch, and ladies and girls wait for
+their men folks to get in and be drove away. I beg pardon--driven away.
+
+On Saturday night, every female seems to own a mate of some kind, and be
+on the watch for him. Then the engines give a snarl, and carriages make
+a grand start and go off in a line, stringing down Ocean Avenue a mile
+or so, and leaving clouds of dust rolling along the beach, each driver
+going it as if he were crazy to leave all the other fellows behind.
+
+Well, this fills the whole Branch with delightful confusion. The ladies
+put on their most scrumptious dresses, and the masculines blaze in red
+and blue and green neckties that almost set you on fire.
+
+Everybody dances on Saturday night. Streams of music pour upon you in
+cataracts if you walk up the beach after dark. All the doors and windows
+are open, and you feel dizzy with the idea that all creation has got
+into one grand whirl. This is Saturday night at Long Branch, as a
+general thing; but the particular Saturday night after we came from the
+camp-meeting, was the beatinest thing of all. Early in the evening the
+people seemed to flock in crowds to this hotel. They came afoot; they
+came in carriages; they came by the omnibuses, load after load. Cousin
+E. E. was astonished, and couldn't understand it. "Never," says she,
+"have I seen such a crowd before. What can it mean?"
+
+I said nothing, but kept a deep and satisfied thinking. What did it
+mean? Hadn't _I_ just arrived? Hadn't the news spread? Was not this a
+popular uprising--a great wave of homage to the worth and genius of a
+woman whom I did not care to mention? These thoughts were in my mind
+when a great storm of music broke out from that summer-house in the
+front home lot. Then whiz went a fiery snake, clear up into the sky,
+where it bent its head, opened its mouth, and poured a stream of burning
+stars down over the people.
+
+Mercy, what a great crowd those falling stars lighted up! The street in
+front of the hotel was black with people. The long, long stoop was
+swarming with them--the ladies all in scrumptious dresses; the gentlemen
+with red and blue ribbons on their hats, and the same colors glowing at
+their throats. This I saw by the light of the gas-globes and of those
+shooting stars that dropped like great jewels through the still air. The
+sight of that fiery snake frightened me; I jumped like a pea on a hot
+shovel, and gave a little scream.
+
+"What does it mean? What temptatious snake is it?" says I, a-trembling
+all over.
+
+"It's a rocket," says E. E.; "a publishing gentleman is going to
+compliment the ladies with a display of fireworks."
+
+"The ladies!" thought I, in silent irony. There is but one lady to whom
+so noble a compliment can be paid, and that lady--is--but no matter!
+
+I did not say this in words. Let E. E. have her vanities and her little
+delusions. She does assume a few airs on account of our relationship,
+but I seldom notice it--let her make her little mark in society. It
+pleases her, and does not hurt me. Only, an ovation like this--to think
+she, or any one else, could share that with me, is asking a little too
+much.
+
+Out went another snake, curling along the grass, shooting straight up,
+with a venomous blue light in its folds that was enough to frighten one;
+but it sort of melted away in sparks, and then a great wheel of
+fire--crimson, blue, green, yellow, rainbowish in every line and
+spoke--began to whirl round and round at the other end of the home lot,
+sending out great curving plumes of sparks, and twisting them into ten
+thousand rainbows, all winding, whirling, and shooting fire like a great
+wheel of jewels and revolving stars.
+
+Another broke out, and began to whirl close to one of the mammoth
+flower-vases, raining light down upon it, till the great white vase
+shone like snow, and all the flowers it held were frosted over with a
+beautiful light.
+
+Then another wheel--another and another--kindled and burst out, sending
+torrents of fire every which way, changing, flashing, shooting out
+gorgeous flames of color, till the grass was all aglow with light, and
+flashed under the vivid rain of sparks like a meadow full of
+lightning-bugs.
+
+Now the whole front of the hotel was blazing with wheels, and the air
+was alive with fiery serpents that spit forth a storm of great jewels
+before they died. Between the wheels, tall thickets of fire started up,
+and rose into quivering trees, and shot golden fruit of many colors into
+the air, lighting up the crowd like ten thousand gorgeous lamps tossed
+upward and broken as they fell.
+
+All this time the music was swelling through the fiery display, and the
+crowd clapped hands, as if enough honor could not be done to the
+occasion. My heart swelled--I felt this homage intended by this display,
+and the wild sympathy of the crowd filled me with a tumult of grateful
+feelings.
+
+I arose, and, with one hand on my heart, bowed profoundly every time the
+crowd clapped its multitudinous hands. It was a glorious moment. I
+longed to meet the publisher face to face, and tell him how profoundly
+his generosity had touched my soul; but, with that modesty which ever
+accompanies true merit, he kept in the background, and hid away from the
+thanks my soul was panting to give.
+
+Oh, Sisters, I wish you had been here in a body to see how this great
+white house--a half a mile or so long--was turned into a snow-white
+palace by the flood of fire in front of it. Then the sea--the great,
+heaving sea--on the other side of the road, was red as blood, and bright
+as gold, when the flames shot highest. I tell you, the golden gates of
+the New Jerusalem could not have been more beautifully luminous.
+
+Earth, sea, and air were kindled with light, and full of shooting-stars
+for a whole hour. Then, as the fires began to wane, and the jewels to
+melt, two great, tall balloons, striped red, white, and blue, were
+illuminated, and sent sailing up and up in the air, each with a trail of
+shooting-stars dropping along its path. Up and up, higher and higher,
+the balloons rose, with a slow, graceful movement, and drifted away to
+sea--away, away, away--till they shone like little stars, and went out
+in the distance.
+
+Then a great shout went up from the pleased multitude, which increased
+to frenzy when I once more showed myself.
+
+My white hat was on; the feather floated out in the air like a banner.
+In my hand I held a fan. In the fervor of my emotion I pressed it
+against my bosom. The people saw it, and the storm of applause that
+burst from them fairly took me off my feet. Emotion overcame me; I
+retired from that long stoop.
+
+Cousin E. E. followed me. She hasn't been herself since the
+camp-meeting; and when I asked her if it was not a beautiful ovation,
+she shook her head and answered, that all flesh was grass, which I don't
+believe any more than I believe that grass is flesh, which I know is not
+the fact, each being itself independent grass and independent flesh.
+
+"Well," says I, "call it grass, or anything you please, but wasn't the
+whole thing perfectly gorgeous."
+
+"Yes," says she, "it was a pretty compliment to the ladies of the
+hotel."
+
+Sisters, that jealous, provoking woman said "ladies of the hotel," not
+"the lady of the hotel." She is an aggravating creature, sometimes; I do
+believe she is jealous of the homage which is lavished on your
+missionary. At any rate speeches like this look like it. Don't you think
+so?
+
+I said nothing. A tart reply trembled on my tongue, but the atmosphere
+of that camp-meeting still clung to me, and I forbore to rebuke her.
+
+Sisters, I was too lenient; somehow or other E. E. has spread her
+selfish idea through this hotel. The ladies were all carried away by the
+fireworks--no, excuse me, that would be dangerous to such as had tindery
+tempers, but they could talk of nothing else, and made a great fuss
+about the compliment paid to them. To them--as if any man who has an
+appreciative soul would think of diffusing a compliment among a crowd of
+ten thousand people; but the vanity and presumption of some females are
+just disgusting. But for the secret consciousness that no one could have
+been intended but myself, their conceit would provoke me. As it is, let
+them have their conceity illusions. Others may think what they please,
+but I have an inner consciousness that is satisfaction enough.
+
+
+
+
+LXXXVIII.
+
+LET HIM GO.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--You know, or can guess, at the anxious state of mind in
+which a sensitive female-woman must have found her experiences since the
+great Grand Duke left this country. I am told that the Imperial Court of
+Russia is hard to please in the way of marrying its sons--that nobility
+is not considered enough, and nothing but the child of an emperor or of
+a king will satisfy the pride of Czar Alexander.
+
+But emperors are not to be found, like huckleberries, in the woods, and
+those among them that have lots and lots of children can't always find
+mates ready cut-out and made-up for all of them in the very uppermost
+crust of all the world.
+
+When emperors are scarce, and imperial children plentiful, is it strange
+that some of them should be sent to a free country, where the highest
+royalty in all the world is to be found waiting for orders.
+
+Republics have but one kingly order, that of individual genius, which
+ranks above kings all over the world, and is aspired to by queens,
+whenever a queen is gifted with superior ambition, as little Victoria
+Guelph was when she wrote her book of travels, and the life of her
+first-class husband.
+
+That which a queen hankers after, the son of an emperor may be glad to
+mate himself with. Is it wonderful, then, that a Grand Duke of all the
+Russias should aspire to the first feminine genius of a free land, and
+to a certain modest extent receive encouragement from her?
+
+A union between an archduke and the first lady writer of this
+country--excuse me, but truth is stranger than fiction--was a
+consummation that you as a Society ought to expect, and this nation, in
+its administrative capacity, ought to have insisted upon. If an aspiring
+and unprotected female cannot receive the support of her own Government,
+where can she go for it.
+
+Sisters, this union between Sprucehill and Russia is a great national
+question, which ought to have agitated this country from the shores of
+the two oceans, the Mississippi and Rocky Mountains inclusive.
+
+There has been considerable of an internal rumbling sort of a
+convulsion, earthquaky and threatening, in various sections, which ought
+to have given timely warning of what the true national feeling was; but
+somehow Russia don't seem to understand it, and I'm beginning to think
+that there is secret treason here at home--deep, double-dyed treason--of
+which your missionary is the object.
+
+It is a shameful fact that the Government has taken no sort of interest
+in an engagement which would have linked the two great social centres of
+Russia and Sprucehill in a close and loving union.
+
+From the day my Alexis had an interview with President Grant my
+heart-history has been allowed to drag like a lazy funeral train.
+Before, all was bright and luminous, with beautiful aspirations; but
+from that time suspense has coiled around me, hope has flared up,
+blinked, and almost died out. I did not understand it then. It seemed to
+me that fickleness was in the heart of the great Grand Duke.
+
+But I did him a cruel injustice. If our two hearts and destinies are
+severed, it has been by the underground machinations of this
+Administration. General Grant saw what was going on, and has cruelly
+circumvented two young and unsophisticated hearts that were knitting
+together, like ivy round an oak sapling.
+
+I am determined on it. The country shall hear of my wrongs. Sprucehill
+shall have redress for the insult put upon her favorite daughter. In all
+that General Grant has done in the way of omission, nothing approaches
+the inactivity which has wrung my heart, as wet blankets are twisted in
+the strong hands of a washerwoman.
+
+_He_ has not written me a line. His letters must have been interrupted.
+Evil machinations have been at work. The Government detectives are
+everywhere scattering slanders and distrust. I shouldn't wonder a bit if
+they have been to our old homestead on Sprucehill, mousing among church
+registers, and interviewing family physicians. Well, let them. Since I
+learned to write, some figures have been changed in the old Family
+Bible, and, thank goodness! old Doctor Perry is dead. The keenest
+detective won't find much difference between 1830 and 1850. It only
+requires that the curve of the three should be rubbed out, and a dash
+sharpened to a point added. If they look for eighteen hundred and thirty
+there, I can tell them it isn't to be found. Let them search--that's
+all!
+
+This was my state of mind three days ago. Now I am revivified with extra
+animation. Hope has perched on my white hat and sits there waving its
+feather like a pennant.
+
+I am glad from the bottom of my heart that I didn't follow the duke
+across the ocean. After all a duke is only a man, hard to catch and
+expensive to cage. Why should we trouble ourselves about princes and
+dukes and lords, when we have the most genuine of all manly articles
+right under our feet. Dukes are scarce and hard to scare up, but there
+are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. That's my motto
+to-day.
+
+
+
+
+LXXXIX.
+
+DONE UP IN A HURRY.
+
+
+Sisters:--the atmosphere of Long Branch is propitious, not to say
+exhilarating, for close by this half-mile of a hotel is another, crowded
+full at this time of the year, in which we can hear fiddling and dancing
+every night of the week. The hotels at watering-places are celebrated
+for several things, particularly low ceilings, widows, youngish ladies,
+and girls like our Cecilia, who wonder every day of their lives how
+their mothers ever got along decently till they were born to tell them
+how.
+
+Well, the most enterprising of these hotel accompaniments are the
+widows. Their superior advantages of experience is just overpowering,
+and these advantages are used with unscrupulous freedom. I say this with
+feeling, being one of the class that suffers from such unwarrantable
+competition.
+
+A widow was in the hotel I have spoken of. Yes, what might be called two
+widows rolled into one, for she had put two husbands into their little
+beds, and tucked in the sods comfortably before she came to Long Branch
+in search of a third.
+
+Sisters, she found him; her little traps and lines and baits had been
+all out to no sort of purpose for three or four weeks. She danced in the
+parlor, exhibited all the lines of a plumptitudinous figure at the
+bowling alley, which is a place I never saw, but have heard about;
+walked on the beach with a Leghorn hat on, curled up at the ears, and in
+front too, and Japanese umbrella, brown outside and yellow in the
+interior, which looked as if she had lots of money and meant to put it
+on the market with a dash.
+
+There was a great deal said about this widow. Some observed that she was
+handsome. Some said she wasn't--mostly ladies. Some observed how
+graceful she was, at which others smiled and shook their heads. One
+person persisted in it that she was awful rich--two or three hundred
+thousand dollars, at least. Then that was contradicted. Forty thousand
+was more than any one could prove she had. Others persisted that her
+wealth, like her virtues, was unlimited. In fact, being a widow, she
+made the best of it and let people talk, minding her snares and traps
+and things all the same.
+
+Last week a strange man came to that hotel. It was Saturday morning, and
+the first object that his eyes fell upon at breakfast was this widow,
+without the sign of a cap, and with a long curl straggling down to one
+shoulder, very fluffy and enticing. He looked at the curl; then his eyes
+wandered up to the widow's face. That face had smiled through a couple
+of matrimonial campaigns, and received the first battery of admiring
+eyes with a sweet, downcast look, innocent as blanc-mange. Then she
+lifted her eyes with slow modesty, and glanced wonderingly at her
+admirer, as if she were sort of bewildered by his looking so much that
+way.
+
+The stranger did not smile, but a light came over his face when he
+caught that childlike glance. Then both these innocent creatures fell to
+eating. Then he happened to look up again. So did she--a romantic
+coincidence that sort of affinitized them to a great extent, before
+anybody saw what was going on.
+
+After breakfast the stranger hunted up some one who knew him and the
+widow also. An introduction brought the two halves of that pair of
+scissors together, and the blades fitted beautifully. All they wanted
+was the rivet. But wait.
+
+At twelve o'clock that day the stranger ventured to ask a favor. Would
+the widow give him a little music?
+
+The widow said she would. The sweetness of a whole boiling of maple
+sugar was in her smile as she sat down by the parlor piano, and sent her
+two little hands fluttering over it like a pair of white pigeons with
+love-letters under their wings.
+
+The widow flew her fingers; the widow looked at the stranger from under
+her eyelashes, and her voice thrilled through him till he began to think
+of magnolias and mocking-birds and other ornamental things which soften
+a man's feelings down to the fluffiness of a feather bed.
+
+When she had done singing, he asked her to walk with him on the beach.
+She gave another slow lift of her eyelashes, said she would, and ran
+upstairs after the Leghorn and the Japanese umbrella, brown and yellow,
+with as many bones in it as the first April shad.
+
+They walked the beach up and down, she leaning heavier and heavier on
+his arm at each turn. Then they sat down on the sand with their faces to
+the sea, and held the umbrella so as to shade off the people on the
+bank--they didn't care for the sun a bit--and in that condition they sat
+and talked and talked and talked.
+
+By and by he got up from the sand. She lifted her eyes with a pitiful
+look of helplessness. He reached out his hand, and she rose to it
+gracefully, like a trout to a fly. The hand clung to his more than a
+minute after she got up--the sand was so uneven, you see. The stranger
+bore this with Christian fortitude, and really seemed as if he rather
+liked it. In fact, he encouraged her to hold on; and she did, with her
+sweet widowed face lifted to his just long enough to set his heart off
+like a windmill, when she dropped it again.
+
+When they came up the flight of wooden steps that leads down from the
+bank, both her white hands were clasped over his arm as loving as the
+soft paws of a kitten, and he looked like a fellow that had been out
+shooting doves, and had come in with his net full.
+
+They went in to lunch, and ate spring chickens; then they ended off with
+silly-bubs, which is a sweet froth that melts to nothing on the
+tongue--delicious, but not exactly hearty food.
+
+Two hours after lunch, the stranger asked the widow to ride out with
+him; which she did, in the puffiest and silkiest of dresses, and with a
+lace parasol, lined with pink, between her and the sun. This was one of
+her snares, for she depended on that pink lining for her blushes,
+having left them a good way behind her somewhere about the first
+wedding.
+
+The drive was paradisical. They talked, they smiled, they said the
+loveliest little things to each other with delicious reciprocity. He
+drove, and divided his manly attentions between her and the horses,
+giving her a generous share, which was creditable to him as a man.
+
+It was nearly twelve o'clock that night when those two people went up to
+their neglected couches--nothing but a widow would have stood the shock
+of such impropriety among the critical of her sex; but she didn't care a
+mite.
+
+Early the next morning, which was Sunday, these two persons were seen
+coming out of the little cubby-houses under the beach in the queerest
+sort of dresses--I cannot describe them, because, up to this time, beach
+flirtations have been forbidden subjects with me.
+
+But they came out on the beach, clasped hands, and walked right into the
+biggest waves they could find.
+
+What she said to him there I cannot tell, but by and by they came back
+to the hotel, the sneakiest-looking creatures you ever set your two eyes
+on.
+
+I don't know when it was that she brought him to the point, but the
+widow had netted him so close that he didn't even try to flounder.
+
+That night there was sacred music in the hotel parlor, and, somehow, a
+minister of the Gospel dropped in, with a white cravat on, and waited
+for something, looking as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.
+
+He hadn't been there long before the strange gentleman came in with a
+swallow-tailed coat on, a white vest and cravat, with ball-gloves on his
+hands.
+
+Hanging on to his arm was that widow, in a long, white dress, that
+streamed after her in windrows, and with a shower of lace falling over
+her.
+
+The minister got up, and opened his book. The people hanging about
+hushed their talk, and in less than ten minutes a third gold ring was
+chucked over the other two that weighed down the widow's finger, and she
+walked off with number three as proud as a white peacock.
+
+It took this widow just two days and part of a night to spring her traps
+and draw her hooks--but, then, she was a widow.
+
+Sisters, there is a good deal of commotion in our hotel just now. Rural
+single ladies talk of going over to the other place.
+
+I had a little hankering in that direction at first, but, come to think
+it over, mean to stay where I am. It isn't the house that has done this,
+but the bland atmosphere of Long Branch. If that sort of thing is
+indigenous to the place--and I mean to test it thoroughly--Russia is
+welcome to the Grand Duke; a whole-souled American is good enough for
+me. Besides, Russia is an awful cold place, and I don't think I ever
+could bring myself to eat cabbage-soup or the roe of a sturgeon.
+
+Sisters, if this sort of thing lies in the atmosphere, don't you think
+it would be a good thing for the whole Society to come down here next
+summer? A generous diffusion of masculine energy into the course might
+be a desirable change. For my part, I don't mean to leave this place
+till frost comes. I believe this thing is going to be an epidemic at the
+Branch, and when contagions rage I am sure to catch any disease that is
+going. I have had the measles twice, and two pretty severe tugs with the
+scarlet-fever. In fact, I was celebrated, as a child, for catching
+double. One thing is certain--I never ran away because a disease was
+catching, and I'm not going to do it here. On the contrary, I am making
+over one of my old alpaca skirts into a bathing-dress. If I know myself
+I shall fight it out on that line, if it takes all winter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XC.
+
+THE YELLOW FLAG.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I have gone and done it! Now let me give you a little
+wholesome advice. It comes out of my superior knowledge of the world,
+and experience of the human heart. Never say that you won't do a thing,
+because if you do, just as sure as you live it is the very thing that
+you are sure to plunge into, whether you want to or not. Besides, people
+who know enough to doubt themselves, understand that men and women are
+made up principally of human nature. Now human nature is a great fraud,
+and isn't to be trusted when he's found in the interior of your own
+heart, or anywhere else.
+
+In one of my reports, I expressed myself as shocked out of a year's
+growth, when I heard about gentlemen and ladies going into the salt-sea
+waves together, and submerging themselves like mermaids in the swell and
+foam of the ocean. I said, in the heat and glow of modest feminine
+shrinkitiveness, that nothing on earth, or in the water, should induce
+me to do it; but circumstances alter cases, and the capacity of eternal
+change is the essence of genius, which is always making new combinations
+and discarding old prejudices.
+
+I say it with reluctance, but truth demands frankness. Sometimes I am a
+little hasty in my conclusions.
+
+Have I said enough--need I go on to explain that the result of a thing
+proves its propriety?
+
+Now, bathing in company, in the abstract, does seem--well, peculiar. I
+might add other words which at one time came uppermost in my mind; but,
+looking toward results, I feel constrained to say nothing on the social
+aspect of multitudinous ablutions, but go into the high moral question
+which has slowly presented itself to my understanding.
+
+Isn't there a passage of Scripture somewhere that speaks about "fishers
+of men"? I think there is, and I am inclined to see that kind of
+business from a high moral stand-point. If men are to be legally caught
+with a dripping dress and an old straw hat for bait, who shall say that
+the thing is wrong? If men are told to go down to the sea in ships, what
+should prevent a female woman from going down in a four-cornered straw
+hat, a flannel tunic, and--well, pantalettes on? Everything depends on
+the point of view from which one sees a thing.
+
+As a marine picture, salt-sea waves rushing in upon a sandy beach can
+hardly be considered complete without throwing a little life into the
+foreground; but when that life is composed of a flock of old straw hats,
+and a lot of staggery, blinded, dripping people under them, I can't say
+that I hanker after this particular marine view.
+
+From an artistic stand-point then I reject the whole subject; but as the
+means of catching a heart afloat, that same picture offers numerous
+facilities.
+
+Well, sisters, as a social institution I no longer sneer at sea-bath
+flirtations. When two days of them end in matrimony, it isn't worth
+while to fight out the question on that line any longer. I give in.
+
+Such engagements may be unstable as water, but a damp engagement is
+better than none at all.
+
+With these sentiments, I finished off my bathing-dress, and put a red
+ribbon over a high-crowned, square-brimmed hat, coarse and clumsy, which
+was to keep my face from the sun, and my flowing tresses from the briny
+ocean waves.
+
+Early in the morning I went out into the veranda, and took a survey of
+the ocean--the broad infinite expanse of waters into which I was about
+to plunge in search of--well, health.
+
+In front of the veranda, on the high bank, was a pole, like the
+liberty-poles we run up on almost every village green of New England. On
+that pole a pale yellow flag was flying.
+
+A chill ran over me, and I know that my arms must have been roughened
+like a grater.
+
+"The yellow-fever." I knew it was in the harbor, shut up there by the
+authorities. Had it escaped through Sandy Hook, and come poisoning the
+waters along shore? Now that I was ready for the first plunge, were my
+best hopes to be frustrated? Had I sat up all night sewing red braid on
+that tunic, and those--well, Turkish pantalettes, for nothing? Had I
+conquered a great New England prejudice, to be conquered myself by
+careless health officers? Why hadn't they taken an example by some of
+the old stock, and divided the whole thing among them in perquisites? I
+only wish they had.
+
+Sisters, it was a keen disappointment. I was looking at that yellow
+flag, with tears in my eyes, when Cousin E. E. came on to the veranda.
+
+"Come, Phœmie," says she, bright as a May morning, "where is the new
+bathing-dress? It will be splendid bathing!"
+
+I looked at her, I looked at the ocean and at the path that led down to
+the beach, along which half a dozen real nice-looking gentlemen were
+picking their steps like rabbits toward a sweet-apple trap. It was
+tantalizing.
+
+"Yes," says she, as contented as a lamb, "it will be lovely bathing this
+morning; I mean to try it."
+
+"Try it," says I; "haven't you read that yellow-fever is in the harbor?"
+
+"Well, what then?" says she. "It won't hurt us."
+
+"Won't hurt us," says I. "Did you ever hear of poison getting into water
+that could be washed out? No, if it is in the harbor, some of it will
+drift down here. Look, you can see it sweltering in the waves now."
+
+She looked out on the ocean, where a faint yellow tinge rippled and
+shone with treacherous temptatiousness.
+
+"Oh, that is only the sunshine," says she.
+
+"But the fever," says I, "I know it is in the harbor, for the newspapers
+said so. They have run up the yellow flag wherever it is to be found.
+See there."
+
+Cousin E. E. sat down and dropped both hands in her lap.
+
+"Cousin Phœmie," says she, "I really don't know whether you are a real
+genius or the greatest goose that ever lived. You are just a puzzle to
+me. Who ever heard of yellow-fever in the water?"
+
+"I have," says I, "in the harbor, and isn't the harbor all water?"
+
+"Yes," says she, "that is true."
+
+"Then, isn't it dangerous to bathe in that water, and don't that flag
+give us warning not to do it?"
+
+"Cousin," says she; "as I said before, you know too much for common
+ideas to make an impression. Now do try to understand. There is one ship
+in the harbor that has yellow-fever on board--that is all. It will not
+be allowed to spread from that one ship."
+
+"Oh," says I, drawing a deep breath, "then it has not poisoned the
+water."
+
+"Not at all."
+
+"But the yellow flag?"
+
+"That means good bathing, and plenty of it. Come along. Don't you see
+people crowding down to the shore?"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCI.
+
+THE MAN THAT SAVED ME.
+
+
+I ran into my room, and came out with a bundle in one hand and a coarse
+straw hat in the other. That group of gentlemen was just dropping down
+the bank out of sight, and after them went a crowd of girls, with their
+parasols flaming in the sun like a bed of poppies.
+
+"Come," says I, all joyful animation, "I am dying to begin."
+
+E. E. spread her parasol, and off we marched.
+
+We came to the steep bank, and went down a flight of wooden stairs to
+the sandy shore. Right under the bank was a long row of cubby-houses,
+made of boards.
+
+"This is ours," says E. E., "come in."
+
+I went in. Sisters, what happened in the privacy of that board
+sanctuary, is not for the public--let this satisfy the curious.
+
+Two ladies went into that little retreat, with bunched-up skirts,
+beehive bonnets, and a general assortment of dry-goods, such as weighs
+down the ladies of the present generation to an extent that approaches
+martyrdom.
+
+Two persons came out skimped down into nothingness. They had grown tall
+and slim, not to say spooky. There was a deficiency of glossy ringlets
+under the two hats that squared off in front and behind, and were
+flapped down over each ear.
+
+E. E.'s plumptitudinous figure was mostly lost and gone, and I--well, I
+felt like a church steeple on a very high hill. I say nothing, the
+subject being one of great delicacy; but from my experience in those
+Turkish--well, pantalettes--the female that begrudges her husband that
+class of garments, must hanker after change more than I do. When I came
+out of the little house, Dempster stood on the sand with a pair--well,
+of garments like mine, only more so, on, and a flaming red upper
+garment, bright enough to set the waves on fire, covering his broad
+bosom.
+
+Another gentleman stood near him--blue and brown in his sea-outfit,
+youngish, and with eyes that made me wilt like a poppy the moment they
+fell upon me.
+
+My goodness, how I did feel in that dress! It was all I could do to keep
+from kind of scrouching down to hide my bare feet; but it was of no use,
+so I dug them deep into the sand, and felt myself blushing all over,
+while that gentleman in blue fixed his eyes upon them.
+
+Anyway, there was nothing to be so mightily timorous about, for,
+according to my calculation, two smaller or whiter feet didn't leave
+their prints in the sand that day, though I do make that assertion with
+my own lips, that ought to be mute.
+
+Cousin Dempster came forward, took both E. E. and my trembling self by
+the hand, and led us to the water.
+
+I took one glance: a swarm of straw hats, a crowd of men, women, and
+children were floundering, swimming, screaming, laughing, tumbling
+through the waves, that lifted them up, flung them down, pitched them
+forward, and behaved in a way that no well-bred ocean would have thought
+of doing.
+
+I shrank--I shivered--the heart seemed to die in my agitated bosom when
+the first wave kissed my feet; I gave a little scream, but checked
+myself bravely. The waves were full of men, some of them were looking at
+me.
+
+I determined to act bravely, and be the heroine of the occasion. I let
+go of Dempster's hand. A wave struck me, my head went down and my feet
+went up. In my fright and anguish I remembered their size and whiteness,
+and found consolation in the thought while I strove to right myself.
+
+It was in vain; while I staggered with one big wave, another took me
+unawares, like a thief in the night, and dragged me under, like a wild
+beast growling over some poor helpless lamb--it tore me away. I
+shrieked--I plunged--I fought madly for my life. Up through the vivid
+green of the waters the sunshine came toward me like light upon beaming
+emeralds. I clutched at it. I tried to scream; but my mouth filled with
+water, green flashes shot through and through my eyes. I began to pray.
+The Green Mountains, the farm, and all my life there shot through my
+brain; things I had forgotten came uppermost, and those thoughts grew
+pleasant while the waters seemed roaring me to sleep.
+
+Something came toward me, bluish. Was it a monster of the deep hungry
+for the life that was so fast dying out?
+
+It seized me. I was born upward on a great wave, and swept off into the
+light. The claws of some monster, or the arms of some friend, held me
+close. Which was it?
+
+Some power of good or evil, beastly or human, had dragged me into the
+sand, where white foam curled around me, and the sun struck down upon my
+eyes like fire.
+
+Some man was thanking another for a great favor; a crowd of people came
+swarming around me. I attempted to open my eyes, but the water dripping
+down from my hair came into them sharp and salt.
+
+"Is she sick? Is she afraid? Do tell who it is?"
+
+These questions came from women who had rushed up from the waters, and
+flocked around me like mermaids. I did not care about them, but by and
+by it came to me that men might be there as well. I lifted my hand,
+swept the wet hair back from my face, and, with a smarting pain in my
+eyes, saw my deliverer.
+
+His blue garments were black with dripping water, the thick hair
+streamed over his forehead, his bare feet looked hard and powerful on
+the sand. It was the man under whose admiring eyes I had blushed and
+trembled.
+
+"My preserver!" said I, clasping my wet fingers in an ecstasy of
+gratitude; "shall I ever live to thank you for the poor life you have
+saved?"
+
+He smiled, he shook his head; I am afraid he laughed, such was his joy
+and exultation; yet the modesty of true greatness possessed him still.
+
+"It is nothing," he said. "A wave knocked you head-foremost--that was
+all."
+
+I knew better. It was the inherent greatness of a noble soul that
+impelled him to make nothing of his own heroic act. He must have
+supported me miles on miles in those stalwart arms. No protest of his
+could lessen the bravery of his action or the force of my gratitude. If
+woman's gratitude and woman's love are anything, his reward shall be
+great.
+
+They bore me into that weather-beaten cubby-house, and there, with the
+help of E. E., my dripping garments were taken off, my wet hair done up
+snugly under the braids that had been left behind, and, filled with
+tender gratitude, I walked up to my hero in blue before going to my
+apartment in the hotel.
+
+"Let me see you to-morrow," said I, pressing the hand of that heroic
+man. "Then I may find language to express my life-long gratitude."
+
+He bowed; he drew his hand, with evident reluctance, from my clasp, and
+retreated.
+
+Ah, sisters, my destiny has come! I feel it in every breath I draw, in
+every sweet thought that haunts my brain. To-morrow I shall see him
+again. To-morrow!
+
+Oh, sisters, he has just left me. Alas! alas! for human aspirations. I
+had written thus far when he came.
+
+I received him in my room, looking pale, and, I think, interesting, for
+the sweet romance of my feelings left its imprint on my features. He
+came in with hesitation, and sat down on the edge of his chair, looking
+ill at ease, as if wishing to escape a mention of his own heroism. I
+felt a glow of admiration, a thrill of tender gratitude.
+
+"You have saved my life," I said, clasping my two hands, "and from this
+hour I devote that life to your happiness. Tell me how I can begin to
+repay you."
+
+He sat uneasily; he shifted in his chair. Then he murmured:
+
+"Anything you please; I never thought of asking. It was only my duty."
+
+"Heroic man!" I exclaimed; "and brave as modest. It is my pleasure to be
+more than grateful. Never, never can I repay you save with the warmest
+and sweetest emotions of a woman's heart. I owe you--ah, how much--how
+much!"
+
+My hands were clasped, my eyes were uplifted; emotion prevented me
+finishing my sentence. He spoke, while my soul halted for words--
+
+"Well, if you think so much of just helping you out of the way of a
+seaward wave, supposing we say five dollars. It is my duty, as
+bathing-master, to help people up from the sand when they get face
+downwards, as you did; but as you insist, I don't mind a fiver."
+
+Oh, sisters!
+
+
+
+
+XCII.
+
+PLEASURE BAY.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I really do think that Cousin Dempster is one of the best
+creatures that ever lived. He seems to understand all the wounds and
+pains that a female woman's heart is exposed to, and sort of eases them
+off, so that you are cheated out of half your natural suffering.
+
+I cannot say that the bathing in the salt-sea waves was not a failure as
+a matrimonial speculation; but that is my luck. In some respects, the
+future to me is like a mirage--I put my hand out hopefully, and grasp
+nothing but fog.
+
+That bathing-master was a fine-looking man until he opened his mouth and
+attempted to sit down on a chair. He created a pleasant delusion in my
+bosom for a few moments, and then--well, we will say nothing more about
+that--the private sanctuary of a female woman's thoughts are too sacred
+for a Report.
+
+If I wept in the stillness of the night, no one but the angel that
+records broken love-dreams will ever know of it. With this precious
+angel I am in full sympathy. He has done too much of that kind of
+writing for me not to feel the cruel pangs of the long list of
+disappointments with which his books are blotted.
+
+Well, I arose the next morning after my experimental bath, heavy-eyed,
+heavy-hearted, and altogether blue as indigo. Cousin Dempster saw this,
+and his generous heart seized upon a remedy.
+
+"Let us go down to Pleasure Bay," says he. "What do you think of a day's
+crabbing?"
+
+"Crabbing?" says I, "just as if I didn't feel crabbed enough already. Do
+you want me to keep it up all day?"
+
+Dempster laughed; so did E. E.; just as if I'd said something awful
+funny, which I wasn't in the least conscious of, not having a spark of
+fun left in me since that salt-water deluge and its consequences.
+
+"Oh," says he, as good-natured as pie, "there is nothing like Pleasure
+Bay when one has the blues--a lunch under the trees, and a boat before
+the breeze."
+
+I stopped him; the dear, good fellow was launching off into poetry
+without knowing it; association with genins is doing everything with
+him. There is no knowing where he might have ended, if I hadn't lifted
+my forefinger, for a whole gust of poetry was riling up in his earthly
+nature like yeast in a baking of bread.
+
+"I'll go to Pleasure Bay," says I, "but, for goodness sake, don't try
+that sort of thing again; genius isn't catching, and though you have
+married into our family, don't expect that it will spread like an
+epidemic into yours, because it won't."
+
+"Why not?" says he; "is there nothing in association?"
+
+"Well, I can't exactly decide," says I; "strange things do happen in
+that direction. I have heard of young women marrying literary men who
+never wrote a line worth reading before, who burst out into full-blown
+geniuses right in the honeymoon. But it is wonderful how much their
+style was like their husbands'. Of course, those must be cases of
+especial affinity. When a woman has ransacked a poor fellow's heart, she
+naturally begins to pillage his brain, and I reckon he must like it at
+first; but after that, he subsides into himself, and she subsides into
+herself, and somehow she writes just as she did before, and so does he!"
+
+"Then there are plenty of young ladies who carry their ambition and
+their flirtations in among the newspaper people and stray Bohemians,"
+says E. E., kindling up to the subject; "for every time they get into a
+new flirtation, which is once in about three months, their style
+changes, giving them a wonderful versatility of talent that, somehow,
+dies out after awhile, as she grows old and homely."
+
+"That is," says Dempster, laughing, "every time a literary lady of this
+stamp changes her lover, she changes her style, too."
+
+"Exactly," answers E. E., "and where she hasn't any good-natured lover
+she retires into modest privacy till one comes along."
+
+I just listened, holding my breath.
+
+"What," says I, "does fraud and deception creep into the sacred
+literature of our country? I cannot believe it."
+
+"Can't you?" says E. E.; "but you have never been in Bohemia."
+
+"No," says I, "that is a part of Europe that I hope to visit, but never
+have. Is it a popular place for Americans?"
+
+"Oh, wonderfully popular, for people who dash off things here and there,
+write for this and that, and are willing to give half that they earn and
+know to any adventurer that comes along, free gratis for nothing; or, on
+occasion, sell reputation by the line, and for a price. Oh, Bohemia is a
+splendid place for adventurers and adventuresses to forage in!"
+
+"What!" says I, "genius sell itself?"
+
+"Yes," says she, "and its readers, too."
+
+"Cousin E. E.," says I, "you slander the grandest, the purest, the most
+sublime people on the earth."
+
+"Do I?" says she, nodding her head and laughing. "Wait and see."
+
+"Remember--you are speaking of authors, the first and purest aristocracy
+known to our free nation."
+
+"No; I speak of would-be authors--guerillas in literature--men and women
+of erratic ability, who adore inspiration and scorn work; for
+authorship, I am told, and believe, requires the hardest work of any
+calling in the world."
+
+"I'm afraid it does," said I, drawing a long breath, "but then such work
+brings its own prompt payment. The power to write is happiness in
+itself."
+
+"But what has this to do with Pleasure Bay?" says Dempster; "we mean to
+go there--not to Bohemia."
+
+"Just so," says I, a-tying on my bonnet.
+
+We got into Dempster's carriage, and after a delightful drive, we came
+down on the edge of a little bay, with green grass growing close down to
+the shore, and great, tall trees clumped here and there all around it.
+
+I was so charmed with the scenery that I didn't realize where we were
+till the carriage stopped before a white house, with a long wooden stoop
+in front, when we got out and walked right away down to the shore, where
+a plank platform ran out from the land, and a cunning little boat, with
+white sails, lay dipping up and down like a duck in the water.
+
+Sisters, I'm not timersome, but getting into a boat that rocks like a
+cradle in the water tries me, I must own to that. With what holding on
+and keeping your dress well down upon the ankles, one is seized with a
+sense of being awfully unsteady. This riles up the constitution to a
+state of dizziness that makes your ears buz like a bumblebee's nest.
+
+I was thankful to get seated at last, and, tucking up my dress, prepared
+at once for a long sea-voyage. E. E. had slung a great straw gypsy hat
+on her arm, by the strings, when she left Long Branch, which she bent
+down over her head like an umbrella with herself for a handle; over that
+she spread a broad yellow parasol that blazed in the hot air like a
+great sunflower.
+
+"Phœmie," says she, a-looking up from under her straw tent, "didn't you
+bring a flat?"
+
+"No," says I; "the young fellows of that stamp didn't happen to be about
+when we started."
+
+"Dear me! you'll burn your face up," says she; "that beehive is no
+protection."
+
+"About as much as one of your York flats would be," says I. "But
+supposing I hoist my parasol, too--one don't need a beau for that."
+
+The sun was pouring down like blazes, and I was mighty glad to spread my
+parasol, I can tell you; so I did it, and settled down on the same bench
+with E. E.
+
+Dempster had been awful busy on shore, pulling out fish-lines, looking
+up nets that swung like a great hang-bird's nest, on the end of a pole:
+and now he was on his knees, hacking a fish into chunks, which he tied
+to a line and dropped into the bottom of the boat. At last he lifted his
+great straw hat, wiped the blazing warmth from his face, and jumped in.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCIII.
+
+NETTING CRABS.
+
+
+Oh, sisters! judge of my feelings, when directly after Dempster, came a
+splendid gentleman--a creature of romance, shaded from the vulgar gaze
+by a felt hat, and dressed like a mariner along-shore. He lifted his hat
+to me, and also to E. E.--with a lofty reservation in her case.
+
+"Mr. Burke," says Dempster, with a degree of carelessness that, I am
+sorry to say, is characteristic--"he will teach you how to catch the
+creatures; for there is an art in it."
+
+"Then I shall never succeed," says I, in a low, gentle tone of voice.
+"Where anything but pure nature is expected, I must always keep in the
+shade. You know, Cousin E. E., what an artless young thing I always
+was."
+
+E. E. smiled--not at me but right up in the face of that strange
+gentleman. I declare, I never saw anything so bold in my life! But it
+was of no use; he came and sat down close to me. In fact, he took the
+parasol from my hand with a gallant air that made my heart beat like a
+partridge on a log. In one respect that movement wasn't an advantage:
+the parasol was not large enough to shade two, and he held it
+carelessly, as was natural to a dashing, splendid creature like him; but
+somehow the shade always fell on his side. I felt dreadfully certain
+that freckles were falling like split peas all over my face. Still he
+smiled so sweetly and looked so magnificent that, freckles or no
+freckles, I was ready to give him up my beehive, too, if he had only
+looked as if he wanted it.
+
+Dear me, how that boat did heel up and rock as we went sailing off down
+to a green grassy point, where the gentleman told me the crabs swarmed
+like lady-bugs around a full-blown rose--pretty simliar, wasn't it,
+sisters, and so original?
+
+I was dying to know what sort of a fish a crab was, never having seen
+any in our brooks. Were they like sun-fish, rainbowish and flat; or like
+trout, sparkled over with dripping jewels; or small and silvery, like
+shiners and pin-fish?
+
+I did not like to ask that magnificent stranger about this, and let him
+believe that crabbing had been an amusement of my childhood up in the
+Green Mountains--not that I said so outright--but my idea of discretion
+is to say nothing of a thing you don't understand, but wait and find
+out. What is the good of telling the world how much you don't know?
+
+Well, I hadn't the least idea what a crab was, but the name made me feel
+a little rily. The water was full of them; I was pretty sure to find
+out; so I waited.
+
+By and by, Dempster flung a great stone co-slash into the water, and
+tied us up just below a little green point of land that took the
+sunshine in its long grass till it seemed full of drifting gold which
+spread out upon the water in soft, shiny ripples.
+
+E. E. shut down her parasol. Mr. Burke shut mine. "Now," says he, "for
+the lines."
+
+With this he took up a lump of raw fish, gave it a swing and a splash
+into the water, and handed me the other end. Dempster gave another line
+and a chunk of fish to his wife, and then took one of the hang-bird nets
+and stood by as if he meant to do business.
+
+By and by I felt a sort of hungry nibbling at the end of my line, and
+gave it a jerk just as if it had been a brook trout, hard to catch.
+
+"Oh, goodness!" I just dropped the line and screamed like everything,
+scared half to death. If ever an innocent female caught a claw-footed
+imp, I came near doing it then. Why the animal, varmint, double and
+twisted serpent--I don't know what to call it--clung to the bait till I
+hauled him clear out of the water, and then fell back with a big sprawl
+and an awful splash, sinking down again like a great mammoth spider that
+made the water bubble with disgust.
+
+"What was it? What was it?" I said, turning my scared face on Mr. Burke.
+"What kind of young sea-devil is this?"
+
+He laughed, and laid down the net he had just taken up.
+
+"You pulled too quick," says he. "Crabs are like women."
+
+"Like women," I shrieked. "What, those horrid things? Sir, I thank you!"
+
+My voice shook so I could hardly get the words out with proper irony. A
+generous rage in behalf of my sex possessed me.
+
+"You did not hear me out," says he, pleasant as a sweet apple. "I was
+going to say crabs were like women in this respect. They must be led
+along, enticed, persuaded up to the bait."
+
+"Oh!" says I, "that is a sentiment I can appreciate, but the comparison
+is dreadful."
+
+"There is hardly anything in nature which would not be dreadful compared
+to some females that I know of," says he.
+
+I laid one hand on my bosom and bowed, but the next instant I felt one
+of those scraggly fiends pulling at my line, and I drew it softly in,
+hand-over-hand. Oh, how the beastly thing crept and crawled, and spread
+its scraggles as it nibbled and rose with the bait! I declare it made
+the flesh creep on my bones.
+
+"That's right, draw gently--lure him up. Ho!"
+
+As he spoke Mr. Burke just slid his net under the varmint, and flashed
+him up into the air, bait and all.
+
+Sisters, there is no use in talking; if these creatures they call crabs
+ain't great salt-sea spiders, no such animals exist; and eels ain't
+fish, that's all.
+
+Oh, I wish you could see them crawl up through the sea-grass and spread
+themselves. I declare it is just awful.
+
+Well, down went this crab--which they all gloried in, being a great big
+gridiron of a fellow--into a hole in one end of the boat, and out went
+my bait after another.
+
+At one great pull I brought up two wapping big fellows at a time, and
+trolled them on while Mr. Burke scooped them up. Chasing dragon flies in
+the old times was nothing to it.
+
+E. E. was busy as a bee on her side of the boat, Dempster ladled the
+animals up for her, till we had a couple of dozen trying to creep away,
+and fighting each other like chickens in a coop.
+
+By this time I could see that E. E., like a good many other people I
+could mention, was getting sort of restless for other attentions than
+those her husband could give. She kept casting side-glances at Mr.
+Burke, and at last says she to Dempster:
+
+"Dempster, it isn't expected that a man should always be a-hanging about
+his wife. It's time for you to do some netting for Phœmie."
+
+E. E. said this almost in a whisper, but I heard it, and all the temper
+in me riled up to my throat.
+
+Sisters, this married woman was just dying to change off her husband for
+the beau that was devoting all his energies to me. I felt that the
+crisis had come that self-interest and a high moral standard demanded
+that I should keep this man from the lure of a married woman. I owed it
+to myself, to Dempster, and, above all, to the cause of morality, to
+hold that man firmly to his post.
+
+"Phœmie," says Dempster, coming up to me and looking as if butter
+wouldn't melt in his mouth, "let me scoop for you?"
+
+Before I could speak Mr. Burke took that nefarious hint and went over to
+E. E.
+
+I gave Dempster a look of withering contempt, and flung my bait out with
+a splash that must have scared all the crabs out of a year's growth.
+
+"No," says I, "you may be willing to desert the marital outposts, but I
+will not help you. Go back to your wife; I can catch all the crabs I
+want without help."
+
+"Well, just as you like," says Dempster, and, settling down on the bow
+of the boat, he pulled his hat over his eyes and went to sleep, then and
+there.
+
+Three crabs come up to my bait--nibble, nibble, nibble. I drew in the
+line, they crawled through the water after it. Still I drew and drew.
+Three great plump fellows came to the top of the water. It was a good
+chance to call Burke away. He was leaning over E. E. and whispering,
+while she listened.
+
+"Here, here!" screamed I, "three at a haul. Will nobody help me?"
+
+That man did not seem to hear me, but kept on whispering, while E. E.
+listened with a smile on her lips and her eyes half shut. The sight made
+me awful mad.
+
+"I'll catch them myself," says I, and down I plunged my hand into the
+water. I meant to grip the crab, but he gripped me.
+
+Oh, mercy, how he pinched and bit, and screwed his claws around my hand.
+It seemed as if he were twisting it into a corkscrew. I shrieked--I
+yelled--I tried to shake the varmint off--to dash him to atoms against
+the side of the boat. It was of no use: his sharp claws dug into me in
+fifty places; he bit like fury. The blood ran down my fingers, my voice
+grew weaker, but it broke up that flirtation. It was a cruel price, but
+I paid it cheerfully. While I retain my moral sense, no married woman
+shall degrade her sex by a flirtation in my presence. Never, never!
+
+Yes, my screams broke up that well-arranged plan to delude Mr. Burke
+from my side, and it broke up the crabbing party too.
+
+Dempster woke up and hauled in the lines. We had thirty crabs
+floundering in the hold, all fighting like imps of darkness.
+
+"We'll have them for dinner," says Dempster, ferociously, "they won't be
+so lively half an hour from now."
+
+He was right, it took us just fifteen minutes to sail back to that white
+house with the long stoop. Fifteen minutes after that, every crab was in
+water so hot that they gave up clawing and began to turn furiously red.
+
+Half an hour after we sat around a long table out under the trees, with
+a great platter of those scrawny creatures lying with their red shells
+uppermost, a good deal easier to catch than they had been, I can tell
+you.
+
+Mr. Burke was busy as could be, telling me how to put in my knife under
+the red shell, so as to lay the sweet white flesh open.
+
+I say nothing, but it seemed to me there was one jealous female around
+those premises, and that female certainly was not me.
+
+The meat of those creatures is just delicious--what there is of it.
+
+Take it altogether, sisters, it seems to me that catching and eating
+crabs is an amusement which promises better than bathing.
+
+If I am not very much mistaken, Mr. Burke held my hand longer than was
+quite necessary when he said good-night after we reached the hotel. I
+saw E. E. looking at us sideways, and I let it rest--rest lovingly in
+his clasp long enough to wring her heart. What right has she to have any
+feeling about it, I should like to know? Isn't she married?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCIV.
+
+EXTRA POLITENESS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Life is a pleasant thing to have when its chariot-wheels
+revolve in smooth places. I went to bed last night angry with Cousin E.
+E. Ever since Mr. Burke was introduced into our party she has exhibited
+a desire for gentlemen's attention which I think entirely unbecoming a
+married lady. I do not wish to be severe or captious; such feelings
+should be left to maiden ladies of an age that I have not yet dreamed of
+reaching. But a married woman who hankers after any other man's society
+than that of her own lawful husband is--well, not to speak harshly, an
+example that some people may follow, but I won't.
+
+This morning, as we sat on the long stoop of the hotel, gazing out on
+the broad expanse of the boundless ocean, Mr. Burke came gently to my
+side, and spoke:
+
+"Miss Frost."
+
+My heart beat; my eyelids dropped, but I lifted them, in shy innocence,
+to his face, inquiringly, wistfully. What would he say next?
+
+"Miss Frost, have you ever seen a clam-bake?"
+
+I reflected a moment. Were clam-bakes indigenous to our Vermont soil?
+Were they a product of the mountains, or a spontaneous growth of the
+river vales?
+
+"I do not think I have ever seen them growing in Vermont," says I, at
+last; "yet there are few roots or vegetables, wild or tame, that I don't
+know something about. There is wake-robin, on the mountains, with its
+spokes of red berries; and snake-root, and adder's-tongue; but I don't
+remember clam-bakes among them, and I know they are not cultivated in
+our parts as garden-sas, I beg pardon, as vegetables."
+
+Mr. Burke smiled out loud, and his black mustache curled down on each
+side of his lips delightfully.
+
+"I fancy you have never seen anything of the kind in Vermont. Clam-bakes
+are only found at the sea-side--principally around Rhode Island. I don't
+think they prevail much in the mountains, as yet."
+
+"You don't say so!" says I. "Then they are a salt-water plant?"
+
+"Principally found in the sand and mud."
+
+"That don't seem to me very remarkable," says I; "most vegetables are
+found in one or the other. Watermelons, for instance, grow best in a
+bare sand-bank: perhaps your new-fangled vegetable is of that species?"
+
+Again his black mustache gave a lovely curl, and his black eyes looked
+into mine so tenderly, as if something I had said tickled him almost to
+death.
+
+"You _are_ an original creature," said he.
+
+I put one hand on my heart, and bowed.
+
+"People about Sprucehill, especially the Society of Infinite Progress,
+have done me the honor to think so," says I.
+
+"But about the clam-bake--if you like it, we must start for Pleasure Bay
+at once," says Mr. Burke.
+
+"Do they grow down there?" says I.
+
+"Not as a general thing, but we shall make out to get one up, with a
+little trouble."
+
+"Do they grow so deep?" says I.
+
+"You will see when we get there. Mrs. Dempster is ready, and the
+carriage is waiting."
+
+To please that man I would have done almost anything; but it did seem a
+wild-goose chase for a lot of grown people to rush down to Pleasure Bay
+for the fun of pulling up a lot of the strangest vegetables that ever
+grew.
+
+"Do make haste!" cried E. E. through the green slats of her
+window-blinds.
+
+I got up and shook out my dress.
+
+"It will be such fun!" she called out. "Mr. Burke has been so kind as to
+invite us, so don't keep him waiting."
+
+I lifted my eyes to the dark orbs of that noble-looking man, and he must
+have known from the expression that I did not mean to keep him waiting
+in any respect. Gently bending my head, I withdrew.
+
+I came from my room like a moving picture, with my black alpaca newly
+flounced, and surmounted by that fleecy white jacket with great buttons
+and double-breasted in front. Then my white hat, curled up victoriously,
+and the feather waving above it and curlecued around it, was enough to
+tantalize a minister.
+
+Mr. Burke smiled graciously when he saw me come forth clad in the
+whiteness of my principles, and I knew that the sympathy between us was
+national as well as individual.
+
+E. E. came out of her room flaunting a red jacket and a long black
+plume. Dashy for a married woman! But I said nothing. Let that young
+woman work out her own destiny; I am not her husband. I caught her
+sending sly glances from under her eyelashes at Mr. Burke. I wish
+Dempster had been close by, to see for himself, that's all.
+
+If there is anything on earth that I detest, it is a flirty married
+woman.
+
+We rode down to Pleasure Bay, four in the carriage, with that child
+perched up alongside of the driver. E. E. wanted to sit opposite to Mr.
+Burke, and, seized with a fit of extra politeness for that occasion
+only, insisted on it that I should get in first--which would have
+brought me face to face with Dempster. But I, too, was suffering under a
+sudden epidemic of good manners, and stepped back, bowing till the white
+feather shaded my face. She kept waving her hand; but I would not be
+persuaded into pushing myself before a married woman, and at last she
+got in, biting her lips as if she had a tenpenny nail between her teeth.
+I followed, looking innocent as a cat with cream on its tongue, and away
+we went.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCV.
+
+THE CLAM-BAKE.
+
+
+Two carriage-loads of people were at Pleasure Bay, wandering about under
+the trees in front of the hotel. Down between them and the bank was a
+lot of men piling up a heap of round stones and crossing sticks of wood
+over them till a high sort of a cross-beam pinnacle was built, to which
+one of the men set fire. Mercy, how it blazed up and flashed through the
+cracks in the wood! They seemed to enjoy the blaze, and worked like
+beavers around it--though I don't know how a beaver works, never having
+seen one.
+
+Some of the men went down to the water, and, dragging up great armfuls
+of dark green and yellow grass, swelled out here and there with bulbs
+and blisters, laid it in a heap before the fire. Some of the others sat
+down on the rocks, with pails of potatoes and sweet corn between their
+knees, which they began to wash and tie up in their husks.
+
+I was awful curious to know what all this was about, but made up my mind
+to wait and see; for Mr. Burke seemed so anxious and busy that I didn't
+want to stop him by asking questions.
+
+When the wet weeds, potatoes, and corn came on, I thought that the next
+thing would be some clam-bake; but instead of that, a fellow came down
+from the house with a lot of young chickens, picked clean, which he
+carried by the legs, and another loafed up from the water with three
+great horrid green monsters, like crabs swelled out--green as the
+sea-weed, and so dreadfully crawly that the very sight of them made me
+creep all over.
+
+"What on earth are those creatures?" says I to Dempster; "mammoth
+cockroaches that have taken to a seafaring life, or what?"
+
+"Why, lobsters," says he.
+
+"Lobsters!" says I. "Not a bit of it. All the lobsters I have ever seen
+were bright red, and still as mice."
+
+"That was after they were cooked," says he. "Wait till these come out,
+and they'll be red enough, I promise you."
+
+Well, I waited and watched, for what these men were up to was more than
+I could make out. When the wood was all burned down they brushed the
+coals and ashes away with an old broom, and two colored men came up from
+the shore, carrying a two-bushel basket full of little longish-round
+creatures, hard as stone, and with a long black sort of a knot hanging
+out of one end. They were dripping wet, and pieces of sea-weed clung to
+them, as if they grew in the water like the crabs and lobsters.
+
+Well, when the ashes were swept away, and nothing but the hot stones
+were left crowded close together, the two nig--well, colored persons,
+lifted that great basket between them and poured the round creatures
+among the hot stones till they sissed again. Then they piled on a heap
+of sea-weed, and a cloud of steam came pouring through. Then another
+layer, and over that the potatoes and corn were poured down and laid on.
+Then another layer of weeds, and the chickens and three great large
+fish, done up in cloths, were laid out for a steaming, and with them
+those live, green lobsters. Oh, mercy! how they did spread their claws
+and crawl through the sea-weed! It was enough to make you creep all
+over; but the men soon smothered them with steaming grass, which heaved
+up and down for a while, and then sank off, till the lobsters lay as
+dead as the chickens, and made no more fuss about being roasted alive.
+
+By this time the whole heap--grass, chickens, corn, lobsters, and other
+shell creatures--was big as a small haystack. At last the two colored
+persons came down with a long tin pail, in which was a roll of butter
+and some vinegar. They sunk the pail down into the steaming sea-grass,
+clapped the corn on, and buried it with all the rest. Then more sea-weed
+and an old boat-sail flung over all, and that little mountain of
+roasting things was left to steam and sizzle while the whole party went
+to take a walk along the shore.
+
+Mr. Burke kept by my side, and part of the time he carried my parasol,
+shading my face with it in the tenderest way.
+
+He said something about the clam-bake, but I had really got so sick of
+everything in the fish, fowl, or vegetable line, that a curiosity, more
+or less, was of no consequence, so I said I should know how I liked
+clam-bakes better when I had seen one.
+
+He answered that would be soon, for half an hour was enough to put one
+through.
+
+Sisters, I was in no sort of hurry about it, for the rest of them were
+busy chatting and talking, so that we were just as good as alone, and
+the moments were precious as gold sands in an hour-glass.
+
+By and by some one set up a shout. Mr. Burke wheeled right round, and
+says he:
+
+"They are going to open the clam-bake; come and see it done?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCVI.
+
+THAT CLAM BAKE.
+
+
+He walked fast. I followed him with reluctant footsteps. What did I care
+for clam-bakes or any other new-fangled vegetable while he was by my
+side?
+
+The crowd were all around that heap of sea-weed when we came up. Men,
+women, Irish help, and nig--well, colored freemen, with eager eyes and
+open mouths, were waiting for the sail-cloth to be taken off. On the
+grass, under the trees, a great long table was set out with plates,
+glasses, castors, and things. At the end, two pails of ice, with the
+necks of a dozen bottles peeping up like hungry birds in a nest, stood
+ready for somebody to uncork.
+
+Well, the nig--freedman gave that sail a jerk, and a cloud of salty
+steam rolled up from the sea-grass. Then he raked away a winrow of that,
+dug out a pail of melted butter and vinegar, and held a lobster up by
+one claw, looking red as a British soldier's jacket. The creature had
+given up fighting, and hung in his hand meek as Moses. The poor thing
+was green enough when he went in, but came out blazing red and steaming
+hot.
+
+More sea-weed; chickens dripping with gravy; heaps of corn; potatoes,
+mealy, and broken open; fish, and then those longish-round shell
+things, heaped in plates and dishes, were carried off to the table. We
+followed those dishes; we sat down to eat. Those longish hard-shelled
+creatures had all burst open, and something that smelt delicious lay
+inside, with black heads sticking out.
+
+I watched to see what the rest did with those animals, then seized one
+by the head, drew him out, soused him in the melted butter, and dropped
+him softly into my open mouth.
+
+"Delicious, scrumptious, beyond anything I ever ate in my life," says I,
+when Mr. Burke leaned toward me and wanted to know how I liked it. "But
+what are these black-headed things with shells, called?"
+
+"Oh, soft-shells--the best part of the clam-bake, I think," says he.
+
+"I reckon you are right," says I, taking another little fellow by the
+nape of the neck, and biting him off at the shoulders. Then I drank a
+glass of the sparklingest cider you ever tasted, and went in for an ear
+of corn, smoking hot, and the breast of a chicken.
+
+Mr. Burke wanted me to eat some of the red lobster, but the thought of
+it made me creep all over, so I asked to be excused, and said I
+preferred a dozen or two more soft-shells.
+
+There was a good deal of first-rate cider drank around that table, and
+we left a bushel of open shells under the trees, besides a heap of
+lobsters, clams, and chicken bones, well picked.
+
+Then we went back to look at the place where they had been cooked, and
+found nothing but a heap of smoking stones, a ring of burnt grass, and a
+pile of steamy sea-weed. Somehow, the sight of it all made me feel sort
+of faint, and it didn't seem to me that I should ever want to eat or
+drink again.
+
+We went home from Pleasure Bay in the carriage, feeling lazy and kind of
+half sea-sick.
+
+That night I dreamed that a whole regiment of green lobsters were
+crawling over my bed, clawing at me fiercely as they went. Then I
+thought that Mr. Burke came and shoved them off with both arms flung
+out, and invited me to breakfast on a heap of empty shells, dipped in
+butter, which set awful heavy on my stomach.
+
+In fact, I had a worrying night, and got up feeling as if I had been
+feasting on tenpenny nails and roasted flat-irons.
+
+
+
+
+XCVII.
+
+ONE HOUR OF HEAVEN.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--You haven't the least idea of what warm weather is in
+Vermont. Why, if one of your mountain trout streams could have run
+through New York, it would have boiled over and cooked the poor little
+speckled creatures that live in its waves. You never saw anything like
+it in your born days. The sea breezes at Long Branch seemed to come over
+an ocean of melted lead, blasted up by some old furnace of a volcano.
+For one whole week I was just dying of envy, when I thought of the pigs
+roving loose in our village, with such lovely mud puddles to lie down
+in, without caring a sumarke whether their clothes were mussed--excuse
+that word, I got it here in York--or not.
+
+While I was panting for breath on the sea-shore, I could think of them,
+with home-sick longing, up to their throats in the soft, mushy fluid of
+a delicious puddle, with swarms of yellow butterflies rising, floating,
+and settling around them, as if a bed of primroses had got tired of
+growing in one place, and had burst off on a grand spree through the
+air, settling down for a drink now and then.
+
+Yes, sisters, I was brought, in the hot blast of those summer days, to a
+state of unchristian envy, and would have been glad to swap places with
+flounders, or have slept in some cellar, with a block of ice for a
+pillow.
+
+But nothing that I ever saw lasts for ever, or if it does I haven't
+lived long enough to prove it. Still, one gets restless in weather like
+this, when human beings are dropping down dead in the streets of a city
+close by in dozens, from sunstrokes.
+
+This morning I sat in my room, with a short gown and not over many
+skirts on, looking through the green slats of my door, and watching the
+sunshine shimmer down on the waves where the little white vessels were
+folding their sails, and going to sleep like birds too lazy for flying,
+when a colored person came to my door, and says he:
+
+"Mr. Burke's compliments, and will Miss Frost take a walk with him on
+the beach?"
+
+I started up, and, says I:
+
+"Won't I!" Then I composed myself, and sent back compliments, and Miss
+Frost will have great pleasure in complying with Mr. Burke's polite
+invitation.
+
+When the--colored messenger was gone, I sat down in the Boston rocker,
+clasped my hands, and drew a deep, deep sigh of ecstatic expectation.
+Then I remembered that he was waiting, and sprang to my feet.
+
+With my two shaking hands I fastened the other woman's hair over my own,
+that would neither curl nor friz worth a cent that awful hot day. Then I
+put on a white muslin dress, that looked seraphically innocent, and
+tightened it up with a plaid silk sash, that circled my slender waist
+and floated off like a rainbow breaking through a cloud.
+
+Then I took my parasol in one hand, held my flowing skirts up with the
+other, and went forth to meet my destiny. Oh, how my feet longed to
+dance! How my girlish heart beat and fluttered in this innocent bosom.
+
+He was waiting for me in the long stoop, leaning against a post, and
+fanning his manly head with the broad brim of his Panama hat. Oh, how
+majestic, how--but language fails me here.
+
+Arm in arm we walked along the beach. He leaned toward me, I leaned
+with gentle heaviness on him--delightful reciprocity--eloquent silence.
+A soft breeze blew up from the ocean, and kissed us both with refreshing
+softness.
+
+"Ah!" said the noble man by my side, "this is delicious."
+
+"Deliriously so," I murmured.
+
+"You feel the revivifying effect?" says he.
+
+"Exquisitely," says I, leaning a little more confidingly on his stalwart
+arm.
+
+He bent his stately head and looked down into my eyes. Sisters, the
+thrill of that glance shook my delicate frame as bumble-bees set a
+full-blown rose to trembling when they swarm in its heart.
+
+"Shall we go down to the sands?" says he; "the incoming tide is dashing
+them with coolness."
+
+I understood the delicate meaning conveyed in these words. Nothing could
+be more exquisitely suggestive. The tide--what was that but his own
+noble self? The sands--pure, white, untrodden--in my whole life I never
+heard anything more typical.
+
+"If you desire it," I said.
+
+"If I desire it. Ah! Miss Frost, it is for you to say."
+
+My heart leaped to this as a speckled trout snaps at a fly. Nothing so
+near a proposal had ever reached me before. But a New England woman is
+modest; she does not snatch at the first offer--far from it. I pretended
+not to understand the badly hidden meaning of his metaphor. A little art
+of this kind is feminine and excusable, even in a young girl dignified
+with Society membership and a mission. I felt that he could appreciate
+it. He did. Some people were below us on the sands. They paused to look
+up as this noble creature handed me down those wooden steps. The effect
+must have been artistical. My cloud-like skirts floated softly on the
+zephyrs. My scarf streamed out like a banner. I am afraid the curve of
+my boot might have been seen from below, for many admiring faces were
+turned that way, and Mr. Burke cast his eye downward in a fugitive
+manner.
+
+At last we reached the sands, on which both the sun and waves were
+beating luminously. By a ridge of white sand he paused.
+
+"Shall we sit here?" says he, with tender questioning.
+
+"Anywhere," says I, with sweet feminine complacency.
+
+Then I dropped down on the sand ridge, and sweeping my skirts together,
+cast a timid glance up and around.
+
+That noble man was spreading a silk umbrella. There was a hitch in the
+spring, and, such was his eager impatience to occupy the seat I had so
+delicately suggested, that a real naughty word broke from his lips--a
+word I, as a missionary, never could forgive, if it hadn't been the
+proof of such loving impatience. As it was, like a recording angel, I
+blotted it out of my memory with a forgiving sigh.
+
+That refractory umbrella was hoisted at last, and its owner placed
+himself on the sand beside me, holding it not seaward, but like a tent,
+shading us two from the whole world, while the sun took care of itself.
+
+"This," says he, "is a sweet relief. Don't you find it so, Miss Frost?"
+
+I answered him with a sigh, soft, but audible.
+
+"Yes, one can draw a full breath here," says he. "I was sure you would
+enjoy it."
+
+"I do, indeed," says I, playing with the sand in the innocence of my
+heart.
+
+Evidently embarrassed by deep feeling, he too began to sift the white
+sand through his fingers, which came so near mine that they made me
+catch my breath for fear he might clasp them. On the contrary, he gave
+up the temptatious exercise, and throwing a generous restraint on
+himself, began to talk metaphorically and metaphysically about many
+things, especially about gathering maple-sap, of which he questioned me
+tenderly, veiling the hidden meaning in his heart, by a seeming interest
+in our trees.
+
+He asked me, with infinite meaning in his voice, at what period the
+sparkling sap began to mount up from the curly roots of our maples, and
+vivify the trunk, twigs, and branches of that noble tree.
+
+I understood his meaning, delicately veiled as it was. He wished to
+reveal his contempt of young saplings compared to the vigorous tree. It
+was a poetic way of comparing young snips of things with whole-souled
+girls, who had all the bloom of youth, and all the strength of maturity.
+
+I spoke my mind on the subject. I said that strength, greenness, a
+full-grown trunk were necessary before sweet wholesome sap could
+circulate from root to top of a sugar maple. That saplings amounted to
+just nothing at all. In fact, they kept absorbing, but gave forth
+nothing; that a rich maturity was desirable before the maple became
+important as a forest-tree or an object of wealth.
+
+I think he understood me--or rather he understood that I, with the
+exquisite intuition of genius, understood him. For right off, on that,
+he said that he would like to live in Vermont, and own maple-trees
+himself; that native sugar was a sweet business, and must have a
+softening tendency upon those who entered into it.
+
+He sometimes bought it of little boys in the cars, and always felt a
+soothing influence after eating it, that made him long to drink the
+native sap fresh from the tree. In fact, he took a deep interest in
+Vermont and all its institutions.
+
+While we were talking on these sweet subjects, quite a breeze sprang up
+from the water.
+
+Things brighten around us. The sky looked blue. The heaving waves of the
+ocean began to swell and sparkle as if a diamond mine were breaking up
+in their depths. I am satisfied that Long Branch is all that it has been
+cracked up to be--and more too, when kindred souls meet on its sandy
+shores.
+
+"How bright! how beautiful!" says he, backing off suddenly from the
+maple question, which had covered a world of hidden meaning, and looking
+out to sea, with a delicate wish, no doubt, to spare my blushes.
+
+"Some persons have been kind enough to think so," says I, "but it isn't
+for me to say."
+
+"I love the fitful changes--the soft transparency: nothing can be more
+lovely," says he.
+
+The occasion required downcast eyes and shrinking silence. I gave him
+both. There could be no better answer for a speech so personal and yet
+so poetic.
+
+"I hope you share my feelings in this."
+
+That moment--that precious, precious moment--was broken in upon in a way
+that makes me clench my teeth as I write. Up the sands, racing forward
+like a young colt, came "that child," with her flat flying back by the
+strings, and a broken parasol in her hand; up she flew toward Mr. Burke.
+
+"Come here," says she, "I want you to whip that boy out there within an
+inch of his life. I broke my parasol over his head, but it wasn't half
+enough; I want you to give it to him good."
+
+"But what has he done," says Mr. Burke, no doubt riled to the depths of
+his noble heart, as I was.
+
+"Done enough, I should think. He mimicked the way I carried my parasol,
+and said some folks wanted to be young ladies before they could
+read--that's what he has done," says the creature, flaming out like a
+bantam.
+
+"Perhaps we had better go in," says Mr. Burke, lifting himself out of
+the sand.
+
+"Not till you've given him hail Columbia," says the creature, taking a
+new grip on her broken parasol.
+
+"I rather think he has got that," says Mr. Burke, reaching out his hand
+to help me up.
+
+I arose. I jerked that Leghorn flat by the strings, and tied it under
+the creature's chin with a pull that made her scream. Then I took Mr.
+Burke's arm and mounted the wooden steps, with a feeling at my heart
+that is not to be described by mortal pen. What a world of bliss that
+wicked little wretch broke in upon. His soul was verging towards mine so
+beautifully. The final words were burning on his lips when she rushed
+in. Still, memory is left, reason is left. I know what was in that
+noble heart, and that knowledge is bliss.
+
+I felt this: I knew his meaning. To a common woman he might have said,
+"I love you dearly. I wish above all things to spend my life with you;"
+but to a creature made up of sensitive pride and poetic niceties,
+unclothed proposals of this kind must be quite out of place. Of course I
+understood all that, and felt the refinement of his conduct deeply.
+
+What more _could_ a man say than this? In order to be delicately
+personal, one must talk by comparisons. To praise the State one is born
+in, is to praise one's self. To seize upon any material thing for a
+poetical comparison with a human being, is to be intensely complimentary
+to that being.
+
+For the first time in my life I feel the sweet certainty of duplication.
+My heart swells with the beautiful faith of hope deferred. Those
+heavenly lines we have sung so often together in our meeting-house come
+back to my mind--
+
+    "To patient faith the prize is sure--"
+
+I dare not go farther and complete the rhyme, because human sensation
+should not encroach on the divine; but the spirit of that hymn sings in
+my heart; for if there is anything on this earth that woman should be
+grateful for, it is love.
+
+Yes, my sisters, at last I feel that I am beloved. A ray of sympathetic
+feeling has darted from a grand and noble soul to mine, changing that
+dull, sandy coast to Elysium.
+
+Last night, when I retired to the secrecy of my chamber, it seemed to me
+that if ever a woman's heart--beg pardon, a young girl's heart--was born
+again, mine had become more tenderly infantine than it was when I lay
+one week old in my loving mother's arms.
+
+The moonlight was streaming through the muslin curtains of my room when
+I entered it. It was an ovation of silvery light dawning upon the new
+life that opens before me. I do not know how other people feel when the
+crisis of fate is on them, but in my heart there is room for nothing but
+infinite thankfulness.
+
+Yes, sisters, I think you can conscientiously congratulate me. Virtue
+does sometimes meet with its own reward, especially when it is combined
+with youthfulness, elegance, and high mental attributes.
+
+
+
+
+XCVI.
+
+C. O. D.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--The cruelty of one female woman to another is something
+awful. As a general thing, E. E. Dempster is a good-natured, amiable
+person, but her conduct on the very day after that heavenly season on
+the shore was worthy of the Spanish Inquisition. She has lacerated the
+heart in my bosom, and torn me away from this place like a ruthless
+highwayman. That is what she has done.
+
+Early in the morning, while I was dreaming sweetly of the sea-shore,
+that unfeeling female rushed into my room.
+
+"Phœmie," says she, "you can't sleep any longer. We are packing up for
+the city. Cecilia has been insulted here, and I won't stay another hour
+in the place."
+
+"What! what is it?" says I. "How could you! He was just giving up
+metaphor and coming squarely out in the sweetest way."
+
+"You will have no more than time to pack your trunk before the train
+starts," says she.
+
+"Starts--what for! where?"
+
+"For New York, and after that to Saratoga; Cecilia insists on it, poor,
+sweet darling."
+
+"For New York?" says I.
+
+"On the way to Saratoga."
+
+"But--but who is going. Is--is--?"
+
+"Why, you and I, Dempster, and that sweet, ill-used child. Would you
+believe it, that rude boy's father refuses to whip him, and said a girl
+that could give a black eye with her parasol was--well, I can't find the
+heart to repeat it. At any rate, she doesn't stay another hour under the
+same roof with that little fiend."
+
+"But is that all--Oh, tell me is no one else going?" says I feeling as
+if a ton of lead had been heaped on me.
+
+"Dear me. There is no one else to care for the poor child. Of course, no
+one will take it up but us. So make haste."
+
+Out she went, leaving me just heart-broken and ready to give up. How
+could I go? how could I leave him and "the Branch," as if my soul were
+fleeing from his?
+
+It was of no use. E. E. was set upon going, and I couldn't help myself.
+
+Well, sisters, two hours after I left that bed we had packed up bag and
+baggage, given a cart-load of trunks for the express-men to smash or
+carry, just as they liked, and then took a little run of railroad, and a
+sail in a steamboat so grand and airy, and no ending, that we began to
+feel sorry that James Fisk was dead, or that his splendid ghost didn't
+roam along the steamboat track and keep things ship-shape, as he left
+them.
+
+Well, in that steamboat we reached New York, warm, restless, and nigh
+about ready to give out, or take a friendly sunstroke and be peaceably
+carried away to a cool vault in some shady graveyard.
+
+I mentioned this alternative to Cousin Dempster, but he shook his head
+and answered that some of us might find ourselves waking up in a more
+uncomfortable place than the streets of New York; which I thought
+impossible, but said nothing.
+
+Well, we had a few hours to stay in the city before a boat would be
+ready to take us to Saratoga Springs--a name that sounded so cool and
+refreshing, that I longed to get there and breathe again.
+
+Cousin E. E. said, when we went ashore:
+
+"Phœmie," says she, "there are a few hours before us; suppose we go
+a-shopping? I want ever so many things. Saratoga is a dressy place, and
+I haven't a thing to wear."
+
+Then, before I could object, says she to Dempster:
+
+"A check, my dear, or if you have the funds on hand."
+
+Dempster gave a sigh that shook his manly bosom through and through, and
+says he:
+
+"There," drawing a roll of bank bills from his vest pocket, "will that
+do?"
+
+E. E. unrolled the bills and sorted them out.
+
+"Ten, twenty, fifty, ten, ten, ten, fif-- Why, Dempster, what do you
+mean? How far will a hundred and fifty dollars go? I want to spend more
+than that on Valenciennes lace for Cecilia's dress. The child must have
+something to wear."
+
+She spoke in a grieved, half-angry way, that touched Dempster to the
+heart. He took out his pocket-book, but not another sign of money was in
+it. Then he felt in three or four pockets with the air of a man who was
+tormented with doubts of finding anything. At last he stopped looking.
+
+"I haven't another red cent about me, dear. Indeed I haven't."
+
+"Dear me, what am I to do? There is a guipure sacque at Stewart's that I
+must have."
+
+"Couldn't you get along without it?" says Dempster, with such pathetic
+earnestness that I really felt sorry for him.
+
+"Get along without it! How can you ask?"
+
+"That Brussels lace thing," faltered Dempster.
+
+"What, that? I have had it six months at least; besides, I saw another
+just like it at the hotel, and that is enough to disgust one with
+anything. If people will pattern after me, I can't help it. Then again
+one gets so tired of the same thing."
+
+"But I have no more money."
+
+"Can't you draw a check?"
+
+"My check-book is at the office."
+
+"Always so when I want anything. Now, Dempster, this is too bad."
+
+"Well," says Dempster, desperately, "get the thing, and tell Stewart to
+charge it?"
+
+Cousin E. E. turned her face away. It was awful cloudy, and I could see
+that she was biting her lips. She had an awful long bill at Stewart's
+already. Then her face lighted up.
+
+"Can't I have them sent C. O. D., by express? You will have time to get
+plenty of money before then," says she, as soft as silk weed.
+
+"I hate the system," says Dempster; "money in hand is the only way a
+lady should make purchases. Then she knows what she is about. Everything
+else leads to extravagance. I hate bills as if they were copperheads;
+they are things I never will forgive."
+
+I saw that E. E. turned pale, and a red flush came around her eyes as if
+she were just ready to burst out a-crying.
+
+Dempster thought it was because he had stood out about the money and
+gave in a trifle.
+
+"For this once," says he, "have the things charged, but bring the bill
+with you. I must know what I am about in these matters."
+
+"But I mightn't find them all in one place. Hadn't we better make it a
+C. O. D., just for once?" says she, pleading for her own way as if her
+mouth were full of humble pie.
+
+"Do as you please for this once," says he, half out of patience, "but
+remember, I am set against bills and running accounts--pay as you go
+along, is my motto."
+
+E. E. drew a deep breath, and, putting the money in a little mite of a
+leather satchel fastened to her side by a belt, took up her parasol and
+prepared to march off.
+
+Cecilia followed after, surveying her little toadstool of a parasol, and
+stooping forward as she walked, like an undersized kangaroo.
+
+I only wish E. E., or even Cousin Dempster, could see that child as I
+see her. But they can't. Where she is concerned, they seem born fools,
+both of them.
+
+Well, off we went one way, and Dempster the other--he to get the money,
+and his wife to spend it. I looked on, and wondered how any man living
+could afford to get married. The whole thing made me down-hearted, and
+half-ashamed of my relationship with a woman who could worry money out
+of her husband like that, and not feel how mean she was--could not my
+cousin see that she was poisoning the soul of her own child by an
+example which she was just as certain to follow as she was to live.
+
+Well, we got into a carriage and drove up Broadway; but instead of going
+to Stewart's great marble building, E. E. stopped at some other places,
+and kept buying and buying till I got tired out, and sat on a round
+stool by the counter, saying nothing, but thinking a good deal. Each
+place we left, I heard her say, "Grand Union Hotel, Saratoga: C. O. D.,"
+till I got tired to death of the word.
+
+At one place my cousin and that child had a grand set-to in the store.
+Cecilia wanted a bright-red silk dress to wear under her lace one; but
+E. E. liked blue best, and ordered it. Then Cecilia declared she didn't
+want any dress at all, broke her new parasol striking it against the
+counter, and ended off by flinging herself down on a stool and drumming
+her feet against the counter--so mad that she cried till everybody in
+the store heard her.
+
+Of course E. E. gave in, just to pacify her, while I would have given
+fifty of the brightest silver dollars ever issued by the U. S.
+Government, for the happiness of giving her the neatest little trouncing
+she ever got in her life. But luxuries like these, I can hardly expect
+just yet. How that cousin of mine can give up a parental prerogative so
+tempting to the hands I cannot imagine. I really would not put so much
+pleasure off an hour.
+
+
+
+
+XCVII.
+
+TAKEN IN.
+
+
+Well, after trapesing about from one store to another till I was nigh
+about tired to death, E. E. concluded that she had got through her
+shopping, except a few things that we could carry in our pockets, which
+kept us rushing in and out of every little shop we came to for an hour
+longer. Then she said we would stop into Purssell's and get something to
+eat, for she was beginning to feel hungry. This had been the case with
+me ever so long; not that I hankered much in hot weather for hearty
+food, but I felt a sort of faintness; and when she said something about
+Purssell's having delicious peaches, I knew that they were exactly the
+thing which would appease all the internal longing of my nature.
+
+But just as my mouth was beginning to water, E. E. took out her watch
+and gave a little scream.
+
+"Why," says she, "who would a-thought it? We have but just fifteen
+minutes to reach the boat in?"
+
+My heart sank. The taste of those peaches had almost got into my mouth,
+but now a taste of dust came in their place. I could just have sat down
+and cried.
+
+"Never mind," says E. E.; "we can get dinner on board."
+
+"Dinner on board!" Thin soup; hot meat down in the bottom of a
+steamboat, with a smell of oil, sour water, and musty linen all around
+you--that is what "a dinner on board" means, and nothing else. The very
+thought made me feel rily about the temper--all that I wanted was some
+peaches.
+
+You will not wonder, sisters, that I hankered after this delicious
+fruit, which is about the only good thing that grows which we do not
+have in the old Vermont State. Only think of them--round, plump, juicy;
+with the redness of a warm sunset burning on one side, and pale-gold
+glowing on the other; cool, delicious, melting away in the mouth with a
+flavor that just makes you want to kiss some smiling baby while it is
+on your lips! Think of them! then imagine my feelings when I was hurried
+into a hack, and rattled off to the steamboat with the promise of a hot
+dinner in its internal regions. We saw peaches on every hand as we drove
+along--in stores, on street tables, in baskets carried by Irish women,
+who looked up at the carriage-window pleadingly as we drove along.
+
+"Wait one minute," says I, as a woman came up with her long basket
+brimming over with the luscious fruit; "I must have some peaches."
+
+"Not a second," says E. E.; "don't you see Dempster beckoning from the
+deck? The last bell is ringing. Come, come!"
+
+The Irish woman lifted up her basket, and stood there enticing me. E. E.
+rushed up the plank, calling out: "Make haste, make haste!"
+
+Cecilia sung out: "Come along, Phœmie!"
+
+Two men had hold of the plank bridge. I had to cross then, or be left
+behind. I cast one yearning look towards the basket, rushed up the
+plank, and stood panting, by the side of Dempster.
+
+"Oh dear, it is too bad!" says I.
+
+"What is it, Phœmie?" says Dempster.
+
+"Peaches!" says I. "Those delicious peaches--see how they glow in the
+sunshine!"
+
+"Oh, nonsense! There is plenty on board," says he; "I'll go and get
+some."
+
+"Not yet," says E. E.; "the deck is so crowded."
+
+Dempster got seats for us and a stool for himself. The crowd was packed
+so close that one could hardly breathe. I was thirsty, I was tired out,
+and just ready to cry. E. E. was tired also, and a little cross. Cecilia
+was just as she always is--a nuisance. I felt like thanking Dempster
+when he jumped up, and says he:
+
+"Now for the peaches!"
+
+Away he went, just as good-natured as could be, calling back for me to
+keep his seat for him. I laid my parasol on it, and kept my hand on
+that; but a minute after came a great heathen of a fellow and attempted
+to take the stool.
+
+"It is engaged," says I, pressing down my hand.
+
+"What of that?" says he, jerking the stool away, and throwing my parasol
+on to the floor. "Every one for himself, and no favors."
+
+I was blue as indigo before that. At another time this creature would
+have riled me into a tempest, but now I felt more like crying. But there
+he sat, plump on the stool, looking as self-contented as if butter would
+not melt in his mouth.
+
+Dempster came back. I looked up longingly. His hands were empty.
+
+"I am very sorry," says he, "but there isn't a peach on board."
+
+Well, there I sat, with the sun pouring down on me, while E. E. read the
+illustrated papers, and that child made herself generally numerous among
+the passengers. After awhile I got up to look over the side of the
+vessel, when that horrid wretch snatched up my seat and carried it off,
+looking back at me and laughing.
+
+I said nothing--what was the use?--but leaned against the cabin-door,
+holding my satchel, the most forlorn creature you ever saw. Just then
+some one spoke to me. I looked round. It was a roly-poly, oldish woman,
+who spread considerably over her chair, and held a travelling-basket on
+her lap. She had found an empty stool, and asked me to take it.
+
+I sat down while she smiled blandly upon me.
+
+"Never mind that fellow," says she. "Some men are born animals of one
+kind or another, so let them go."
+
+Her words were kind--her manner motherly. I liked the woman. She is not
+elegant, I thought, but who could be with all that breadth of chest and
+brevity of limb? I smiled and thanked her, wondering who she was.
+
+"Pretty scenery," says she, pointing to the bank on which some
+cottage-houses, and a wooden tavern with red maroon half-curtains at the
+window, seemed to set the whole neighborhood on fire. "Now I would give
+anything for a house like that. Snug, isn't it?"
+
+She might have been looking at the wooden tavern, or at a cottage close
+by with a beautiful drapery of vines running along the porch. "Of
+course," thought I, "she means that."
+
+"Yes," says I, "it looks delightfully quiet."
+
+She nodded, and opened her basket, a capacious affair, quite large
+enough to hold half a peck of peaches. My mouth began to water.
+Perhaps--
+
+"Take one," says she, handing over a cracker.
+
+I took the disappointment, and tried to eat, but with that hankering
+after peaches in my throat it seemed like refreshing one's self on
+sawdust. She noticed this, I think, and, with a little hesitation,
+looked into her basket again, then closed it, and, looking towards me,
+whispered--
+
+"That's dry eating. Come down to the cabin, and I'll give you something
+nice."
+
+"Something nice!" I felt my eyes brighten. "Something nice--peaches, of
+course. What else could she have but peaches?" I thanked her with
+enthusiasm; my eyes gloated on her basket. Peaches and plenty of
+them--delicious!
+
+The stranger arose, smoothed down her dress, and led the way downstairs.
+Her presence was imposing, her step firm as a rock. Assuredly my new
+acquaintance was no common person--a little stout, certainly, but so is
+the Queen of England.
+
+I followed her eagerly, thinking of the peaches, longing for them with
+inexpressible longing. We went through the cabin--on and on--back of
+some curtains that draped it at one end. Here she paused, set her basket
+on a marble table, and proceeded to open it.
+
+I did not wish to show the craving eagerness which possessed me, and
+delicately turned my eyes away. Then she spoke in a deep mellow voice,
+as though she had fed on peaches from the cradle up.
+
+"Look a-here," says she. "Isn't this something nice?"
+
+I looked! the basket was open. She held a tumbler in one hand and a
+bottle in the other, from which a stream of brandy gurgled. That rotund
+impostor came toward me, beaming.
+
+"There," says she, "take right hold. It's first-rate Cognac."
+
+All the Vermont blood in my veins riled suddenly. I drew myself up to
+the full queenly height that so many people have thought imposing.
+Disappointment sharpened virtue's indignation.
+
+"Madam," says I, "you have practised a hospitable fraud--in Christian
+charity I will call it hospitable--on a New England lady, who looks upon
+temperance as a cardinal virtue. Put up your bottle. Maple sap and sweet
+cider from straws are the strongest drinks I ever indulge in."
+
+"Maple sap," says she, with a rumbling, mellow laugh, which ended in a
+cough as the brandy went down her throat. "Sweet cider, through straws!
+Well, every one to her taste."
+
+Here she filled the glass again and held it out, smiling like a harvest
+moon.
+
+"What, you won't take the least nip, just to save it, you know?"
+
+I turned my back upon that rotund tempter, and walked with a stately
+step to the deck, followed by a rich gurgle from the second glass as it
+went down that perfidious creature's throat.
+
+"Goodness gracious! What a surprise!"
+
+This was my exclamation when I saw Mr. Burke coming towards me, across
+the deck, with a small basketful of the most delicious peaches in his
+hand.
+
+There he came, smiling so blandly, and held out the basket for me to
+help myself. He was going to Saratoga, he said. The hot season had
+driven him to seek mountainous air. O sisters!
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Phemie Frost's Experiences, by Ann S. Stephens
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Phemie Frost's Experiences, by Ann S. Stephens
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Phemie Frost's Experiences
+
+Author: Ann S. Stephens
+
+Release Date: October 13, 2009 [EBook #30245]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHEMIE FROST'S EXPERIENCES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roberta Staehlin and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+Unexpected and alternative spelling, hyphenation, capitalisation
+punctuation, possible typographer's errors and omitted words, and
+incorrectly numbered chapters and page numbers have been retained as
+they appear in the original publication. Where the lead character's
+name has been spelt with an OE or oe ligature, the spelling has been
+represented as Phoemie or PHOEMIE.
+
+
+
+
+PHEMIE FROST'S EXPERIENCES.
+
+BY
+
+MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS.
+
+AUTHOR OF "FASHION AND FAMINE," "REJECTED WIFE," "OLD HOMESTEAD," ETC.,
+ETC., ETC.
+
+    NEW YORK:
+
+    _G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers._
+
+    LONDON: S. LOW, SON & CO.
+
+    M.DCCC.LXXIV.
+
+
+    Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by
+    G. W. CARLETON & CO.,
+    In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
+
+
+    Maclauchlan,
+    Stereotyper and Printer, 56, 58 and 60 Park Street, New York.
+
+
+
+
+    To
+
+    FRANK LESLIE, ESQ.,
+
+    ONE OF THE BEST-TRIED AND MOST VALUED FRIENDS I HAVE,
+
+    _THIS VOLUME_,
+
+    THE LIGHT AMUSEMENT OF MY LEISURE HOURS,
+
+    IS
+
+    Respectfully Dedicated.
+
+    ANN S. STEPHENS.
+
+    ST. CLOUD HOTEL,         }
+    NEW YORK, _March_, 1874. }
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+    Thistle down, thistle down, cast to the wind
+      So lightly and wildly, you scarcely can find
+    A glimpse of it here, or a gleam of it there,
+      As it trembles, a silvery mist, on the air.
+
+    Like the wide thorny leaves whence the mother root threw
+      Up its crown of rich purple, bejewelled with dew,
+    These feathery nothings, barbed, sparsely, with seeds,
+      Must struggle for life with the brambles and weeds.
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+     CHAPTER                                             PAGE
+
+
+           I.--Leaving Home.                               11
+
+          II.--Phoemie's First Visit.                      25
+
+         III.--About Girls.                                28
+
+          IV.--More About Girls.                           33
+
+           V.--Poor Children.                              39
+
+          VI.--He Has Come.                                41
+
+         VII.--The French Dress-maker.                     45
+
+        VIII.--The Genuine Madame.                         48
+
+          IX.--Ready to Land.                              51
+
+           X.--Down the Bay.                               54
+
+          XI.--The Grand Duke.                             57
+
+         XII.--Tickets for the Ball.                       60
+
+        XIII.--The Grand Duke's Ball.                      63
+
+         XIV.--The Natural History Philanthropist.         67
+
+          XV.--Christmas in New York.                      74
+
+         XVI.--The Night Before Christmas.                 78
+
+        XVII.--Early Service.                              81
+
+       XVIII.--High Church.                                84
+
+         XIX.--Christmas Morning.                          88
+
+          XX.--About Lions.                                90
+
+         XXI.--Dining in the Dark.                         95
+
+        XXII.--New Year's Day.                             99
+
+       XXIII.--The New Year's Reception.                  102
+
+        XXIV.--Mignon: A Night at the Grand Opera.        108
+
+         XXV.--The Black Crook.                           114
+
+        XXVI.--Living Apart.                              120
+
+       XXVII.--More About Fisk.                           124
+
+      XXVIII.--She Would Go.                              128
+
+        XXIX.--Mr. Greeley's Birthday Party.              132
+
+         XXX.--Leap Year.                                 135
+
+        XXXI.--A Man that Wouldn't Take Money.            140
+
+       XXXII.--A Democratic Lunch.                        144
+
+      XXXIII.--Dempster Proposes a Trip.                  149
+
+       XXXIV.--In Washington.                             152
+
+        XXXV.--Getting Information.                       157
+
+       XXXVI.--The Liederkranz Ball.                      161
+
+      XXXVII.--How Did the Papers Know?                   165
+
+     XXXVIII.--Reception of the Japanese.                 168
+
+       XXXIX.--The Japanese.                              171
+
+          XL.--That Diplomatic Stag Party.                174
+
+         XLI.--The Dinner.                                179
+
+        XLII.--In the Basement of the Capitol.            182
+
+       XLIII.--Phoemie Dines with a Senator.              186
+
+        XLIV.--Marble Halls.                              191
+
+         XLV.--Randolph Rogers' Bronze Doors.             194
+
+        XLVI.--Was it a Meeting-house?                    197
+
+       XLVII.--Easter.                                    201
+
+      XLVIII.--A Church Higher Yet.                       204
+
+        XLIX.--Easter Sunday.                             206
+
+           L.--That Man with the Lantern.                 211
+
+          LI.--Mrs. Grant's Reception.                    215
+
+         LII.--Representative Women.                      220
+
+        LIII.--A Literary Party.                          223
+
+         LIV.--Dressing for a Party.                      227
+
+          LV.--Foreign Ministers.                         230
+
+         LVI.--Good Clothes.                              237
+
+        LVII.--The Party of the Season.                   241
+
+       LVIII.--Down the Potomac.                          245
+
+         LIX.--Mount Vernon.                              250
+
+          LX.--Mr. Greeley's Nomination.                  253
+
+         LXI.--Women and Things.                          258
+
+        LXII.--A Trip to Annapolis.                       263
+
+       LXIII.--Among the Cadets.                          267
+
+        LXIV.--American Authors.                          271
+
+         LXV.--The Statue of Shakespeare.                 275
+
+        LXVI.--Racing Dresses.                            279
+
+       LXVII.--The First Horse-race.                      282
+
+      LXVIII.--Off Again.                                 288
+
+        LXIX.--The Steeple-chase.                         293
+
+         LXX.--Preparing for Sea.                         296
+
+        LXXI.--Yacht-racing.                              300
+
+       LXXII.--Music that is Music.                       304
+
+      LXXIII.--Hubbishness.                               306
+
+       LXXIV.--Thunders of Music.                         308
+
+        LXXV.--Saratoga Trunks.                           312
+
+       LXXVI.--The Dolly Varden.                          314
+
+      LXXVII.--Starting for Long Branch.                  320
+
+     LXXVIII.--That Hair-trunk.                           323
+
+       LXXIX.--At the Branch.                             326
+
+        LXXX.--The Race-course.                           328
+
+       LXXXI.--Climbing Sea Cliff.                        332
+
+      LXXXII.--Fighting for the Body.                     335
+
+     LXXXIII.--Lions and Lambs.                           337
+
+      LXXXIV.--Experiences.                               240
+
+       LXXXV.--The Second Day.                            342
+
+      LXXXVI.--The Blacksmith's Conversion.               347
+
+     LXXXVII.--That Ovation of Fire.                      352
+
+    LXXXVIII.--Let Him Go.                                359
+
+      LXXXIX.--Done Up in a Hurry.                        362
+
+          XC.--The Yellow Flag.                           367
+
+         XCI.--The Man that Saved Me.                     370
+
+        XCII.--Pleasure Bay.                              375
+
+       XCIII.--Netting Crabs.                             379
+
+        XCIV.--Extra Politeness.                          384
+
+         XCV.--The Clam-bake.                             387
+
+        XCVI.--That Clam-bake.                            390
+
+       XCVII.--One Hour of Heaven.                        392
+
+      XCVIII.--C. O. D.                                   309
+
+        XCIX.--Taken In.                                  404
+
+
+
+
+PHOEMIE FROST'S EXPERIENCES.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+LEAVING HOME.
+
+
+I have made up my mind. Having put my hand to the plough, it isn't in me
+to back out of a duty when duty and one's own wishes sail amicably in
+the same canoe. I am going to give myself up to the good of mankind and
+the dissemination of great moral ideas.
+
+Selected by the Society of Infinite Progress as its travelling
+missionary, with power to spread the most transcendental of New England
+ideas throughout the world, I shall take up my cross and go forth.
+
+The evening after the Society had crowned me with this honor, I asked
+Aunt Kesiah and Uncle Ben Frost, who have been working the farm on
+shares ever since my father died, if they could not make out to do
+without me for some months, or weeks, or years, just as duty or my own
+feelings took a notion to stay.
+
+Aunt Kesiah sat right down in the rocking-chair, and looked straight in
+my face for a whole minute without speaking.
+
+"What," says she at last, "going away from home at your age--a female
+woman all alone in the world! You and the Society just take my breath
+away, Phoemie. Where on arth are you a going to?"
+
+"Well," says I, "it seems to be my duty to seek a field where there is
+the most sin and iniquity a going on, where dishonesty rides
+rampagnatious as a roaring lion, and fashion flaunts herself like a
+peacock with moons in every tail feather. First of all, the field of my
+duty lies in York, that Babylon of cities."
+
+"But whose a going to bear the expenses?" says Uncle Ben, who always was
+'cute as a miser about money matters. "Duty is sumtimes rayther
+expensive."
+
+"The Society," answers I. "The members are a picking up produce now, I
+shan't go empty-handed on my mission. All the members are wide awake
+about that. Crops have been first-rate."
+
+"Yes," says Uncle Ben, "I give in there."
+
+"And hens never laid better since chickens were hatched," continued I.
+
+"Jes' so," says Aunt Kesiah, "if the pesky creturs wouldn't run off and
+hide their nests."
+
+"Hams are plenty, smoked beef ditto, to say nothing of dried apples. I
+mean to sell everything at a profit and settle accounts with the
+Society."
+
+"I reckon you'll get cut short; up to this time there has bin lots of
+talking in that Society. When it comes to giving--but never mind--we
+shall see!"
+
+"There, there, Benjamin, don't you go to pouring cold water on our
+Phoemie's missionary work. She is sot on going, so let her go."
+
+"Is she sot?" says Uncle Ben, looking at me sort of anxious.
+
+"Yes," says I, "my face is turned to the mark of the prize of the high
+calling."
+
+"Jes' so," says Uncle Ben, "got your hand on the prow with a hard grip?
+That being the fact, old woman, the best thing is for you to lend a
+helping hand and send her off comfortably. She can try anyhow, though I
+have a notion that the world has got to be so wicked since the war, that
+one female woman--"
+
+"Girl!" says I.
+
+"Well, girl--may fall short of regenerating the hull of it all to once.
+Still there is no knowing what any one can do till they try."
+
+"When do you lay out to start?" says Aunt Kesiah, all in a flutter.
+
+"Right off," says I.
+
+"By land or water?"
+
+"Both," says I.
+
+"Oh, dear! what if you should get shipwrecked, and all the produce and
+garden sass with you!" says she.
+
+"There now, don't skeer the girl, Kesiah," says Uncle Ben. "The Sound
+don't rage to any great extent, neither are the engines alles a busting
+as a general thing."
+
+"Well, well, if she's sot on going, I'll do my best to help get her
+off," says Aunt Kesiah, and she goes right to putting lard in a kettle,
+and while it was a heating, rolled out a lot of doughnuts, which article
+of food she excels in. For two whole days that good soul devoted herself
+to making crullers, doughnuts, and turnover pies, as if she thought I
+should not find anything to eat till I got home again.
+
+Well, by and by the day came for me to start. That tea-party and a
+prayer-meeting at Deacon Pettibone's house was a season that none of us
+will ever forget. Mrs. Pettibone, our president, is a wonderfully gifted
+woman, and that night she seized right hold of the horns of the altar
+and fairly beat herself. Oh, sisters, it was a touching time when I
+drove with Uncle Ben through Sprucehill a bowing from one window to
+another, for every member of the Society seemed to rush heart and soul
+to the windows; and when I found your executive committee on that
+platform, the tears that had been standing in my eyes just burst out and
+overflowed my soul.
+
+There I sat on my trunk in your midst, with a bandbox at my feet, and a
+new satchel, large, plump, and shiny, in my hand, ready to start, but
+feeling the responsibility of my trust, and the danger of a young girl
+going forth into the world all alone. No wonder some of you thought I
+should give up and take my hand from the plough. It was a trying
+situation. I felt it; I suffered; but, knowing that the eyes of all
+Sprucehill were upon me, I was firm. Yes, even when Aunt Kesiah placed
+that satchel in my lap, and told me with tears in her eyes to take
+special care of it, for she did not know what I should do if it got
+lost.
+
+She said this so loud, and with such deep sobs, that a tall gentleman
+who stood on the platform with a satchel in his hand, seemed to be
+greatly affected by the touching scene, and kept close to us till the
+train come lumbering and snorting in.
+
+Then, sisters, you remember how we fell upon each other's neck, and wept
+and kissed each other, then tore apart. How I went weeping into the cars
+leaving the satchel behind, and how Uncle Ben pushed it through the
+window, telling me to be awful careful of its precious contents so loud
+that everybody heard, and I have no doubt wondered how many thousand
+dollars it held. Well, the contents of that bag were miscellaneously
+precious. I had seen Aunt Kesiah pack it, with a feeling that made me
+homesick before I left the old farm. Doughnuts, crullers, turn-over
+pies, with luscious peach juice breaking through the curves. A great
+hunk of maple sugar, another of dried beef, some cheese, and a pint
+bottle of cider. It nearly broke Aunt Kesiah's heart because she
+couldn't top things off with a pot of preserves, but I wasn't sorry,
+thinking they might be unhandy to carry.
+
+Well, I took the satchel, set it upon my lap, and looked out of the
+window at you all, as well as I could for crying, till the train gave a
+jerk that made my teeth rattle, and moved on.
+
+When I lost sight of you, sisters, I felt awfully lonesome and almost
+'fraid to trust myself among so many masculine men as filled the cars.
+Being an unprotected female, with a certain amount of promiscuous
+property in my charge, I felt a commercial and moral responsibility that
+weighed down my shoulders till I felt like a camel with an enormous load
+to carry.
+
+Had I been travelling with nothing but my own self to take care of, the
+sense of responsibility would have been less; but I could not help
+thinking that the dignity of our Society was in my keeping, and the
+anxieties of all Sprucehill followed me swifter than the cars could run
+or the snorting engine draw. So I pulled my dust-colored veil tight
+over my face, and, with my feet planted firm on the floor, sat
+bolt-upright, holding the satchel on my lap with both hands, kind of
+shivering for fear some man might attempt to sit down by me. I couldn't
+think of this without feeling as if I should sink right through the red
+velvet cushions that I sat on.
+
+I was so anxious that my heart jumped right into my mouth when that man
+I had seen on the platform come my way. While he was looking around, the
+breath stood still on my lips, and I gave my satchel a grip which would
+have hurt it if such things have any feeling. I have no doubt that the
+austerity of my countenance scared all the rest of them off, for most of
+'em passed on, after giving me a regretful glance; but when he come in
+swinging his new satchel, so independent, I moved a little; for I knew
+he was a gentleman by the way he wore his hat--clear back on his
+head--by the great seal, with a red stone in it, on his finger, and by
+the heavy gold chain swinging across his breast.
+
+When I saw this man's eyes fixed on my seat so beseeching, I kind of
+moved a little more and then let my eyes droop downward, determined not
+to help his presumptuous design to sit by me a single bit.
+
+"Thank you," says he, sitting down close to me, and chucking his satchel
+under the seat. "If there is a superior person in the car, I'm certain
+to have the luck and the honor to sit beside her. Some people prefer to
+look out of the window, but I would rather gaze on a sweet, pretty face,
+by a long shot--especially if it does not belong to a girl with airs."
+
+I felt myself blushing all over at this delicate compliment, and
+observed, with becoming diffidence and great originality, that "beauty
+was only skin-deep at the best, and not by any manner of means to be
+compared with Christian piety and high intellect."
+
+The man--he was a stalwart, handsome man; not pursey like Deacon
+Pettibone, nor slim to bean-poleishness like the circuit preachers that
+live about, and only pick up a little roundness at camp-meetings; but
+tall, and what young ladies call imposing. Well, the man gave me another
+long look at this, and says he:
+
+"But when all these things jibe in together so beautifully, who is to
+say which it is that captivates a man's fancy? Not I. It is my weakness
+to take lovely woman into the core of my heart as a whole; but, if there
+is one quality that I prize more than another, it is piety."
+
+I blushed with thrilling consciousness of the grace that has been in me
+so long that it has become a part of my being; but his praise did not
+satisfy me. One hates to take sweet things in driblets, with a spoon,
+when the soup-ladle is handy.
+
+"Piety is a thing to be had for praying, fasting, and unlimited
+devotion. Anybody can have it who grapples the horn of the altar in
+deadly earnest. In short, if there is anything that everybody on earth
+has a right to, it's religion. The only aristocracy there is about it,
+comes when one reaches the high point of perfect sanctification--a state
+that some people do reach, though it is sometimes so difficult to point
+out the particular person."
+
+"Ah, indeed!" said he. "But I have penetration, madam, great
+penetration. Do not torture your sensitive modesty by an attempt to
+conceal extraordinary perfection from one who can so fully appreciate
+it, and who grieves to say how uncommon it is."
+
+I said nothing, but dropped my eyes, and sat up straighter than ever.
+
+"Permit me," says my polite fellow-traveller, gently laying his hand on
+my satchel; "this is too heavy for the lap of a delicate female.
+Supposing we place it side by side with mine under the seat?"
+
+I held on to the satchel, afraid that he might mash one of the turn-over
+pies.
+
+"Do allow me. I really tremble to see a person so formed by nature borne
+down by such a weight," says my fellow-traveller, with great
+impressiveness. "It isn't to be thought of."
+
+"But--but I don't feel the weight so very much," says I, loosening my
+grip a trifle.
+
+"But, my dear madam, remember that the life and health of a person like
+you is of consequence to the whole universe. Remember the siotic nerve."
+
+"The what nerve?" says I.
+
+"Siotic," says he. "That nerve which is so tender in very pious people.
+They say that the Pope has been suffering agonies with it."
+
+"Dear me," says I, "is it anything mixed up with a heart disease?"
+
+"Not at all; it is a strain upon the great sensitive nerve that runs
+like a whip-cord from I don't know where down the back of the le--"
+
+Oh! sisters, he almost had that terrible word out, but I gave such a
+start and blushed so that he turned it right round on his tongue, and
+says he with great emphasis, "limb."
+
+"Oh!" says I, with a gasp of relief, "now you speak so that a modest New
+England woman can understand. So there is a nerve!"
+
+"Peculiarly susceptible in religious and intellectual persons," says he.
+
+"Running down the limb!" says I.
+
+"Both limbs," says he, "which a weight carried on the lap is sure to
+exasperate if it does not end in kinking up the siotic and crippling the
+l--limbs."
+
+"Are you a doctor?" says I.
+
+He smiled.
+
+"A sort of one," says he, and, without more words, he took my satchel
+and sat it down by his, under the seat, as sociable as could be.
+
+After that, he took hold of my hand, as if he was a-going to feel my
+pulse, looking sweetly anxious.
+
+"Is there a siotic there?" says I.
+
+He gave my hand a hard squeeze, and seemed to ruminate.
+
+"It takes a little time to discover," says he, half closing his eyes.
+"Be tranquil; there is no danger now. The arm has been in one position
+rather too long; change was necessary. But this is a change."
+
+Then he gave my hand another squeeze, and, leaning back, shut his eyes
+entirely.
+
+That minute the engine gave out a sharp yell that nearly scared me to
+death. The cars heaved a jerk and a jolt, the man on the platform sung
+out something, and before I could say Jack Robinson, my fellow-passenger
+made a dive under the seat, dragged out his satchel, and made for the
+door, bowing as he went, and hustling out something about its being his
+station.
+
+While I was a-staring after him with all the eyes in my head, the cars
+gave another jerk, and, splash-bang, away we went, so fast that the man
+scooting along that platform, waving his hand backwards, seemed to be
+swimming in fog.
+
+Sisters, I must say that a feeling of lonesomeness fell upon me after he
+went; his conversation had been so scientific and interesting that I
+felt the loss.
+
+Besides that, I felt a little hungry, and thought I'd take a bite of
+something to eat. So I stooped down, lifted the satchel to my lap, and
+tried to open it.
+
+The lock, it seemed to me, had got a stubborn twist, and wouldn't open;
+just then the conductor came along, and I gave him a pitiful look.
+
+"Please, sir, help me a little," says I; "it won't open all I can do."
+
+The conductor came forward, snatched hold of the satchel, and wrenched
+it open.
+
+"Thank you," says I, lifting my eyes to his gaze, and diving my hand
+down into the satchel, for I meant to give him a doughnut for his
+politeness; but instead of that luscious cake, my hands sank into a half
+peck of sawdust packed close in the satchel my fellow-passenger had left
+behind.
+
+"Look there," says I; "isn't it dreadful, and I an unprotected female?"
+
+"Was your money in the bag?" asks the conductor.
+
+"No," says I, putting one hand up to my bosom, to make sure it was safe.
+"I always keep my money where--no matter, the--the handsome upstart will
+have a splendid feast of turnovers and doughnuts, besides a lively drink
+of cider; but as for money, that is in a safe place."
+
+"And your ticket?"
+
+"That," says I, "not being private property, like money, is kept
+handier."
+
+With that, I took the ticket from inside of my glove and handed it to
+him.
+
+"All right," says he, "the scamp hasn't made so much of a haul as he
+expected."
+
+"But he'll have a sumptuous meal," says I, a little down in the mouth;
+for I was growing hungry, and not a bite left. Just then a boy came into
+the cars with a basketful of popped corn on his arm. It looked awfully
+tempting, for every kernel was turned wrong side out, white as snow. I
+bought a popped corn of the boy, and pacified myself with that till the
+cars stopped ten minutes, where there was a mean chance to get something
+more substantial to eat. I went in with the crowd, helter skelter;
+wrestled my way to a long counter, got a cup of tea which I swallowed
+scalding hot, and, after a hard struggle for it, carried a wedge of
+custard pie off with the palm of my hand for a plate, and skivered back
+to the cars, nibbling it as I ran; for the bell was ringing and the
+conductor yelling "all aboard!" so loud that half the passengers went
+back coughing and choking, and muttering some kind of wickedness as they
+went.
+
+Well, all the rest of my car ride was just like this, only once in a
+while a little more so, till I got onto the Sound. There a great large
+steamboat, a quarter of a mile long, took a part of us in, and carried
+us right out to sea.
+
+
+HELL GATE.
+
+I was just a little disappointed in that roaring element. The air that
+came above it was salty and light, and the waves sparkled beautifully,
+but they did not rage worth a cent. Still the shores away off on both
+sides looked dreamy, and we cut through the water so swift that it made
+me dizzy.
+
+Two or three stylish sort of men seemed as if they were hankering to
+speak to me as I sat there all alone on deck; but I didn't seem to see
+it, and they contented themselves with looking at me as if I was the
+most cruel creature on earth; which I meant to be. The loss of one
+satchel full of doughnuts and things is as much as I can afford on one
+trip.
+
+By and by that part of the ocean we travelled on kept growing narrower
+and narrower, till you could see houses on both shores, and
+splendiferous houses they were, with great meadows a-sloping down to the
+water; tall trees shading them, and bushes growing together in clumps.
+Some were of stone, some of wood, with pointed roofs and cupolas, and
+great wide stoops, in which you could see people sitting and moving
+about. Some with spy-glasses in their hands, a-watching us sweep by them
+like a house afire.
+
+I felt lonesome and almost homesick, but for all that the sight was
+exhilarating--very.
+
+"Haven't we got almost to New York," says I to the captain; "it seems to
+me as if the sea was shutting in."
+
+"Oh, we are almost there," says he, "close on to Hell Gate now."
+
+"To what?" says I, almost hopping from the stool I sat on.
+
+"Hell Gate," says he.
+
+"Oh, mercy! you don't tell me it is so bad as that? I knew York was an
+awful wicked place, but I didn't think an innocent missionary would have
+to go in it through that gate!"
+
+"It is a little dangerous for sail crafts," says he, smiling, I suppose,
+to comfort me; "but you are safe. We shall go through with a rush."
+
+I caught my breath.
+
+"But supposing _He_ were on the watch?"
+
+"_He!_ Who?"
+
+"Don't ask me; I'd rather not mention his name, being a female who
+abhors profanity."
+
+All at once the captain's eyes began to sparkle as if he were just
+longing for a tussle with the evil one.
+
+"Don't be afraid," says he, "I reckon we shall make the gate without
+much trouble. The blasting won't stop us yet awhile."
+
+"Blasting?"
+
+"Yes; they'll have the all-firedest upheave there, before long, that
+ever tore a hole in the bottom of the sea."
+
+"Blasting! with fire and brimstone?"
+
+"And nitro-glycerine," says he, as calm as skim milk.
+
+"And you mean to take this big steamboat right through it with me on
+board?"
+
+He laughed right there in my frightened and pale face.
+
+"I really don't know any other way to reach New York," says he.
+
+"Let me ashore," says I, a starting up, "me and my hair-trunk; I don't
+care for the produce; it may serve to cool their tongues down there. But
+put me and my hair trunk on any land. It is all I ask."
+
+"It's impossible," says he.
+
+"But I won't go through that in--that awful gate," says I.
+
+"Why, we are in it now; don't you see the whirl of the waters?"
+
+"In it now. Oh, mercy!"
+
+I fell down upon my seat, and buried my face in my shawl, shaking from
+head to foot.
+
+Sisters, that cruel man laughed. O, how hardened he must have got, going
+through that sulphurious gate.
+
+"I say, madam, there is no danger, we are almost through now."
+
+"Is _he_ there? Have you seen anything of his blasting hosts?" says I
+under my breath. "Do they mean to fire up just yet?"
+
+"No, no, we are all safe. Quite through--New York is in sight."
+
+I let my shawl drop a little, and peeped out. There was no sign of a
+gale; the water was a little bubbly and rough, as if it had been rushing
+through a race-way, but that was all. That captain of ours must have
+been on good terms with the old serpent that keeps the gate, or he never
+could have got through so easy. Now that it was over, I almost wished I
+had found grit enough to see how it was done. As it was, my eyes were
+hid, and I did not even see the awful old gate.
+
+Well, at last I rose up slowly and looked forward. There was New York
+City, right before me; just one pile of roofs and walls with cupolas,
+pointed fronts, and steeples; looking through the smoky haze acres and
+acres of houses, miles and miles--a whole island laid down with stone.
+All around it, just as far as I could see, the water was thick with
+ships, steamboats, and small boats, all flying up and down and across,
+like living things, each with an errand of its own. There, along the
+edges of the city, was what seemed to me like a forest of dead trees,
+without a leaf or a sign of greenness upon them.
+
+"Well," says the captain, "you see that we have run the gate. Never been
+here before, I reckon?"
+
+"No, never," says I, "and hope I never shall be again."
+
+"I thought things seemed a little green," says he.
+
+"From the Green Mountains," says I.
+
+"Exactly," says he. "Well, how do you like the looks of the city?"
+
+"Hazy," says I; "dry as tinder. All stone walls, and too many dead trees
+about for my notion."
+
+"Dead trees? I have never seen any," says he, a-looking around.
+
+"Must be awful short-sighted," says I. "Just look down there; it is like
+a burnt faller."
+
+He looked ahead where my finger was pointing, and laughed right out.
+
+"Why, that is the shipping," says he.
+
+"Shipping," says I. "Don't tell me that! I wasn't brought up in the
+woods not to know tree trunks when I see them, dead or alive."
+
+"But I assure you those are the masts of vessels. You can see the hulls
+now."
+
+I did see the hulls, and felt dreadfully; what would the captain think
+of me! At once I looked up.
+
+"Yes," says I. "There is no question about it. Those are the hulls of
+ships, and the others are masts; but I was right."
+
+He laughed: "But you said they were dead trees."
+
+"Just so. Isn't a mast made out of a tree?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"And isn't the tree dead before it can be made into a mast?"
+
+"Why, yes," says he, and now it was his turn to be down in the mouth.
+
+"Well, then, isn't the edge of the water there chuck full of dead
+trees?"
+
+At first the captain sort of choked a little; but the next minute he
+burst out a laughing.
+
+"Do you want to know my opinion?" says he.
+
+"Well, rather," says I.
+
+"Well, it's this: Green Mountain or not, if anybody buys a certain lady
+I know of for a fool, he'll get awfully taken in."
+
+"Shouldn't wonder," says I.
+
+With that, I picked up my umbrella, tied my bonnet a little tighter,
+took my bandbox in one hand, and followed the crowd across a plank
+bridge, and got into about the dirtiest road that my foot ever trod on.
+
+"Want a carriage? Want a carriage?" I never saw men more polite than the
+drivers with whips were. It seemed as if they couldn't do enough for me.
+It really was a strife which should take me in his carriage. Their
+attentions really were flattering. It was like a welcome in this strange
+place.
+
+It was like being in a little room all cushioned seats and windows when
+I got into the great double carriage so kindly offered me.
+
+The cushions were soft as down, and gave so, when I seated myself, that
+I couldn't help catching my breath. "Where to," says the driver,
+a-leaning through the window.
+
+"First," says I, "if it won't be too much trouble, I will go somewhere
+and buy a new satchel; I really don't feel at home without one. Then you
+may take me to a boarding-house in Bleecker Street. You'll know where it
+is by inquiring about a little. The name is Smith, and they come from
+Vermont. Their daughter married and settled on Sprucehill. Smith. You
+can't help but find them."
+
+"Have you got a number?" says the man.
+
+"No," answers I, "only one family."
+
+"But the house."
+
+"No," says I again. "I haven't got any house, but the old homestead on
+Sprucehill."
+
+"But Bleecker is a long street."
+
+"Is it?"
+
+"And I must have a number."
+
+"Why, isn't one street of a name enough?" says I, getting out of
+patience. "What on earth do you want?"
+
+"I want the name of the people."
+
+"Smith."
+
+"And the number of the house they live in."
+
+"Oh, then, houses go by numbers, not names, here in York, do they? Stop
+a minute!"
+
+Here I took a slip of paper from my pocket-book which Smith's daughter
+had written, and gave it to him.
+
+"All right," says he, hopping up the wheel, and going to his seat. Then
+away we rolled, genteel as could be.
+
+I bought the satchel at a store we drove by, and then we went on and on
+and on, till at last he stopped before a brick house with a good deal of
+iron about it.
+
+The driver jumped down, ran up the steps, pulled a rusty knob fastened
+to the door stone, and faced round towards his horses.
+
+A girl I should consider as hired help opened the door.
+
+"Is Mrs. Smith at home?" says I, a-putting my head out of the window.
+
+"Yes," says she.
+
+"I'll get out," says I.
+
+The driver unfolded a lot of steps that had been hid away under the
+windows. I went down them with a genteel trip. The man had been so
+polite, I stopped to thank him.
+
+"Three dollars," says he, a holding out his hand.
+
+"Three dollars? What for?" says I, all in a flutter.
+
+"For bringing you here," says he. "Stopping on the way, and so on."
+
+"But you invited me."
+
+The fellow grinned, and held out his hand harder than ever. The help on
+top of the steps giggled.
+
+"Come, look sharp, I can't wait all day," says he, as pert as a fox.
+
+"Well," says I; "being an unprotected female in a strange place, I can't
+help myself, I guess; but they do sell politeness awful dear in York. It
+must be scarce."
+
+I gave him three dollars without another word, feeling like a robbed
+princess as I did it. Then I took the bandbox and new satchel in my
+hand, and walked into Smith's boarding-house, about the homesickest
+creature that ever bore a cross.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+PHOEMIE'S FIRST VISIT.
+
+
+Sisters:--Some of you must remember my cousin Emily Elizabeth Frost,
+that married a Dempster ten years ago when most of us were little mites
+of things sewing our over-and-over seams. She was a smart creature
+enough, and as her mother was a proper, nice woman, it was reasonable to
+hope that she could be depended on to bring up her children; for her
+father was a deacon in the church, and her mother just the salt of the
+earth. Well, as soon as I got settled in my boarding-house, I took it
+into my head to go and see Cousin Elizabeth. She hadn't been to Vermont
+lately, and I'd rather lost track of her; so I gave one morning to
+hunting her up.
+
+Some useful things can be found in a great city like this. Now, I tell
+you, amongst them is a great, fat dictionary, crowded full of names,
+where everybody that keeps a decent house sets down the number, which is
+a convenience for strangers like me.
+
+I found the name of Cousin Elizabeth's husband, who keeps a bank
+somewhere down town, the book said, and got into the first street car
+that went towards the Central Park. After a while I got out and hunted
+up the number, feeling awfully anxious, for the houses about there were
+what the papers call palatial--a word we have not much use for in our
+parts. I just stopped on the other side of the street and took a general
+survey before I attempted to go in, feeling more and more fidgety every
+minute, for that house just took me down with its sumptuousness. Such
+great windows, with one monstrous pane in a sash, and lace and silk and
+tassels shining through! The front was four stories high and ended off
+with the steepest roof you ever saw, just sloping back a trifle, and
+flattening off at the top, with windows in it, and all sorts of colors
+in the shingles, which they call "tiles" here. Then the stone steps
+wound up to a platform with a heavy stone railing on each side, and a
+great shiny door, sunk deep into the wall, was wide open, and beyond it
+was one of glass, frosted over like our windows on a snapping cold
+morning, and under my feet was a checkered marble floor. I found the
+knob of a bell sunk into the door jamb, and pulled it a little, feeling
+half-scared to death. Then I just stepped in and waited in front of the
+glass door.
+
+A colored person of remarkably genteel appearance opened the door, and
+gave me a look from head to foot that riled the old Adam in my bosom;
+then he muttered something about the basement; but I put him down with
+just that one lift of my finger.
+
+"Is my cousin, Mrs. Dempster, at home?" says I.
+
+"I--I'll inquire," says he, as meek as Moses; "walk in."
+
+Walk in I did.
+
+"Have you a card?" says he.
+
+"No," says I; "as a general thing cards ain't desirable among relations,
+nor moral under any circumstances with religious friends. Say that Miss
+Frost is here--Miss Phoemie Frost, from the State of Vermont. No cards!"
+
+The fellow opened a door on one side of the hall, and I went through.
+Don't expect me to describe that room. It isn't in me to give the least
+idea of it. Great chunks of glass like the hub of a wheel, with crooked
+spokes of glass starting every way from it, and what seemed like
+hundreds of icicles falling from them, dropped down from the ceiling.
+When the negro opened the blinds and let in a drift of sunshine, they
+turned into a snarl of rainbows that fairly blinded me. Then there was a
+carpet soft as spring grass in a meadow, and bright as a flower-garden;
+chairs shining with gold and silk; marble women, white as milk, with not
+a thing on worth speaking of, and looking-glasses half as large as our
+spring ponds.
+
+I turned my looks away from the women without clothes, while that
+colored person was by; but gave them a skimpy peep or two the minute he
+was gone. Really, it was dreadful. I would not have believed such things
+of Cousin Elizabeth.
+
+Oh mercy on me! while I was looking, in came a gentleman, who bowed, and
+took a chair, and sat smiling on those creatures just as if he was used
+to it. Talk of blushing--my face was one blaze of fire.
+
+While I was wondering what I should do, a girl, or what ought to have
+been a little girl, came sidling into the room, gave me a look as if I'd
+been a dog in the wrong place, and went up to the gentleman.
+
+"Mamma will be down directly, and has sent me to entertain you," says
+she, shaking out her short skirts, and almost sitting down on the
+crimpy hair that half covered them behind. "Ah! I see you are admiring
+our crouching Venus. Lovely, isn't it? The curving lines are so perfect.
+The limbs--have you observed the foreshortening of that limb?"
+
+The foreshortening of that limb? Mercy on me, I couldn't stand it.
+Another minute and I should have boxed her ears, for all the blood that
+burned in my face went tingling down to my fingers. That was too much;
+so I up and said I would call again, and marched right out of the house.
+Girls indeed!
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+ABOUT GIRLS.
+
+
+Dear Sisters:--You ask a puzzling and painful question--What kind of
+girls do the children I write about make?
+
+My dear friends, girls--modest, rosy, bright-eyed school-girls, such as
+you are a-thinking of--are scarce as hen's teeth in this great city, and
+not to be found in profuseness anywhere. They went out with pink calico
+sun-bonnets, and ain't likely to come in again yet awhile, I tell you!
+Republican institutions can be carried to a great extent; and our young
+ones have found it out, and trample down all the good, wholesome old
+fashions before their little feet quite get out of baby shoes. At this
+moment I can't find a girl of twelve years old that don't know a
+thousand times more than her mother, and wouldn't attempt to teach law
+to her father if he was a judge in the Supreme Court. Yet, it's a
+shocking truth, the little upstarts don't know how to read like
+Christians, or spell half their words. The tip-top fashionable
+school-marms here are quite above teaching such common things as reading
+and spelling, and turn up their noses at any study that hasn't some
+"ology" or "phy" at the end of it.
+
+I should just like to have a string of the girls that walk in squads up
+and down the Fifth Avenue, with short dresses and hair streaming loose
+down their backs, in a district school-house, with no books but
+Webster's Spelling-book and the Columbian Reader. Wouldn't I astonish
+them with science? I guess they would understand the meaning of a
+spelling-class by the time I got through with 'em!
+
+As for arithmetic, they don't know what it is in these high-falutin
+seminaries; mathematics is the word; A B roots and squaring circles, as
+if circles ever would be square. Of course they can't, having been tried
+and kept round as an O all the time. But these A's and B's, and roots
+and such like, are considered as arithmetic for girls here; so the end
+of it is, they can, maybe, tell you how many square feet there are in a
+building lot, but couldn't add up ten shillings to save their lives; of
+course they forget how to estimate the square feet for want of having
+unlimited building lots to work on, while the washing bill and girl's
+wages and such things, come up every day all through their lives.
+
+What _do_ girls learn at the schools?
+
+Oh, a mighty deal that some good women pass half through a lifetime
+without knowing, and are just as likely as not all the better for it.
+Some of the lessons are paid for, and some are given free gratis for
+nothing by the scholars to each other, and what some of them don't know
+in the way of flirting, drooping the eyes, and things you never dreamed
+of, ain't worth keeping secret.
+
+"A little leaven leavens the whole lump." That passage has always
+relieved my feelings about the old patriarchs; for it's a proof that
+they and their families had raised bread in those old Bible times; and
+light bread, even if saleratus has to be used, is a blessing on the
+domestic hearth. For that reason, I'm astonished that bread-making is
+left to men-bakers here in York. But this passage sometimes puts you in
+mind of something beside turnpike emptins. I should like to promulgate
+some genuine old-fashioned ideas into these tip-top schools, where one
+bold, forward girl with unwholesome ideas in her head, would set them
+working like leaven in every innocent young soul in the seminary.
+Somehow, more or less, girls always do manage to give a good deal of
+knowledge that isn't set down in the bill, though that is generally long
+enough, goodness knows.
+
+I wish you could see one of these bills with the extras. Now in our
+district schools, there isn't much chance for the scholars to get over
+intimate. They don't sleep and eat and work together, like canary birds
+crowded in one cage and huddled together on one roost; the weak don't
+catch the faults of the strong, and if they did, the free breezes of our
+hills would sweep them away before the poison struck in. Flirtations do
+not become a science with them before they can spell "baker," and they
+don't often learn such things from their New England mothers, anyhow.
+
+Well, I would give a good deal to see a genuine girl who did not think
+herself a marvel of superior knowledge at twelve, or had not plunged
+into a heart disease at the sight of some hotel lounger at fourteen. I
+tell you, sisters, these young creatures have too much liberty; they
+have no wholesome growth either of body or mind. They know too much at
+fifteen, and will know a great deal too little at forty.
+
+The girl of twelve--which is about the age you are thinking of--has a
+great deal more assurance than some of our church members at fifty. Baby
+boys and girls haven't gone quite out of fashion, but they are getting
+scarcer every year, people tell me; and regular-built, wholesome
+children are as hard to find here as green gooseberries in October. I've
+seen plenty of little men and women, that couldn't speak plain to save
+their lives, dressed out like soldiers on a training day, with short
+frocks or tunics, and legs as bare as bare could be; but such boys and
+girls as we remember are not to be found anywhere nowadays, I tell you.
+
+What does all this mean? Just this: Mothers don't trust their young ones
+out of fashion long enough to grow. Besides, there isn't, only now and
+then, one who gets acquainted with her own child well enough to know
+what is good for it. Why, these city women would go crazy to see a
+little girl, six years old, swing upon a gate or riding horseback on a
+rusty old farm-horse, gripping the mane with both hands, and sending up
+shouts of fun if she happened to tumble off. Children, in the natural
+state, love water, like ducks and goslings. It used to be a sight to
+watch them, knee-deep in the brooks, with their tenty-tointy feet
+shining through the ripples, as they hunted for water-cresses and sweet
+flag-root; but catch one of your new-fangled young ones at anything with
+so much human nature in it. All the water they see is in the bottom of a
+bath-tub, rubbed on their skimpy limbs by an Irish girl's hands. Not the
+mother's. Oh, no! Care of one's own children is too much for a healthy
+young woman nowadays. Being a professor and member of a church, I want
+to speak accordingly, and just drop the mothers here. Christian language
+isn't up to the occasion.
+
+Well, as I was saying, the meanness of these mothers in hiving up their
+young ones and cheating 'em out of the very best years of life, is
+enough to make a saint mad. The rough-and-tumble season, which gives a
+child sound lungs, strong limbs, and a brain that thinks of nothing but
+high play, is just knocked out of their lives. It's an awful swindle on
+the poor little things, and I'm not afraid to say it openly and
+above-board here in my very first report.
+
+If I haven't a right to speak on this subject, I should like to know who
+has. That's all. I never had a child of my own, which is, perhaps,
+natural to a state of single blessedness, and so had plenty of time to
+make other people's children a speciality. Besides, haven't I kept
+district school, and boarded round enough to get an inside view of a
+good many family circles? Haven't I seen droves of young ones, in loose
+calico slips or cosey-fitting jackets and trousers, coming miles to
+school, only setting their dinner baskets down now and then to stone a
+squirrel, or climb up among the burrs of some great chestnut limb which
+offered to give them a ride to Boston or a trip to Canterbury.
+
+Dear me, I think I see them now running "like split," as they said, to
+catch up time, with such a lively color rushing through the tan on their
+faces, hats off, and sun-bonnets flying out by the strings.
+
+There, that's what I call childhood. You and I, sister, know something
+about it; now don't we? Do you remember that little red school-house
+where we learned our letters, and the old broken-limbed apple-tree
+behind it? No wonder the limbs got scraggly; they couldn't stand horse
+for a whole school, year after year, without some wear and tear, could
+they?
+
+Well, may be you and I owe to that old patriarch more than we know of.
+The apples were so sour the pigs wouldn't eat 'em, but they never hurt
+us. Then the limbs stretching out every which way--weren't they splendid
+to swing on, and in a hot day the shade was like a tent.
+
+You and I have been tough and hearty all our lives, just as like as not
+on account of that old tree and the long road home, and the pine woods
+it ran through, with the good wholesome samp and milk when we got there.
+There was generally a little red light in the sky from the sunset when
+we went to bed, and just a streak of rosy yellow when we got up, with
+dew enough on the grass to wash our faces in before breakfast.
+
+That's what I call life for a child; all out-doors for a playground,
+good, sound sleep, plenty of wholesome food, three times a day, and
+always hungry at that. Why, the few years after you begin to toddle, and
+before you learn to read, if you're properly let alone, are choke-full
+of happiness that ripples like a brook through your whole life. I say,
+once more, it's a sin and a shame to cheat a child out of that which is
+just God's portion of a human life.
+
+Now I ask you, isn't it probable, between you and I, that the Saviour
+picked out just such bright, happy little creatures as these, when He
+took 'em in His arms and blessed 'em, and said of such is the kingdom of
+heaven. If the apostles wanted to hunt up one of the kind now, they'd
+have to catch it in the cradle. Just think of bringing forward one of
+the little things we meet in the avenues here, to be held up as a
+monument--all flutings and lace, kid gaiters, pink and blue sashes, long
+white feathers, and parasols. Yes, believe it or not, I say parasols
+about the size of a poppy. Oh, don't mention it! The whole thing makes
+me sick. The children you meet here in York look like little barefooted
+scarecrows, or else like motto papers afloat.
+
+But are all the little folks you see painted like a dahlia, and pink as
+hollyhocks. You are asking this question in the Society. I know it.
+Well, I should rather think not. These whipper-snappers go tipping down
+the avenues, and ride with their mothers' lap-dogs in the Park,
+a-looking like their own French dolls, and are about as likely to make
+men and women.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+MORE ABOUT GIRLS.
+
+
+Sisters:--My cousin's little girl has just upset me. Remember she is my
+own flesh and blood; and genuine honest blood in Vermont is as pure as
+the sap in our maple-trees, and ought to keep sweet as the sugar we make
+from it, wherever it is found. Being my second cousin in her own right,
+I expected to find her a model of what the rising generation ought to
+be, and went to that house, exalting myself accordingly. I shall find,
+thought I, a genteel, modest, seemly little lady, polite, and cordially
+glad to see a relative that wants to love her and exalt her into a
+pattern and a monument of female promise. But instead of that, just
+read my last report, though it must fall short of giving you any idea
+how heavy my heart was, and how my brain burned with disappointment.
+
+_Has_ female modesty died out since you and I came into the world? or
+was it burnt over during the war, like the great prairies, where the hot
+flames parch up all the sweet green grass and the bright flowers,
+killing them root and blossom, snakes likewise? One thing is certain, my
+dear sisters in the cause, honesty among men and modesty among women go
+hand in hand all over the earth. When women degenerate, it is because
+the moral atmosphere which they breathe is tainted and unwholesome.
+Something has gone awfully wrong both with the men and women of America
+in these latter years. The fraud and demoralization of the thing they
+call "shoddy" has settled down upon our social life everywhere. I
+shudder to think of it! With a constitution made strong with fresh air
+from the Green Mountains, and morals consolidated in the oldest
+congregation of the State, I feel afraid of myself and almost weary of
+well-doing. It has become so miserably unfashionable to be honest, that
+people seem to think me crazy when I speak my mind.
+
+Do not start and say that Phoemie Frost is ready to give up her mission;
+because she isn't of that sort. Her hand is on the plough--they spell it
+_plow_ here, which takes away half the strength of that agricultural
+word--on the plough, is she, a female, to turn back because rocks and
+roots choke up the furrow? Not if Miss Frost knows anything of herself!
+
+Speaking of female modesty, between my little cousin and that marble
+girl, the poor naked creature seemed to have the most of it. She did
+scrouch down and try to hide herself behind herself, as if she was
+ashamed that the man who made her had forgot to cover her up a little.
+But the live girl did not seem to feel for her a mite; in fact, I think
+she enjoyed seeing her scrouch, because of the foreshortenings, you
+know.
+
+It's of no use denying it, I did feel down in the mouth about this girl;
+and seeing my duty clear, determined to do it or perish in the attempt.
+
+Once more I stood in front of that "palatial residence," and, with a
+hand made firm by a powerful sense of duty, pulled the silver knob in
+the jamb of the door. The same finified youngster came and asked me with
+his saucy eyes what I wanted there. This time I had written out a square
+piece of paper, on which he had the pleasure of reading: "Miss Phoemie
+Frost, Home Missionary and Special Plenipotentiary from the Society of
+Infinite Progress, Sprucehill, Vermont." "Think," says I, when I handed
+him the paper, "if this don't fetch them all down a notch or two,
+nothing will."
+
+And it did!
+
+Yes, I have the pleasure of saying pretension and pomposity do have a
+wonderful effect here in New York. I don't know whether it was the
+missionary or the plenipotentiary that brought my cousin to her oats,
+but rather think it was the latter--having a foreign twang to it, of
+course, it impressed her aristocratically.
+
+The waiter-man took me into the drawing-room, as he called it, but why,
+no human being could have told; for there wasn't a sign of drawing
+paper, pencil, nor painting things in sight. In fact, it was the
+self-same room that I went into the last time I was there. A little
+darker and more sunsetty, because the red curtains swept close, and
+blinds were rolled down under the lace. There was that marble girl, too,
+a-looking at me as if half-scared to death; but in that light she seemed
+dressed in a veil of pink gauze, and looked just lovely. There being no
+man by I really could have kissed her, she seemed so sweet, and so
+awfully ashamed of herself huddled down as if she longed to creep out of
+sight.
+
+The door opened, and that fellow came in simpering like a chessy cat,
+and asked if I would be so good as to walk up to the boudor.
+
+"To the what?" says I.
+
+"To the ladies' boudor," says he, a turning his head, and trying to
+choke off a laugh. "This way!"
+
+I took my satchel from a table all framed in gold, and checkered with
+precious stones, where I had laid it down. Then, bowing my head and
+lifting my forefinger, told that servile creature to proceed, with an
+air of command that quenched his saucy smile in no time.
+
+Up the stairs he went, and I followed after; treading a carpet that gave
+to the feet like a meadow in its first spring grass. Through an open
+door I saw my cousin lifting herself up from a sofa, covered with blue
+silk and open-worked lace. Then she dawdled towards me with one hand
+out, and the laziest smile you ever saw about her mouth.
+
+"Cousin Emily," says I, "how do you do?"
+
+"My dear Miss Frost," says she, "I'm happy to make your acquaintance."
+
+Happy to make my acquaintance, and I her first cousin. Did you ever?
+
+At first I _was_ taken aback, and felt as if I should choke. Hadn't I
+learned that great white creature her letters? Hadn't I spent dollars on
+her for slates and pencils, besides taking her to the maple camps when
+she was a little girl, and giving her no end of sweet sap to drink. Who
+was it but me that turned down her first over-and-over seam, and gave
+her a tentie-tointy silver thimble to take the stitches with. I wonder
+what she did with it? Now she was happy to make my acquaintance, and
+dragged a double winrow of worked flounces, topped off with a muslin
+skirt and scarlet training jacket, across the room to tell me so. Our
+mothers were sisters; pray remember that!
+
+"Take that seat," says she, a-dropping down to the sofa as a great white
+hen turkey settles onto its nest. "How long have you been in the city?
+Do you make anything of a visit? So thoughtful and kind of you to give
+me an early call."
+
+There I sat, straight as a sign-post, with my satchel in my lap, and
+both hands on that, riling up like an Irish girl's coffee, and feeling
+the wrath within me grow stronger and stronger while she settled back
+and half-shut her eyes, and seemed to be quite satisfied that she had
+done her best. I could see that her half-shut eyes were turned on my
+alpaca dress, which was a trifle dusty, and on my cotton gloves, that
+were clean and whole, at any rate. While she examined them, I took an
+observation of her. Mercy, how she has changed! Five times the hair she
+ever had before hung in great, heavy braided loops down her back. There
+must be some way of making the hair grow, 'specially here in York, that
+we never heard of. And her figure, which was slim and graceful as the
+droop of a willow when she married, has swelled out fearfully behind,
+which makes her seem to stoop, and gives one the most humpy idea of a
+camel in motion of anything I know, which, being Scriptural, is, I dare
+say, the only religious idea she has kept firm to.
+
+"You called the other day," says she. "I was so sorry not to have seen
+you; but I was dressing to go out. Still, you saw my little girl?"
+
+"Yes," says I, "I saw your little girl; and, to tell you the honest
+truth, that is what brings me here now. I haven't had a minute's rest
+since I was here. Why, Cousin Emily, I expected to see a child. Instead
+of that--"
+
+She roused up at this, opened her eyes wide, and interrupted me.
+
+"Instead of that," says she, turning a great gold bracelet on her arm,
+and smiling as if what she was saying swelled her out with
+pride--"instead of that, you found a finished young lady. No wonder you
+were surprised."
+
+"A finished young lady!" says I, riling into strength. "That is what no
+child ever can be; and let me tell you, the attempt to force one into
+such an unnatural creature is abominable. You can polish every bit of
+the modesty and innocence of childhood out of a little girl; but all
+that you can get for it is affectation and self-sufficient impertinence,
+becoming neither to the child nor the woman. Why, cousin, the little
+creature I saw in your parlor--sent there, as she said, to _entertain a
+gentleman_--was just an absurdity to him, and to me something dreadful.
+I asked myself what a child like that would become at forty years of
+age. Why, cousin, when she is at her meridian she will feel herself at
+least a hundred and fifty. You have cut off all the bloom and richness
+of a young life; you have made a dainty little monster of her--swept
+away all companionship with children, and made it presumption and
+impertinence when she attempts to force herself among her elders. I
+could not be so cruel to a dog as you have been to that child."
+
+Cousin Emily woke up now with a vengeance. Her sleepy eyes flashed
+lightning. "Cruel!" says she. "I cruel to my only daughter? Why, there
+is not a child in America who has had such care--such abundant chances
+for improvement. She has been to the most expensive schools."
+
+"Exactly," says I.
+
+"She has had masters at home--music, dancing, the languages--"
+
+"Exactly," says I.
+
+"Things that I never thought of learning she has mastered."
+
+"Just so," says I.
+
+"She had a French nurse before she could speak. No expense has been
+spared by her father. I never had such chances; and we are determined to
+give her a splendid education. In fact, she might come out this season,
+so far as that is concerned; but I have resolved to be rigid--not a day
+before she is seventeen. Then her education will be complete."
+
+"Her education complete at seventeen! Why, Cousin Emily, a woman's
+education is _never_ complete. At the best schools we get but a dreamy
+sort of idea of the things we must bring all the faculties of a
+well-regulated mind to understand in after years. A well-educated woman
+is one who studies and learns something every day of her life--who
+thinks about what she sees, and acts upon what she knows."
+
+Cousin Emily lifted up both hands, all covered with shining rings, as if
+to choke me off. I stopped. Far be it from Phoemie Frost to force the
+opinions of our Society upon unwilling ears; but I lifted my forefinger
+in solemn admonishment, and says I:
+
+"Oh, Cousin Emily, Cousin Emily, has it got so that you hold up both
+hands against common-sense!"
+
+"Not against common-sense," says she, "but against your uncommonly long
+sentences. Why, Miss Frost, it is like our old-fashioned country
+preaching."
+
+"Which has died out of your heart, I dare say. Oh, Emily, Emily, what
+would your sainted mother, my aunt, say?"
+
+This brought the misguided woman to her tears. She sat up on that
+lace-silk sofa, straight and listening, as I have seen her many a time
+on the a b c bench at school, when her little feet couldn't touch the
+floor.
+
+"Cousin Phoemie," says she, "I am trying to do what is right."
+
+"I hope so," says I, with tears of thankfulness in my eyes, for the
+"Cousin Phoemie" went straight to my heart. "But my mind isn't quite
+equal to more of this conversation this morning. The next time I come
+this way we shall both be more like our natural selves."
+
+With that I tightened my cotton gloves, took up my satchel, and left
+that house, feeling that I had paved the way to a good work hereafter.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+POOR CHILDREN.
+
+
+Are there no genuine children among the poor of New York?
+
+Beloved sisters, your question wrings the heart in my bosom. I asked it
+of myself this very morning, and resolved to investigate.
+
+I hadn't found a child that could be called a child outside a
+perambulator, which means a little carriage pushed by an Irish girl,
+with a cap on, along the avenues. So I took my mission down among the
+tenement-houses. There I found young ones on the sidewalks, the
+doorsteps, and in the gutters, thick as grasshoppers in a dry pasture
+lot, all hard at work, trying to play. But the play seemed more like
+fighting than fun. Two girls stopped me on the sidewalk, swinging the
+dirty end of a rope, while another tried to jump it, but only tripped
+up, and went at it again. Shaking her loose hair, and--yes, I say it
+with tears in my eyes--swearing at the other two.
+
+I laid my hand on her head, and gently expostulated. She was a little
+mite of a girl, with a sharp, knowing face. The first word she spoke
+made my nerves creep. Why, that little thing had the wickedness of an
+old sinner on her baby mouth, and couldn't speak it out plain yet.
+
+Oh! my dear sister, and you, my friend, in the great course of infinite
+progress and general perfection, had you been with me, almost
+broken-hearted among that rabble of children, who will never, never know
+what childhood is, the last pound of butter and dozen of eggs in our
+village would be freely given to support my mission here. Barefooted,
+bareheaded, barelegged, and, it seemed to be, bare of soul, these little
+wretches swarmed around me when I kindly asked the baby girls not to
+swear, all making faces at me. The boys, that sat with their feet in the
+gutters, flung away the oyster-shells and lobster claws they had just
+raked from an ash-barrel, and began to hoot at me. One little
+wretch--forgive me for calling names--not more than five years old, had
+a cigar in his mouth half as long as his own arm. When I stooped down to
+take it from him, he gave a great puff right into my eyes, and scampered
+off, with his dirty fingers twirling about his face like the handle of a
+coffee-mill.
+
+As a New England woman, whose duty, I take it, is to set everybody
+right, I wasn't to be put down by a boy like that, but caught him by the
+collar of his jacket, snatched the cigar from his lips, and flung it
+into the gutter, where it sizzled itself out. Then I lifted my
+forefinger as I do in Sunday-class, and began to admonish him. But
+instead of listening, he got the skirt of my alpaca dress between his
+teeth and ground a great hole in it, swearing like a trooper
+betweenwhiles.
+
+Oh, sister! that was a trying season! In less than three minutes the
+sidewalk was swarming with dirty-faced children. I might as well have
+been in a wasps' nest. The spiteful imps buzzed around me so--little
+girls, with lank hair falling over their eyes; lazy boys, swaggering
+like drunken men, and swearing like troopers; and a woman--the boy who
+smoked called her mother--who stood on a doorstep, with a hand on each
+hip, scolding like fury. I kept my finger up. They would not hear a word
+I said, but I felt it my duty to do that much, when a very gentlemanly
+man in blue regimentals touched my arm, and observed in the kindest way
+that things were getting so mixed and unpleasant perhaps I would permit
+him to escort me round the corner. You know, sister, I always had a
+power in the lift of my finger. It was wonderfully manifest just as this
+gentleman crossed the street, and must have astonished him, for the
+children hushed up at once, and huddled back to the doorstep like a
+flock of lambs, which was an evidence of moral suasion I take pride in
+reporting to the Society.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+HE HAS COME.
+
+
+Sisters:--As a representative of your august body, I ought now to have
+been in an atmosphere of royalty--Imperial royalty, which counts at A
+No. 1, as kings are put down. The young potentate of all the Russias,
+with all his ships and things, ought to have been on hand a week ago;
+but he still lingers on the "rolling sea and briny deep," a prey, it is
+dreadfully to be feared, to sea-sickness--which, they tell me, is
+heart-rending--and storms which are liable to aggravate the
+sea-sickness.
+
+I sympathize with that young man in all the depths of my feminine
+nature--which are getting bottomless from the great need of compassion
+which human life exhibits to the thinking mind. He ought to have been
+here when our enthusiasm was at its hottest point. Then he would have
+had the stormiest sort of a welcome. The soldiers were ready to file out
+any minute; the mouths of ever so many cannon were burning to let off
+fire; all the ships would have burst into a storm of flags at the first
+gun. People couldn't but just keep from shouting every time they met
+each other. But the young man didn't come. He hasn't come yet, and all
+the enthusiasm is burning down to cinders and ashes. When he does come,
+I'm afraid it'll be like putting a mess of apples into an oven after the
+pan of baked pork and beans has been drawn out--half roasted, and hard
+at the core when you cut 'em.
+
+This is a great country, my friends--in fact, very extensive--but you
+can't wake it up to an earthquake of enthusiasm about the same person
+more than once. That prince had better have struck when the iron was
+red-hot. He didn't, and so I can't tell you anything about him, except
+that he isn't more at sea than the rest of us. When he does come, depend
+upon it, there will be an uprising among the females of this great city;
+and foremost of her sex will be your representative, faithful to her
+trust, and ready, with a modest helping hand, to lead this young person
+into the paths of propriety.
+
+He has come at last, but the bitter-sweet of hope and fear has been
+given us as daily food for two weeks past, and the wormwood of ceaseless
+apprehension took the place of the yellow berries, and nightshade
+darkness settled down upon us. Lovely young girls cried over their
+ball-dresses of illusion, and wondered if _their_ hopes would thin off
+into the same slimpsy nothingness. Middle-aged ladies, whose hair needs
+no powder, and whose teeth never ache, began to falter in the dancing
+steps practised in the private recesses of their own palatial homes,
+and wondered if their joints were to be twisted and racked into new-born
+graces, only to settle down into rusty stiffness again without having
+fascinated the Russian soul out of that princely bosom.
+
+Of course it is right and proper that an opportunity to study the
+antiquities of a nation should be offered to every potentate and prince
+that honors our Republican shores by setting his high-born foot upon
+them, and it is highly proper that first-class specimens should be in
+readiness the moment he enters a ball-room. That is what people tell me
+has always been the custom at balls given to princes, and it isn't
+likely that new rules are to be laid down for the benefit of a lot of
+girls, anyhow. Governors and mayors are not often so young as they have
+been. As a general thing, their wives are not troubled with an epidemic
+of youth and beauty. It is an awful omission in the laws, but these
+dignified chaps can't get up young and dashing wives for the occasion,
+when a great high potentate from over seas shines down upon us in the
+dancing way. I haven't a doubt they would like to sacrifice themselves
+and astonish the world by so doing, but common people would be apt to
+call it bigamy. So they have to do the very best they can with such
+wives as they have got, and furbish them up with diamonds, laces,
+flounces, and a dancing-master, till they answer to begin with.
+
+I don't mean to be hard or sarcastical on this subject, but in these
+times, when it is so easy for a man to put away his wife, couldn't this
+official potentate get a temporary divorce just for the occasion,
+especially if the kingly visitor happens to be young and very fond of
+dancing. It would give us young girls a chance.
+
+Don't think that I am putting on airs, or that I don't feel reverential
+when age is mentioned, but Emperors' sons don't come to our free land of
+liberty every day, and girls are so plenty that old folks ought to stand
+back. Far be it from Phoemie Frost, on her own humble merits, to build
+upon opening that ball with the Imperial Duke of all the Russias; but a
+Society like ours has its social, moral, and scientific claims. As for
+literature, since my reports have been honored by publication, I must
+maintain the dignity of the position. If dignity and age is to lead in
+this grand ceremonial, I have kept school, and--well, yes--no, one could
+say that I--in fact, as to years, am I not competent to open the ball
+with any prince that can come across the ocean, be he boy or patriarch?
+There, that sentence is off my mind, and I can go on without a hitch of
+the pen.
+
+In other respects I have been silently but surely preparing myself. The
+Society has been liberal, and most of my savings were in the bank,
+rolling up interest beautifully, when I came from my childhood's home.
+Then there was a handsome profit on the donation of eggs and butter and
+maple-sugar which came in the freight train before I started. I attended
+to the sale myself at the market, and had nothing to do with that Mr.
+Middleman people talk so awfully about as a cheat and a general grabber.
+Well, I dickered the things off at a good price, as I was a-saying, and
+have got the money safe in my bosom--a hiding-place sacred to myself
+alone.
+
+Thus lifted above all mercenary anxieties, I gave my attention entirely
+to the self-improvement necessary to my appearance before his highness
+as a representative character on whom the eyes of all Sprucehill were
+fixed. I would say the world--only for the modest consciousness that
+comes over me when I think of myself as a genius.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+THE FRENCH DRESS-MAKER.
+
+
+Alpaca does make a first-class dress for our social gatherings and
+literary circles in Sprucehill, and when puffed out behind, and trimmed
+promiscuously with flutings, it sometimes has a sumptuous appearance
+elsewhere; but for a ball, in which one aims to dance with a great grand
+Archduke of all the Russias--excuse me for saying it, but alpaca is not
+quite the thing. Doubtful of my own imperfect judgment, I asked a
+fashionable dress-maker in the Third Avenue, who had "Madame" spelt with
+an E on her tin sign at the door, and she said: "It wasn't the thing for
+a lady entirely, by no manner of means," and her tongue had a rich roll
+to it, which satisfied me that Ireland had sympathized with France in
+her troubles, to the extent of getting the language a little mixed.
+
+"No," says she, a leaning both elbows on her counter, and a looking at
+me from head to foot. "Madame should have a _robe de_ silk, very
+complete, with flowers in her hair entirely, and an overskirt to the
+fore, garnitured with Limerick point."
+
+"An overskirt before," says I, lifting both hands, satchel and all.
+"Why, every skirt that I've seen in the street, or anywhere else, was
+puckered and bunched up behind," says I. "Excuse me, but I really
+couldn't think of wearing 'em in any other way."
+
+The French dress-maker--I know she was French by the letter E after
+Madam, and because the sign said she was from Paris. Well, she colored
+up, and looked every which way at first, but then she gave a skimping
+laugh, and said that I didn't understand French. I--I didn't understand
+French! I who had studied "French without a Master" as a speciality,
+with the most intelligent member of our circle, and conversed in the
+language as directed by that excellent book so fluently that the
+pronunciation sounded almost like English nipped off a little! This was
+too much.
+
+The clear grit, which lies at the bottom of every New England woman's
+heart, riled up in mine when that cherished accomplishment was cast into
+disrepute.
+
+"Madame," says I, putting a keen emphasis on that E, "I came here to
+inquire about the most fashionable way of making a dress, not to give or
+take a lesson in the languages. Permit me to say I never could submit to
+wear an overskirt in the way you speak of--wrong side before--why, it
+would look dreadfully."
+
+"But Madame does not understand; I speak English so much in this country
+that my own language gets knocked into smithereens. I beg pardon--into
+confusion. Madame must be very perfect herself to detect it."
+
+I felt a smile creeping over my lips. Really, sisters, I had been too
+hard on the poor woman. It was not her fault if my ear was so very
+correct that nothing but the purest accent could satisfy me. She saw
+this look dawning upon my face, and I knew that she felt relieved by the
+way her elbows settled down on the counter again.
+
+"If madame will take a chair--that is, repose herself. Madame--"
+
+"Excuse me," says I, benignly, for I didn't want to hurt her feelings
+again. "_Mademoiselle_, if you please."
+
+"Pardon me," says she, humbly.
+
+"Just so," says I, benignly. "Now supposing we go on about this
+ball-dress. How much silk will it take?"
+
+The woman sat and thought to herself ever so long. Then she counted her
+fingers over once or twice. Then she said she didn't exactly know how
+much, which is the way with dress-makers all over the world, I do
+believe.
+
+"But one won't buy a dress without knowing how much to ask for," says I.
+"Say twelve yards now?"
+
+The woman lifted herself right off from the counter, and sat staring at
+me.
+
+"Twelve!" says she, "eighteen at the least."
+
+I felt as if some one had struck me. Eighteen yards for a dress, and
+gored all to pieces at that!
+
+"Some of your dress-makers in Broadway would want more than that!" says
+she, "and send for more and more after that."
+
+I made no answer, but took up my satchel and walked straight out of the
+door.
+
+Eighteen yards of silk for a dress! The thought of it kept me awake all
+night.
+
+The next morning I went right up to the palatial residence of my cousin,
+Emily Elizabeth Dempster, feeling that she would expect me to enter on
+that subject about bringing up children, which was my duty; but I was so
+down in the mouth about that dress, that everything like a moral idea
+had just swamped itself in those eighteen yards of silk; and instead of
+giving advice, I went into that house to beg for it, feeling all the
+time as if somebody had dumped me down from a mighty high horse onto
+that stone doorstep, and left me to travel home afoot. In fact, I felt
+as if coming to that house to ask about ball-dresses, instead of giving
+instruction, was a mean sort of business. But the ambition of a great,
+worldly idea was burning in my bosom, and I resolved to press forward to
+the mark of the prize of the high calling.
+
+Mercy on me! it is a ball-dress, not a class-meeting, that I am writing
+about. Oh, my sisters! is it true that black angels and white angels
+ever do get to fighting in a human soul, just as they do down South? If
+so, they had a tussle in my bosom that morning, and the black fellow
+came out best, with a gorgeous silk dress a-floating and a-rustling out
+from his triumphant right hand, and the splendid shadow of a great Grand
+Duke following after.
+
+Cousin Emily Elizabeth was just coming downstairs, flounced and puffed
+and tucked up about the waist, till she was all over in a flutter of
+silk, and lace, and black beads, with a dashing bonnet on her head high
+enough for a trooper's training-cap, all shivery with lace and bows,
+with one long feather curling half way round it, and a white tuft
+sticking up straight on the top, looking so 'cute and saucy.
+
+Emily Elizabeth looked a little scared when she saw me coming in with my
+satchel; but when I told her what I wanted, her eyes brightened up, and
+she laughed as easy as a blackbird sings. "Oh, is that all!" says she.
+"I thought it was about the children. I'll give you a note to my
+dress-maker. Styles all French, and _so recherché_." Look in the
+dictionary, sisters, and you will discover that this means something
+first-class.
+
+She took out a pencil and a square piece of paper with her name printed
+on it, and wrote something French, with the number of a house, which I
+won't give, not wanting any of my friends to be talked out of a year's
+growth, as I was.
+
+"There," says she. "The cream-on-cream all go to her. She'll fit you out
+splendidly. Leave it all to her. Good-morning, cousin; I must go; but my
+daughter is in the drawing-room--she will entertain you."
+
+"Just so," says I, putting the card in my satchel, and making swift
+tracks for the out-door; "but I haven't time to be entertained."
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+THE GENUINE MADAME.
+
+
+Well, I went straight down to that dress-maker's house, and handed the
+square paper cousin had written on to a lady who was fluttering round
+among a lot of girls, all hard at work sewing, like bumble-bees in a
+rose-bush.
+
+She looked at the paper; then she gave my alpaca dress an overhauling
+with her scornful eyes. Then she began to talk; but, my goodness, her
+French was awful. I couldn't understand a word of it. Once in a while
+she would chuck an English word in, and rush on again like a mill-dam.
+
+When I tried to put in a word of genuine French or pure English, she
+lifted her hands, hitched up her shoulders, and seemed as if she was
+swearing at me one minute and wanted to kiss me the next. I couldn't
+stand that.
+
+"How much will you ask--how many yards will it take. _La pre la pre?_"
+says I, bursting into French.
+
+The woman looked around on her girls, spread her hands as if praying for
+help, and then, all red in the face, she burst into English. Then I knew
+she did not understand her own native tongue, and gave her a sarcastic
+smile.
+
+"I find everything. How many yards? Oh, that depends on the idea, the
+invention. I have it here growing in my brain. The price? Ah, I cannot
+tell. When the work is complete then we know. There will be crêpe and
+point--"
+
+"But I don't want points," says I. "Talk in English if you don't
+understand your own language. The price, the price!"
+
+"Oh, very well, it shall be to your own satisfaction--perfect," says
+she, and then the creature shook out her hands as if she was shewing
+chickens from a corn-crib, and before I could say another word she
+shewed me on to the steps and shut the door.
+
+Well, I went back to my boarding-house, beat out and worried almost to
+death. Figures are satisfactory to the New England mind; but when you
+have only a whirlpool of broken words, ending with satisfaction, with a
+woman's hands spread out on her bosom, and nothing more, it is
+tantalizing. But I reckon the figures will come by and by, only I
+_should_ like to have an idea of what they will count up to.
+
+As I was saying in the beginning of my report, ten thousand anxious
+female bosoms thrilled with expectations every night, and existence
+dragged wofully in literary and fashionable circles until that
+auspicious moment arrived when the son of an Imperial Emperor cast
+refulgence on our Western Hemisphere. But the waiting of us young girls
+was lonesome, very.
+
+I had done my best. For the first time in my life I had twisted my
+front hair into little wire tongs they call crimping-pins; maybe it was
+their tightness that held my eyes so wide open last night. I was trying
+with all my strength to shut them, when the sound of a cannon, ever so
+far off, brought me up in the bed, with my hand clasped and the heart in
+my bosom trembling like a frightened chicken.
+
+"He has come," says I to myself. "Alexis has come. To-morrow we shall
+see him--handsome, young, filled with Imperial royalty from the crown of
+his noble head to the soles of his patent-leather boots. But will he
+wear his crown in the procession, or only keep it for the grand ball.
+What if he should rest that crown on the head of some distinguished
+American, selecting a literary lady?" This thought impressed me; both
+hands went up to my lofty brow. Alas! they only sent the crimping-pins
+ploughing across my head with a thorny sharpness that filled my throat
+with screeches.
+
+My dress has come home--I am stunned:
+
+    Thirty yards of silk, $10 per yard      $300.00
+    One piece French crape                    25.00
+    Ten yards Brussels point                 100.00
+    Linings                                   10.00
+    Making                                    50.00
+    Materials                                 35.00
+    Silk buttons                              12.00
+    Passementerie, etc.                       15.50
+                                            -------
+                                            $547.50
+
+I have just recovered from a long fainting fit. They have taken the
+crimping-pins out of my hair and deluged it with crystal water. I am
+lying on my couch faint and exhausted. Oh, my sisters, the paths of
+royalty are beautiful, but full of thorns. That bill has been enough to
+destroy all my pleasure in the visit of the Grand Duke Alexis.
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+READY TO LAND.
+
+
+The great Grand Duke of all the Russias has been thrown upon our shore
+by an upheaving of the mighty deep, and is now rocking at his ease in
+the iron-clad cradle of a great nation. Oh, he had a terrible time.
+Winds tossed him, storms pitched that noble vessel end foremost into the
+very bowels of the sea, then hove it up on great mountain waves, where
+it rocked and tottered and trembled, while the rain washed its
+decks--rendering mops useless--and the lightning got so tangled in the
+spars and rigging that you couldn't tell which was rope and which was
+fire.
+
+Out of all this danger the great Grand Duke was blown upon our shore,
+with a good deal less fuss than Jonah had when he took to his life-boat
+with fins and tail, and discharged cargo on a desert shore, without the
+first chance of an imperial reception, and nothing but an upstart guard
+to offer him the hospitalities of the country.
+
+Before daylight, Sunday morning, the vessel which bore that noble youth,
+all weather-beaten as a rusty potash kettle, but grand and majestic
+after its tussle with the storms, shot out her anchor in the lower
+bay--for New York has two bays, and two fine old rivers empty into them.
+The squadron--which means three or four other ships from Russia--had
+been waiting there till their great iron hearts nearly burst with fear
+that the imperial vessel had foundered; and when they saw it careering
+in amongst 'em, they set up a shout that made the very fishes in the bay
+rest on their fins and wonder what it could mean, for they had never
+heard Russians before, and it seemed as if the alphabet had been shaken
+ten thousand times over from as many pepper-boxes, and rained down on
+the water in one great shout.
+
+Nobody has told me yet how his imperial dukeship took this, and I
+haven't liked to inquire too closely. Supposing him asleep in the sweet
+privacy of his own upper berth, it wouldn't be quite proper, you know,
+but it must have been soul-stirring to hear those native syllables
+raining down blessings like tacks and brad-awls on his noble head.
+
+How our imperial guest spent the Sabbath-day is a mystery that Russia
+and the Russians only can solve. But I am credibly informed that ten
+thousand upper-crust females betook themselves to secret devotions in
+their own rooms, in crimping-pins and curl papers, the moment we got
+news that he was here.
+
+As for myself, I confess--no, our Society is not a confessional, and the
+secrets of a lady's get-up don't belong to a report for the public eye.
+So I say nothing on that point.
+
+Sunday night I couldn't sleep a wink; my heart was full of noble
+aspirations, and it seemed as if some wild Indian of the forest had got
+his grip in my hair and might scalp me any minute, everything was
+twisted so tight in that direction. In fact, to say nothing of sleeping,
+I couldn't have winked to save my life. But I bore it with Christian
+fortitude, determined to press forward to the mark of the prize. Oh,
+dear! will I ever remember that this report isn't a class-meeting
+confession? Well, the morning came, and oh, my sisters, it was pouring
+cats and dogs. When I heard this, I rose up in bed, covered my face with
+both hands, and just boo-hooed out a crying. I knew well enough that ten
+thousand other young girls were weeping like the skies; but that only
+made me feel worse and worse, for mine has always been a sympathetic
+heart, and I felt for them--I did indeed.
+
+I did not know what on earth to do. Cousin Emily Elizabeth Dempster had
+promised to come and take me down to the _Mary Powell_, a steamboat
+which the committee had engaged to take itself and all its wives and
+their friends, down to welcome the great Grand Duke, and bring him up to
+the city.
+
+Cousin Emily Elizabeth's husband was a head cockalorum in this
+committee, which being the _crême on crême_--excuse French, it will
+break in somehow in spite of me--well, which being the _crême on crême_
+that had skimmed itself off from all the common milk of New York
+society, puffed Cousin E. E. up like--like a ripe button-ball.
+
+Since my reports have appeared in what the newspapers call the world of
+letters--I say it modestly, but truth is truth--Cousin E. E. has been
+sweet as maple-sugar to me, I can tell you. She had her eye teeth cut in
+Vermont, and understood that Queen Victoria knew there was one notch
+above the crown when she took to writing books. I say nothing; but there
+is an aristocracy that cuts its own way through all social flummery,
+like an eagle among chippen birds. That is real live genius; and if New
+England hasn't got her share of that, I don't know where its
+head-quarters are.
+
+Well, I and the clouds shed tears together for a good while; then I
+started up. "What if it does pour?" says I to myself; "the Grand Duke
+has been in storms before this; he ain't sugar nor salt, to melt at
+anything less than the glance of a loving eye. What's the good of being
+down in the mouth about a little rain? I'll get up--I'll unskewer my
+hair--I'll put on _that dress_, if I die for it." I started out of bed;
+I stood before the looking-glass; I began to untwist, to unroll; I did
+the corkscrew movement; I jerked--I shook my hair out--ripple, ripple,
+ripple, it fell over my shoulders. Then I rested awhile, and winked my
+eyes with exquisite satisfaction--for freedom is sweet both to the head
+and heart.
+
+I felt like a new creature--a delicious looseness settled on my
+temples--a feeling of feminine triumph swelled my soul. Could he resist
+the fleecy softness of that hair--the thousand ripples breaking up the
+sunshine--only there wasn't any sunshine to break. Not a silver thread
+was visible; if there had been several the night before, it was nobody's
+business but my own. My arms were tired with continual undoing; but,
+sisters, am I one to faint by the way? No, no, a thousand times no.
+
+I began to roll, to braid, to puff; I planted hair-pins in my head as
+thick as bean-poles in a garden. Heavy braids--expensive but
+lovely--fell down the back of my head; fluff on fluff shaded my lofty
+forehead. I say nothing; but my literary success, great as it is, has
+not been more satisfactory than this.
+
+I put on that dress in a great hurry, for Cousin E. E. was at the door
+in her carriage. How it glistened in the glass! How it swept out on the
+carpet, a peacock's tail is a trifle compared to it! I tucked it up; I
+turned the lining inside out, pinned it, puckered it round the waist,
+and then put on my new bonnet, which looked like a black beehive with a
+bird perched on the top. Then, with a burning heart, that fairly turned
+against it, I put on my waterproof cloak and pulled the hood over my
+poor bonnet.
+
+I opened my cotton umbrella, and went down. Cousin E. E. was waiting,
+and a tall fellow in half regimentals held the door open. I jumped in as
+spry as a cricket, and away we went.
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+DOWN THE BAY.
+
+
+The _Mary Powell_ lay huddled up close to the wharf, with a great white
+flag crossed with blue stripes at one end, and the glorious old
+star-spangled banner at the other. In fact, she was all dressed out in
+flags. They were soaked through and through till their slimpsiness was
+distressing. In fact, the steamboat looked like a draggled rooster with
+no fence or cart to hide under.
+
+The committee were all there, with a whole swarm of ladies in waterproof
+cloaks, huddled together like chickens in a coop. There were generals,
+too, with gold epaulets on their shoulders: one that I'd heard of in the
+war, General McDowell, and some others, that lighted up the deck a
+little with their gold lace and sword-handles.
+
+She moved--I mean the _Mary Powell_. The sea was gray, the sky was
+black. Now and then I saw a flag fluttering by on some vessel, like a
+poor frightened bird searching for shelter, and pitied it. Then all at
+once bang went a gun. I hopped right up, and screamed out:
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"The salute," says a gentleman close by me. "A salute for the Grand
+Duke."
+
+I sat down astonished.
+
+"Sir," says I, "I can't believe it. I--I've been saluted myself before
+this, and I know what it is. No human lips could have made that noise."
+
+The man looked at me, and puckered up his lips a trifle, as if he were
+trying to choke back a laugh.
+
+"I'm speaking of guns," says he, "not the sweet little salutes in your
+mind."
+
+"Oh," says I, "that makes a difference, though I never heard firing off
+guns by that name before."
+
+"The Grand Duke will have twenty-two of 'em," says he.
+
+"Well, then, I'm glad it's only the guns," says I, and a great big sigh
+of relief came up from my jealous bosom.
+
+Then we all went on again, till I heard some one call out that we'd got
+to heave-to. This scared me dreadfully. I looked around. Which two of
+all these females did they mean to heave into the vasty deep? Not me for
+one. If Russia is barbarous enough to want that sort of cannibal
+hospitality, I'm counted out.
+
+Shivering with fear, I drew back into the crowd, but watched things like
+a cat. Drifting through the fog, I saw a little vessel coming close to
+us, as if she had something to do with this heathen ceremony. The ladies
+in their waterproofs crowded to the side of the steamboat, as if they
+rather panted for the glory of being drowned then and there for the
+pleasure of the great Grand Duke.
+
+I heard a splash, but could not see if any one had been flung over, and
+when I got up to look, there was a magnificent old fellow, with ribbons
+in his coat and brooches set thick with shining stones on his bosom,
+a-coming up the side of the boat. He looks so proud and puffy, that I
+should have took him for the great Grand Duke, only that he wasn't near
+young enough.
+
+"Who is it?" says I to the old gentleman.
+
+"Catacazy," says he.
+
+"Cat--what?" says I, categorically.
+
+"Catacazy, the Russian Minister," says he.
+
+"Minister," says I; "do they mean to get up a prayer-meeting on board?"
+
+The old gentleman simmered down the laugh that was on his lips into a
+smile, and said he thought not.
+
+This pacified me, and I sat still while we went down through the upper
+bay, which seemed wrapped in waterproofs too, and into the lower bay,
+which heaved and rolled as if it was half-choked up with sweltering wet
+blankets. Then we came in sight of the ships, and saw the flags
+a-battling with the storm; but no one on board seemed to care a
+continental cent whether New York sent out her _crême on crême_ or not.
+This silence made my heart sink.
+
+Then the minister went to the side of the vessel, leaned over, and swung
+his hat. By and by a boat came from the great Grand Duke's vessel, in
+which an imperial-looking man stood upright, like a high-born monarch,
+and lifted his cap as if it had been a crown.
+
+"It is--it is--oh, yes, it is the Duke!"
+
+This was on every lip but mine. I could not speak; exquisite emotion
+forbade it.
+
+No one came on board; but the minister with that catish name got into
+the boat, and then some of the committee, which skimmed itself again,
+and thickened up its cream considerably.
+
+There we waited and waited.
+
+They came back at last. That young gentleman was not the great Grand
+Duke. He wasn't coming till next day.
+
+Oh, how we wilted! Some of us almost burst out a-crying. I did not
+speak; I could not. Ever since we reached the lower bay, I had felt
+dreadfully discouraged; now a strange sinking of the heart seized upon
+me--a faint dizziness, an agony of disappointment seemed raging in my
+stomach. Oh, my sisters! these exquisite sensibilities are a proof of
+greatness, I know, but the sufferings they bring, no human being but the
+creature of genius can tell.
+
+I am better. The glorious sight which followed that stormy day has
+relieved me. I have seen ten thousand flags blazing along Broadway--I
+have seen three times ten thousand republican worshippers waving their
+hats and handkerchiefs in acclamations for the son of an imperial
+despot. I have heard the glorious music of an imperial serenade--I have
+seen HIM.
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+THE GRAND DUKE.
+
+
+Sisters:--I have seen him. This hand has been pressed--significantly
+pressed--by the soft, rosy palm of imperial royalty. If a tablet to my
+memory should ever be sunk in the walls of our meeting-house, I charge
+you, dear sisters in the cause, to have this honor cut in Roman capitals
+deep into the marble; for what is an exaltation to me is glory to the
+Society, and, in fact, to all Vermont.
+
+I have been on the same steamboat with the great Grand Duke; his
+splendid blue eyes have looked into mine, and in that glance we grappled
+each other, soul to soul. He has smiled upon me through the yellow glory
+of that silky mustache, under which his plump, red lips shone like
+cherries, ripe enough to swallow, stones and all. He speaks English;
+reveres genius, and knows that it can never grow old.
+
+I saw him in Broadway, when all the New York militia turned out, which
+was a training day worth looking at. A snow-storm of handkerchiefs
+burst out of the windows; ten thousand female hands waved him forward.
+Shouts rose from the multitude; little children were crowded back into
+the gutters; women were jammed together on doorsteps and curbstones. In
+fact, the skim milk of society was compelled to flow in awful narrow
+channels, while the _crême on crême_--excuse French once more--rolled
+smoothly through the city in carriages, with royalty leading the way, a
+regiment of trainers leading him, and a band of music leading the whole.
+
+I saw the whole glorious procession. From block to block I flitted, like
+some aspiring bird on the crest of a wave. My heart was full, my eyes
+fixed on one object--that tall, noble figure, with a blue watered silk
+scarf across his royal bosom, and a half-moon hat, with dipping points,
+gracefully lifted from his head. He must have been dazzled; he must have
+been impressed by this proof that republics scorn monarchies and trample
+them under foot.
+
+I flitted onward through the crowd, waving my handkerchief from a
+doorstep now and then. That handkerchief the idol of this august
+occasion seemed to follow eagerly with his eyes, as a sort of beacon
+light which kindred sympathy impelled him to recognize, for wherever I
+went he lifted that half-moon hat from his royal brow and smiled. I felt
+this compliment to the depths of my soul--it thrilled me.
+
+When I lifted myself out of the skim milk, and flowed in with the cream
+of cream on that stand in Union Square with my cousin and the _élite_ of
+society, he saw me again and recognized me once more, which irritated my
+cousin's jealousy a little, for she insisted that he lifted his black
+half-moon to the whole of us. But I know!
+
+I watched the carriage that bore him with a blushing cheek and a beating
+heart. There was General Dix, a real nice-looking old gentleman, sitting
+in front of him; there was Catacazy, the ambassador of all Russia, also
+a nice gentleman as you want to see, with _his_ hat off, a-bowing and
+a-bowing. We flung up our handkerchiefs--we clapped our hands.
+
+The Clarendon Hotel stands near one corner of the Union Square; it has a
+skimpy piazza in front made of iron, and I've seen bigger hotels anyhow.
+But it is considered tip-top, and is always brimming over with the cream
+of cream. That is why Mr. Catacazy took my Grand Duke there. There was
+such a crowd of folks and trainers that I lost sight of him. By and by
+out he came into the piazza, and stood right before our aristocratic
+stand, which was fringed round with red cloth, and over which the
+star-spangled banner waved itself meekly to the nest of black eagles
+that streamed out over that noble scion of all the Russias.
+
+I could not see _him_ plainly, as my heart panted to, so I borrowed my
+cousin's glass--a little spy-glass, understand--not specs, which I
+haven't come to by a long way. Well, I unscrewed the eye-glass, wound it
+up to the right notch, and brought him almost to my face; and there I
+stood, choke-full of heavenly satisfaction, all the while _he_ looked
+down on the general training of soldiers that marched stream on stream
+between him and me.
+
+While my soul was going out luminously through these eyes, Cousin Emma
+Elizabeth Dempster touched my elbow, and says she:
+
+"Miss Frost, if you've got through with my glass, I should like to try
+it a little."
+
+I gave it up. Not being long-sighted, the whole pageant was a blank to
+me after that cruel deprivation, for I could no longer see that imperial
+figure on the piazza.
+
+My reports are making a tremendous sensation, and I--well, being modest
+by nature, I say nothing, but a committee, skimmed daintily off from the
+cream of cream, called at my boarding-house, and wanted me, as a rising
+star in the literary hemisphere of writers, to invite the great Grand
+Duke to a private reception, or entertainment, or something, where some
+that hadn't been on the steamboat could shake hands with him, and others
+might just touch the extremity of his coat, which they gave me their
+honor they wouldn't pull--as some high-bred ladies did when he was going
+from the boat.
+
+I received this committee with dignity, and promised to take their
+request into mature consideration, as soon as I could learn personally
+from the great Grand Duke whether he should prefer to have this homage
+paid by my own sex to the extremities of his coat, or not. I felt for
+these young ladies. I had experienced the yearning desire that possessed
+them, and knew how truly irrepressible it was. Had it not inspired the
+whole committee of reception, their wives, and their children to the
+third generation? Had it not disturbed fashionable life to its very
+dregs, and given spice to our weekly literature? Yes, I felt for these
+young persons, and in a little speech, remarkable for its graceful
+elocution, gave them encouragement.
+
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+TICKETS FOR THE BALL.
+
+
+Tickets for the ball! Sent, no doubt, at the Grand Duke's request.
+Cousin Emily Elizabeth has got tickets too. We shall go together in the
+same carriage, and leaning on her husband's arm. Dempster is a handsome
+man, and really _distingué_ looking. Excuse French; an educated person
+will break into it now and then.
+
+The day has come. Cousin Emily has just sent me a bundle of things, with
+her compliments--a little box with a cake of lovely white chalk in it;
+another, smaller yet, filled with a pink powder that looks like ground
+rose-leaves, and a bottle with something liquid and dark in it, which
+does not seem as if it was good to drink. What on earth does Cousin E.
+E. expect me to do with these things?
+
+Ah! pinned to the bundle, I find a letter, beginning "Dear Cousin
+Phoemie," and asking me to excuse her, but she sends the things,
+thinking that I may want to rejuvenate, and perhaps dye, before I go to
+the ball.
+
+Rejuvenate! Does she mean to say that I'm not young enough? and if I
+wasn't, how are these things a-going to help me? I know that girls in
+school sometimes eat chalk and chew gum, but never heard that they got
+the younger for it. Then the pink powder--well, it's no use calculating
+about it, especially as she wants me to die after it. I wish Cousin E.
+E. would ever learn to spell. When a woman dies she does not do it with
+a "y" as a general thing.
+
+Now what _does_ all this mean?
+
+I was doing my hair at the looking-glass, when Cousin E. E. came in,
+looking like a queen; her blue silk dress was all spotted with gold
+flowers, and it streamed out half across my bedroom. Over that she wore
+a long white cloak, with tassels to it, and her hair was looped in with
+pink roses that were not redder than her cheeks, which would have
+satisfied me that her health was first-rate, if it hadn't been for the
+shadows that lay around her eyes, which had grown awfully dark since I
+saw her at home.
+
+"Oh!" says she, "I am just in time. Came early, thinking you might want
+help. Sit down; that will do. Now where is the you-know-what--those
+boxes--you understand?"
+
+Here E. E. flung off her cloak and came to the glass. I declare to you
+the creature's neck was white as any snow-drift but uncovered to an
+extent that frightened me out of a week's growth. Her arms, too, were
+the same, and bare as her neck. She had a narrow pink shoulder-strap,
+and some lace between them, and that was all; only a string of white
+stones, that shone like a rainbow now and then, was around her neck and
+one arm; two or three of the same kind of stones hung down from her
+ears, and shot out light from her hair.
+
+The whiteness of that neck astonished me, and made me look every which
+way.
+
+E. E. didn't seem to mind that, but took off her long white gloves and
+laid them on the table; then she snatched up one of the boxes, and began
+to rub a handkerchief that lay on the bureau in it.
+
+"There now; hold back your head a little," says she; "shut your eyes."
+
+Here she began to rub my face and neck and arms with the handkerchief
+till they looked white as her own. Then she changed boxes, and I could
+feel her making soft dabs at my cheeks, which tickled a little.
+
+"Now open your eyes," says she.
+
+I opened them wide, she astonished me so; and, as true as you live, she
+began to tickle them with a tenty-tointy brush. After that she titivated
+my hair a little, washed her hands with some Cologne water, and
+snatching up my pink silk dress, which lay across the bed, just buried
+me in it. I declare it was scrumptious to feel the silk a-rustling round
+me, and a-settling down on the floor, wave on wave. Well, the bill was a
+damper, but I couldn't help enjoying it for all that.
+
+"Now," says E. E., a-drawing on her long, white gloves, "just take a
+look, and let us be off--Dempster is waiting."
+
+I did take a look, right straight in the glass, and couldn't help doing
+it again and again, the lady I saw there seemed so much like a
+magnificent stranger to me--so white, so blooming--so--. Forgive me,
+sisters--I forgot that modesty is a tender blossom that should be
+encouraged--and I will say no more, only this, Cousin Dempster's neck
+had a good deal more of it than mine, and that French dress-maker had
+given me a little chance of sleeves, while her's left them out
+altogether.
+
+When she spread out my skirt, it half covered the room. All at once she
+saw just one little spot of rain on it, and held up both her hands.
+
+"Why, you haven't worn this before? Good gracious! no lady in our set
+ever wears the same dress twice. The idea!"
+
+I felt myself wilting, for she was sarcastic in her speech. Then I up
+and spoke for myself.
+
+"Yes, I wore it once," says I; "but it was tucked up under my
+waterproof cloak, with the lining turned inside out, and nobody saw
+it--especially the great Grand Duke, who didn't come out of his own
+vessel."
+
+"Oh," says she, "then it won't be an absolute disgrace to the family if
+you wear it. I began to be afraid to go with you. There, now, don't look
+pins and needles at me, but just put something round you, and let us be
+off, or _he_ will be there before us."
+
+That was enough. I huddled up that pink silk in my arms, and in less
+than two minutes Cousin Dempster's carriage was so choke full of his
+wife and me, that he took a seat with the driver.
+
+
+
+
+XIII.
+
+THE GRAND DUKE'S BALL.
+
+
+Oh, my! wasn't that ball-room a sight to see? Seats piled on seats, all
+cushioned with red velvet, and one end curving round like a great red
+horseshoe, with flags and flowers and shields running below the
+bottommost tier; a great swinging balloon of sparkling glass poured its
+light, like July sunshine, down on a crowd of people, that looked more
+like born angels than human creatures. It fairly made me dizzy to look
+at 'em from Cousin Dempster's box-seat, which was right in the end of
+the circle.
+
+After a while I got my senses back, and looked out for _him_. He wasn't
+there yet, and that gave me a chance to see things. Four more heaps of
+glass, that seemed as if they had caught fire, hung in the other end of
+the room, and beyond them was a fountain of water, a-sparkling and
+a-flashing and a-tinkling in a make-believe garden by moonlight, with
+live fish swimming in it, and live flowers blooming in piles and heaps
+around it, and make-believe trees. Half running round the room was a
+lot of marble posts, with white flower-pots running over with sweetness,
+and linked together with running vines, that made you feel yourself
+almost out of doors.
+
+All this was splendid; but there was one spot that everybody looked
+towards, and I most of all. Three boxes, cushioned with red velvet, were
+just chained together with great wreaths of flowers such as I never saw
+in a garden; but I knew they were genuine because of the scent, which
+was delicious. Banners set full of stars and stripes of red and white
+silk, all tangled in with flowers, hung over these boxes, and right in
+the centre streamed a white silk banner, on which our old bald eagle and
+the black eagles of all the Russias flocked together as sociable as
+robins in a nest.
+
+"There he is! There he is!"
+
+I started. I caught my breath, for back of the white flag _he_ stood
+with the light a-shining on his beautiful yellow hair, and a smile on
+his lips. Oh, how grand, how tall, how gorgeous! Everybody was a-looking
+at him. The girls around me--always forward, and _so_ silly--began
+twittering together, and looking that way as if he would ever think of
+dancing with them. They swarmed around me, as a representative person.
+They forgot their own trivialities, and rendered me such homage as
+genius commands from commonplace minds.
+
+"You are an author," said they. "You belong to the great aristocracy of
+the world. Speak for us. He cannot dance with all of us, but he can look
+this way through his opera-glass, and give us all a chance of being put
+in the papers as the beautiful young lady he admired so much. We appoint
+you a committee of one. Address him in our behalf. Get some memento of
+him that we may leave to future generations."
+
+The entreaties of these young creatures went to my heart. I raised my
+forefinger, which was like an oath to them, and says I:
+
+"Thanks for this honor. Like a Roman matron I will do my duty. Wait."
+
+I arose from my seat, and swept, with a dignity and grace that must
+have done the Society I represent great honor, around the gallery, and
+found my way into the private retiring-room of our illustrious guest. It
+was small but beautifully furnished. My pink silk, as it trailed in,
+seemed to fill the whole room. In the looking-glass I saw a figure,
+tall, commanding; I may say queenly--but enough of that.
+
+A person stood near the door and looked in. I lifted my finger; he
+approached.
+
+"Go," says I, "to the great Grand Duke of all the Russias, and tell him
+that Miss Phoemie Frost, a committee lady, awaits his presence here."
+
+He started--he smiled--he went.
+
+I drew back and stood against the wall opposite the door. _He_ entered,
+looking a little puzzled. I advanced one foot, then the other, three
+long paces, as queens do when they act on the stage. Then I sunk down in
+a profound curtsey, wound myself up again into a royal position, and
+held out my right hand.
+
+"Great Grand Duke Alexis," says I, "son of an illustrious father and an
+imperial mother, whom all women love to honor, welcome to our
+shores--welcome to the fashion, genius, and beauty embodied in the
+females of America."
+
+Before I could finish the address to which duty and ever-burning genius
+inspired me, the great Grand Duke quenched my ardor by a heavenly smile
+that danced in his blue eyes, and almost broke into a laugh on his red
+lips. His voice was like over-ripe strawberries when he spoke and said:
+"The ladies did him great honor; he had not English to express his
+pleasure, and no power to repay their kindness." This was my time.
+
+"Being the head of a committee of so many young ladies that it is
+impossible for your Imperial Majesty to dance with the whole, I--that
+is, these ladies--wish to be represented in the festive cotillon by a
+person worthy of the occasion. Not the wife of an American potentate,
+who may or may not have any claims of her own, but a potentate in
+herself. Not crowned with the shadow of a man's laurels, but wearing
+her own bay leaves as Tasso did."
+
+Here I felt my eyes a-drooping, and my tall figure bent like a weeping
+willow. The great Grand Duke saw my confusion, and his smile deepened
+audibly.
+
+"Say to the lovely committee of ladies," says he--
+
+But I interrupted him, and putting one hand on my heart, observed, with
+a gentle bow:
+
+"Embodied in me."
+
+Then he smiled out loud again, and says he:
+
+"If the Committee of Arrangement permit, I shall have much pleasure."
+
+With that he bowed and prepared to go out. I drew back toward the wall
+till the pink silk skirt began to tangle up my feet, and kept my eyes
+lifted to his face, which was still bathed in blushing smiles. Another
+step, a low curtsey, and I lifted myself up with dignity while he passed
+through the door.
+
+I was alone, with nothing but the looking-glass to gaze on my delight.
+The young ladies had begged of me for a memento of royalty. I looked
+around. An ivory-handled hair-brush lay on a marble shelf under the
+glass. I seized upon it, knowing that it had touched his head. I
+examined it. Imagine my joy--six bright yellow-brown hairs clung to the
+bristles! Carefully, daintily I picked them out, and, laying them in the
+palm of my white glove, formed a tiny tress of them--tiny, but oh! how
+exquisitely precious!
+
+With this treasure in my hand I went back to my constituency. They
+crowded round me; sparkling eyes gazed upon the glorious prize I had
+secured; cherry lips kissed it with gushing fervor, and pleaded with me
+for just a morsel. I secured one lovely hair for myself, and, cutting
+the rest into tiny bits, distributed them generously. Oh, sisters! this
+act endowed me with wonderful popularity among my young companions. We
+girls should be generous to each other. I was generous, and an orchard
+full of spring robins could not have chirped more happily than they did
+while flocking around me. But the dancing began. I stood ready, with my
+long pink silk skirt gathered half way from the floor. But all at once
+it dropped from my hand--_he_ was on the floor, and another lady clung
+to his arm. The jealousy of that committee of gentlemen had prevailed.
+He danced with the Governor's wife.
+
+Did I stand ready to play second fiddle to her? No, no! a thousand times
+no! Was I not a New England lady? Did I not feel that the literature of
+the country had its eyes upon me? _He_ couldn't help it; the deploring
+glance that he cast upon me was enough to satisfy me of that. Indeed,
+his feelings were so hurt that he really could not go through the
+figures of the cotillon, but kept dancing every which way, like a man
+torn with distractions. My heart ached for him. I could not bear to see
+his distress, and retired with dignity to my seat upstairs and looked
+on, while my proud New England heart burned with indignation. If I live,
+that committee of gentlemen shall hear from me again.
+
+
+
+
+XIV.
+
+THE NATURAL HISTORY PHILANTHROPIST.
+
+
+Sisters:--He has gone! The luminous star that has shone upon us with
+such refulgence for the last few weeks, has gone to our beloved "Hub of
+the Universe," where poets, governors, and other distinguished men of
+New England are now revolving around him like the spokes of a cart
+wheel. Mr. Holmes has written him some sweet verses; Mr. Longfellow has
+greeted him with welcomes. They have given him balls, dinners, and a
+cold in his face. In short, New England has been true to itself and its
+climate. When the hub turns on its axle, the spokes whirl and the tires
+revolve, giving a swift throb to the whole universe. As a New England
+woman--I beg pardon--young lady, I am proud of Boston, proud of the
+honor they are doing to _Him_. But after all, the Hub must imitate. We
+took the crown off.
+
+Before he left, a new and exquisite idea came into my head--some people
+may think it a little flighty, but you will understand all the poetry it
+contains. I have a canary bird--for I love birds with all the inborn
+intensity of genius--so old that his feathers are nothing more than a
+creamy white. In that particular he--I should say she--being a female,
+that never sings beyond a chirp, has the gift of silence peculiar to the
+sex. I got her cheaper on that account. Well, she is almost dove-like in
+color and in sweetness of disposition. No more lovely messenger from
+heart to heart could be found in the whole world.
+
+Well, sisters, I took this bird from its cage with my own hands, and I
+smothered it with kisses from my own lips, which quivered with intensity
+of emotion. Then I tied a blue ribbon about its neck, and attached to
+that a tenty-tointy note which contained these lines:
+
+    Farewell, noble prince, my fond heart is gushing
+      With thoughts that no language can ever reveal;
+    With the sweetest affection this warm cheek is blushing,
+      And hopes to my maidenly bosom will steal,
+    Of a time when our souls, with united expression,
+      Shall mingle with harmony more than divine;
+    And the priest--be he Greek, or of any profession--
+      Shall bless this poor hand as it clings unto thine.
+
+The paper was of an exquisite rose-color on which I indited this gem. I
+flatter myself that genius can sometimes write beautifully. It is not
+just the thing to particularize here, but if that Grand Duke _can_ read
+English he must have admired the sweet morsel which that lovely songster
+bore to him on the wings--well, of a canary.
+
+I would not send my bird in a cage, because handsome cages are
+expensive, and do not carry an idea of freedom with them, which our
+spread eagle might have led the great Grand Duke to expect. Neither
+would I trust her with a street boy whose hands might be dirty and
+unsafe. No, I put on my bonnet, locked the bird with his blue ribbon in
+a box covered with gilt paper, and walked straight down to the Clarendon
+Tavern, and asked for one of the committee-men.
+
+A tall, grave-looking gentleman came into the room, where I sat waiting,
+and said he was Mr. Bergh, one of the committee-men, and then stood a
+minute, as if he was waiting to know what I wanted.
+
+I had heard a great deal about the gentleman's goodness to the poor dumb
+beasts that are so abused and trampled on, and my heart rose right into
+my mouth.
+
+"Mr. Bergh," says I, reaching out my hand, "in the name of New England,
+permit me to shake hands, and thank you for the good you are a-doing to
+so many of God's own creatures."
+
+The gentleman smiled, and reached out his hand.
+
+"I am glad to hear," says I, "that some old bachelor has left a lot of
+money to your society. It is just what I would do myself if I hadn't a
+hope--that is, it may be possible that all the money I have will be
+needed for a special occasion--as no free-born New England woman would
+be beholden to a foreign nation for her setting out."
+
+Here Mr. Bergh smiled. You have no idea how much younger he looked when
+he did smile; the benevolence that made him a Natural History
+Philanthropist just shone out from his eyes, and beamed all over his
+face, till I longed to be--well, say a duck, or something of that
+sort--that he might save me from oppression.
+
+"Thank you," says he; "most men want some object in life. You ladies
+have done so much for humanity that we are content to leave it in your
+hands, but the poor animals have up to this time escaped compassion."
+
+"Not compassion, but assistance," says I. "Cruelty to animals is mostly
+confined to men."
+
+"Not exactly," says he. "I have sometimes seen kittens and pet dogs
+treated more unmercifully than omnibus-horses, and by innocent children
+too."
+
+I did not answer. How could I? The remembrance of a trout-brook, with
+birch-trees hanging over it, and great red-seeded brake-leaves growing
+thick on the bank, made me shudder. Hadn't I held ever so many kittens
+under water in that very spot, and shouted and laughed to the other
+girls--some of you, my sisters, among them--while the poor little things
+kicked and struggled for life, that was just as dear to them as it is to
+me? Hadn't I hunted up birds' nests, and driven the pretty creatures
+distracted by handling their eggs, till at last the nests were broken
+up? Then didn't I string the cold eggs into a chain, and hang them in
+triumph over the looking-glass in our keeping-room?
+
+You will tell me, out of the kindness of your hearts, that these were
+sins of ignorance. Just so; and it is this ignorance, which is sometimes
+cruel as the grave, that Mr. Bergh is trying his best to enlighten. No
+child would do a cruel thing if it were made to understand the pain it
+is giving. Yet, sticking pins through flies, and spearing wasps to the
+wall, are about the first thing a smart baby learns to do.
+
+Did you ever see a lot of boys going home from school, when a
+garter-snake, or any other harmless serpent, crosses their path? They
+know well enough that the poor things do no harm, and are as afraid as
+death of them; but see the great stones they heave upon the miserable
+reptile; the shouts they send up, as it writhes, and coils, and fills
+the air with feeble hisses, trying, poor thing, to save its bruised and
+broken life to the last.
+
+Does anybody tell the boys that this is brutal cruelty? No, even the
+Christian mother, who would not do an unkind thing to save her life,
+forgets that God makes snakes as well as ringdoves, and that pain is
+just as bitter to the snake as to the cooing bird.
+
+Sisters, we are all wrong in leaving these things to men only. If we did
+our duty, and taught little children that even thoughtless cruelty is a
+sin, and that the fun which comes out of pain to any of God's creatures
+is a crime, there would not be much for Mr. Bergh and his noble society
+to do. The cruel instincts of a child become ferocious in the man. With
+such, men can best deal. I thank God that one brave spirit is found
+ready and able to protect the dumb creatures that are given us for
+blessings, not for victims.
+
+While I am writing this, picture after picture comes up from my own past
+girlhood, and my heart stands still as I remember how ferocious a thirst
+for fun and ignorance can be in a child. How many sleepy-looking toads I
+have seen, with their backs all jewels, and their throats yellow gold,
+that asked nothing but a burdock leaf for shelter, and a few flies for
+food, crushed to death by boys who thought no harm, and only liked the
+sport of killing something.
+
+Since then, I have learned that these little creatures are a great help
+to gardeners, and that wise men foster them with kindness and care.
+
+Once, down by the trout-brook we know of, I saw a lot of children, busy
+as bees, doing something on the bank, where two or three boys were
+kneeling, and the rest looking on. Of course I went down to the brook,
+and, being a little mite of a creature, looked on, half frightened, half
+wondering.
+
+The boys had caught a great frog, green as grass. He was, I have no
+doubt, one of those hoarse old croakers, that make one timid about going
+by ponds and marshy ground in the night, up in our State. Well, they had
+him down in the grass, and one held him while the other ran a pin
+through both jaws and twisted it there. There was no fun in this. A lot
+of doctors cutting off an arm couldn't have been more gravely in
+earnest. Some of the boys were eight and ten years old; but not one of
+them seemed to feel that they were doing a hideous thing. I remember
+feeling very sorry for the poor frog, but it was not till years and
+years after that I understood the horrible, lingering death these
+ignorant boys had tortured him with. Since then I have never thought of
+that sparkling trout stream, without a pain at my heart.
+
+"Childish ignorance," I hear you say--for some of these boys were your
+own brothers, and meant no harm. But what right had they to be ignorant?
+They knew well enough that it was against the law to kill one another.
+Why were they not taught that the life that God gives to His meanest
+creature is as sacred as a good man's prayers; unless necessity calls
+for it, and then it must be taken with as little suffering as death can
+give?
+
+Sisters, I am in earnest; the missionary spirit is strong upon me. I
+wish our Society to take up this subject with interest. What Mr. Bergh
+has been doing among men, we must do among the children of this
+generation. When ignorance is an excuse for cruelty, you and I and every
+woman of the land are wretches if we allow a child to sin because it
+knows no better. There is no great study necessary to work out a reform
+here. The mother who knows what is right knows how to impress it on her
+children; and if they play at death and destruction, she is the person
+most to blame.
+
+Don't say that I am writing out one of my popular addresses before the
+Society--I never thought of such a thing; but when I saw the great
+Natural History Philanthropist, my heart and mind went right back to you
+and my duties as a missionary of universal progress, and I sat there in
+silence thinking over these things till I forgot that he was there.
+
+At last he spoke, and said, kindly enough, "Is there anything I can help
+you in?"
+
+I started and reached out my hand.
+
+"Mr. Bergh," says I, enthusiastically, "I can help you! All the world
+over we women work best in the primary department. You have begun a
+grand and a noble work among men. We will begin at the other end, and in
+that way cut your work down to nothing. I see a clear path before us.
+Henceforth I will belong to your Society, and you shall belong to mine.
+Is it agreed?"
+
+He sat down by me; his eyes grew bright; his earnestness of purpose
+inspired me to press forward to the mark of the prize--I beg pardon, the
+old prayer-meeting spirit will manifest itself in spite of me when my
+soul is full of a great purpose.
+
+After we had talked on the great subject satisfactorily, he said, all at
+once, "But you came for some purpose in which I may have the pleasure of
+serving you."
+
+Then I remembered my bird and its imperial object. Revealing my
+gold-paper box, I opened it carefully, fearing a sudden flight. Nothing
+moved. Trembling with dread, I put in my hand; it touched a soft fluff
+of feathers that did not stir.
+
+My heart sank like a lead weight in my bosom. I looked in; the poor
+little thing lay in the bottom of the box, with its wings spread out,
+and its head lying sideways. I touched it with my hand; it was limp and
+dead. While I had been talking with so much feeling about cruelty to
+animals, my own little songster--no, being a female she was not
+that--but my poor pet had been smothered to death in that gorgeous
+little receptacle.
+
+With my heart swelling like a puff-ball, I turned my shoulder on that
+good man, and closed my satchel solemnly, as if it had been a tomb.
+
+"Sir," says I, in a voice full of touching penitence, "I feel myself
+just at this minute wholly unworthy of the mark of the high calling to
+which I have offered myself. A young lady who puts herself forward to
+teach thoughtful kindness to the young, should be above reproach in that
+respect herself."
+
+The good gentleman looked awfully puzzled, for how would he guess at the
+crime I had locked up in that box?
+
+"Good-morning," says I, walking away; "the time may come when I shall
+feel a new exaltation, but just now--well, good-morning."
+
+I went away meek and humble as a pussy cat. When I looked down at the
+box in my hand it seemed as if I was carrying a coffin.
+
+Well, I buried my poor little pet in that identical box, with the blue
+ribbon about its neck; but the poem I forwarded to _him_ in Boston. I
+may be meek and humbly conscious of my own shortcomings, but the Grand
+Duke of all the Russias shall never go home with the idea that Vermont
+hasn't got poets as well as Boston, and that young ladies cannot put as
+much vim and likewise maple-sugar into their poetry as that smart
+fellow, Dr. Holmes, simmered down in his.
+
+Just read mine and his, that's all!
+
+I do think that nothing can equal the forwardness of some New York
+girls. Would you believe it, one stuck-up thing has just stolen my
+beautiful idea, and sent her card to the great Grand Duke tied round a
+bird's neck; but it was like stealing a fiddle and forgetting the
+fiddlestick. A card isn't poetry. There is no accounting for the vanity
+of some people; but the best proof of genius is imitation.
+
+
+
+
+XV.
+
+CHRISTMAS IN NEW YORK.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Thanksgiving is the great Yankee jubilee of New England.
+Then every living thing makes itself happy, except the turkeys, and
+geese, and chickens. They, poor martyrs, have been scared into the
+middle of next week by the yells, and shrieks, and awful cackling of the
+whole army of winged creatures that sit in ten thousand ovens, with
+their legs tied, their wings twisted, and the gravy a-dripping down
+their sides and bosoms, like rain from the eaves of a house. Of course,
+for that day, every barn-yard in New England goes into mourning. The
+poor hen is afraid to cackle when she lays an egg, for fear of having a
+gun cracked at her. Even the fat hogs look melancholy in their pens, for
+a smell of roasting spare-ribs comes over them, and they seem to
+ruminate mournfully on some means of saving their own bacon.
+
+Of course, there must be some unhappiness even on a New England
+Thanksgiving, or earth would forget itself and turn into heaven all at
+once. Besides, who thinks of the scared gobblers, when he has a plump
+turkey roasted brown as a berry, scenting the whole house with richness?
+I for one could not bring myself to the foul contemplation--excuse the
+wit--spontaneity is perhaps my fault.
+
+Well, what Thanksgiving is to New England, Christmas-day is to New York.
+Everybody goes to meeting in the morning, and everybody takes dinner
+with everybody else after that. For days before it comes the streets are
+full of covered wagons, and men and boys, loaded down with bundles,
+crowd against each other on every doorstep. In fact, half New York just
+throws itself away in presents on the other half, which pitches just as
+many back. Thus every street and house is a hubbub of gifts and a blaze
+of light, from Christmas Eve till after Christmas dinner.
+
+Christmas Eve, dear sisters, belongs to the children. What there is of
+'em in these parts, and the jubilation they have, rich and poor, black
+and white, is enough to warm the heart in one's bosom. There is a
+gorgeous old Dutch ghost that they think comes prowling over roofs and
+down chimneys in the night, to bring them presents. This comical old
+fellow sets up Christmas trees for the rich, and fills woollen stockings
+for the poor, and makes himself a magnificent old humbug that every
+child in the city worships and will believe in, though the little
+misguided souls know at the bottom of their hearts that, somehow or
+another, this Santa Claus and their own parents have a mysterious
+understanding and private moneyed transactions, that mix things
+terribly. Still, they really do believe in the old fellow, just as you
+and I believe in dreams. It is the last thing a little girl gives up,
+unless it is her dolls.
+
+Speaking of dolls, I wish you could see the scrumptious little ladies
+that have been sold here this week. You and I were awful proud if we
+could get a rag-baby, with drops of ink for eyes, and its cheeks
+reddened with a little pokeberry juice; but the dolls they sell here are
+such beauties!--yellow hair, frizzed around the face like thistle-down;
+rosy cheeks, and eyes that shut with such sweet laziness if you lay the
+little things down. I declare, it's enough to make one long to be a
+child again, to take one of these dainty creatures in your arms.
+
+The Saturday before Christmas I went out with Cousin E. E. Dempster, to
+buy presents. She came in her carriage, with the driver and another chap
+in regimentals on the front seat, outside, and a great white bear-skin
+inside that just swallowed us up to the waist, as if we had settled down
+in a snow-bank of fur. Under that was a muff for your feet, and some
+contrivance that must have been a foot-stove hid away, for it was as
+warm as toast.
+
+Well, sisters, such things may be extravagant, I know; but they are
+nice, if it wasn't for one's conscience.
+
+The carriage turned down Broadway, which is the street where the most
+splendid stores are found. It really was worth while to see how that
+driver--with his fur gloves that made his hands look like a bear's
+claw--guided them horses in and out, among the omnibus-stages, the
+carriages, and carts, that just turned the street into Bedlam. It fairly
+made me catch my breath to see how near the wheel would come to some
+other wheel, and then just miss it. Every stage that went lumbering by
+made me give a little scream, it came so near to running us down. But
+Cousin E. E. sat there buried in the white fur, as cosey as a goose on
+her nest. It aggravated me, and I asked her if she wasn't afraid nor
+nothing.
+
+"Oh no," says she, a-leaning back and half shutting her eyes; "it is the
+coachman's business. I should discharge him if anything happened."
+
+"But you couldn't discharge him after you were mashed to death under
+them great omnibus wheels," says I.
+
+E. E. smiled. What a calm, lazy smile she has!
+
+"No," says she; "but there would be a fuss, and my name would get into
+the paper. Everything has its compensation, Cousin Frost."
+
+Before I could answer, the carriage stopped in front of a large, high
+store, with great, tall windows, all one shiny sheet of glass on each
+side of the door, through which you could see lots on lots of silver and
+gold and precious stones, all in confusion, but, oh, how gorgeous!
+
+"This is Ball, Black & Co.'s," says she, a-going up to the door, which
+seemed to open of itself, and in we went.
+
+You have read the "Arabian Nights' Entertainment." I remember the time
+well, because we all got "kept in" after school for being caught at it.
+Well, that cave wasn't to be compared to what I saw in Messrs. Ball &
+Black's store. From floor to roof, all was one dazzle. Gold clocks, with
+silver horses tramping over 'em; colored men and women--reconstructed
+figures, I reckon; white stone women, a-standing, sitting down,
+scrouching themselves together, or riding lions a-horseback, bold as
+brass, filled one long room, like a regiment of military trainers. Then
+there were chandeliers of glass, in which no end of rainbows seemed to
+be tangled; dishes of sparkling glass, set in a frostwork of silver or
+gold, and--I may as well stop; no genius could give you an idea of the
+gorgeous things it was my privilege to see in those long rooms.
+
+When we had wandered upstairs and downstairs again, Cousin E. E. stopped
+at one of the counters, and wanted to look at some rings. As for me I
+wanted to look at everything. What was one ring compared to whole stars,
+and bands, and clusters of shiny, white stones, that seemed to have been
+dug out of a rainbow--all mixed up with other stones, red as blood,
+green as spring grass, blue as the sky, and white as snow-crust. Why,
+sisters, that counter was just one bed of burning sunshine. It dazzled
+my eyes so that I can hardly remember anything distinct enough to
+describe it to you.
+
+Well, Cousin E. E. bought her ring, which had a green stone set in it. I
+saw her hand a lot of money over the counter to pay for it, which riled
+my conscience a little; but I said nothing, the money being hers, not
+mine; still, how much good it might have done some missionary society.
+
+Well, out of this store of gorgeousness we went, and got into the
+carriage again.
+
+Cousin E. E. said she had bought so many things that this was about the
+last place she had to go to, and, as it was getting pretty near dark, I
+must go home with her and help fill up the Christmas tree. Cecilia would
+be dreadfully disappointed if it was not splendid, and they all thought
+so much of my taste.
+
+I made no objections; why should I? Christmas Day in a boarding-house
+isn't full of ravishing promises, so I just snuggled down into the white
+fur again, and let the fellow with bear-skin claws drive me where he had
+a mind to.
+
+
+
+
+XVI.
+
+THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS.
+
+
+Oh, sisters! there is something touching and splendid in a Christmas
+tree. Just fancy one of our mountain spruces, towering almost to the
+ceiling of a room, green as when it was cut from the woods. Think of
+this tree, hung all over with little wax candles, bunches of pale-green
+and purple grapes, teinty red apples, golden horns and baskets chuck
+full of sugar things. Stuffed humming-birds, looking chipper as life.
+Butterflies, that seem to be flying through the green of the trees, and
+a whole camp-meeting of dolls sitting around the roots, and then tell me
+if the Christmas time of a New York child isn't like living among the
+people of a fairy book.
+
+This was the sort of tree set up at Cousin Dempster's, Sunday night
+before this last Christmas day. Of course, we couldn't think of
+breaking the Sabbath, but the minute it was sundown, at it we went. Of
+course, we didn't want the little girl to know what we were a-doing; but
+the first we knew, in she hopped, as chipper as a humming-bird, and
+would keep interfering and changing things, in spite of all we could do.
+
+At last, her mother got her dander up and told her to march right off to
+bed, just as a woman born in Vermont ought to order her own child; but
+the tantalizing thing just hitched up her shoulder, and said, "She
+wouldn't go, nor touch to the tree was for her own self. The house was
+her par's, and she'd do just as she'd a mind to in it."
+
+With that, Cousin E. E. blazed into a passion, and took her child by the
+arm, with a jerk that sent her flying into the hall. Then I heard a
+screeching and a scrambling up the stairs, and it seemed to me a slap or
+two--I hope I wasn't mistaken about that--then a door slammed, and
+Cousin E. E. came downstairs like a house o' fire, with both eyes
+blazing, and one cheek red as flame. Could it be that the slap I heard
+was from the other side, or had it been a free fight?
+
+"That girl will be the death of me," says she, walking about like a lion
+in its cage. "I never knew a worse child."
+
+"I'm sure I never did," says I, with more than my usual spontaneity, for
+I felt it.
+
+"You never made a greater mistake," says E. E., fierce as a hen hawk.
+"It is because she has so much more brains--spirit--genius than any
+other children. A more splendid character never lived than my daughter
+Cecilia."
+
+I said nothing; maybe it would have been just as well if I had held my
+tongue before.
+
+"She is a favorite everywhere," E. E. went on, cooling down like a brick
+oven after the coals are hauled out.
+
+I said nothing.
+
+"Ahead of girls twice her age," E. E. went on. "She speaks French like a
+native."
+
+"Is there anything more to put on?" says I.
+
+"Yes," says she, "we will have the presents ready for the morning. I
+meant to have some of Cecelia's friends here to-morrow night, but she
+wanted the tree to herself."
+
+With this, E. E. brought an armful of boxes and things from the next
+room. The first thing she set up against the stem of the tree was a
+doll, dressed in a splendid silk ball-dress, with a long, sweeping
+train, and teinty rose-buds in her yellow curls. The blue eyes were
+natural as life, and her face was just lovely. Then she brought out a
+Saratoga trunk about as big as a foot-stool, which was crowded full of
+dolls' dresses, just such as a live young lady would be proud to wear.
+
+"Isn't it beautiful?" says E. E.
+
+"I should think so," says I; "how much did it cost?"
+
+"A hundred and twenty-five dollars," says she. "I sent to Paris for it."
+
+"A hundred and twenty-five dollars?" says I, lifting up both hands;
+"that would keep a poor family how long?"
+
+"I don't know," says she, short as pie-crust, "but a poor family
+wouldn't amuse my Cecilia, and these will."
+
+"Just so," says I; "what is this for?"
+
+"Oh, that is her father's present--pink coral--hang it across one of the
+limbs," says she.
+
+I hung the beads among the spruce leaves, and enjoyed the sight; they
+seemed like a string of rose-buds twisted in with the green.
+
+"There now, we will finish in the morning," says E. E. "I wish Cecilia
+had invited her little friends; it will seem rather lonesome."
+
+With this, Cousin E. E. gave a little sigh, and we went off to bed,
+telling me that I must be sure to get up in time for early service,
+which she wouldn't miss for anything.
+
+
+
+
+XVII.
+
+EARLY SERVICE.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Before daylight on Christmas morning, I went to early
+service at the highest church in New York city, which, after all, isn't
+anything to brag of in the way of steeple.
+
+There is a brick meeting-house on Murray Hill that beats it all to
+nothing, for that has just the longest and pointedest steeple that I
+ever set eyes on. Still, everybody allows that the little Episcopal
+church I went to, Christmas morning, is the very highest in all America;
+and, though in my heart I don't believe it, having eyes in my
+head--there is no chance for me to take a measurement, and what can I
+say against the word of everybody else? Still, to you in confidence, for
+I don't want to get into a schismatic controversy, I dare take an oath
+that the brick church on Murray Hill is twice as high, to say nothing of
+the sharp-pointedness of the steeple and the hilly ground.
+
+Cousin E. E. Dempster says she is high church from the crown of her head
+to the sole of her foot, which I didn't dispute, for she always had high
+notions. She gave me strict charge, when I went to bed, Christmas Eve
+night, not to sleep late, and be sure to be ready for an early start.
+
+Well, I went to bed feeling as if I had got to start by some swift
+railway train every hour of the night, and must be ready for them all.
+It was Sunday night, you know, and I woke up twice with a start, before
+it was next week; got up, felt for the matches I had laid handy, and
+went to bed again, and dreamed that I was trying to get into a steamboat
+with two steeples, which put off, and left me freezing on the dock.
+
+Like one of the wise virgins, I had brought a candle upstairs, and some
+matches, which was an improvement on their old lamps, I dare say; but I
+wasn't much afraid of the dark, and didn't keep it burning, only left
+everything ready.
+
+After that dream, I started up, struck a match, and found that I had
+been just fifteen minutes in getting that steam church under way. So I
+went on dreaming, starting up, and lighting matches all night, till at
+last I hadn't but one left, and with that I lighted the candle, and a
+gas-burner by the bureau, and began to dress myself.
+
+Before I got through, Cousin E. E. was at the door, with her beehive
+bonnet on, and wrapped up in fur.
+
+"Almost ready? I am so glad, for the day is just beginning to break, and
+I wouldn't have it broad light when we get there, for anything," says
+she. "Wrap up warm, for it has blown up awful cold in the night."
+
+I did wrap up warm; put on a veil, and tied my mink-skin victorine, with
+three tails on each tab, close around my neck.
+
+We went downstairs carefully, for only one burner was twinkling in the
+hall, and the whole house was dark and shivery.
+
+"Come in here," says Cousin E. E., opening the dining-room door.
+
+Under the glass globe, in which two or three chilly lights seemed
+longing to go out, the ghost of a table was spread, with a great deal of
+silver, and very little to eat.
+
+"Just a cup of coffee and a mouthful of toast before we start," says E.
+E., sitting down behind a great silver urn in her furs and her beehive;
+"for my own part, I could do without that."
+
+She poured me out a cup of coffee--it was half cold and awfully
+riley--and asked me to help myself to a piece of toast, which had black
+bars across it, as if it had been striped on a gridiron.
+
+"Things are getting cold," says E. E., "they have been standing so long.
+The cook has been out an hour; but she knows I consider this my
+penance."
+
+"Out where?" says I.
+
+"Oh, to early service."
+
+"An hour?" says I; "why I thought we were going to early service. It
+isn't daylight yet."
+
+"I know," says Cousin E. E., with a sigh, "but her church is a little
+higher than ours."
+
+"Higher," says I; "then there is some meeting-house a notch above
+yours?"
+
+"Yes, cousin," says she, mournfully, "but we are creeping up. Every year
+brings us a step nearer."
+
+"Just so," says I, wondering what she meant.
+
+"By and by we shall have confession," says she.
+
+"Oh," says I, "there isn't a meeting-house on Sprucehill that would take
+in a member till she had made a confession of religion."
+
+Cousin E. E. shook her head, and observed that I didn't understand,
+which riled me a little, having been a member--well, no matter how long.
+
+"Even now we have humiliation and penance."
+
+I was trying to swallow a mouthful of the bitter toast and riley coffee,
+and couldn't in my heart contradict her.
+
+"To that end we get up early, cast aside sleep, and, in all weather, go
+on foot to the altar. Each year the church is opened, and the candles
+lighted earlier and earlier, as souls more clearly see their way to the
+true faith."
+
+"Just so," says I; "by and by they will be good enough to light up, and
+open the day before, I suppose."
+
+The clock on the mantel-shelf struck. Cousin E. E. started up, and put
+both hands in her muff. I followed her out of the door, and into the
+street.
+
+Well, sisters, if there is a desolate spot on earth, it can be found in
+the streets of a great city after the lights have been put out, and
+while the sky is gray. To pass by houses in which thousands and
+thousands are sleeping, is like wandering through the lonesomeness of a
+graveyard. The morning was awful cold; before we got to Lexington Avenue
+the veil was stiff on my face. I felt the tears a-freezing on my cheeks,
+and my teeth chattered so that I couldn't speak. When we reached St.
+Albans--that is the name of Cousin E. E.'s church--two such shivery
+mortals you never saw. I say, sisters, there wouldn't have been much use
+in warming us against a good fire in any place just then. I don't mean
+to be satirical or irreverent, but when you go to early service at the
+break of day, and in the depths of winter, I think ice-water and
+snow-drifts might make a solemn impression on the sinful heart.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII.
+
+HIGH CHURCH.
+
+
+St. Albans may be a High Church, though I couldn't see it; but it
+certainly isn't very sizeable; and as for coldness, the very curls on my
+head shivered as if they grew there.
+
+Cold, yes; I should think that church was cold; but you never saw
+anything more beautiful than the picture it made when we went in. Right
+before us was a white altar--not a communion table like ours at home,
+but a little platform with steps to it, set thick with candles, and
+loaded down with wreaths of white flowers. I tell you, sisters, it
+seemed to me as if the angels must have been down overnight, and moulded
+those flowers out of the drifted snow, and breathed life into them, they
+looked so pure.
+
+On each side of this altar was a great, large candle, five feet high,
+and thick as a young tree, burning with a slow, steady fire, and some of
+the smaller candles twinkled like stars among the flowers.
+
+All overhead and down the walls of this little meeting-house were great
+wreaths of ground pine, ivy and hemlock, crowded with lights and
+sprinkled with flowers, and these flung shadows on the walls more lovely
+than the wreaths themselves.
+
+I was chilled through and through, but I don't think it was that which
+brought all these solemn feelings into my mind, for the tears that had
+frozen on my cheeks ran freely now, and my eyes kept filling again. I'm
+sure I can't tell the reason, only that everything was so still and
+beautiful.
+
+The pews in St. Albans have no cushions, and everybody can sit in them,
+only there is a placard on each, inviting the poor to sit down for
+nothing, but telling those that have money to give it, to support the
+church; which is just what our meeting-houses do, though they only chuck
+the plate at you, without a written warning.
+
+Cousin E. E. and I sat down in one of the pews, and slid our knees to a
+board running along in front, to kneel on, and covered up our faces a
+minute or two; then we looked up, and there, close by the altar, stood
+the minister; but, oh, goodness! how he was dressed out. He had on,
+first, a black silk gown, with great bishop-sleeves, then a white linen
+dress, that I should think was a night-gown, only it was on a man, and
+it isn't many women who would like to lend such things to be used in
+meeting-time. Over that he wore a white satin cape.
+
+Cousin E. E. pronounces it cope, but she does finefy her words so since
+she came to York.
+
+On that was worked a cross, in gold and silk, like a Free Mason's apron
+in some respects. He held a book open in his hand. I could see that he
+was shaking with chilliness, and the words rattled like icicles from his
+lips. Close by him stood a boy, dressed in a red frock, with a white one
+over it.
+
+I whispered and asked Cousin E. E. what his name was; she answered
+back--"Acolyte," which was a name I never heard before.
+
+After a while the congregation began to move out of the pews, a few at a
+time, and crowd up to the minister. Then they knelt down before him, and
+he gave them bread and wine close to the altar, instead of having it
+handed about as they do in our Presbyterian meeting-houses. Cousin E. E.
+went up with the rest, and wanted me to go with her, but I could not
+bring myself to partake of the Lord's Supper from a man in his
+shirt-sleeves, and with a silk cape on; so I shook my head and sat
+still, watching the altar.
+
+After they had done coming up to him, the minister knelt down and prayed
+awhile; then he got up, and the boy in red shirt and white frock handed
+him a black hat, with four corners, which he put on his head; then he
+took something from the altar and walked through a side door, still
+wearing his double-cocked hat. The boy followed him out, and then a man
+came round among the pews with a plate, in which Cousin E. E. dropped a
+gold piece with a ringing noise that made people look round. I followed
+up with five cents, and was astonished to see how little ring it had
+after the gold; nobody looked round at me.
+
+It was broad daylight when we came out of that little meeting-house, and
+not quite so cold as it had been; but still I was glad to keep my muff
+up to my face, and we walked toward home like a house afire.
+
+"Well, how did you like the service?" says Cousin E. E., as we shivered
+along--"impressive, isn't it?"
+
+"Very," says I; "only do tell me what it was all about. This getting up
+and sitting down and bowing at nothing is more than I can understand."
+
+"Oh," says she, "I ought to remember you came from a Congregational part
+of the country."
+
+"And Methodist--to say nothing of Baptists and Quakers," says I.
+
+"Yes, I mean all that," says she; "but the church, as a church, is but
+little understood among you."
+
+"Well, as you came from the same place, you ought to know," says I,
+rebuking her city airs in my most austere manner.
+
+"Well, yes," says she; "but one doesn't hear much of the true church so
+far in the mountains. Even you seemed puzzled by a good many things this
+morning."
+
+"Well, yes," says I--"the four-cornered cocked hat, for instance."
+
+"The four-cornered cocked hat!" says she, stopping short on the
+sidewalk. "What do you mean? That was the barette."
+
+"Oh," says I, "that is what they call it! Well, then, the four-cornered
+cocked barette--what does the minister wear that for? It isn't generally
+considered good manners for men to wear hats in meeting."
+
+"Oh, there is a clerical reason I can't quite explain, but it is a part
+of the ceremony."
+
+"Just so," says I--"and the night-gown."
+
+"Surplice, you mean," says E. E.; "oh, that is worn everywhere, in High
+and Low Church alike."
+
+"Well," says I, "there may be a reason for such things, but a
+respectable black coat is what I've been used to."
+
+"Yes, I know," says she; "but some people prefer the surplice and cope."
+
+"Now tell me," says I, "what on earth has a minister to do with a
+woman's satin _cape_, all crimlicued off with gold and silk work?" I put
+an emphasis on the word cape, to rebuke her finefied way of pronouncing
+it.
+
+"It is a part of the clerical paraphernalia, and gives richness to the
+vestments," says she. "But the altar--I felt sure that you would be
+pleased with that."
+
+"Yes," says I; "the white flowers, the candles, and the evergreens were
+beautiful. But the red and white boy was too much for me; then his
+name--Acolyte--I never heard anything like it."
+
+Just then we reached home, and shivered into the house to warm
+ourselves. Cousin Dempster was not up yet, and that child was sound
+asleep. It seemed to me as if we had been downstairs a week; but there
+was the Christmas tree, just loaded with presents; and there was the
+marble man and woman, looking cold as we were. And there we stood,
+hungry and shivering, for the help had all gone out to "early service,"
+and forgot to heap coal on the furnace; and the end was, we just got
+into our cold beds again, and shivered ourselves to sleep. I dreamed
+that a man, all in black and white, with a four-cornered hat on--one
+tassel hanging over his eyes, and another down his back--with something
+like a flash of fire about his neck, was burying me ten thousand feet
+deep in a snow-drift, and pounding me down with a candle as big round as
+my waist. Then it seemed to me that I got out, somehow, and was trying
+to warm my hands by the red frock of that boy, Acolyte, who faded into
+nothing before my eyes, and left me sound asleep as if I had never been
+to early service in my life.
+
+
+
+
+XIX.
+
+CHRISTMAS MORNING.
+
+
+We had a good long sleep after early service, and were all up bright as
+larks the next morning, wishing each other a merry Christmas, and
+waiting for that child to come down and see what Santa Claus had brought
+her. By and by we heard her coming. Mr. Dempster looked at his wife and
+smiled, as much as to say, "Won't our presents surprise her!" Cousin E.
+E. went to the door and opened it, looking pleased, and so like her old
+self that I could have kissed her.
+
+At last Cecilia came in, sour as vinegar, with her hair half combed, and
+her sash trailing.
+
+"Why, this is what I saw last night," says she, crossly.
+
+"Look at the foot of the tree!" says E. E., eagerly.
+
+Cecilia looked, and saw the doll and the open trunk. Her lips drooped at
+the corners, her right shoulder lifted itself.
+
+"A doll for me! The idea!" says she.
+
+Cousin E. E. turned away, I think, to hide the tears that swelled to her
+eyes. Mr. Dempster saw it, and says he:
+
+"Cecilia, your mother spent a great deal of money for the doll--don't be
+ungrateful."
+
+"Just as if I wanted her to do it. Baby things!"
+
+"Well," says Cousin E. E., trying to brighten up her face, "there is
+your father's present."
+
+Cecilia untwisted the string of coral, and looked at it.
+
+"Coral is for babies! That is worse yet! I just wish there hadn't been
+any Christmas at all," says she, a-flinging the beads in a lovely pink
+heap on the floor. "There now--I'll just go up-stairs and stay there!"
+
+"Wait a minute, my darling," says E. E.; "mother has got something
+else."
+
+Cecilia turned back a step, but scorned to let her sullen face brighten,
+though her eyes grew eager when Cousin E. E. took a little paper box
+from one of the baskets, and opened it.
+
+"See here!"
+
+Cecilia edged up to her mother, saw the emerald ring, and snatched at
+it.
+
+"I bought it for Cousin Phoemie," says E. E., a-looking sort of
+pleadingly at me; "but as you are so disappointed, I'm sure she won't
+care."
+
+"Cousin Phoemie! The idea!" Cecilia muttered to herself, as she tried
+the ring, first on one finger, then on another. "Of course she don't
+want it--old as the hills!"
+
+I did not say one word while that creature carried off the first
+Christmas present I ever had in my life; but it seemed as if I should
+choke. Isn't it hard that a spoiled child like that should have the
+power to destroy the happiness of three grown people? But she did it.
+
+The Christmas dinner was enough to make your mouths water, from this
+distance--the noblest sort of a turkey, stuffed with oysters, and
+everything to match--but none of us had much appetite for it. You can
+judge what my feelings amounted to, when I have lived one whole month in
+a boarding-house and couldn't get up an appetite--no, not even for the
+whitest meat of the breast! Old as the hills, indeed!
+
+
+
+
+XX.
+
+ABOUT LIONS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Cousin E. E. had invited a lot of her friends to a
+stupendous dinner-party on Christmas Day, and she wanted me there for a
+lion, she said, though what on earth a great roaring lion had to do at a
+dinner-table I couldn't begin to think. The idea made me fidgety; but I
+didn't think it consistent with the dignity of our Society to ask
+questions, or let any one know that I didn't understand everything just
+as well as folks that have lived in York all their lives. Still I
+couldn't help trying to circumvent Cousin E. E. into telling me what I
+wanted to know in a way that some people might call femininely
+surreptitious.
+
+"A lion!" says I. "Are such animals invited to a city dinner as a
+general thing?"
+
+"Oh! not at all," says she; "the most difficult thing in the world to
+get hold of is a real, genuine lion; that is, one the whole world knows
+about, and wants to see."
+
+"Why," says I, "if folks are so anxious about it, why don't they go up
+to the Rink and see Mr. Barnum's great monster animal. It don't cost
+much; besides, there are camels and monkeys, and lots and lots of
+things, thrown in."
+
+Cousin Emily Elizabeth laughed till tears come into her eyes.
+
+"Oh! Cousin Phoemie," says she, "you are so delightfully satirical."
+
+"Do you think so?" says I, awfully puzzled.
+
+"Yes," says she, "I do; but to me the eccentricities of genius are
+always interesting. To be an attractive lion one must say bright things,
+no matter how hard they cut."
+
+"I wasn't aware," says I, "that lions were given to much talking."
+
+"Oh!" says she, "that depends. There is your talkative lion, your
+learned lion, your silent lion--"
+
+"That is the sort that I've always seen," says I; "now and then a growl,
+but nothing beyond that."
+
+Cousin E. E. began to laugh again, till she had to hold one hand to her
+side.
+
+"Oh! cousin, paws, paws," says she; "you just kill me with laughing."
+
+"Yes," says I, "I don't deny that lions have paws, but it was speech we
+were talking about, and that I do deny."
+
+Cousin E. E. just shrieked out laughing, though for the life of me I
+couldn't tell what it was all about.
+
+"Now, don't you understand me--honest now--don't you?" says she.
+
+"Why, of course I do; only nothing could be more ridiculous than the
+idea of a great, big, magnificent wild beast, with a swinging walk, and
+a tuft on the end of his tail, being showed off at a dinner-table. I for
+one shouldn't have a mite of appetite with such a creature prowling
+round."
+
+"My dear, dear cousin, I'm speaking of human lions."
+
+"Human lions! I always thought the creatures were awfully inhuman," says
+I; "nothing but a jackal can be worse."
+
+"I mean great people--celebrated for something--bravery, literature, the
+arts, sciences," says she.
+
+"Well, what of them?" says I.
+
+"In society we sometimes call them lions."
+
+"O--oh!" says I, drawing the word out to give myself time. "So you
+really thought I didn't understand. Why, of course. Dear me! cousin, how
+easy it is to cheat you!"
+
+"Oh!" says she, "one must get up early to match you women of genius, I'm
+aware of that. What dry humor you have, now, looking so innocent and
+earnest, too!"
+
+I smiled benignly upon Cousin E. E.; if she could find any humor in what
+we'd been a-talking about, it was more than I could. Lions! Where does
+the joke come in, when human beings are called such names as that? Wild
+beasts, indeed!
+
+"How really modest you are!" says Cousin E. E. "Anybody else, who could
+write as you do, would have known that she was meant when I mentioned
+lions."
+
+I dropped my eyes, and folded both hands.
+
+"It will be the great feature of our party," says she. "Our friends will
+know that you are a blood relation, and that pleases Dempster; besides,
+you converse so beautifully, too."
+
+"Do I?" says I, folding one hand over the other, and back again.
+
+"And look so--so distinguished."
+
+I drew my figure upright, and looked into the glass opposite. My cousin
+had chosen her words well; there was something imposing in the bend of
+that head. I say nothing; but she was right. Indeed, so far as I am
+concerned, she generally is.
+
+Early in the morning I sent down for my pink silk dress. Cousin E. E.
+looked as if she was going to say something against it, at first; but,
+after a little, her face cleared up, and I heard her muttering:
+
+"This is the third time. Nothing on earth but a woman of genius could
+stand that; but she has got enough to carry it off."
+
+I said nothing, but thought of that bill, and just made a calculation of
+how much it would cost a woman to rig herself out if she went to many
+parties, and only wore a dress that cost five hundred dollars once.
+
+Well, sisters, Christmas Day came, and we were up by daylight, for
+Cousin Emily Elizabeth is, as I have told you, a High Church woman and
+an Episcopalian. We haven't got any meeting-house of that denomination
+in our neighborhood, and I don't exactly know what high and low church
+means, without it is that one set hold to meeting-houses with a belfry,
+and the others stand up for a high steeple--a thing that I told Cousin
+E. E. we common people didn't aspire to; at which she laughed again, as
+if I had said something awfully witty.
+
+Well, in another report I have given you an account of this daybreak
+meeting in the High Church, but just now I am taken up with the
+Christmas dinner.
+
+Now don't calculate, because we eat dinner punctually at noon in
+Vermont, that people here do the same thing, because it is nothing of
+the sort. Poor working people do that in this city, and nobody else. The
+more genteel and the richer you are, the later you eat your meals. Most
+of the well-to-do merchants eat dinner at six. Men that have got above
+earning their own living dine later yet, and some have got so
+disgustingly genteel and rich, that I don't suppose they dine till next
+day.
+
+Cousin Dempster attends to business yet, so he settled down on eight
+o'clock for his dinner, and a splendid affair it was.
+
+When Cousin E. E. and I came rustling downstairs with a cataract of silk
+rolling after us, I just screamed right out. The sight of that table was
+so exhilarating, glass a-shining--silver dishes and things
+a-sparkling--flowers heaped up in flower-pots and twisted in wreaths
+around the glass globe overhead, which flashed, and sparkled, and
+glittered as if it had been frozen up with ten thousand icicles that
+flung back all the light without melting a drop. The silk curtains were
+all let down. The carpet looked like a flower-bed, and the whole room
+was a sight to behold.
+
+Cousin E. E. shut the glass doors that looked as if a sharp frost had
+crept over 'em, and we sat down on the round sofa in the front room,
+ready for company, with nothing but those two marble folks to hear what
+we said.
+
+But peace and quietness will never come to a house that has a fast child
+like Miss Dempster, as the creature calls herself, in it. We had hardly
+sat down and got our trains spread, when in she came, all in a fluff of
+white muslin, and a flutteration of red ribbons, with her hair a flowing
+down her back, crinkle, crinkle, and her--well--limbs just strained into
+silk stockings and kid boots laced down ever so far below her frock, and
+looking so impudent. Down she sat on the round sofa, and begun to swing
+her heels against the silk cushions.
+
+"Why, daughter," says Cousin E. E., "what is the meaning of this?"
+
+The child laughed and flung back her head.
+
+"It means," says she, "that I'm not to be cheated into staying upstairs
+when a Christmas dinner is on hand. I'm ready for it, and I wish the
+company would come."
+
+"But, my child, you are too young."
+
+"If I'm too young, where do you find your old folks?" says the saucy
+thing, shaking out her ribbons.
+
+"Cousin E. E., I would not permit it," says I, for I couldn't help
+speaking to save my life. "She isn't of an age to go into company."
+
+"Well, you are old enough, and a good deal to spare," says the impudent
+thing. "No mistake about that!"
+
+I drew up the train of my pink silk dress, and walked across the room in
+a way that spoke my indignation, without words. When I turned to go back
+that creature was right behind me, with her head up, measuring off the
+carpet, step by step, with me.
+
+Sisters, I confess it, the strangling of that child would have done me a
+world of good; my fingers quivered to begin. But she just burst out
+a-laughing, and, would you believe it? her mother laughed too, but
+turned red as fire when I caught her at it.
+
+Before anything more could be said, Cousin Dempster came in, and the
+door-bell kept up such a ringing, that we were in a flutteration till,
+one after another, the company came in; ladies and gentlemen dressed up
+as if it had been a ball they were invited to.
+
+
+
+
+XXI.
+
+DINING IN THE DARK.
+
+
+Sisters, I'm afraid you would be taken aback by such dresses as filled
+Cousin Dempster's parlors that night. Such necks, such arms, no sleeves
+to speak of, nothing but a skimpy band across the shoulders; heads
+loaded down with braids and puffs, and great, long curls, which fell on
+those bare necks and covered them up into a little decency. Then the
+figures--mercy, how the dresses stood out behind; every lady seemed to
+be humpbacked below the waist. It takes time to get used to genteel
+society, I can tell you, and any amount of blushing has to be gone
+through.
+
+Well, when we had all got together, Cousin Dempster came up to me and
+crooked his elbow. I put my hand on his arm. The glass doors opened as
+if of themselves, and into the dining-room we went. The other ladies and
+gentlemen all locked arms, and followed us in good order. Cousin
+Dempster whispered to me as I went in,
+
+"The dinner is _given_ to you, remember."
+
+I said yes, I would remember. I hadn't even thought of paying for it,
+but I suppose he wanted to set my mind at rest on that point, which was
+kind, but unnecessary, as we never charge for meals in Vermont, except
+at taverns.
+
+"They were all invited to meet you," says he, at which I just turned
+round and made a low curtsey to the whole lot of 'em, before I took my
+seat, which was at Cousin Dempster's right hand.
+
+On the other side was a proper, pretty girl, with a neck like
+water-lilies, and cheeks like ever-blooming roses. She was a girl that
+laughed very low, when she did laugh, and looked at gentlemen sideways
+from under her eyelashes. One of those girls that speak as if ice cream
+would not melt in their mouths. An awful handsome young fellow came with
+her.
+
+Well, we all stood up waiting for Cousin E. E. to sit down, which she
+did. Then the rest of us rustled into our places, and half a dozen
+waiters went circumventing round us with little oysters, shells and all,
+on plates, which they set down before each of us, with a teinty silver
+pitchfork to eat 'em with. Then they brought plates with a few spoonfuls
+of soup in them, which they cleared away the minute we laid down our
+spoons. After that, came plate after plate, and the waiters kept filling
+the glasses that stood before us--pink, green, yellow, and white--with
+cider that bubbled and sparkled, and made the blood come faster and
+warmer into my face every time I tasted it.
+
+At first there hadn't been much talking; but now the ladies grew
+chipper, as so many canary birds, and the men followed suit.
+
+Such soft, low laughing, and such sweet voices I never heard at one
+table in my life.
+
+But while we were all enjoying ourselves so much, the lights in the
+glass balloon above us began to flash up and down, as if a high wind was
+rushing over them. Then all at once they quivered--winked furiously, as
+if they were joking with us--and went out, leaving us all in stone
+darkness.
+
+Then the ladies shrieked faintly, or laughed; some of them jumped up, I
+among the rest, wondering if the Day of Judgment had come.
+
+Cousin Dempster called out for the waiters to go and see what ailed the
+gas, and all was rustle and bustle and confusion.
+
+Perhaps I moved from my seat and dropped into some other without knowing
+it. I can't be certain about that or anything else; but all at once I
+felt an arm around my waist, and while I was holding my breath, with
+astonishment, some one kissed me.
+
+I gave a little scream, and pushed away that impudent arm with all my
+might.
+
+The arm wore a coat-sleeve--I can take my oath to that--and if I was
+used to such things I should say that there was a beard about the lips
+that touched my face.
+
+Sisters, it seemed to me for a minute as if Cousin E. E. really had got
+a roaring lion in her dining-room.
+
+While I sat there breathless and wondering if he would have the
+impudence to repeat that audacious conduct, a soft hand took hold of
+mine, and a sweet voice whispered in my ear:
+
+"Forgive me, dearest, I did not mean to be rude."
+
+I did not speak, but his penitence touched me with compassion. Softly I
+pressed the hand, in token of a relenting heart. How could I be hard on
+a man who meant no real harm, considering the temptation.
+
+He whispered something more, but I could not hear distinctly; for just
+then a waiter came in with a candle in his hand. Says he, "The gas works
+are blown up, and all Murray Hill, and more too, is in total darkness."
+
+Then there was a burst of voices; everybody laughed and everybody had
+something to say, which no one listened to.
+
+"Bring candles," Cousin Dempster sung out.
+
+"But the candlesticks--we have not got one in the house," says his wife.
+
+Then everybody laughed, and Cousin Dempster laughed loudest of all.
+
+"Find something," says he, "for we must have light."
+
+The waiter, says he, "Yes, sir, we'll do our best," and out he went.
+
+By and by he comes back, and all the rest of the waiters with him. Every
+one had a stone beer bottle in each hand, from which a tall white candle
+rose like a steeple to a church. There was not a smile on their faces.
+
+City waiters are never expected to smile, but each man set his two
+bottles down on the table, and drew back.
+
+Dempster burst out laughing; the rest burst out too; some giggled, some
+choked, some pealed out the fun that was in them like wedding bells.
+
+Everybody laughed except me and an elegant young gentleman, with blue
+eyes and a soft beard, that sat next me. He stared in my face, and I
+would have stared in his, only I couldn't bring myself to look in his
+eyes.
+
+Oh, sisters, it was dreadful! I had got into that young girl's place and
+she was in mine, and a teinty bit of court-plaster that I had put on the
+corner of my mouth, where the skin had been a trifle rubbed, was
+sticking right on the plumpest part of his under lip.
+
+Oh, sisters! I thought that I should have died with shame.
+
+He looked from me to the young lady, and she looked at him. I looked
+first at one, then at the other, from under my drooping lashes.
+
+She smiled, she touched her lip with one finger; he touched his, the
+mite of court-plaster stuck on his finger. Then she began to laugh, and
+so did he; the chairs shook under them. They made no noise, and the
+redness of their faces was lost in the shadow cast by the beer-bottles
+to every one but me.
+
+Cousin Dempster was busy trying to crowd an extra candle into one of the
+wine-bottles that had just been emptied, while he sat before the chair I
+ought to have been sitting in.
+
+"We must have a little more elegance at this end of the table," says he.
+
+"Wax candles and champagne bottles for this lady."
+
+He stooped down, expecting me to answer him; when he saw _her_ face all
+glowing with blushes.
+
+"Ah!" says he, laughing, "we have got a little mixed here, Cousin Frost.
+It will never answer to come between man and wife in this fashion,
+especially when they have been only three weeks married. Supposing we
+change round again?"
+
+I arose--she arose--we exchanged glances, then exchanged seats.
+
+The lights from these beer bottles were numerous, but not brilliant.
+Under the shadows we concealed the emotions which disturbed us.
+
+He looked funnily penitent, whenever his eyes caught mine, which was
+often, for somehow I could not keep looking on my plate all the time.
+
+As for that young creature, she seemed to be brimming over with fun.
+
+After a little, I began to feel myself smiling. It really was droll, but
+not so _very_ unpleasant.
+
+
+
+
+XXII.
+
+NEW YEAR'S DAY.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--After all, this city of New York is a wonderful
+institution. Vermont has its specialties, such as maple-sugar, pine
+shingles, and education; but in such things as style, fashion, and
+general gentilities, I must say this great Empire City isn't to be
+sneezed at, even by a Green Mountainer. Of course we are ahead in
+religion, morality, decorum, and a kind of politics that consolidates
+all these things into great moral ideas--as rusticoats, greenings and
+Spitzenbergen apples are ground down into one barrel of such sweet cider
+as we used to steal through the bunghole with a straw. You will
+recollect the straws--a Down-east invention, which these degenerated
+Yorkers have stolen, and are now using unblushingly for mint-juleps,
+sherry-cobblers, and such awful drinks as New England has put her foot
+down against with a stamp that makes inebriating individuals shake in
+their boots. But New York won't put her foot down, and the encroachment
+upon our patent-right for straws is just winked at.
+
+Dear me, how one thing does lead a person's mind into another! I took up
+my pen to write about New Year's Day in New York, and here I am, back in
+that old cider-mill behind our orchard, with heaps of red and yellow
+apples piled up in the grass, and the old blind horse moving round and
+round in the mill-ring, dragging along that great wooden wheel, under
+which we could hear the soft-gushing squelch of the apples, while all
+the air smelt rich and fruity with them.
+
+Do you remember the luscious juice dropping from the press, and the full
+barrels lying about, with the sweetness beginning to yeast through the
+bungholes? Then it was we pounced down upon them with our straws, and it
+was these straws that brought New Year's Day in New York and the old
+cider-mill at home into my mind at once. Thus it is, my sisters, with us
+children of genius; thought is born of thought, feeling springs out of
+feeling, till creation and re-creation become spontaneosities.
+
+Some people have said of Phoemie Frost that she lacks philosophy and
+that transcendental essence which becomes the highest female type in New
+England. If any such caviler should reach our Society, have the moral
+courage to point out that last paragraph, and see if the wretches have
+forgotten to blush for themselves.
+
+Christmas Day isn't anything very particular outside of the Episcopal
+Church, in our parts. Somehow the Pilgrim Fathers took a notion against
+it when they cut away from the old country, and built square
+meeting-houses all over New England. But they set up the same thing
+under a new-fangled name. Thanksgiving was just the same to them, and
+showed their independence; so they roasted and baked and stewed, and
+made pumpkin-pies a specialty--because the cavaliers in England couldn't
+get pumkins to compete with them--and went into their meeting-houses to
+thank God that they had good crops, instead of going down on their
+knees--which they didn't, because of standing up to pray--in solemn
+gratitude that the blessed Lord was born upon earth.
+
+Sisters, as a New England female, it would be against nature to say that
+the Pilgrim Fathers wasn't right in sinking Christmas in Thanksgiving,
+and thanking God for full crops, because the corn and potatoes were
+things they all could understand and accept with universal thankfulness;
+but about the birth of Christ, and its merciful object, no two sects
+that I ever heard of could agree, much less the Old Church and the New
+Covenanters.
+
+There it is again; my pen is getting demoralized. Christmas has come and
+gone. What more have I got to say about it? Why, just nothing. Wise
+people accept the past and look forward.
+
+Cousin Dempster insisted upon it, that I should come up and spend New
+Year's Day with them. Cousin E. E. was going to receive calls, and
+wanted some distinguished friend to help her entertain.
+
+I went.
+
+Early in the morning the empty carriage came down to my boarding-house,
+with those two regimental chaps on the out seat.
+
+I was all ready, with my pink silk dress on, and my front hair all in
+one lovely friz; but I just let the carriage wait that the boarders and
+people, with their faces against the window opposite, might have a good
+chance to look at it. Then I walked down the stairs with queenly
+slowness; the long skirt of my dress came a-rustling after, with a rich
+sound that must have penetrated to the boarding-house parlor, for the
+door was just a trifle open as I went by, and three faces, I could swear
+to, were peeping out as if they had never seen a long-trailed, pink silk
+dress before. Then I heard a scuttling toward the window, and, while I
+stood on the upper step, gathering up the back cataract of my dress,
+those same faces flattened themselves plump against the glass.
+
+Of course I did not hurry myself on that account, but took an
+observation up and down the street while I tightened the buttons of my
+glove, though one of the regimental chaps was a-standing there and
+holding the door wide open.
+
+"Why shouldn't I give the poor things just this one glimpse of the
+fashionable life to which genius has lifted me," says I to myself.
+
+Influenced by this idea, I paused, perhaps, half a minute, with my foot
+on the iron step, and asked the regimental chap, with the air of a queen
+giving directions, if it was very cold? and if Mrs. Dempster was quite
+well, that morning?
+
+He bowed when he answered both these questions, with the greatest
+respect; which was satisfactory, as the people on both sides must have
+seen him do it.
+
+Then I stepped gracefully into the carriage and sat down, buried to my
+knees in billows of pink silk. Over that I drew the robe of white fur,
+and waved my hand, as much as to say: I am seated; you can close the
+door. Which he did.
+
+One thing is curious about the streets of New York on New Year's Day.
+Not a woman or girl is to be seen on the sidewalks.
+
+The garden of Eden, before Adam went into the spare-rib business,
+wouldn't have been more completely given up to the desolation of
+manhood, unrefined by sweet female influence.
+
+But every man that I saw, going up or down, looked bright and smiling,
+as if he expected to find an Eve of his own before the day was over, and
+I shouldn't wonder if a good many of them did.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII.
+
+THE NEW YEAR'S RECEPTION.
+
+
+Cousin E. E. Dempster was all ready, and standing as large as life in
+one end of her long parlor, when I went in. The first sight of that room
+made me start back and scream right out. I had left daylight outside,
+but found night there. The blinds were shut close to every window. Over
+them fell a snow-storm of white lace, and over that a cataract of silk
+that seemed to have been dyed in wine, its redness was so rich and
+wavy.
+
+The two great glass balloons were just running over with brightness that
+scattered itself everywhere--on the chairs, the cushions, the carpet,
+and a great round sofa which stood, like a giant cheese, in the middle
+of the room, all covered with silk, and with a tall flower-pot standing
+up from the centre, running over with flowers, and vines, and things.
+
+This queer sofa, that seemed to have burst out into blossom for the
+occasion, was a New Year's present, Cousin E. E. said, and quite a
+surprise. "Then there is another," says she, a-pointing towards a marble
+man, dressed in a grape leaf, that seemed to have been firing something
+at the stone girl, and was watching to see if it had hit. "Of course you
+have seen the Apollo before?"
+
+I looked at the stone fellow sideways, then dropped my eyes.
+
+"I--I don't know," says I; "maybe I should know him better if he had his
+clothes on."
+
+"Look again. You must have seen him," says she.
+
+"No," says I, a-turning my head away; "I--I'd rather not till he goes
+out and fixes himself up a little."
+
+Cousin E. E. laughed till her face was red. While she was tittering like
+a chirping bird, that little creature Cecilia came tripping into the
+room, with a blue silk dress, ruffled over with white lace, just
+reaching to her knees, her yellow hair a-rippling over that, clear down
+behind, and a wreath of pink roses on her head. She looked at me from
+top to toe, gave her head a toss, and went up to her mother with the air
+of an injured princess.
+
+"That old pink silk again! What did you let her wear it for? New Year's
+Day, too. The idea!"
+
+I heard every word of it, for the stuck-up thing didn't trouble herself
+to speak low. My face had been hot enough before, but it burned like
+fire now, and my bosom heaved till it stormed against my dress and
+almost burst it.
+
+"Hush!" said Cousin E. E., looking scared; "she will hear."
+
+"Well, let her. As if I cared! The idea!"
+
+I stepped forward, with my finger lifted, and my dress sweeping. It must
+have been an imposing sight, for E. E. raised both hands, imploringly,
+and says she, "Cecilia, come and see your father's present."
+
+"Oh, isn't it gorgeous?" sang out the child, clasping her hands, and
+turning her back square on me while she went up to the stone fellow.
+"Such a splendid mate for Venus!"
+
+"Yes, I should think so," says I sarcastically; "only Miss Venus does
+seem ashamed of herself; but the fellow is bold as brass."
+
+The girl's lip curled like an opening rose-bud; she gave a nipping
+laugh, and I just heard "old fogy" break through it so saucily that my
+blood riled.
+
+"Did you apply that to me?" says I, a-lifting my finger.
+
+"No, no, nothing of the kind," says Cousin E. E., catching her breath.
+"You quite misunderstand Cecilia. Dear me, that is a carriage; people
+are beginning to call. Cecilia, my love, do try and make yourself
+agreeable."
+
+"Just as much as to say that I could be anything else," says the
+aggravating creature, a-hitching up her shoulders.
+
+Sure enough, some one was coming, and no three canary birds in a cage
+ever fluttered into their places quicker than we did. Cousin E. E.
+seated herself in a great cosey chair, all cushions, spread out her
+dress on the floor, and leaned a little sideways as if she was sitting
+to Brady for a picture. I gave my pink silk a wide swoop, and let it
+settle down on the carpet in ridges; then I leaned my elbow on the silk
+cushions of the great round sofa, and drooped my head a little as if
+breathing the scent of so many flowers had made me a trifle faint. That
+child ran to the glass, shook out her lace ruffles, and stepped back
+again to admire--well, her limbs--just as if she had been a stone girl,
+and was in love with herself. I swan to man she made me sick and faint,
+if the flowers didn't.
+
+There was a noise in the hall-way, and I caught a peep at a handsome
+young fellow prinking himself in the great looking-glass set in the
+hat-stand. Then he came in, tripping along with his hand held out to
+Cousin E. E., who went forward with her train following after, took his
+lilac glove in her hand, smiled up in his face, and said how glad she
+was to see him.
+
+Before he could answer, that forward child came up and held out _her_
+hand. She, too, was delighted; wondered he hadn't been there lately.
+Indeed, she began to think he was never coming again.
+
+The young fellow did seem to be taken aback a minute, for the forward
+creature had just cut her mother out; but he soon began to talk and
+laugh with her as chipper as could be, and only stopped to give me a nip
+of a bow when Cousin E. E. introduced him.
+
+Well, my opinion is I gave him as good as he sent; but short measure at
+that; for I just lifted my head as if taking a sniff at the flowers, and
+that was all. If that young man thought I was brought up in the woods to
+be scared by owls, he found out his mistake. He was standing with his
+back towards me when I heard E. E. say, in one of those whispers that
+cut to the ear keener than a scream:
+
+"It is Miss Phoemie Frost, the celebrated writer."
+
+"What," says he, "Miss Frost, the person on whom the Grand Duke levelled
+his eye-glass at the opera three times, and who was prevented opening
+the ball with him by the machinations of the committee?"
+
+"The same," says Cousin E. E.
+
+Before she could put in another word, that young gentleman had wheeled
+round in his patent leather boots, and was making me a bow that went so
+near the floor that his lilac gloves fell below his knees. Then he rose
+slowly, like a jack-knife that opens hard, and stood there a-smiling in
+my face as if I had just treated him to a quart of maple molasses fresh
+from the kettle.
+
+"Miss Frost," says he, "I'm happy to make your acquaintance; your
+writings have been my delight--in fact, a household word in our
+family--for years."
+
+"Years?" says I.
+
+"That is, ever since you began to honor the world with the emanations of
+your genius," says he, with an open wave of both hands.
+
+I bowed. I half rose from that round sofa. I knew by the soft, quivering
+sensation that smiles were creeping to my lips, and giving them a lovely
+redness.
+
+"Sir," says I, "you are complimentary. I am but a young beginner in the
+paths of literature--a timid worker in the great harvest field of
+thought."
+
+He smiled; he moved the billowy folds of my dress with infinite
+reverence, and seated himself timidly beside me. Then he talked books to
+me--broken and fragmentary, but exquisite. He could understand why the
+Grand Duke was so anxious to get back to New York. That poetry of mine
+must have lifted him right off from his feet. What a lovely talent
+poetry was!
+
+I sat upright, but looked downward, hiding the pleasure in my eyes by my
+drooping lashes. Faithful, heart and soul, to one noble being, I refused
+to look into the admiring eyes of another. His insidious praises of my
+genius made no impression. The image of a man six feet two, with a
+sky-blue scarf across his princely bosom, stood at the portal of my
+heart, and the young gentleman with curled hair and that light-colored
+mustache sighed, and sighed in vain.
+
+That forward little creature, Cecilia, saved me from temptation. Up she
+came, with her frock and her hair all in a flutter.
+
+"You haven't seen our new statue," says she, a-pulling at his hand.
+
+The young gentleman arose from my side with a look that went to my
+heart. As he stood before that pre-Adamite stone man, I got one good,
+long look at his face. As true as I live, he had found out some of
+Cousin E. E.'s ways of making herself beautiful! for his eyes had
+shadows under them, and his cheeks were like roses. Now, sisters, did
+you ever? Only think of a Green Mountain fellow doing that!
+
+But now another lot of men came in, dressed up to kill. Some had yellow
+kid gloves on, some lilac, and some gray. Their patent-leather boots
+shone like looking-glasses, and some of 'em tipped along as if they were
+treading over eggs and didn't mean to break 'em. Cousin E. E. introduced
+them all, and I had to rise, and bow, and make long, sweeping curtsies
+till my back ached, and my poor mouth felt dry with trying to look
+unconscious when so many of 'em told me I was a household word in their
+families.
+
+When the first lot of 'em were going out, Cousin E. E. just put back the
+red curtains at one end of the room, and behind 'em was a table all set
+off with silver, and glass, and flowers, and great, tall dishes crowded
+full of fruit and mottoes, all standing under the hot sunshine of one of
+those glass balloons, a-glittering and a-flashing like a house afire.
+
+I couldn't help giving a little scream, it was all so rich and
+beautiful--with two colored waiters in white gloves, ready to help
+everybody.
+
+Cousin E. E. stood at one end of the table--for it was a stand-up
+meal--and asked her visitors to take birds, and oysters, and terrapin.
+What the dickens is terrapin? Have you any idea, sisters? I ate some,
+and it had a stewy sort of taste, as if it had been kind of burnt in
+cooking.
+
+Well, one took one thing, and one another. Then each fellow wiped his
+mustaches, and the waiters came round with cider bottles, loaded over
+and chained up with silver, and the cider hissed and bubbled and
+sparkled as they poured it out into the glasses, that started narrow at
+the bottom, but spread out into dishes at the top, giving a chance for
+little whirlpools to the cider--which _was_ cider, I can tell you; it
+had vim enough in it to make your eyes snap.
+
+When the glasses were full we all took them up. The gentlemen muttered
+"Compliments of the season," and we answered "Compliments of the season"
+Cecilia and all--who just had the impudence to stand on tip-toe, and
+knock her glass against that of the fellow with lilac gloves and curly
+hair. Then we all drank and sipped, and, as that party went off,
+another came in--stream after stream--till night. It was the same thing
+over and over again, till ten o'clock at night, when Mr. Dempster came
+home, looking awfully tired out; then we just gave up. Sisters, this has
+been the hardest and most confusing day that I have known in New York.
+It seems as if my joints never would get limber again. But then I had a
+real good time, though the cider did begin to get into my head towards
+night. It couldn't have been made out of Vermont apples, I feel
+certain--they haven't got so much dizziness in 'em.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV.
+
+MIGNON: A NIGHT AT THE GRAND OPERA.
+
+
+Sisters, we went to the opera--that is, dear sisters in the cause, the
+Grand Duke and I were there; both of us seated on red cushions, and so
+near that we could exchange glances through our eye-glasses, which draw
+a beloved object close to you. They are a great invention which has not
+yet reached that portion of the country where prayer-meetings take the
+place of operas.
+
+I felt in my bones that he would meet me there; and when Cousin Emily
+Elizabeth sent me word that she had got a loge--which means a little
+square pen in the gallery, cushioned off like a first-class pew--and
+wanted me to go with her to hear the great primer-donner, I just got
+that dress out again, and set the frizzing-pins to work, and did myself
+up so scrumptiously that I don't believe that a creature on Sprucehill
+would have known me. Don't say this is extravagant, and flying in the
+face of Providence. If He don't want silk dresses worn by the elect,
+what on earth does He make silk-worms and mulberry-leaves for? That is a
+question that we'll have debated over in the Society some day. Until
+then, oblige me by not saying, openly, that I'm a free-thinker, because
+I'm nothing of the sort. Not that my taste, since coming to the opera,
+has not got a notch above Greenbank or Old Hundred, in the way of music;
+I am free to own that it has.
+
+Well, Cousin Emily Elizabeth had sent word that I mustn't wear a bonnet,
+or think of such a thing; and she sent me down a fur mantle, made of
+white kitten-skins, I reckon, with little black tails dropping all over
+it--just the tips, which needn't have hurt the black kittens much, if it
+_was_ all day to the white ones. So, when I come down, holding up my
+long skirts with one hand, and folding this fur across my innocent
+bosom, she just screamed out from the carriage that I looked gorgeous
+enough to turn the great Grand Duke's head, which I felt to be true--for
+women are not given to praising each other for nothing, anyhow.
+
+The opera-house in New York would take in our biggest meeting-house, and
+leave room for a wide strip of carpeting all round it. It has got three
+galleries, and ever so many places, that look like pulpits and deacon's
+seats, all cushioned and curtained off beautifully.
+
+We went up to the first gallery, and got into Cousin Dempster's
+loge-pew, which was just big enough for four people. This was fortunate,
+for our skirts and fur mantles took up every mite of room that Cousin D.
+did not want; but he put up with it beautifully, and just scrouched down
+behind us, with his head rising above our shoulders, which would have
+been rather uncovered if it had not been for the fur, which tickled mine
+a little; but I bore it with fortitude. You who know me will understand
+that.
+
+The opera-house was crowded full; every pew was crammed, and the benches
+down below couldn't be seen, the people were so thick. The pew loges
+were running over with handsome girls, and old ladies that tried their
+best to look like girls, and couldn't, not having the country freshness
+that some people bring with them from the mountains.
+
+But the three pulpits on the second gallery were empty yet--all empty,
+and gorgeously red, waiting for _him_.
+
+At last, a great green curtain that hung just beyond this sacred place
+rolled up. The lights in a great glittering balloon, all hung with ropes
+of shiny glass beads which fell down from the centre of the roof, blazed
+up, and when I dropped my head from looking at it, all the other end of
+the room was crowded with a gang of the queerest-looking people--men,
+women, children, and dogs--that ever you did see. That was the opera,
+Cousin E. E. said; though how an opera could have a house and a cart in
+it, beat me.
+
+Well, sisters, I give up. Roll every singing-school in Vermont into one
+crowd, and they couldn't begin to burst out like that; men, women, and
+girls, just went in for a splendid time, and they had it. First, a pew
+full of fiddlers, drummers, tromboners, and bas-violers, let themselves
+out in a storm of music that made the ten millions of beads on the glass
+balloons tremble like hailstones. Then the whole gang lifted up their
+voices, and the music rolled out just as I reckon the water does at
+Niagara Falls. Such a general training of music was enough to wake the
+dead out of a New England grave, where they sleep sound, I guess, if
+they do anywhere.
+
+By and by they rose up, and began to wander about, making their funny
+little white dogs play, and some of the girls began to dance about. It
+was a travelling-show, you see, and some of the upper-crust people came
+out of the house I spoke of, and listened. One was a lady, dressed out
+to kill in a striped skirt, black velvet, and yellow silk; another
+yellow skirt bunched over that, and then a blue dress puffed above both,
+and her hair just splendid. I tell you she was a dasher!
+
+But the people were all busy unloading the cart; they took out bundles
+and baskets and things. Finally a girl, that had been lying asleep on
+the load, jumped down, with her shoulders hitched up, and looking cross
+as fire at everybody that came near her. She was barefooted and
+bareheaded, and had nothing but an under night-gown and petticoat on,
+which seemed to aggravate her, for she looked scowling enough at the
+handsome young lady, and would not double-shuffle worth a cent, though
+all the men and women were trying to make her.
+
+The moment she jumped off from the cart, the folks in the seats just ran
+crazy, and began clapping their hands and stamping their feet like a
+house afire; I never saw people act so in my life. It was enough to
+frighten the poor thing half to death. Instead of that, it seemed to
+tickle her mightily, for she came forward, with her bare feet, and made
+a little mincing bow, and almost laughed.
+
+Then the strangest thing happened. First one, and then another, of the
+show-people, instead of reasoning with the wilful creature, just went to
+waving their arms and singing at her. I declare it was enough to have
+made a minister laugh when she turned, and began to sing back at them,
+sometimes spiteful, and then, again, with tears melting through her
+voice. An old man in gray clothes, that looked crazy as a coot, sung at
+her, sort of hoarse, and mournfully. Then a young fellow, in a green
+coat and high boots, dropped into the affair, and he sung at her. Then
+the handsome lady in blue and yellow burst out and sang at her too,
+filling the whole opera-house with music. By watching and listening, I
+found out this much. This girl was an orphan, picked up by the band of
+players, that made her dance and sing for her keeping. The fellow with
+the green coat and boots felt sorry for her, and bought her up, short
+gown and all, from the tribe of players. Then she put on the dress of a
+pretty boy, and waited on the handsome woman in yellow, who was one of
+them actress-women, and dead in love with the young fellow in boots. He
+was awfully in love with the actress woman too, which just aggravated
+that girl-boy out of her seven senses, poor thing! When she happened to
+watch them together, you should have seen her fling down her cap, and
+kick it about. There was some human nature in that, but singing love out
+before folks beats me. I couldn't bring myself to anything of the
+kind--not if the Grand Duke were standing before me with his arms out,
+shouting Old Hundred.
+
+Goodness gracious! that girl-boy had taken up my thoughts, so that I
+didn't know when the Grand Duke came into his pulpit loge. But there he
+was, standing up, and looking right toward me, so pleasant.
+
+I threw back my fur mantle a trifle, and taking Cousin E. E.'s fan,
+waved it gracefully, hoping thus to cool off the blushes that bathed my
+cheeks with a rosiness that I feared might not harmonize with the tints
+already there.
+
+Still he looked my way earnestly, and with the fire of admiration in his
+blue eyes. A young thing sitting in the loge-pew behind me began to turn
+away her head and hide behind her fan, as if she had anything to do with
+it. The conceit of some people is astonishing!
+
+Cousin E. E.'s little spy-glass lay in her lap. I took it up; I held it
+to my eyes, and devoured him with one burning glance. His heart seemed
+leaping to mine through the glass. I knew it. I felt it. Indeed he won't
+be the first of his noble race that has lost heart and soul to a country
+girl.
+
+The Prince sat down, and when there was a lull in the music, clapped his
+hands with joy. Oh, my sisters! it is something to have given such
+supreme pleasure to the Grand Ducal soul.
+
+He looked at the play; I looked too. Souls in sympathy have but one
+thought. I pitied that poor girl-boy with all my heart--my own happiness
+made me compassionate. How she suffered when that woman with the yellow
+skirts and the young fellow in boots were singing love to each other!
+Once she got wild, and dressed herself in a pink silk, and--well, she
+made one of those toilets that Cousin E. E. understands so well. I was
+sorry to see her exposing one or two little things that should be a
+secret with the sex. But she did, and the yellow lady caught her at it,
+and sung awfully provoking things at her.
+
+Well, she just tore off the dress, scattered the lace trimmings about,
+put on her old duds, and ran away.
+
+Then the house got on fire: the whole swarm of people come out
+helter-skelter, singing to the flames that didn't mind the music more
+than if it had been buckets full of water. Firemen came running with
+ladders that nobody climbed, and pails of water, that the firemen
+carried round and round, in and out, like crazy creatures. I am sure I
+saw one fellow, with a white pail, pitch through the same window into
+the red-hot flames fifty times. The poor girl-boy, being desperate, just
+pitched in, determined to burn herself, while the woman in yellow and
+the man in boots looked on.
+
+This went right to the cruel man's heart; he jumped in after her,
+carried her away from the devouring flames, and fell in love with her
+like a man. Of course, being a decent kind of a fellow, he couldn't keep
+on singing out his love to both girls at once with enthusiasm, and began
+to neglect the yellow girl in a way that brought tears into her voice
+whenever she came pleading to him under the window--which she did, not
+having the pride of all the Frost family in her veins.
+
+Of course this did no good; men never come back to women that whine. The
+girl--for she had given up boys' clothes--had got him safe; he didn't
+care a chestnut-burr for all the other's singing, but took to the little
+vagabondess with all his heart and soul.
+
+Now something else happened. The old man in gray got his mind again and
+turned out to be Mignon's father (have I told you that was her name?).
+He was a rich old fellow, with a house furnished with gilt chairs, and
+everything sumptuous--so, of course, the fellow in boots stuck to her
+more than ever.
+
+I don't know what became of the woman in yellow, but as for this other
+girl, she came out first best in every respect; especially at the end,
+when ever so many flowers and baskets and things were just poured down
+upon her. For my part, I thought the yellow girl ought to have had full
+half of these things, for I liked her quite as well, if not better than
+the vagabondess.
+
+Well, the green curtain went down for good, and the whole congregation
+got up to go out.
+
+"How do you like Nilsson?" says Cousin E. E., as she was fastening her
+fur mantle.
+
+"Nilsson!" says I, "I haven't seen her yet."
+
+"Why, yes you have--she just came out."
+
+"What!--that girl-boy?"
+
+"Yes, Mignon."
+
+"You don't say so," says I. "Who then was the girl in yellow?"
+
+"Oh! she is Duval."
+
+"Well, I like her at any rate, poor thing; it was a shame to treat her
+so."
+
+That moment I felt that the great Grand Duke was gone. Not one more
+glance. It was hard!
+
+
+
+
+XXV.
+
+THE BLACK CROOK.
+
+
+Sisters:--Since my intimacy with Imperial Royalty, Cousin Emily
+Elizabeth Dempster has been as proud as a peacock of our relationship,
+and speaks about the Court of all the Russias as if she expected to have
+an ice-palace built on the Neva for her, every winter, for the rest of
+her life. This may be natural--I dare say it is; but I'm afraid that
+Russia--being an awful despotism--wouldn't stand too many of one's
+relations crowding into the Imperial corn-crib, that being a free-born
+institution peculiar to high moral ideas which my great Grand Duke did
+not stay in Boston long enough to imbibe.
+
+Still, being a relation and born under the star-spangled banner, why
+shouldn't she have her own little hopes? I ask myself this and resolve
+to do my best for her. Being a first cousin she has her rights.
+
+This morning E. E. sent down a little straw-colored letter with a
+picture on the envelop just where it seals, and asked me to go with her
+and Dempster to see "The Black Crook," which she wrote was a spectacle
+worth looking at. They had got seats at Niblo's to see it after ever so
+much trouble, and were sure that I would be delighted.
+
+Delighted! What about! I never hankered much for eye-glass or
+spectacles. I wish cousin E. E. would be a little more particular about
+her spelling--that sometimes makes goose-pimples creep all over me--but
+a spectacle, singular, spelt with an "a," gives one just a tantalizing
+sense of growing old, more provoking than saying the thing right out. I
+can't see any more sense in one spectacle than in half a pair of
+scissors, but maybe she can. At any rate I don't mean to go gadding down
+to Mr. Niblo's theatre just to see that.
+
+But the "Black Crook," I'm beat to know what that has to do with
+spectacles or eye-glasses. I have read what our minister calls pastoral
+poetry, and almost always find it divided off into hill-side lots, where
+some stuck-up young creature in the farming line, is tending sheep, with
+a long crook-necked stick in her hand, with which she
+
+    Just trains the little bleating lambs,
+      "With fleece as white as snow,"
+    And points out with her crooked stick
+      Just where they ought to go.
+
+Excuse poetry, but, like a pent-up spring, it will break forth; nor must
+you suspect me of plagiarism. Remark--the second line has honest
+quotation-marks, which is doing full justice to Mary who owned the
+particular lamb which has become immortal from its whiteness and
+exceptional training.
+
+But all this does not bring us any nearer to what this Black Crook
+means. I have been studying this matter over. Of course a crook is a
+crook. Put the neck of a winter squash on the end of a bean pole, and
+you have it.
+
+But the Black Crook. Black? Ah, why didn't I think of that before? From
+the name, I suppose it is some reconstruction instrument for hooking-up
+taxes and bonds, left behind here in New York by some run-away Southern
+governor.
+
+Well, now, I _should_ like to see that--anything left behind by one of
+those fellows must be a curiosity.
+
+Yes, I made up my mind to accept Cousin E. E. D.'s invitation. The
+theatre would be something new anyhow, and it is the duty of my mission
+to see all things and hold fast to that which is good.
+
+Well, just before dark, I got out that pink silk dress and the two long
+braids, and shut myself in with the looking-glass over my bureau, which
+is always reflecting, but says nothing, or one might be afraid to trust
+it on some occasions.
+
+I was almost ready, when Cousin Emily E. come in so suddenly that I
+hopped up from my chair, and gave a scary scream. The face in the glass
+turned all sorts of colors, and seemed to scream too, and looked
+half-frightened to death. Cousin E. E. laughed, and shut the door.
+Holding up both hands, says she:
+
+"What, in that dress! My dear cousin, it is to a theatre we are going."
+
+"Well, I reckon your letter told me that," says I, a-spreading out the
+skirt of my dress along the floor.
+
+"But we do not dress like that for a theatre," says she, a-looking down
+at her black silk dress, which was all fluttered over with narrow
+ruffles. "No trains, dear Cousin Frost, no lace--a plain walking-dress
+and bonnet--nothing more?"
+
+I looked at the shiny waves of pink silk lying around my feet, and at
+that face in the glass, and was just ready to burst out a-crying. It was
+too bad.
+
+"You thought this just the thing when we went to hear that Miss Nilsson
+sing," says I, looking mournfully at that face in the glass, which was
+almost crying.
+
+"Yes; but that was the opera--this only a theatre. You see the
+difference," says she.
+
+"No, I don't," says I.
+
+"Well, you will," says she. "It's the fashion. You, who write about
+fashionable life so beautifully, ought to know that."
+
+"Just as if I didn't," says I; and the fire flashed into my eyes while I
+took off my pink dress; and put on my alpaca, which has got a new
+overskirt trimmed with flutings.
+
+"There," says I, flinging the pink silk down on the bed, "will that
+suit?"
+
+"Beautifully," says she. "Now get your shawl and bonnet."
+
+Which I did.
+
+The carriage held four of us this time, for Cousin E. E. had brought
+that little girl of hers, who sat huddled up in the back seat. When her
+mother told her to change places, "The idea," says she, giving her head
+a fling, and eying me like an angry poodle-dog; then she flounced down
+in the front seat, so huffish and sulky, that her father said, in a
+milk-and-waterish way:
+
+"My darling, don't be naughty."
+
+And his wife told him not to interfere between her and her child. She
+knew how to bring up a young lady, and he mustn't attempt to break her
+spirit; at which the heap of sulks in the corner muttered that it wasn't
+in him to do it.
+
+There isn't so very much difference between the Opera House and Mr.
+Niblo's theatre; only, one is piled up sky-high with cushioned
+galleries; and the theatre is considerably out-of-doors, especially in
+the lower story. We sat right in front, for Cousin E. E. said that the
+"Crook" could be seen best from there. I said nothing, but waited. Some
+people love to ask questions, but I would rather find out things for
+myself--it's a saving to one's feelings in the long run.
+
+Well, the theatre was jammed full of people, mostly with shawls, and
+cloaks, and bonnets on. Cousin E. E. was right. What is genteel in one
+place is vulgar in another--that is fashion.
+
+That child insisted on trying all the seats, to see which she liked
+best; but we got settled at last, and just then up went the
+picture-curtain with a rush. I screamed right out, for the very first
+sight took away my breath. Oh! sisters, I wish you could have seen it.
+Such trees, such loads of flowers, such clusters and streams of light!
+Oh my! if Eve ever had a paradise like that, she was just the greatest
+goose that ever lived to be turned out of it for the sake of one little
+knotty apple. I've no patience with her!
+
+While I was looking at this beautiful world, another scream burst from
+my lips, for, all in a moment, it was alive with women, so lovely, so
+graceful, so full of life, that they almost took away one's breath. At
+first, they all came whirling in, as figures do in a dream; but, after a
+minute, I just felt like sinking through the floor. Why, sisters, they
+might just as well have been dressed in flowers! In short, dress a
+full-grown girl in a double poppy, with fringed edges, and you have an
+idea of what I couldn't look at. I felt my cheeks glow with fire; my
+fingers tingled with shame. It seemed to me that every man in the house
+was looking straight into my eyes, to see how I bore it. I lifted my
+eyes, and cast one frightened look around me, ready to jump up and run
+from the first face turned to mine. Then I just covered my face with my
+open fan.
+
+There wasn't a face turned my way. Every soul--men, women, and
+children--were looking at those girls, who whirled, and moved, and
+tangled themselves up in some sort of a wild, wicked dance, that must
+have been the work of Old Nick himself, for nothing less could have made
+me look on. My whole heart rose right up against those beautiful
+creatures, but somehow they seemed to hold me to my seat. Really,
+sisters, you have no idea how very enticing a woman can be who puffs a
+lot of gauze around her waist, throws a wreath of flowers over her
+shoulders, and dances like a whirlwind.
+
+At first, I just covered my face with my fan, for I could not bring
+myself up to a straightforward look. Then, somehow, my fingers would get
+apart, and I found myself peeping through the slats just as shamed as
+could be, but yet I could not help peeping.
+
+Mercy on me, what a whirl and rush of light! What a flashing of gold;
+what a crowd of women dressed in nothing, and a little gauze thrown
+in--it made my head whirl like a top.
+
+I can't tell you just when my hand dropped into my lap, but before I
+knew it my eyes were fixed on that great whirling picture, and my sense
+of shame was lost in a storm of music. All these glittering women were
+standing in rows, regular as the pickets on a door-yard fence, while one
+girl, with a wreath of green leaves and red berries on her head, was
+whirling on one toe round and round, till she seemed to be a dozen girls
+whizzing round in a cloud of white muslin.
+
+By and by all the crowd of girls joined in and began dodging about among
+the trees and flowers, like--well I must say it,--like runaway angels
+determined to have a good time of it. Then a man, covered to his knees
+with silver scales like a fish, came in, and he had a dance with the
+girl in leaves and red berries. Such a dance--they backed, they
+advanced, they snapped their fingers at each other, they flung up their
+heels, they locked arms backwards, then broke apart, and began the most
+lively double-shuffle at each other that ever I dreamed of. It fairly
+took away my breath to see them.
+
+"That is a splendid can-can," says that child, taking the little
+spy-glass from her mother's lap, and levelling it at the dancers. "Don't
+you think so, Miss Phoemie?"
+
+I gave her a look; it was all I could spare just then, for some new
+people had come into the picture. A great tall fellow, with body
+supporters like bean poles, had come in with a lovely creature, who was
+considered a queen among the girls. Just as I was looking, he seemed to
+stretch himself out like a piece of india-rubber, and lifting one foot,
+swung it over her head without touching a curl.
+
+So this was the "Black Crook," not that I saw anything like a crook, but
+the burning pictures more than made up for that, and the dancing was,
+well--stupendous.
+
+Every once in a while a curtain would fall and shut out the pictures.
+Every time it was drawn up something more splendid than anything that
+had gone before came out. One picture was all in a veil of fog, through
+which the men and women roved like beautiful ghosts. In another, some of
+the cunningest little dogs you ever saw danced, and begged, and acted a
+play for themselves, just like human creatures. At last came a great
+fiery picture, all gold and glare, and flowers planted in fire, with
+trees that seemed to be dropping golden fruit, in which all the crowd of
+beautiful girls were lying on banks and under trees, and perched like
+splendid birds up in the air. Then the curtain came down with a thud,
+smothering up the fire, and hiding everything. The storm of music broke
+off with a crash, and the crowd began to shout and yell, and stamp their
+feet till the whole building shook.
+
+Sisters, this is all I can tell you about the "Black Crook." It is
+splendid, and wonderfully enticing; but you might as well expect me to
+give you a clear idea of a burning city. It is just one picture of
+gorgeous confusion and confused gorgeousness.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI.
+
+LIVING APART.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--There has been great tumult and trouble in New York since
+I wrote my last report. Something that relates to the honor of Vermont
+has thrilled the public mind to a fearful extent. A smart, genial,
+warm-hearted, dashing person, by the name of Fisk--Mr. James Fisk--born
+and brought up in our State, has been shot in the largest tavern in the
+city, where he died, I greatly fear, without a realizing sense that he
+was so soon to be called before his Maker.
+
+Many of you, my sisters, can remember this man--a great, handsome,
+good-natured-looking fellow, with sunshiny eyes, and a mustache that
+curled up like a pair of horns on each side of a mouth that always
+seemed ready to laugh at something. There wasn't a man that ever came to
+Sprucehill that everybody was so sure to remember. His great wagon,
+painted off like a circus, with four horses a-drawing it through the
+village, with a splash-dash noise of whips and wheels and hoofs, was
+enough to make the money spring right out of one's pocket. Mercy on me!
+Didn't he make the dry-goods fly! Everybody bought something of him, and
+I must say that everybody liked him. In the peddling line he was a sort
+of P. T. Barnum, only he didn't know how to stick to his trade as Barnum
+has. He drove his four horses; he made money like everything; he outgrew
+Brattleborough, which was his native place, and soon got above peddling,
+his native business.
+
+The next step towards his exaltation and ruin was that he left Vermont,
+a man who will do that of his own accord is sure to run wild. Well, he
+left his native State, and set up at the Hub of the Universe, which
+every one knows is Boston, where he began his education as a financier
+and a millionaire.
+
+Boston is a great city. I should like to hear any one dare to deny that;
+but, then, people here say that, in the way of financing, the Hub knows
+how to save, and skimp, and deposit, and get twice her share of offices
+out of the President of the United States; but, outside of that, she is
+nowhere, compared to New York. She has no idea of turning a sharp stock
+corner, couldn't get up a Black Friday to save her life; in fact, is
+only good at an old-fashioned tea-party. This is what Cousin Dempster
+says about Boston, and he ought to know, being a first-class broker in
+Wall Street, and New England born.
+
+Well, of course, it wasn't long before Mr. Fisk outgrew the Hub, which
+hadn't room for all the spokes which he wanted to carry to his wheel,
+and off he comes to New York, gets into the Erie Railroad, and, goodness
+knows how he did it! but before people knew who he was, he went smashing
+and crashing up that road, prowled through Wall Street like a roaring
+lion, or bear, or some other such animals as gore and claw each other in
+that neighborhood.
+
+Well, after he had sent a good many brokers sky-high with his horns, and
+knocked others down with his paws, for he tackled in with both, he goes
+kiting off to sea by way of the Sound.
+
+While people were wondering what he would do next, he had gone to work
+and fitted up great palatial steamboats, and invited the President to
+travel in them, which the President did, not dreaming that he was
+expected to build up a cattle-pen or a bear-garden in exchange for a
+little hospitality.
+
+Well, it's hard satisfying a Vermonter when he once breaks loose from
+his native mountains. After gobbling up railroads and putting steamboats
+afloat, Mr. Fisk just swung back into Wall Street one day, and upset
+things generally in less time than any man ever did before. No shootist
+ever brought down more birds at a shot, than he left men in that street
+rich in the morning, and ruined at night. Cousin Dempster says it was
+awful.
+
+Mr. Fisk didn't care, but wheeled out of the street just as he used to
+drive his pedler's wagon, with hoofs a-rattling and whips a-cracking,
+riding over ruined men everywhere in his track.
+
+Besides all this, Mr. Fisk had a great, grand, overpowering Opera House,
+and carried on a theatre, in which women danced, like Black-crookers,
+and sang like--well, I can't tell what they did sing like, not having a
+comparison handy--but it was awfully interesting, Cousin Dempster said;
+and I believe him, for E. E. says he used to go to that Opera House
+alone so often, that she began to be afraid that he was getting into
+some business with Mr. Fisk that must be transacted in the evening--a
+thing she didn't like, the man being considered so overpoweringly
+fascinating.
+
+I don't know whether Mr. Fisk belonged to the Woman's Righters or not,
+but there was a good deal of talk about him, such as would have
+compelled any religious society in Vermont to get up an investigation
+and some extra prayer-meetings, which he wouldn't have liked, being
+mostly given contrary-wise. But the one thing he hadn't done was to join
+a church, and, you see, nobody in particular had a right to call him to
+account but his wife, and she didn't.
+
+Some people were mean enough to hint that his system of married life
+wasn't just the thing for a couple brought up in the purifying
+atmosphere of a Vermont village, and went so far as to turn up their
+noses because he lived about the Opera House and she in Boston, close to
+the very heart of the Hub, as if any woman could get further away from
+original sin than that.
+
+But these slanderers knew as well as could be, that Mr. Fisk had a free
+pass on the telegraph and steam communication with his wife every day.
+Besides, didn't the newspapers give his most private actions to an
+admiring public, every few hours, and couldn't she read how blameless
+and self-sacrificing his life was.
+
+Besides being a great financier and seafaring man, our Vermont pedler
+took up social life as a specialty, and distinguished himself among the
+high fashionables. The moral ideas that he had brought from Down East,
+were just as dashing as his Wall-street corners. He still kept the
+telegraph wires quivering with conjugal messages, and when he took
+domestic ease and the fresh salt air on the Jersey sea-coast, at Long
+Branch, in a high-swung carriage, with four seats, and stable help in
+trainer's clothes, wasn't his wife at another watering-place, called
+Newport, with a high-swinging carriage of her own, all cushioned off
+with silk, and with her gold-mounted harness rattling over six horses,
+just as black and shiny as his?
+
+If that isn't conjugal sympathy, such as goes down among the upper crust
+of New York, I don't know what is.
+
+Just the same number of horses, just the same swing in her carriage,
+just the same people--no, I am a little out there. She had relations in
+the seats, and he hadn't always.
+
+But then, what is all that compared to a great many fashionable,
+married folks in New York--so extravagantly fond of each other, that
+they make the Atlantic Ocean for a connecting link, year after year, and
+correspond tenderly in bills of exchange.
+
+Our poor, dead pedler from Vermont wasn't the only man in New York who
+lived and loved by steam and telegraph.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII.
+
+MORE ABOUT FISK.
+
+
+When the New England mind, which is a little apt to be troubled about
+the marriage relations of its emigrants, asks you about my report, you
+can say that this New England couple were only following the upper-crust
+fashion with married people in our great cities, where men and their
+wives find the Atlantic Ocean more convenient than a divorce court.
+Being imbued with morality from the Hub, they only set an example of
+easy distances.
+
+It takes a good, solid foundation of religion for even a born Vermonter
+to stand against a sudden rush of money. This man seemed to start fair.
+He began his life with _us_. Next he went to Boston, the very spring and
+fountain of high moral ideas, where every law has a higher law to
+nullify it. He left his better half in the salubrious atmosphere, where
+she performed her domestic duties alone, while he was toiling down Erie
+railroad stock, and promulgating sweet sounds from the Grand Opera
+House. Bound together in conjugal sympathy, by ever-vibrating telegraph
+wires, what could have been more satisfactory and highly fashionable
+than these hymeneal relations?
+
+This is what Cousin Dempster has been saying to me with a queer smile on
+his lips, and something that seems almost sarcastic in his voice.
+
+Says he, "If this way of life is persisted in, and is held respectable
+in social circles, who has a right to find fault when sin and sorrow
+spring out of it? Who among the thousands who abandon honorable homes
+for personal pleasures shall dare to condemn him?
+
+"Look over the list of outgoing steamers any month in the year, and see
+how large a proportion of husbands and wives travel together. Society,
+so slanderous in other things, is wickedly tolerant here, and makes a
+thousand excuses for the separation of married people.
+
+"Children must be educated. Just as if a free-born American boy or girl
+can't learn all he or she is capable of knowing in his own native land!
+Just as if any woman, who loves her husband and means to be a good
+mother, would listen for a moment to the idea of taking her family into
+foreign parts while her husband is tied down to business at home.
+
+"Married people, who love each other, live together--temptations are
+serpent-like, but they seldom creep upon a hearthstone kept warm by
+domestic affection.
+
+"Parents who are willing to live apart for the sake of their children,
+and call it a sacrifice to duty, may not know that they are hypocrites,
+but other people know it. Scandal thrives upon such things, and where
+scandal thrives domestic happiness perishes.
+
+"The marriage relations are the soul of our social life; relax them,
+take away one grain of their holiness, and you blast the blossom from
+which wholesome fruit can spring. When love and truth dies out of
+marriage, its vitality is gone. God forgive the men and the women who
+dare to hold the most beautiful tie that links soul to soul, as a wisp
+of flax, to be rent or burned at the will of our most evil passions.
+
+"Can any human being make laws for himself and trample under foot those
+which have been for ages laid down by society, without meeting, sooner
+or later, with rebuke, and perhaps, ruin? Evil passions arouse evil
+passions. The profligacy and power of gold is sometimes most dangerous
+in a generous nature. In the hot sunshine of overwhelming good fortune,
+fiery passions are sure to thrive and tend to a poisonous growth. War is
+the mother of licentiousness. How much that men should avoid, and women
+shudder at, has sprung out of the civil war, which ebbs and flows even
+yet on the borders of our land! In that war men learned to be daring in
+other things than brave deeds, and women learned to be shameless, and
+glory in free speech, free actions, and free laws of their own devising.
+
+"These thoughts are forced from me by the violent death of a man who had
+the brain and the heart to be an honor to our State, whose capacity and
+cordial good-nature might have gained him the love of better men than he
+ever knew in his brief and fiery career, and who had the brain to
+accomplish great things in the future."
+
+I listened with breathless attention to what Cousin Dempster said. He
+spoke with feeling. I didn't think there was so much in the man. He got
+up from his chair and began to walk the room.
+
+"I cannot dwell upon this man's wildly brilliant career," says he,
+"without a feeling of melancholy. Here existed the capacities of a great
+man, perfect health, wonderful energy, struggling aspirations toward the
+right--which he might hereafter have reached--generous impulses running
+wild, strong affections, and overweaning ambition, all turbulent
+ostentations almost barbaric, and all hurled into nothingness by the
+blow of one bitter enemy.
+
+"As he had lived, so they carried him to his grave, arrayed gorgeously
+in his coffin, lying in high state, not by the sacred altar of a church,
+but in the Grand Opera House, which had so long been the centre of his
+magnificence. Buried in flowers snow-white, as if gathered for the tomb
+of a vestal, glittering with gold, with clouds of perfume floating over
+him--in all the pomp of a monarch he was taken from New York, and
+carried for a last resting-place to Vermont.
+
+"I wish it had been otherwise. Living as he did, dying as he did, with
+the ruin of so many lives involved in his fate, that last journey should
+have been taken in simplicity and quietness. The lesson his death
+conveys is too solemn for display, too mournful for anything but
+stillness. The elements of a great man left Vermont only a few years
+ago; New York has sent back the ruins. Let them rest in peace."
+
+Sisters, I did not think it possible that Cousin Dempster could get so
+fearfully earnest; his conversation has filled me with thoughts too
+solemn for careless utterance. In this man's death I hear a cry for
+merciful consideration--a solemn warning--a protest against the headlong
+speed with which this generation is trampling respectability under foot.
+This man's death is a subject of gossip now, when it should be a subject
+of mournful regret.
+
+I do not speak here of the man who killed him, or the cause of his
+death. One is a subject that no lady would care to discuss. The other is
+in the hands of the law, which should be a sanctuary for the accused.
+The evidence has been heard thoroughly, and a jury has decided on it,
+merciful or not, its verdict is final.
+
+But for Cousin Dempster, I should not have made this death the subject
+of a report, but some things that he has said startled me. Is it true
+that the alienation and separation of married people has become so easy
+and so fashionable? Can a husband and wife live apart months, years, and
+still keep up a pretence or the reality of affection, and be honored as
+respectable? I, for one, have no patience with such things. To me,
+marriage is a beautiful institution.
+
+Do not smile, sisters; I am not thinking of the great Grand Duke now. In
+fact I am not thinking of myself at all. Cousin Dempster's earnestness
+has impressed me with apprehension and melancholy; he places this
+subject before me in a new light.
+
+The man who is dead was in the full vigor of his life. The poor wept for
+him; he was good to them, and they believed that he had a kind heart.
+Sometimes that heart went back to the prayers of his mother. Had time
+been given him, something tender and good might have found a noble
+growth in his nature. We do not yet know, and never shall know, what he
+might have been.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII.
+
+SHE WOULD GO.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I have had a glorious and a refreshing season. I have
+felt, in the depths of my soul, that the eyes, of all Vermont were on me
+in a reflective way. As the moon is sometimes permitted to shine before
+the sun goes down, I have added the light of my little feminine luminary
+to the flood of public homage that surrounds the greatest and best man
+that our State ever gave to the world.
+
+Saturday night, February third, was Horace Greeley's birthday. A
+gentleman up-town, who thinks the world of that smartest of good men,
+just made a house-warming on the occasion, and invited so many artists
+and poets, and editors and statesmen, and people that Providence had
+labelled as something particular, that it is a wonder the roof wasn't
+blown off with the yeasting of so much genius.
+
+Of course the beauty and talent of old Vermont, wherever it could be
+found, was hunted up, and invited with unusual enthusiasm. Where beauty
+and talent could be found united in one person--modesty forbids me to
+point out an instance--of course an especial compliment was paid. My
+invitation had a picture of the man, whose birthday we went to
+celebrate, in the middle of the writing--a real good likeness, that I
+mean to put in a locket and wear round my neck in honor of this
+self-made man and of my own native State, which may have double cause to
+glorify herself when the sixty-first birthday of another person just
+standing in front of the Temple of Fame, with her foot on the
+threshold, shall come round. I say nothing, but in the female line
+Vermont has laid up oceans of future glory for herself.
+
+Well, the day came. Once more I drew forth my pink silk dress, and
+ironed out the flounces; one of them got a little scorched, but I looped
+up the spot with a bow and a bunch of roses, and found the scorch an
+artistic improvement. I twisted my hair in corkscrews over night, and
+slept with my eyes wide open, contented as a kitten, though the pull was
+tremendous. I frizzed up the other woman's hair, for which I had paid
+ten dollars in the Sixth Avenue, and made ready for the occasion over
+night in a general way.
+
+Of course Cousin Dempster and his wife were invited, being _my_ cousins,
+and so saturated with the family genius, that people are constantly
+expecting it to break out, which it hasn't yet, except in a general way.
+But Cousin D. made lots of money in the war, and money is thought almost
+as much of as talent by some people. Still, between ourselves, I don't
+think they would have been invited if they hadn't come from Sprucehill;
+which is taking a literary position next to the Hub since our Society
+has begun to publish my humble reports.
+
+Well, just at nine o'clock, if you had been in front of my
+boarding-house you might have seen a splendid carriage standing at the
+door, and that coachman, in his fur collar and cuffs, sitting high up on
+the driver's seat, and scrouching his head down while a storm of sleet
+and snow beat over him.
+
+If you had looked toward the house, three or four eager and curious
+faces might have been seen flat against every front window as a certain
+dignified and queenly person came slowly down the steps, with a white
+opera-cloak folded over her magnificent person, and a pink silk long
+train bunched up under it, lining-side out.
+
+The moment that carriage-door shut with an aristocratic bang you might
+have seen those faces turn from the window and look at each other--then
+noses turned up at sympathizing noses, giving out audible sniffs of that
+envy which the wonderful endowments of some persons are apt to engender
+in the inferior female mind.
+
+But if you had looked into that carriage you would have seen it packed
+comfortably as a robin's nest in blossom time. There was my pink dress
+floating round me in rosy billows; there was Cousin E. E.'s corn-colored
+moiré antique swelling like a balloon on her side; and there was Cousin
+Dempster rising like a black exclamation point up from one corner, and
+_that child_ drumming her blue kid-boots against the seat in another
+corner, and snarling because a gust of sleet came in with me before the
+fellow outside could shut the door.
+
+When I saw her, my blood riled in a minute.
+
+"Why, Cousin Dempster," says I, "children were not invited."
+
+"Children, indeed!" says the child, giving her head a fling: "I suppose
+Cousin Frost thinks that nothing but old maids can be young ladies--the
+idea!"
+
+"Daughter!" almost shrieked Cousin Emily E., a-catching her breath, and
+giving a frightened look over my way.
+
+"My child, how can you be so rude?" says Cousin Dempster, stamping down
+among the fur robes, and mashing my foot under the sole of his boot.
+
+I said nothing, but sat in dignified silence, wishing those two persons
+to feel that it was impossible the creature could mean me, but I
+trembled all over with righteous indignation, and wondered why that
+Bible benefactor, King Herod, had limited himself to boys, when he had
+such a glorious chance to sweep creatures like that out of existence in
+the female line. Oh! if I had been a Bible potentate!
+
+"She was so anxious to go, being born in Vermont," says Cousin Emily
+Elizabeth; "it seems as if she knew Mr. Greeley."
+
+"Reads the _Tribune_ every day," chimes in Cousin Dempster, giving me a
+pleading look.
+
+"I'll thank you to take the heel of your boot off my foot, if you have
+held it there long enough," says I, with the firmness of a martyr and
+the dignity of an empress.
+
+This wilted the whole party into silence, and we drove on, with the hail
+pelting against the windows, and lowering clouds inside.
+
+All at once we got into a long line of carriages, and moved on as if we
+were going to a funeral instead of a birthday. Then the carriage
+stopped, the door was flung open, and we stepped under a long tent that
+stretched from the front door down a flight of stone steps and across
+the sidewalk. A carpet ran down the steps to the carriage, and we walked
+up that into the house; then through a hall, and upstairs, where we took
+off our cloaks and titivated up a little in a room half full of ladies,
+and blocked up with cloaks and things. I let down Cousin E. E.'s dress,
+and she let down mine; then we shook each other out, took an observation
+of each other from head to foot, tightened the buttons of our gloves,
+and went into the hall.
+
+There stood Cousin Dempster, with his white gloves on, and a white
+cravat with lace edges around his neck, looking _so_ gentlemanly. We
+went downstairs Indian file, for a stream of people were going down on
+one side all crimlicued off most gorgeously; and another stream was
+going up, with cloaks and hoods on, so there was no locking arms till we
+got into the lower hall. Then we just tackled in. I took one arm, E. E.
+took the other, and _that creature_ followed after, looking like an
+infantile Black Crook in her short muslin skirts and bunched-up sash.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX.
+
+MR. GREELEY'S BIRTHDAY PARTY.
+
+
+The parlors were large and light, and crowded full. Just beyond the door
+I saw a man standing, with both hands at work, shaking out welcomes to
+his friends, as a chestnut bough rattles down nuts after a rousing
+frost.
+
+There he stood--the honored son of our dear old State--looking benign as
+Mr. Benjamin Franklin, and sweet-tempered as if he had fed on native
+maple-sugar all his life. I looked eagerly for his "old white coat," but
+he had on a bran-new black one; his hair, long and snow-white, fell down
+almost to his shoulders, that were rather broad than otherwise, which is
+needful considering the burdens that have been piled on them. I really
+think any stranger, going in there, would have known that this man owned
+a birthday by his face, it was so radiant with good-nature.
+
+By and by we hustled our way to the door. A man that stood there
+whispered something to Cousin Dempster, who whispered back. Then the man
+sung out--
+
+"Mr. and Mrs. Dempster--Miss Phoemie Frost!"
+
+Mercy on me, wasn't there a fluttering when that name rang through the
+crowd, as if blown by the trumpet of Fame. I felt myself blushing from
+head to foot, my heart rose into my mouth. I clung with feminine
+reliance on my cousin's arm, and, thus supported, prepared to endure the
+hundreds of admiring eyes bent upon me.
+
+Mr. Greeley came forward. The moment he heard that name he seized the
+two whitely gloved hands that I held out to him.
+
+"Miss Frost, of Vermont," says he.
+
+I pressed his hands. I could not speak. A little address, full of
+poetry, that I had been thinking over in my mind, melted into chaos. I
+could only murmur something about birthdays and long lives. Then some
+new people crowded me away, and I felt myself alone long enough to take
+a look at the rooms. They were gorgeous with pictures and flowers;
+radiant with gas, which fell like August sunshine through a thicket of
+vines, and flowers woven in among the burners in the chandelier, and
+dropping down half way to the floor.
+
+The marble slabs under the looking-glass at each end of the rooms were
+matted over with flowers, and from the top streamed down long feathery
+vines which ended in little bunches of red roses that swung loose before
+the glass, and left another vine there. Over the doors and windows these
+vines and flowers trailed themselves everywhere. Some beautiful pictures
+were on the walls. The centre one was of Greeley himself--just like
+him--bland and serene, smiling down upon the crowd as if he longed to
+shake hands over again.
+
+This picture was just crowned with a mat of white flowers, in which the
+year our Greeley was born, and the present year, were woven with bright
+red flowers. Down each side the feathery vines trailed and quivered. I
+tell you, sisters, it was beautiful.
+
+Before I could take in a full view, people had found out where I stood,
+and came crowding round me so close that I had to take in a reef of my
+pink silk dress, and they kept Cousin Dempster busy as a bee introducing
+them. So many people had read my writings, so many people had been dying
+to see me, it was enough to bring blushes to my cheeks and tears to my
+eyes. This, said I, is fame--and all Vermont shall hear of it, not for
+my sake, but in behalf of the Society.
+
+The rooms had been full of music all the time, but now the toot horns
+and fiddles stopped, and I heard the tones of a pianoforte from the
+further end of the room, then a voice struck in--loud, clear, ringing.
+We pressed forward, people made way for us, and we got into the ring.
+
+A young lady was standing by the pianoforte, singing "Auld Lang Syne."
+Greeley stood by her, holding her bouquet in his hand. How smiling, how
+satisfied he looked as the heart-stirring old song rang over him! Close
+by stood his only sister, Mrs. Cleveland, a fair and real handsome
+woman, dressed in blue silk, with a white lace shawl a-shimmering over
+it. She looked happy as a blue jay on an apple-tree bough, and made
+everybody welcome over again when Mr. Greeley had done it once--just as
+a kind, warm-hearted woman ought to stand by a brother she is proud of,
+and looks like.
+
+Near by were her two daughters, just the nicest girls you ever saw. One
+of 'em in a pink satin dress with lace over it, and the other in blue
+satin with lace--just lovely!
+
+When the lady who did "Auld Lang Syne" went away from the pianoforte,
+every lady in the room began to clap hands, they seemed to be so glad
+that Mr. Greeley had found time to have a birthday. Then Miss Cleveland,
+in the blue dress, sat down, looking sweet and modest as a white dove;
+and she sang, too, real sweet; and then the people began to clap hands
+again. It seemed as if music just set them off into tantrums of delight
+because our great white-headed Vermonter had ever been born.
+
+I joined in with a vim; for if there is anybody I like and am proud of,
+it is the man who was standing there smiling among his friends, with
+that great, lovely bunch of flowers in his hands, and a little one in
+the button-hole of his coat.
+
+The wife and two daughters of our statesman and friend were over in
+England, so that his family connections didn't spread as if he had been
+President of the United States. But then he had a great many honest
+friends, and that made up for it considerably. There stood Mr. and Mrs.
+A. J. Johnson, who had carpeted their stone steps, set up a tent over
+their hospitable door, and turned their parlors into a blooming garden,
+just to show the respect they had for him; and they did it beautifully,
+making his friends theirs. At any rate, I can answer for one; for any
+person who does honor to a Vermont man who has glorified his State, can
+count on the faithful friendship of Phoemie Frost during his natural
+life.
+
+At eleven o'clock, exactly, we all crowded around Mr. Greeley, and shook
+hands with him over again. Then we shook hands with Mrs. Johnson, who
+looked sweet, and was nice as nice could be; and with Mr. Johnson, and
+so on. After that, we all flocked out, with cloaks and hoods on, feeling
+that an evening like that was a refreshing season which will not be
+forgotten by some of us, so long as we live.
+
+One thing I forgot to mention--and I do it now, with tears in my eyes.
+In the front parlor, on a line with Mr. Greeley's picture, was one that
+made the heart ache in my bosom, and which will bring tears into your
+eyes, one and all, I know. It was the picture of Alice Cary. You have
+read her poetry; you know how good she was from that poetry; but I have
+learned some things about her here, that, as a Society, you should hear
+about. But I respect her memory so much that it must be in a report by
+itself. She was a great friend of Mr. Greeley's, and her shadow seemed
+to smile on him as it hung upon the wall.
+
+
+
+
+XXX.
+
+LEAP YEAR.
+
+
+Do you know that this is Leap Year? Do you begin to feel the glorious
+flood of liberty which it lets in upon the female women of this country?
+As a society and as individuals, let us press forward to the mark of the
+prize--I beg pardon.
+
+This is not exactly a religious subject, though it does relate to the
+hymeneal altar, at which we have never yet been permitted to worship--a
+lasting and burning shame, which I, for one, begin to feel more deeply
+every day of my life.
+
+True, my own prospects are brightening and glorifying, but circumstances
+have brought them, for the present, to a dead halt. But for the burst
+of golden sunshine let into my sad destiny by this opening Leap Year, I
+should be growing pale with suspense--for you know the great Grand Duke,
+though courteous and devotional, did not speak out in a perfectly
+satisfactory manner. I knew he meant it; for no robin's nest in laying
+time was ever so full of warm and brooding love as those blue eyes of
+his. But a cruel fate took him hence before the thrilling word was
+spoken, and left me trembling with doubt, pining in loneliness.
+
+I know the reason of this now; there is not a doubt that he has been
+anxious, like myself, but imperial royalty has its impediments. My
+Prince must bow to the exactions of a lofty station. I took up a paper
+the other day, and read something that made the heart leap in my bosom
+as a trout jumps after a fly. The Emperor has heard of the great Grand
+Duke's admiration. All Russia has heard of it and me. It is even
+reported that he has married a lovely and talented female, without
+waiting for the Emperor to say yes or no. The description answers, you
+will perceive. I felt myself blush, like a rose in the sunset, when I
+read it. "Lovely and talented." Sisters, there can be no doubt about it!
+
+I felt my cheeks burn and my heart broaden with a sense of coming
+exaltation. Why should the Emperor refuse? Are we not all queens in this
+country, and is not a woman of genius an empress among queens?
+
+I'm afraid the Emperor of all the Russias does not yet comprehend the
+great social system of our country, where the fact of being a woman has
+infinite nobility in itself--to which peculiar privileges are attached;
+for instance, the privilege of carrying pistols and shooting down men in
+hallways and street cars in a promiscuous fashion.
+
+As I have said--to be a woman in America is to be everything. That is
+why I think it unreasonable that Imperial nobility should be forbidden
+to match itself here. Once we had aristocracy of money, but since the
+war, when people became rich in no time by selling shoddy and things,
+that has levelled down like a sand heap. But one aristocracy is left
+now, and that is the aristocracy of mind. Genius is the nobility of the
+mind. Now as long as the Prince unites himself with that, what has any
+one, even his august father, to say against it?
+
+But there is no doubt I have given the Imperial heart some anxiety.
+_His_ manner was so impressive; his spy-glass was levelled at my
+countenance so often, that it is not to be wondered at if the violence
+of his passionate admiration did get about and fly on the wings of the
+wind to his Imperial home. There it was sure to make an excitement.
+American ladies have married lords and marquises in England, counts and
+princes in other countries, and make first-rate lordesses and
+marchionesses and princesses too. In fact, just as good as the born
+nobility, and better too; but up to this time it is left to a lovely
+woman of genius to exalt America into the region of imperial highness.
+Money--for your lords, etc., etc., etc., generally want that with
+American beauty and grace--money has done its utmost. Now genius comes
+in, and modesty crowns itself.
+
+I am satisfied that the great Grand Duke is only waiting, from a feeling
+of doubt and modesty. My heart compassionates him. Up to the first of
+January, I could do no more. Female propriety forbade it, but now--now
+all is changed. Modesty is disenthralled.
+
+It is Leap Year. St. Valentine's Day approaches. The windows of every
+book-store are a-blazing with valentines, burning with love, eloquent of
+the tender passions, pictorial and poetical.
+
+The Queen of England offered herself to Prince Albert. It must have been
+a touching scene. How modestly she suggested the flame that was kindled
+in her youthful heart, and still lies smouldering in the ashes of that
+good man's grave. I don't think she waited for Leap Year--but I will. No
+one shall say that Phoemie Frost has forgotten what is due to her sex.
+
+St. Valentine's Day emancipates the womanly heart. I have bought a
+valentine, white satin, surrounded by a frost work of silver lace,
+sprinkled with gold stars. On the satin is a little boy with wings,
+hiding behind a rose-bush, firing arrows through it from a bow which he
+lifts up roguishly. These arrows are aimed at an Imperial figure mounted
+on a wild horse, and running down a buffalo--a unique and beautifully
+suggestive idea. This was the poem which gushed with spontaneosity from
+my disenthralled mind:
+
+    Come back, come back, from the buffalo raid!
+      Here is fairer game for you;
+    At thy feet the lovingest heart is laid
+      That ever a Grand Duke knew.
+    A lady rich in womanly pride,
+      Whose soul clings unto thine,
+    Is ready to be an Imperial bride--
+      Kneel with thee at Hymen's shrine.
+    Come back, come back, or thy haughty sire
+      Will command, and all is lost;
+    But he cannot extinguish this holy fire
+      In the bosom of----
+
+Sisters, I ask you now, isn't this a gem? It isn't just the thing to put
+your name to a valentine, they tell me, but this is something deeper and
+more poetic than such things usually are. It means mischief, as Cousin
+Dempster says. It is a proposal, buried in roses and veiled in sweet and
+modest verse, such as a lady might almost send at any time with a few
+blushes. It will reach him out in that vast wilderness of dead grass,
+where he has been deluded off by Mr. Sheridan, and has risked his
+precious life in a terrific manner, shooting great, monstrous buffaloes,
+which are animals, they tell me, something like an overgrown ox, only
+the hair is longer, and they are kind of hunched-up about the upper end
+of the back, just as if the last city fashions among ladies had got to
+be the rage out there.
+
+Imagine my feelings, sisters, when I heard that the Grand Duke was off
+with that fellow and a squad of wild Indians, all in war-paint and
+tomahawks, hunting these terrific creatures. It almost made me feel like
+a widow. There he was, brought up so tenderly, eating broiled buffalo
+hump, and drinking champagne and things out in the open lots, as big as
+all out-doors, and sleeping in a tent. Think of it! With his own right
+hand he shot down twenty-five of these humpbacked monsters, and means to
+carry their skins home with him to Russia. I suppose Mr. Philip Sheridan
+will be for studying the military tactics of Russia from St. Petersburg
+to Siberia as soon as the great Grand Duke gets back, for he isn't the
+sort of fellow, folks tell me, to give up a chance like that. Governor
+Palmer, of Illinois, has, at any rate, given him leave of absence from
+the Chicago fires, and there isn't anything much to keep him from
+hunting in Siberia if he wants to.
+
+Well, I got my valentine all ready; directed it to the Grand Duke in a
+delicate, ladylike way, and took it with my own hands down to the
+post-office.
+
+"Be very careful of this," says I to a young man who stood at the
+post-office window, "and see that it goes straight to his Royal
+Highness; I want it to reach him the first thing in the morning on
+Valentine's Day."
+
+He looked at the address, and muttered to himself:
+
+"For His Royal Highness the Grand Duke of all the Russias: care of
+Philip Sheridan and a wild Indian whose name a refined lady could not
+bring herself to pronounce; Buffalo Plains, America."
+
+"My dear madame," says he, all at once, "this is no address at all; it
+would never reach the Grand Duke."
+
+I caught my breath.
+
+"Not reach him?" says I.
+
+"No," says he; "the Grand Duke has gone beyond the reach of the mails."
+
+"Goodness gracious!" says I; "but no matter about that, if he hasn't got
+out of the reach of the females."
+
+"But he has."
+
+My heart sank in my bosom like a soggy apple-dumpling.
+
+"What--all females?" says I. "Won't that reach him, anyway? it is
+important--very. Great destinies depend upon it."
+
+"I can put it in," says he; "but ten chances to one it will get into the
+dead-letter office."
+
+My heart grew heavier and heavier, but what could I do?
+
+"Put it in," says I; "live or die, it must go!"
+
+He took my valentine and pitched it off into a heap of letters, just as
+if it had been a dead leaf. It fairly made me faint to see it handled
+so; but the fellow turned his back on me, and I went away heart-sick.
+
+One comfort I had in all this--if my valentine could not reach him, that
+of no other female could; and my offer is sure to be first, though I
+shouldn't wonder if that girl who sent him her card tied round a canary
+bird's neck might try. She's forward enough, anyway.
+
+Then, there is another comfort--Valentine's Day don't cover the whole
+Leap Year, and there are other men than the great Grand Duke in the
+world. We females have a whole twelvemonths to try our luck in. Of
+course any of us would aim high the first months; but after that, the
+game will grow smaller and wilder, as a general thing, and our chances
+less.
+
+For my part, I mean to be up and doing. One disappointment isn't going
+to break my heart; I've had too many for that; but if human energy and
+human genius can avail anything against an adverse destiny, my signature
+will be changed before this year closes.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI.
+
+A MAN THAT WOULDN'T TAKE MONEY.
+
+
+Cousin Dempster is real good to me; no mistake about that. A day or two
+ago, he says to his wife, says he:
+
+"Supposing we take Cousin Phoemie down to an oyster lunch at Fulton
+Market. That is one of the lions of the city."
+
+I fairly hopped up from my chair when he said this, just as cool and
+easy as if he had been talking of rabbits lapping milk. What on earth
+had I to do with city lions, and such animals? Wild beasts like these
+are in no part of my mission, now are they?
+
+Cousin E. E. saw the scare in my eyes, and smiled.
+
+"I know it seems strange to people from outside," says she; "and it
+really is a dirty place; but somehow ladies and gentlemen have made it
+the rage."
+
+"Do the creatures rage fiercely?" says I.
+
+Cousin E. E. looked puzzled a minute, then she answered:
+
+"Oh," says she, "fashion takes queer twists sometimes; in this case it
+really is unaccountable. The people crowding into those wooden dens--and
+the eating done there is wonderful."
+
+"Eating!" says I, feeling my eyes grow big as saucers. "Eating! Do they
+feed before folks, then?"
+
+"Oh, yes; every lady goes; you never saw anything like it. Such
+Rockaways and other bivalves are to be found nowhere else."
+
+"Rockaways and bivalves!" thinks I to myself; "what kind of animals are
+they? Never heard of bivalves before in my whole life, but the other
+puts me in mind of old Grandma Frost's splint-bottomed rocking-chair. No
+need of saying rock-away to her, for she was always on the teater. But
+she's dead now, and the last time I ever saw her Boston rocker it was
+away back of the chimney, at the old homestead, scrouged in between the
+stones and the clapboards, with one rocker torn off and an arm broken. I
+couldn't help asking Cousin E. E. if she remembered that chair.
+
+"Oh, yes," says she; "somebody hustled it off into the garret the moment
+she'd done with it. I saw it there a year after the funeral, with the
+patchwork cushion of red and blue cloth moth-eaten and gray with dust."
+
+Now, my father owned the old homestead while he lived, and I took this
+as a slur on our branch of the Frost family. This riled me internally,
+but I couldn't contradict her, and felt myself blushing hotly, rather
+ashamed of the Frost family. But the truth is, as a race, we are none of
+us given to much antiquity. No female of our family was ever known to
+get over forty-nine in her own person, though many of them have lived to
+a wonderful old age. This was curious, but a fact. Such unaccountable
+things do sometimes run in families. But these are facts that I
+sometimes choke down--I did it now.
+
+"We were talking of something else, and got on to chairs," says I.
+
+"No uncommon thing," says Cousin Dempster, laughing.
+
+I laughed too, but that child turned up her sniffy nose, and, looking at
+her father, said:
+
+"The idea!" which wilted him down at once.
+
+"But these bivalves and Rockaways--what do they do with them?"
+
+"Why, eat them, of course."
+
+"Eat them? How?"
+
+"Raw."
+
+"Mercy on me! Raw?"
+
+"Well, Cousin E. E., it shan't be said that you are related to a coward.
+I'll go down to see these city lions; but when?"
+
+"Well, to-day," says Cousin Dempster. "Just come down to the office
+about noon, and I'll go with you."
+
+"Just so," says I, feeling a little shivery.
+
+"Would you like to go, darling?" says he speaking to his little girl, as
+if half afraid.
+
+"Me, papa, down to that horrid place all meat and butter, and fish and
+things? The idea!"
+
+I was so grateful to the stuck-up thing, that I'm afraid Cousin E. E.
+saw it in my eyes, for she sort of clouded over and said:
+
+"That, after all, she didn't think she cared to go, but that needn't
+keep Cousin Phoemie at home. Mr. Dempster would take her."
+
+"Well, just as you please," says he, a-taking his hat, "I'm at your
+service--singly or in groups. Good-morning."
+
+Well, in the afternoon, I asked Cousin E. E., in a kind of natural way,
+if she meant to go to that feed. But that child called out:
+
+"No, no, mamma, don't go; I won't be left alone."
+
+So Cousin E. E. said she had a bad headache, and thought she wouldn't
+go, but that needn't keep me.
+
+Now, sisters, I wasn't brought up in the woods to be scared by owls, as
+we say in our parts--and if that little upstart thought she would keep
+me at home by domineering over her mother, she soon found out her
+mistake, for in less than two minutes a young lady, of about my size,
+came downstairs, with her beehive bonnet on, a satchel in one hand and
+an umbrella in the other.
+
+"You will find the way easy enough," says Cousin E. E. "The cars take
+you close to the office, and you will get splendid oysters at the
+market."
+
+Oysters! the very word made my mouth water, for if there is a thing on
+earth that I deliciously adore, it is oysters--such as you get here in
+York.
+
+"Oysters!" says I, "why didn't you tell me that before?"
+
+"We did," says she; "of course we did!"
+
+I was too polite to contradict her; but I'll take my Bible oath that not
+one word about shell-fish of any kind had been mentioned that
+morning--nothing but a great city lion, Rockaways, bivalves, and animals
+like them. Still I said nothing, but went out encouraged by the idea
+that I was to have something to eat as well as the lion.
+
+It was afternoon, and the street-car wasn't overfull, so I took a seat
+in one corner and began to think over a piece of poetry that I have got
+into my mind, which shortened the way to Dempster's office wonderfully.
+In less than no time I seemed to get there, but he had just stepped out.
+One of the clerks said that he thought he had gone to the market for
+lunch.
+
+Oh, mercy! I felt as if my oysters were all out to sea again. I was too
+late.
+
+"Which is the way to the market?" says I.
+
+"I will show you," says he--which he did--walking by my side till I got
+in sight of a long, low, broad-spreading building that seemed all roof,
+and stone floors opening everywhere right into the street.
+
+"Now," says the young gentleman, "you won't help finding your way, for
+there is Mr. Dempster himself."
+
+He lifted his hat and bowed so politely that I felt impressed with a
+desire to reward him. Taking out my pocket-book, I handed him a ten-cent
+stamp, with a grateful and most benevolent smile on my countenance. I am
+sure of that from the glow I felt. He blushed--he seemed to choke--he
+stepped back and put on his hat with a jerk, but he didn't reach out his
+hand with the grateful spontaneosity I expected. His modesty touched me.
+
+"Take it," says I, "it is no more than you deserve."
+
+"Excuse me," says he; and his face was as red as a fireman's jacket.
+
+"Good-afternoon;" and as true as you live he went off without taking the
+money. I never saw anything like it.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII.
+
+A DEMOCRATIC LUNCH.
+
+
+As soon as I could recover from the surprise any New England woman would
+feel at a thing like this, I saw Cousin Dempster coming toward me.
+
+"Come, hurry up," says he. "You were so late, I thought perhaps you had
+misunderstood, and come directly here. This way; be careful where you
+step; Fulton market is not the neatest place on earth."
+
+I was careful, and lifting the skirt of my alpaca dress between my thumb
+and finger, gave a nipping jump, and cleared a gutter that ran between
+Cousin D. and myself. Then we walked into the market, with a whole crowd
+of other people, and trained along between baskets and square wooden
+pens heaped up with oranges, and things called bananas--gold-colored,
+and bunched-up like sausages, but awful good to eat. Potatoes, apples,
+books, peanuts, chestnuts, pies, cakes, and no end of things, were
+heaped on high benches on each side of us wherever we turned, till at
+last we passed through an encampment of empty meat-stands, and from that
+into a wooden lane with open rooms on one hand, and piles on piles of
+oysters on each side the door.
+
+Every one of these rooms had a great rousing fire burning and roaring
+before it, and a lot of men diving in amongst the oysters, with sharp
+knives in their hands.
+
+"Let us go in here," says Cousin Dempster, turning toward one of the
+rooms that looked cheerful and neat as a pin. The floor was sprinkled
+with white sand, and the tables had marble tops, white as tombstones,
+but more cheerful by half. As we went in, a man by the door called out,
+"Tuw stews!" Then again, "One roast--one raw on half-shell!"
+
+Another man began firing pots and pans at the heap of blazing coals
+before him the moment this fellow stopped for breath. All this made me
+so hungry that I really felt as if I couldn't wait; but I kind of
+started back when I saw ever so many gentlemen and ladies in the room,
+sitting by the tables and feeding deliciously. Some of the men had their
+hats on, which did not strike me as over-genteel. But, after this one
+halt, I entered with dignity, placed my satchel in a corner, and took an
+upright position on one of the wooden chairs. Cousin Dempster sat down,
+too. He took his hat off, which I felt as complimentary, and a touch of
+the aristocratic.
+
+"Now, what shall we have?" says he.
+
+"A stew," says I, with a feeling of thanksgiving in my mouth.
+
+Cousin D. said something in a low voice to the young man, who went to
+the door, and called out:
+
+"One roast! one stew--Saddlerock!"
+
+I started up and caught that young man by the arm, a-feeling as if I had
+got hold of a cannibal. Saddlerocks, indeed!
+
+"Young man," says I, "you have mistaken your party; we didn't ask for
+stewed grindstones--only oysters."
+
+He looked at me, at first, wild as a night-hawk, and seemed as if he
+wanted to run away.
+
+"Don't be scared," says I; "no harm is intended; it is an oyster stew
+that we want--nothing more. I'm not fond of hard meat. If you don't know
+how to cook them--which is natural, being a man--I can tell you. Now be
+particular--put in half milk, a considerable chunk of butter, not too
+much pepper, and just let them come to a boil--no more. I do hate
+oysters stewed to death. You understand?" says I, counting over the
+ingredients on my fingers--"now go and do your duty."
+
+"Yes'm," says he, and goes right to the door, and sings out: "One
+stew!--one roast!" so loud that it made me jump. Then he came back into
+the room, while I retired, with dignity, to my seat by the table.
+
+It seemed to me that Cousin Dempster didn't quite like what I had done,
+for his face was red as fire when I sat down again, and I heard him
+mutter something about the eccentricities of genius. Indeed, I'm afraid
+a profane word came with it, though I pretended not to hear.
+
+By and by, in came the waiter-man, with two plates of cabbage cut fine,
+and chucked a vinegar cruet down before me; then he clapped salt and
+pepper before Cousin D., with a plate of little crackers. Then he went
+away again, and came back with two plates full of great, pussy oysters,
+steaming hot, and so appetizing, that a hungry person might have made a
+luscious meal on the steam.
+
+Oh, Sisters! you never will know what good eating is till you've been
+down to the Fulton Market, and feasted on oysters there; you can't get
+'em first-rate in any other place. Try it, and you'll find 'em weak as
+weakness compared to these. Hot, plump, delicious! The very memory of
+them is enough to keep a reasonable person from being hungry a week.
+Talk of Delmonico's! I never was there; but if it beats this room in the
+Fulton Market in the way of shell-fish, I'll give up all my chances this
+Leap Year.
+
+Well, when we'd done eating, two pewter mugs were set on the table, and
+Cousin Dempster handed one to me. I've heard of these mugs as belonging
+to bar-rooms and over intimate with ale and beer--things that I wouldn't
+touch for anything on earth, maple-sap being my native drink--so I
+pushed the cup away, really ashamed of Cousin D.; but he pushed it back
+a-kind of laughing, and says he:
+
+"Just taste it."
+
+"Beer?" says I. "Never."
+
+Cousin D. lifted his mug to his lip, and drank as if it tasted good. I
+was awful thirsty, and this was tantalizing.
+
+"Try it," says he, fixing his bright eyes on me. "How do you know it is
+beer till you've tasted it?"
+
+"Just so," says I; "I didn't think of that?"
+
+I took up the mug, and sipped a cautious sip. Beer, indeed! That pewter
+cup was brimming over with champagne-cider, that flashed and sparkled up
+to my lips like kisses let loose. Then I bent my head to Cousin
+Dempster, and just nodded.
+
+Never think you have drank champagne-cider till you've taken it flashing
+from a pewter mug, after oysters, in Fulton Market; till then, Sisters,
+you will never know how thoroughly good-natured and full of fun a lone
+female can become. Some people might think champagne-cider like
+maple-sap with a sparkle in it, for the color is just the same; but it
+is considerably livelier, and a good deal more so, especially when one
+drinks it out of a pewter cup, and hasn't any way of measuring.
+
+Bold! I should think I was, after that. Bold as brass.
+
+"Come," says I, taking up my satchel, "I'm ready to see that city lion,
+the Rockaways, and the bivalves fed. They have no terrors for me now.
+I've got over that. Where is their dens, or cages, and how often do they
+feed?
+
+Cousin Dempster set down his pewter mug, and just stared at me with all
+his eyes.
+
+"What is it? What do you mean?" says he.
+
+"What! the lion, to be sure! Didn't you say that I would see one of the
+city lions when I came to Fulton Market?"
+
+That man must have been possessed. He leaned back in his chair, he
+stooped forward, his face turned red, and, oh! my how he did laugh!
+
+"What possesses you, Cousin D.," says I, riling up.
+
+"Oh, nothing," says he, wiping the tears from his eyes, and trying to
+stop laughing, though he couldn't; "only--only this isn't a menagerie,
+but a market. Did you really think there were wild beasts on exhibition?
+It was the market we meant."
+
+Then I remembered that E. E. had called me a lion once. Now it was the
+market, and there wasn't a sign of the wild beast in either case. There
+_he_ sat laughing till he cried, because I couldn't understand that
+ladies and markets were not wild animals. Says I to myself, "I'll make
+you laugh out of the other side of your mouth,"--so I turned to him as
+cool as a cucumber:
+
+"What on earth are you te-he-ing about? I only want to walk around the
+market and see what's going on. Isn't that what we came for?"
+
+Cousin D. stopped laughing, and began to look sheepish enough.
+
+"Is that it?" says he.
+
+"What else?" says I. "You didn't think I expected this great, big,
+low-roofed market to have paws and growl, did you," says I. "I would
+growl if the city were to set me down in the mud of this pestiferous
+place. So you thought I really meant it. Well, the easy way in which
+some men are taken in is astonishing. They never can understand
+metaphor," says I. "But the bivalves and Rockaways. What of them?" says
+I.
+
+"Swallowed them," says he. Sisters, the dizziness in my stomach was
+awful.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII.
+
+DEMPSTER PROPOSES A TRIP.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I have been in Washington. The great city of a great
+nation. I have seen the Capitol in all its splendid magnificence, its
+pictures, its marbled floor, its fruit tables, and its underground
+eating-rooms. I have seen the White House, and have had a bird's-eye
+view of the President of these United States.
+
+I will tell you how it happened. I was getting anxious and down in the
+mouth; my valentine had been given to the winds of heaven--no, _they_
+would have carried it safely through ten thousand herds of buffalo
+cattle--but it had been given to the mails, and they are _so_ uncertain,
+spell the word which way you will. Day after day I waited and watched,
+and sent down to the post-office to be sure there was no mistake in that
+department; but nothing came of it; no answer reached me. I became
+peaked and down-hearted, so much so, dear sisters, that Cousin Dempster
+got anxious about me, and one day asked me, in the kindest manner, if I
+would like to run on to Washington with him.
+
+"Run on to Washington," says I; "how far is it, cousin?"
+
+"Why," says he, "about two hundred and thirty miles, I should say."
+
+"Two hundred and thirty miles," says I, almost screaming. "Why, Cousin
+D., I couldn't do it to save my life."
+
+"Oh!" says he, "it isn't a very tedious ride."
+
+"Ride," says I. "Why, didn't you ask me just now to run on with you? How
+can I do both?"
+
+Cousin D. laughed, and began to rock up and down till he almost bent
+double; though what it was about I couldn't begin to tell.
+
+"Well," says he, "just get your trunk or carpet-bag packed, and I'll
+call for you in the morning. Emily Elizabeth can't leave home just now,
+and it will be a great pleasure to me if I can have you along."
+
+"If you'd just as lief," says I, "I'll speak to Cousin E. E. about it;
+under present circumstances, a young girl like me can't be too
+particular. I'm told that a good many married men have got a habit of
+travelling toward Washington in what seems like a single state, and it's
+wonderful how many of them have unprotected females put under their
+charge--sometimes, both ways. If E. E. has no objection, I'll be on hand
+bright and early."
+
+Dempster kept on laughing, and I went upstairs wondering what had set
+him off so, but when I asked Cousin E. E. if she had any objection to my
+travelling to Washington with her husband, she began to laugh too, as if
+it was the best sort of a joke that a York lady should be expected to
+care about her husband's travelling off with other feminine women.
+
+"Why," says she, a-wiping the fun and tears from her eyes with a lace
+handkerchief, "what do you think I care! We don't keep our husbands shut
+up in band-boxes here in the great metropolis."
+
+"No," says I to myself, "nor do you get much chance to shut 'em up at
+home, according to my thinking."
+
+"Besides," says she, with comicality in her eyes, looking at me from
+head to foot: "I should never think of being jealous of you, Cousin
+Phoemie."
+
+Here, that child looked up from a novel she was a-reading.
+
+"The idea," says she, which was exasperating; especially as Cousin E. E.
+kept laughing.
+
+"That is as much as to say you don't think I'm good-looking enough to be
+afraid of," says I, feeling as if a cold frost was creeping over my
+face. "Thank you."
+
+Cousin E. E. started up from her lounge, which is a cushioned bench
+rounded off at one end, and a high-backed easy-chair at the other; and
+says she:
+
+"I didn't mean that, cousin; there is no one for whom I have so much
+respect. It was on account of your high religious principle and
+beautiful morality that I was so willing to trust you with my husband."
+
+"With papa. The idea!" chimed in that child, giving her head a toss.
+"They'll think it's his mother."
+
+"My daughter!" shrieked E. E., holding up both her hands, and falling
+back into the scoop of her couch.
+
+"Oh, let her speak!" says I, feeling the goose pimples a-creeping up my
+arms. "I'm used to forward children. In our parts they slap them with a
+slipper, if nothing else is handy."
+
+"A slipper; the idea!" snapped that child.
+
+I didn't seem to mind her, but went on talking to her mother.
+
+"But here, in York, the most careful mothers wear button boots, and keep
+special help to put them on and off, so the poor little wretches have no
+check on their impudence."
+
+"Mamma," snapped the creature, "I won't stand this; I won't stay in the
+same room with that hateful old maid. I hope she will go to Washington
+and be smashed up in ten thousand railroads. That's the idea!"
+
+With this the spiteful thing walked out of the room with her head thrown
+back, and her nose in the air.
+
+"Let her go," says E. E., sinking back on her couch as red as fire. "The
+child has got her share of the old Frost temper. Now let us talk about
+Washington. Do you mean to go _incog._?"
+
+"Incog! Oh, no," says I, beginning to cool down. "We mean to go in the
+railroad cars."
+
+Another glow of fun came into Cousin E. E.'s eyes--she really is a
+good-natured creature; some people might have got mad about what I said
+to that child, but she didn't seem to care, for the laugh all came back
+to her eyes.
+
+"Of course," says she, "but do you mean to go in your own character?"
+
+"Why," says I, "don't people take their characters with them when they
+go to Washington?"
+
+"They sometimes leave them there," says she, laughing, "but this is what
+I mean; if I were you I'd take this trip quietly, and look about a
+little without letting people know how great a genius they had among
+them. By and by we will all go and take the city by storm."
+
+"Just so," says I, delighted with the plan, which has a touch of
+diplomacy in it--and I am anxious to study diplomacy under the
+circumstances, you know; "creep before you walk--that is what you mean."
+
+"Just pass as Miss Frost--nothing more--and make your own observations,"
+says E. E.
+
+"I will," says I. "It's a good idea. I don't think the people in
+Washington were over polite to my great Grand Duke, and I mean to pay
+them off, some day."
+
+"That's settled," says E. E. "Now you have no more than time to get
+ready."
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV.
+
+IN WASHINGTON.
+
+
+I hurried back to my boarding-house, packed up that pink silk dress and
+things, put on my alpaca dress, tied a thick brown veil over my beehive,
+and packed my satchel till it rounded out like an apple dumpling.
+
+We started that night. Cousin D. wanted me to go into a long car where
+people slept, he said; but I saw a good many men with carpet-bags going
+in there, which looked strange, and though I have great faith in the
+integrity of Cousin Dempster, a young lady in my peculiar circumstances
+cannot be too particular; I declined to go into that curtained, long
+car, and sat up in a high-backed chair all night, wide awake as a
+whip-poor-will, for Cousin Dempster was on the next seat sleeping like a
+mole, and his head more than once came down so close to my shoulder
+that it made me shudder for fear that people might not know that he was
+my cousin's husband, and snap up my character before I got to
+Washington.
+
+Well, at last we got out of that train, I stood with both feet in the
+heart of the nation, and a great, flat, straggling heart it is.
+
+"There it is--there is the Capitol," says Cousin Dempster. "Look how
+beautifully the sunshine bathes the dome and the white marble walls."
+
+I looked upward--there, rising up over a lot of tall trees and long,
+green embankments, rose a great building, white as snow, and large as
+all out-doors. The sun was just up, and had set all its windows on fire,
+and a great, stout woman perched on the top of a thing they call the
+dome--which is like a mammoth wash-bowl turned wrong side up--looked as
+if she was tired out with carrying so much on her head, and longed to
+jump down and have a good time with the other bronze-colored girls that
+show themselves off, just like white folks inside the building.
+
+Well, later that day, I went right up to that heap of marble, which in
+its length and breadth and depth filled my soul with pride and patriotic
+glory. I really don't believe there is another building like it on the
+face of the earth. Freedom, honesty, and greatness _ought_ to preside
+there.
+
+Why, sisters, there are whole rooms here of clouded marble, ceiling,
+floor, walls--everything polished like the agate stone in your brooch,
+and I do think that the hottest sun can hardly force a beam of warmth
+through.
+
+Down in the great wandering cellars you come upon staircases of
+beautiful marble, fenced in with railings of iron and gold and brass all
+melted together and called bronze, up which deer, as big as young lambs,
+are jumping, and branches of trees are twisted. There are ever so many
+of these staircases, and they cost one hundred thousand dollars apiece.
+Think of that! and mostly where it is so dark that you can't but just
+see them.
+
+"I hadn't only one day and night to look about in, so I went up there
+before Congress got to work, as I wanted to see things without having
+people know that I was there. But by and by a lot of men came swarming
+in, and I felt like making myself scarce.
+
+I went back to the hotel and got a little sleep.
+
+It was dinner time, and near candle-light when I woke up; and when we
+got through dinner, Cousin D. told me to hurry up, and we would take a
+look at the White House.
+
+"Shall I get out my pink silk?" says I. "Does the President expect me?"
+
+"Oh, no," says he; "no one is aware that we are here. We will drive to
+the White House, see all that is to be seen, and start home bright and
+early to-morrow morning."
+
+"Then the alpaca will do," says I.
+
+"Of course," says he; "anything."
+
+I wasn't sorry. This travelling all night is apt to take the ambition
+out of the most energetic character. The difference between pink silk
+and alpaca was nothing to me now.
+
+Well, in an hour after, the carriage we rode in stopped under a great
+square roof, set on marble pillars, which spreads out from the steps of
+the White House to keep people sheltered from the storm and sun when
+they get out of the carriages. It was dark now, and two great
+street-lamps were in brilliant combustion each side of the steps.
+
+Between us, sisters, that White House that we hear so much about is no
+great shakes of a building. Compared to the Capitol, it is just nowhere.
+
+Cousin D. rang the knob, which was silver, and a man opened the door.
+
+"We should like to see the House," says Cousin D.
+
+"Certainly," says the man. "Walk in."
+
+We did walk into a large room, with a few chairs and two or three
+pictures in it; nothing particular, I can tell you.
+
+"This way," says the man.
+
+We went that way, into a great room, long and wide as a meeting-house,
+choke full of long windows, and with three awful large glass balloons,
+blazing with lights, a-hanging from the roof.
+
+The carpet was thick and soft as a sandy shore, and had its colors all
+trampled in together, as if some one had stamped down the leaves of a
+maple camp into the grass as they fell last year.
+
+"The chairs and sofas and looking-glasses were bought when General
+Washington was President," says the man.
+
+"Mercy on me! you don't say so," says I. "They look rather skimpy for
+these times, don't they?" says I; but then his way of buying things and
+spending money was a little skimpy compared to the way Presidents spend
+money now; but, of course, we grow more deserving as we grow older.
+"Now, those red silk curtains that almost hide the lace ones, did they
+belong to Washington?"
+
+"Them? Oh, no; we change them every four years."
+
+"Then they go out with the President," says I.
+
+"We don't think that he will go out yet awhile," says the man, looking a
+little wrathy.
+
+"Well, I hope he won't, for great men are scarce in these times," says
+I, wanting to mollify him. He said nothing, and I followed him through a
+door into a smaller room, so full of green that it seemed like stepping
+out of a blazing sun into a fern hollow. The walls were green; the
+carpet was green as meadow grass; the sofas and chairs were cushioned
+with green satin. The glass balloon seemed to have a sea-green tinge in
+it, though it was blazing like a bonfire.
+
+Not a soul was in the room, and we went on to the next which was long,
+rounded off at the ends like a lemon, and blue as the sky. Down the tall
+windows came curtains of blue silk, sweeping over white lace. The chairs
+seemed framed in solid gold; their cushions were blue silk.
+
+"This is the celebrated blue room," says the man.
+
+"I've heard about it," says I.
+
+"And this," says he, "is the red room. The President has given a
+dinner-party to General Sickles this evening, and they are now at the
+table. Would you like to look in?"
+
+Before I could answer, we were standing in the red room, and looking
+through at a table crowded round with gentlemen and ladies, dressed like
+queens and princes, some of them looking handsome as angels.
+
+"That is General Sickles," says he, "a-sitting by Mr. Grant."
+
+I looked in, but could only see a face, not over young, turned towards a
+lady who was listening to him, as if every word he dropped was a ripe
+cherry. She had a good, honest face, and I liked her.
+
+"That is Mrs. Sickles, sitting by the President," says the man.
+
+"What, that girl! you don't say so. Why, he might be her father."
+
+It was the truth--a young, black-eyed thing, rather pretty and childish,
+sat there by General Grant--I knew it was Grant by his features--talking
+to him as if he had been her brother. Her dress was high up in the neck,
+but most of the ladies there wore them so low that I felt like turning
+my eyes away; but Cousin D. says that low-necked dresses always rage as
+a chronic epidemic in Washington, so I mustn't be surprised.
+
+"That is General Sheridan," says the man.
+
+"That little cast-iron image, General Sheridan!" says I, a-starting
+back. "The fellow that cured a whole tribe of Indian women of small-pox
+with bayonets and bullets! I don't want to see anything more! Just let
+us go away, cousin; I haven't been vaccinated, and he might break out
+again."
+
+"Hush! hush! he isn't dangerous," says Cousin D.
+
+"Dangerous!" says I, "just ask the Governor of Illinois. Wasn't it
+General Sheridan who dragged off the Grand Duke among the Indians and
+buffaloes? I tell you again I won't stay another minute in the house
+with that man!"
+
+Sisters, I kept my word. We departed at once.
+
+
+
+
+XXXV.
+
+GETTING INFORMATION.
+
+
+My dear sisters:--I made what people here call a flying visit to
+Washington, which means, I suppose, that the railroad cars go about as
+swift as a bird flies, which they do, if one is allowed to choose the
+bird--a white bantam, for instance, with clipped wings. Well, I really
+don't know much about the speed, only I was awful tired when we got out
+of the cars at Jersey City, and we had the lonesomest drive home just
+before daylight that two tired mortals ever undertook. The whole city
+was still as a graveyard, and put one in mind of those cities over the
+sea, dug out of the ashes in which they have been buried hundreds on
+hundreds of years.
+
+To me, sisters, nothing is more dreary than a great city shut up and
+full of sleeping people. Only think of it! half a million of human
+beings all lying in darkness, unconscious of both happiness or misery,
+just as if sleeping in their tombs, only that the first glow of sunshine
+brings them to life again. Did you ever think of it?
+
+Now, in the country the stillness is not so mournful--there is a sense
+of out-door freedom there. The leaves stir with life on the trees. The
+brooks murmur and gurgle and laugh by night as they do by day. The birds
+flutter now and then, and the winds whistle and whisper, filling the
+night with a stir of life. But here--here in a great city, a ghost-like
+policeman, or a poor straggling wretch who has no home but the street,
+is all that you see. Indeed, coming home before daybreak isn't a thing I
+hanker to do over again.
+
+Well, after pulling at the bell-knob till I'm afraid Cousin Dempster
+swore internally, we got into the house, and had a good long sleep
+before breakfast.
+
+"I'm so glad you've come," says Cousin E. E., "for the Liederkranz comes
+off to-night, and I was afraid we should lose it. Of course you'll go,
+Cousin Frost?"
+
+"Well," says I, "perhaps I can tell better when I know what the thing
+is. It's a crabbled sort of a word, that might belong to an aligator or
+kangaroo; and I don't care overmuch for wild-beast shows, any way."
+Cousin E. E. laughed.
+
+"Well," says she, "in some sense you are right. There will be a show of
+wild animals such as never roamed in field or forest, but none of them
+are dangerous; at any rate, in that form."
+
+"Are they in a circus, and is there a clown with a chalky face and red
+patches?" says I.
+
+"The circus!" says she, a-holding up both hands. "Why, it is to be in
+the Academy of Music, and the first people in the city are going."
+
+"To see them feed?" says I.
+
+"Well, that may be a part of it, but the principal thing is the parade."
+
+"But where do they feed the animals--not in the boxes with red velvet
+cushions, I calculate?"
+
+"Oh, how funny you are! Of course not; the supper is set out in Nilsson
+Hall, and is served _à la carte_."
+
+"What!" says I; "do they bring in fodder by the cartload for the
+creatures? Now, really, Cousin E. E., there is nothing astonishing about
+that to a person born and bred in the country. You and I have ridden on
+a load of hay, piled up so high that we had to bend down our heads to
+keep from bumping them against the top of the barn door, when the hay
+went in to be put on the mow; so we need not see the same thing meached
+over here in York."
+
+"Dear me!" said my cousin; "you are just the brightest and stupidest
+woman----"
+
+"Young lady, if you please," says I.
+
+"Well, young lady--that I ever set eyes on--can't you comprehend that it
+is a ball we are speaking of?"
+
+"A ball?" says I; "then what did you call it a Liederkranz for?"
+
+"The Liederkranz ball. It's a German word."
+
+"But I don't speak Dutch. How should I, not being an old settler of York
+Island," says I.
+
+"Well, never mind that. The Liederkranz is a masked ball."
+
+"A masked ball! Now what do you mean? I've heard of masked batteries,
+but they went out with the war."
+
+"There it is again; you won't take time to understand," says Cousin E.
+E., a-lifting both her hands in the air. "This is a ball where people go
+in character."
+
+I arose at once, burning with indignation.
+
+"Cousin E. E.," says I, "do you mean to insult me? What have you seen in
+my conduct to lead you into supposing that I would go to any ball that
+was out of character?"
+
+"Do sit down," says she.
+
+"Not in this house," says I. "It isn't my own dignity alone that I have
+got to maintain, but the whole Society of Infinite Progress is
+represented in my humble person."
+
+"But you are mistaken. Was ever anything so absurd! Do speak to her, Mr.
+Dempster. You know how far it is from my mind to give offence to Cousin
+Phoemie."
+
+Cousin Dempster, who had been rubbing his hands and enjoying himself
+mightily, now smoothed down his face, and spoke.
+
+"A masked ball, Cousin Phoemie, is an entertainment, you understand."
+
+"Just so," says I.
+
+"In which each person takes some character not his own."
+
+"All slanderers, are they?" says I.
+
+"No, no; they assume a character."
+
+"Oh!" says I, a-drawing out a long breath; "make believe have one?"
+
+"They dress the character, and act it."
+
+"Well?" says I, completely beat out.
+
+"Some dress themselves up as beasts and birds."
+
+"What?"
+
+"And some as tame animals."
+
+"You don't say so!"
+
+"The ladies put masks on their faces."
+
+"Masks! now what are they?"
+
+"Pieces of silk, or gold and silver cloth, with holes for the eyes, and
+a fringe over the mouth. Then over the dress they put on a great
+circular cloak, with a hood to it, and loose sleeves that hide the
+shape, so that a man don't know his own wife."
+
+"Oh, it's a hide-and-seek ball; but ain't some of the ladies in danger
+of losing themselves," says I.
+
+Cousin Dempster laughed, and his wife turned red as fire.
+
+"People who lose themselves at the Liederkranz, generally get found out
+in the end," says he.
+
+"But I must hurry down town. Will you go? Everybody will be there. It is
+the place to meet a prince in disguise."
+
+As Dempster uttered these words, my heart gave a great, wild bound, and
+my breath stopped. What if _he_ were to be at the ball in disguise,
+seeking a safe and private interview.
+
+"Yes, yes, I will go," says I, "but I don't know either! The mask and
+cloak!"
+
+"Never mind about them," says E. E.; "I have a couple ready, feeling
+sure that you would go."
+
+"Then it is settled," says Dempster, snatching up his hat. "I will be on
+hand. So good-morning!"
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI.
+
+THE LIEDERKRANZ BALL.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--That night about ten o'clock, three of the
+funniest-looking people you ever set eyes on might have been seen
+creeping--like black, and pink, and yellow ghosts--down Cousin
+Dempster's front steps.
+
+I had on a long yellow cloak, trimmed with black velvet, that just swept
+down to my feet and covered them up. Then over my face was a black
+velvet mask, with gold fringe, that swept down to my bosom like an old
+man's beard, and over that my hood was pulled so close that not a lock
+of my hair could be seen.
+
+Cousin E. E. wore a pink cloak, trimmed with white swan's-down, and her
+mask shone like silver.
+
+Dear sisters, you wouldn't have known me from the Queen of Sheba.
+
+Dempster was black all over--mask, cloak, and boots. It seemed as if
+half a dozen funerals had been rolled into one, and hung on him.
+
+Well, we crowded into the carriage and drove off. It seemed as if we
+never should get untangled from the drove of carriages that swarmed
+around the Academy of Music, and when we got in, and found ourselves
+struggling with the crowd, we almost wished ourselves back again.
+
+I looked around everywhere, as I went, for that tall and princely form;
+but the crowd was so thick, and the dresses so queer, that it seemed
+next to impossible to find out anything or know anybody. The lights from
+the great glass balloons poured down rainbows on the crowd, that moved
+and chatted and laughed till the noise was confusing as the dresses.
+
+"Step back, step back!" says Cousin Dempster, all at once, "the
+procession is coming."
+
+We did step back, and tried our best to see the procession; but the
+floor was pretty much on a level, and, though I stood on tiptoe, all
+that I could see was, now and then, the head of an eagle, or a bear, or
+a giraffe, rising above the crowd, while the music rang out in thunders
+of sweet sounds, and the people swarmed in and out of the little square
+pews in the galleries, like bees hiving on a hot summer day.
+
+Of course, I knew well enough that all this moving circus was
+make-believe, and that every wild animal had a man in him, just as every
+man has the shadow of some animal in his nature. But I couldn't help
+stepping back and shuddering a little, when a great big lumbering
+elephant rolled by, with his trunk curled up in the air, and almost trod
+on me.
+
+"Oh, mercy!" says I, with a little scream. "He's enough to frighten one
+out of a year's growth!"
+
+"Don't be terrified," says a voice behind me, and I felt an arm
+a-stealing around my waist; "I am here to protect you."
+
+I looked up. My heart stopped beating. The stranger was tall, majestic,
+and the eyes that shone through his mask were blue as robin's eggs. He
+had on a black cloak, and the mask covered his whole face; but how could
+I mistake the princely bend of that head, the breadth of those majestic
+shoulders.
+
+He drew me back from the crowd. I forgot Cousin Dempster, E. E., and
+everything else, in the ecstasy of that sweet surprise.
+
+"You have forgotten the roses," he whispered, with a look of loving
+reproach.
+
+I felt for the bouquet Cousin Dempster had given me--it was gone.
+
+"I must have dropped them as I got out of the carriage," says I. "But
+when did you come?" I added, in a whisper, tremulous with bliss.
+
+"Oh, I came an hour ago, and in the usual way," was his sweet answer;
+"but, not seeing the flowers, I doubted."
+
+"Ah! how I prayed that you would grow weary of that miserable buffalo
+hunt, and return!" says I.
+
+He seemed just a little puzzled, but at last broke out:
+
+"Oh, it's all a grotesque farce. Why should wise men turn themselves
+into wild animals, if it is only in sport? I never enjoy such parties
+for themselves."
+
+"I am glad to hear you say that," says I; "and more glad that you have
+left off hunting with Phil Sheridan; he might have led you into some
+Indian camp filled with Modocs, who would have shot you for sport."
+
+"Sheridan," says he. "Oh, he doesn't stay in one place long enough to do
+much harm."
+
+"Exactly," says I; "but he works quickly. Still, you are here, safe and
+sound; why should we waste time over him?"
+
+"True enough," says he; "so take my arm, and let us promenade."
+
+I took his arm, and clasping both hands over it after a fashion I have
+seen prevalent among young girls when they walk out with their lovers by
+moonlight, moved proudly through that throng--very proudly--for I knew
+that long cloak covered imperial greatness that would have astonished
+that assembly, had they known as much as I fondly suspected.
+
+"Tell me," says I, in a soft whisper, "did you receive a valentine?"
+
+"Did I receive a valentine?" says he. "Why do you ask?"
+
+"Ah!" says I, "do not question me."
+
+"But I must. Tell me something about it."
+
+"It was original. It was poetry," says I.
+
+"Poetry--and yours! How can you doubt its effect?"
+
+"I do not doubt. Are you not by my side?" I whispered.
+
+He drew my hand under his loose sleeve, and pressed it tenderly--so
+tenderly, that I did not know when the handkerchief it held escaped from
+my grasp to his; but, directly after, I saw him thrust something white
+into his bosom. It was my very best handkerchief, embroidered with my
+name; but I said nothing--how could I?
+
+We walked on. The crowd swarmed and hummed like bees in a clover-field.
+Now and then a great gray eagle flapped by, or a bear prowled along;
+but, after all, it was a clumsy make-believe, and didn't scare anybody
+much.
+
+By and by a lady came along dressed just like me--yellow and black all
+over. She stared at me, and I stared at her--just my height--just my
+air--modest, but queenly. There was a trifling difference--she wore a
+bunch of red roses on her bosom.
+
+After staring at me awhile, she drew softly round to the other side, and
+it seemed as if she was saying something to _him_. I can't tell you what
+happened next; for just then four great big gilt candlesticks walked
+into the middle of the room, and began to dance, in a way that fairly
+took me off my feet. It really was too funny. The style in which they
+hopped up and down, crossed over, and stalked about, was enough to make
+a priest laugh.
+
+"Isn't it awful queer!" says I, a-turning to the man who had come so far
+to tell me of his love.
+
+He was gone. I stood there alone in the crowd, my limbs shook, my heart
+sunk like lead. How had I lost him?
+
+Wild with a sense of widowhood, I wandered to and fro over that
+ball-room. Many people spoke to me; some gentlemen in disguise wanted to
+walk with me; but I evaded them all. Some I answered; to some I gave
+nothing but sighs. At last I felt tears stealing down under my mask, my
+strength gave way, I sat down on a cushioned bench in a fit of
+despondency. The cup of bliss had sparkled at my lips, and been dashed
+aside.
+
+What did I care for the men and women who were whirling, talking, and
+dancing around me!
+
+"Cousin, are you almost ready to go home?"
+
+It was Cousin Dempster who spoke; he had been searching for me high and
+low, and was shocked to find me sitting there alone. I said nothing,
+but, like that Spartan boy, gathered the yellow waves of my cloak over
+the vulture that knawed at my poor heart, and followed my cousin out of
+the crowd--still looking eagerly for that one noble figure, but looking
+in vain.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVII.
+
+HOW DID THE PAPERS KNOW?
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Would you believe it? Cousin Dempster had hardly got down
+to his business after the ball, when a telegram--I think that is the
+name of the thing that he said came flying over the wires--called him to
+Washington again. Cousin E. E. made up her mind to go with him this
+time, and nothing would satisfy her but that I must join in and cut a
+dash with them. After the strange way in which that majestic man in the
+black cloak had gone off with the yellowhammer of a female, I had felt
+so down in the mouth that nothing seemed to pacify me. If it really was
+the great Grand Duke, his conduct was just abominable. I wouldn't have
+believed it of him; taking off a lady's handkerchief in his bosom, and
+that the best one she had in the world, and not bringing it back again.
+Such conduct may be imperial, but it isn't polite, that I must say,
+though it wrings my heart to find fault with him. If he had brought it
+back the next day, of course it would have been different; but he
+didn't, and there I sat and sat, waiting like patience on a--on a stone
+wall, smiling, but wanting to cry all the time.
+
+"It'll do you good, and cheer you up," says Cousin E. E.
+
+"Maybe it will," says I, drawing a heavy breath, "but I don't seem to
+expect much. February is gone, and no answer to--"
+
+I bit my tongue, and cut off what it was going to say about that
+valentine, for that was a secret breathed only to you, as a Society, in
+the strictest confidence.
+
+"This time," says Cousin E. E., "there shall be no secrecy. The whole
+world shall know that the rising genius of the age is with us. The day
+we start, all the morning papers will announce that Mr. and Mrs.
+Dempster, of ----, have gone to Washington, accompanied by that
+celebrated authoress, Miss Phoemie Frost, who cannot fail to meet with
+every attention from the statesmen and high fashion of the Capital."
+
+"But how are the papers going to know?" says I.
+
+E. E. laughed.
+
+"Oh, Dempster will manage that; he's hand-and-glove with ever so many
+city editors," says she.
+
+"Oh!" says I.
+
+"There are some things that even genius itself don't know how to
+manage," says E. E., nodding her head, and smiling slyly; "but they can
+be done. As soon as we get to Washington, all the papers there will
+catch fire from New York, and the Senate will get up another committee,
+and vote you a seat in the diplomatic gallery by ballot. We'll break
+right into the Japanese furore, and carry off the palm," says she,
+kindling up like a heap of pine shavings when a match touches it.
+
+I began to feel the proud Frosty blood melting in my bosom.
+
+"The woman who writes is more than equal to the man who votes," says
+she.
+
+"There is no comparison," says I. "Women are women and men are
+men--nobody thinks of comparing rose-bushes and oak-trees--one makes
+timber and the other perfume; we shelter the roses, and let the oaks
+battle for themselves. So it ought to be with men and women--"
+
+Cousin E. E. cut me short.
+
+"That is beautifully expressed," says she, "but save it for one of your
+reports or literary conversations; my head is full of Washington."
+
+"And my heart is full of sadness," says I, beginning to droop again.
+
+"Nonsense, you will be happy as a bird when we once get a-going," says
+she.
+
+Cousin E. E. isn't a woman of great depth, but she knows a thing or two
+about fashionable life.
+
+The York papers _did_ announce to the world that a distinguished party
+had gone on to the seat of government, and, singular enough, it was done
+exactly in E. E.'s own words--a circumstance that rather puzzled me.
+What was more--the very day we got to Washington all the papers there
+did the same thing, which set us at the top of the heap at once.
+
+I hadn't the least idea of interfering with the Japanese that came to us
+from California, and in that way seem to be turning the world the other
+side about from what it used to be; but when genius takes the bit
+between its teeth, it's apt to scatter things right and left. I suppose
+it was the newspapers did it, but I hadn't been a day at the hotel when
+a letter come to us from the President's mansion, which invited us to
+come to the White House and see the Japanese presentation--in full
+dress.
+
+I declare I felt myself blushing all over when I read that. Did any one
+suppose that we were a-coming to meet those outside potentates half
+dressed? Some of them, perhaps, unmarried men.
+
+"The idea!" as that child would say. I showed the card to Cousin E. E.,
+who seemed to think it all right, so I said nothing, though the whole
+thing had riled me so it seemed as if I never should stop blushing.
+
+"What does it mean," says I.
+
+"We must go, Dick or Lottie," says she.
+
+"Go--how?" says I. "Haven't they got horses and carriages in this great
+city, that we must go in an outlandish thing like that?"
+
+Here E. E. broke into one of her aggravating titters; but when I gave
+her a look she choked off, and says she:
+
+"It means low necks and short sleeves."
+
+"Low necks and short sleeves! Why didn't they say so, then? What has any
+Dick or Lottie got to do with it? But it's no use; I won't wear anything
+of the kind. Those who want to have a shoulder-strap for a sleeve, and
+their dresses too short at one end and too long at the other, can; I
+won't--there!"
+
+"Oh! you are privileged; genius always is," says E. E.
+
+"That is, genius is privileged to be decent in Washington. Well, I'm
+glad of that," says I. "Some young ladies may like to go about with
+bare arms and shoulders--let them. I won't!"
+
+
+
+
+XXXVIII.
+
+RECEPTION OF THE JAPANESE.
+
+
+Well, sisters, that afternoon the distinguished party mentioned in the
+papers got out of a carriage, under that square roof in front of the
+White House steps, and walked with slow, stately steps into the
+ante-room that I told you of. One of them--a tall, imperial-looking
+person--was robed in a flowing pink silk, just a little open at the
+throat, where it was finished off with white lace with a snow-flake
+figure on it. A long curl fell down this lady's left shoulder, and there
+was a good deal of frizzing about the lofty forehead, and any amount of
+puffs back of that.
+
+The other lady--who naturally kept a little in the background--wore
+white satin, cut to order about the neck and shoulders, and a lot of
+white stones on her bosom and in her hair, that shone like fire in a
+dark night.
+
+The man at the door seemed to know us, for he said; "If it's Miss P.
+Frost and her friends, walk this way."
+
+We did walk that way, and drew up in that lemon-shaped room, which is so
+blue and white that you seem to think yourself in the clouds when you go
+in. Right in the centre of the room is a great big round ring of seats,
+cushioned all over with blue silk; and right up from the middle of it
+rose a splendid flower-pot, crowded full of flowers--white, pink, and
+all sorts of colors--with great long green leaves a-streaming over the
+edges, and broad, white lilies, that seemed cut out of ragged snow,
+a-spreading themselves among the green leaves.
+
+A hive of ladies, all in long-trained dresses, and necks according to
+order, were sitting or standing or moving across the room, looking as
+proud and grand as peacocks on a sunshiny day. Among them was the
+President's wife--a real nice, sociable lady--who looked just as she
+ought to in a black velvet, long-trained dress. In fact, of all the
+women in that room, I liked her the best, she is so sweet and kind in
+her manners. The minute we came in she turned round and gave us a warm,
+honest smile, which was about the only downright honest thing I've seen
+in Washington, as yet.
+
+"Miss Frost," says she, "I'm delighted to see you and your relations. My
+friend Senator Edmunds has told me about you!"
+
+"Thank you," says I. "No one need want a better recommendation than he
+can give. We think the world of him in our State."
+
+"I'm glad to hear that," says she. "We think a great deal of him too; in
+fact, Vermont honors herself in the Senate. But you are looking at the
+flowers; they are all Japanese, in honor of the Embassy."
+
+"You don't say so," says I; "did the Japanese bring the flowers along
+with them from Japan?"
+
+She laughed a sweet, good-natured little laugh, and says she:
+
+"Oh, no; we raise them in the hot-houses."
+
+Just then there was a bustle in the ante-room, and I saw a slow line of
+queer-looking little folks filing along toward the east room. Mrs. Grant
+had turned to talk to Cousin E. E., and I just slid out into the
+green-room, and stood inside the door to see what all the fuss was
+about.
+
+Standing against the great window, nearly opposite to me, I saw the
+President of these United States, with a lot of men around him in black
+clothes, and farther on stood another lot with their coats all covered
+over with gold and stars of precious stones a-hanging one after another
+on their bosoms, and some wore swords, and some didn't; but I tell you
+there was such a blaze of colors and flash of gold that it seemed to
+light up the great long room like sunshine, which was convenient, for
+there wasn't enough in the sky that day to light a family to bed.
+
+While I was wondering what all this magnificence and glory meant, Cousin
+Dempster happened to see me, and came up to the door.
+
+"What on earth does all that signify in a free country," says I. "It
+looks like a circus. Do they mean to ride in there? I don't see no
+horses; and it seems to me their hoofs will spoil the carpet when they
+come in. Are the Japanese people fond of horses?"
+
+"I don't know about that; the President is," whispers Cousin Dempster.
+"But never you mind that; he keeps 'em in his stables, and they're not
+likely to come here."
+
+"Then these fellows in the gold coats will only do rough-and-tumble, I
+suppose," says I.
+
+"Hush!" says Cousin D., looking round to be sure that no one heard me.
+"The rough-and-tumble has been pretty much done up in the Senate this
+winter."
+
+"Oh!" says I.
+
+"There will be a good deal of it in Philadelphia and Cincinnati, and all
+over the country, I'm afraid, for I don't think General Grant cares much
+about that sort of gymnastics."
+
+"Jim what?" says I.
+
+"Turning over and over from one side to the other!" says he.
+
+"I think he's right," says I. "A circus can't be much without horses and
+hoops, and that fellow with the painted face; but why don't the show
+begin, such as it is? What do they stand there for, looking lonesome as
+a cider-press in winter?"
+
+"My dear cousin," says he, looking at me sort of pitiful, "do remember
+it is the ambassadors of all Europe, to say nothing of South America,
+that you are speaking of."
+
+"Ambassadors," says I; "so you call them by that name here, do you?"
+
+"They represent governments, kings, and queens."
+
+"I've seen that done in the theatre beautifully. You remember when we
+went to see 'Julius Cæsar,' who wanted to be King of Rome; but I didn't
+know as they ever did such high-mightiness off on horseback, or through
+a hoop," says I.
+
+"But, Phoemie, these men are genuine. For instance, that gentleman with
+so much red and gold about him represents Queen Victoria."
+
+"What, in such clothes--hat, coat, and all the rest? I don't believe
+it," says I. "You won't impose upon me to that extent."
+
+"Not her person," says he, a-getting out of patience, "but her
+Government."
+
+
+
+
+XXXIX.
+
+THE JAPANESE.
+
+
+Well, sisters, that minute there was a commotion in the room. Those who
+had been leaning against the wall stood up, and the strange-looking men
+Cousin D. called ambassadors straightened up and fluttered a little, as
+peacocks spread their feathers when the sun breaks out.
+
+Before I could speak, in came the highest cockalorum among the Japanese,
+which wasn't very high after all.
+
+"Good gracious!" says I to Cousin D. "The man out there told me the
+ladies must all go into the blue room. Here I've been hiding behind the
+door, so as not to be seen, and the first Japanese stranger that comes
+in is a female woman! Goodness gracious! and so are all the rest!"
+
+"No, no," says Cousin D., "it's a man--they're all men."
+
+"With those Dolly Vardens on?" says I. "Do you think I was brought up in
+the woods, to take doves for night-hawks?"
+
+"It's the Japanese fashion," says he.
+
+"For men to dress in--well, skirts?"
+
+"Certainly. Don't you see that the lower skirt is formed into loose
+trousers that two or three of 'em wear?"
+
+I did look, and saw that the black silk underskirt some of these heathen
+Japanese wore was puckered up a little around the ankles, just enough to
+show off two peaked shoes, that must have been lovely wearing for a foot
+that was all great toe, but awkward for one that wasn't. In fact, I
+began to be awfully puzzled about the dress of the first one that came
+along, for above the skirt of purple silk was a Dolly Varden, all but
+the puffing out, of black silk, spotted over with white needlework. To
+top off all, this Japanee wore the funniest sort of a thing on the head,
+like a shiny black wash-bowl, with a hole in it, from which a stumpy
+black ball stuck up in the air--about the pertest-looking thing you ever
+saw. Around the edge was a white binding, all curlicued off with queer
+black figures, and a lot of stiff black stuff streamed down from behind,
+like a crow's tail.
+
+This dress was tied round the waist with a silk scarf, and to that hung
+a long, black sword, sideways, with the point sticking out behind,
+furious as could be.
+
+Only two of the Japanese were dressed in these frocks, figured off with
+white, with purple--well--skirts, under. Three others had thin
+purple--well--skirts, puckered up into baggy trousers, which showed off
+their peaked, hawk-bill shoes beautifully. These five high Japanese came
+marching one after another--Indian file--looking as solemn as eight-day
+clocks. Then came five more with black Dolly's, bound with purple, and
+with purple figures worked on the backs, and the underskirts puckered up
+into trousers. Every one of them had swords, and they all marched
+straight up to the President with them dangling by their sides.
+
+"There, do you see that," whispered Cousin Dempster. "Are you satisfied
+now? Women do not, as a general thing, wear swords."
+
+"They may be strong-minded," says I.
+
+Before Cousin Dempster had time to speak, the little Japanee that they
+called Iwakura had got right before the President. There he made a low
+bow, and, as if jerked by the same string, the whole row, one behind
+the other, bowed to each other's backs. Then Mr. Fish, a tall,
+fine-looking gentleman, they called Secretary of State, came forward and
+introduced the head Japanee to the President. Then came another bow, and
+another, and another, till the whole ten got into a row near the
+President. Then General Grant and Japanee Iwakura made beautiful
+speeches at each other. Then there came more bows--low, slow, and
+delightfully graceful--and then I gathered up the skirt of my pink silk
+and fled, like a bird, into the blue room, where the ladies were waiting
+like pigeons anxious for corn.
+
+After all, I think those Japanese must have been men. The ladies got
+into such a flutter as they came in, and took so much pains to make
+themselves agreeable, which it isn't likely they would have done if
+those scull caps and swords hadn't meant something masculine. Then there
+was more low bows, and we ladies swept back our trains, took steps and
+curtsied just as easy and graceful as they did, and Mrs. Grant talked a
+little with a Japanee. He told what she said to the others, and what she
+did say was just sweet and natural, which was a proof that she didn't
+consider the Japanese as strong-minded females in the least. So after we
+came out I told Cousin Dempster that I was satisfied that they were as
+great men as little fellows, five feet and under, could be, and I asked
+him, in confidence, if any of them were so unfortunate as to be
+unmarried?
+
+
+
+
+XL.
+
+THAT DIPLOMATIC STAG PARTY.
+
+
+It is wonderful, dear sisters, how one thing grows out of another in
+this world. When it got about that I had been invited to help the Mrs.
+President to entertain the Japanese dignitaries, every lady in
+Washington that was going to give a party sent me and my Cousin Dempster
+an invite, till we began to think no more of square letters, with
+monographs on them, than you care for chestnut burrs when the nuts have
+dropped out.
+
+But there was one of these documents that we rather jumped at, because
+it came from a man that was almost as good as born in Vermont. Maine is,
+after all, something of a New England State, and Mr. Brooks, member of
+Congress from New York, the man I spoke of, came from there, and had a
+seat in the Legislature of that State when he was only just of age. So
+we all rather took to him, as New England people will take to each other
+when they scatter off into other States, and do honor to the one they
+come from.
+
+The minute his square document came, Cousin Dempster said at once that
+he would accept, and I, who had done honors with Mrs. President, made up
+my mind there, right on the nail, to do just as much for the Brooks
+family.
+
+Well, I never took off my pink silk after we came from the White House,
+only bunched it up a little more behind when we went down to dinner, and
+after that screwed up my hair for a new friz, while I took a nap in the
+great puffy easy-chair that stood in my room; for this doing honors hour
+after hour is tiresome to the--well--ankles.
+
+Having my dress on, I took something of a nap, and seemed to be dragged
+out of my sleep by the hair, when E. E. came to call me, which was,
+maybe, owing to the tightness of the crimping wires that caught on the
+cushion when I jumped up, and gave me an awful jerk. But I soon got
+over that, and gave my hair an extra frizzle before I went out, which
+was improving to my general appearance, and very relieving to the head.
+
+Cousin E. E. had put on a span-new dress, observing, modestly, that a
+genius could appear in anything, but she hadn't the position which would
+stand wearing the same dress twice.
+
+"For the sake of New England," says she, "I mean to do my best," which
+she did, in silk, like a ripe cherry, with wave over wave of black lace
+over it, and a bunch of white stones on her bosom, burning like a
+furnace when the light struck them.
+
+Well, once again we packed ourselves into a carriage, and then, huddled
+up in waves of red silk, rolled off to Mr. Brooks's house, which isn't
+far from the President's homestead.
+
+"There don't seem to be many here yet," says I, as we got out of the
+carriage, and went up the high steps, holding our dresses with both
+hands.
+
+Before Cousin D. could answer, the door was opened, and the man inside
+waved his hand, which had a span-clean white glove on it, and told us to
+walk upstairs, which we did, dropping our dresses as we went, till they
+trailed half way down the steps in waves that the fellow with white
+gloves on must have thought sumptuous.
+
+Two or three young ladies were in the dressing-room, and that was all. I
+shook out my dress before the glass, gave my hair an extra fluff, and
+went into the hall, where Cousin Dempster was standing.
+
+"There don't seem to be many ladies here," says I; "in fact, none to
+speak of."
+
+"Oh," says he, "they're not expected. You and my wife are exceptions."
+
+"Just so," says I.
+
+"This is a stag party," says he.
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A stag party, where ladies sometimes manage to see and listen. You will
+have a chance from the back windows, I dare say; only sit low and keep
+still, the flags will conceal you."
+
+"Oh! it's a stag party at the table, and crouching dears all around,"
+says I, "is it?"
+
+Cousin Dempster laughed till he nearly choked.
+
+"That's capital," says he. "You are getting too bright for anything."
+
+I couldn't quite make out what I'd said that set him off so, but I
+suppose he did, for he kept on laughing all the way downstairs, and the
+fun hadn't left his face when he introduced me to Mr. Brooks, who was in
+the room we entered, talking with some ladies that had come to look on
+and help his daughter to talk to the Japaneses, who don't understand a
+word of English.
+
+Sisters, I really think we New England people ought to be proud of Mr.
+Brooks, for he's not only tall and large, and real handsome, but he's a
+self-made man, having worked out his own education by the hardest toil.
+He edited a daily paper before he was twenty years old; was a member of
+the Maine legislature when he was twenty-three; and travelled all over
+Europe on foot before he was twenty-five. He has been in Congress, off
+and on, twelve years, besides travelling all round the world between
+whiles, which brought him hand-and-glove with the Japanese, the heathen
+Chinee, and all the other outlandish people that we send missionaries
+to, and convert a dozen or so once in fifty years.
+
+Well, Mr. Brooks seemed real glad to see us, and was polite as could be;
+so was his daughter and all the other ladies, when they found out who it
+was they had among them. He'd been in Vermont, of course, before going
+round what was left of the world, and his praise of the Old Mountain
+State was something worth hearing. He asked about Sprucehill, and said
+that he had pleasant reminiscences of that place, having kept a school
+in one just like it in his vacations in college. Particularly he
+recollected a sugar camp where he used to drink maple sap, and eat sugar
+till it had been a sweet remembrance to him all his life.
+
+While we were talking in this satisfactory manner, the fellow in gloves
+sung out a name that got so tangled up in his mouth that it set my teeth
+on edge. Then came another, and another that I didn't listen to; for
+that minute I saw a pair of peaked shoes coming through the door, and
+above them Mr. Iwakura, with that glazed punch-bowl on his head, and his
+black and purple dress hanging limp around him. He bowed low and softly.
+Mr. Brooks bowed back; then this Japanee turned to bow again and again,
+till I began to tremble for his neck, but he went through it all like a
+man; and when the whole lot had been bowed to, Mr. Brooks introduced
+them to me and the other ladies.
+
+Mr. Iwakura seemed to remember that he'd seen me a-doing honors at the
+White House, for he bowed clear down till I thought his glazed
+punch-bowl would fall off, and his black veil stuck right out straight;
+but he rose again as if his joints had been oiled, and said something
+that sounded soft as cream, and sweet as maple-sugar, but what it all
+meant goodness only knows.
+
+Then another heathen Japanee stepped forward, and says he:
+
+"The Embassador wishes to say he is delighted to see a lady author, who
+is an honor to her country."
+
+Here I laid one hand on my heart, and bent my head a little, not exactly
+knowing what else to do; and I said, with what I hope was becoming
+modesty:
+
+"Oh! your Highness--is it Highness--Excellency, or High Cockolorum?" I
+whispered to the lady who stood next me.
+
+"Excellency," whispered she back again.
+
+"Oh, your High Excellency," says I; for, being by nature a conservative,
+I took what seemed best out of each. "You are too complimentary."
+
+With that I made him a curtsey that over-matched his bow, for there was
+more of it a good deal, on account of his smallness, and my height, in
+which we were both a little peculiar.
+
+The Embassador looked as if he hadn't time to answer; for he was busy
+bowing to the other ladies, and the rest of the Japanese all came up,
+and there was such a slow bending time among 'em that it was ten minutes
+before there was anything else done. Then we got a little mixed, and
+seemed to be ladies altogether, only those who were going in to dinner
+seemed to carry their own punch-bowls on their heads; as for dresses and
+so on, we were pretty much alike, and the master of the house in his
+black coat, and so forth, seemed the only man among us.
+
+By and by Mr. Iwakura came back to where I was standing, and the young
+man came with him to do up the talking.
+
+"I have never before seen a lady that wrote books," says he, in the
+sweetest manner; which the other repeated in English that wasn't half so
+musical.
+
+There was an inward struggle in my mind; the compliment was sweet, and I
+longed to keep it; but truth is truth. My foot is on the threshold; I
+have looked into the Temple of Fame, but am not yet what I hope to be;
+but the truth is, I haven't written any books, _as_ books, yet. It
+wounded me to say so, but truth is a jewel that I have resolved shall
+shine, like a railroad man's diamond, in my bosom, forever.
+
+"Your High Excellency," says I, with brave self-control, "my humble
+efforts have not yet been bound in covers, but they will soon increase
+to that extent. Have you no female authors in that Japanee country of
+yours?"
+
+When the young man expounded these questions to Mr. Iwakura, the eyes of
+his High Excellency began to sparkle from one sharp corner to the other,
+and he smiled blandly--
+
+"Oh yes! we have ladies who write in Japan; but not lines of wisdom,
+like yourself; they write poems."
+
+"Love poems?" says I.
+
+"Mostly," says he; and his little eyes lighted up from corner to
+corner--"love poems, home poems, and such things as ladies understand by
+heart."
+
+"The Japanese language is so sweet," says I, "the ladies cannot be very
+strong-minded that write it."
+
+"Strong-minded--what is that?" says he.
+
+"Manly, strong; sometimes fierce," says I.
+
+"His Highness does not quite comprehend," says the young man.
+
+"Then I must illustrate," says I. "For instance, if an American woman
+were to dress as near like a man as--well, I beg pardon--as his High
+Excellency and his friends dress like women, we should call them
+high-minded."
+
+"But do they? Shall we see any ladies like that?"
+
+"You will no doubt see females like that," says I, with dignity.
+
+
+
+
+XLI.
+
+THE DINNER.
+
+
+There was no more conversing just then, for the tall fellow in gloves
+was so busy, opening and shutting the out-doors, and gentlemen came
+pouring in so thick and fast that we all had to attend to them. I was
+sorry for this, as the conversation was taking a turn that would have
+been of interest to us as a Society. I was just going to ask about the
+marriage relations among the Japanese, and intended to enter into a
+delicate investigation regarding the present company. But a smart,
+handsome, bright-looking gentleman came in, dressed up to the nines; and
+before I could say another word to Mr. Iwakura, this gentleman was
+bowing to me, and I was making my best curtsey to him. I was just
+delighted, for he looks a soldier, every inch of him, standing up
+straight as an arrow, but bowing so graceful and easy.
+
+Then others came pouring in, and we ladies were busy as bees doing the
+honors.
+
+There was no end of generals that bowed to me that night. There was
+General Farnsworth, from Illinois State, about the tallest and most
+manly gentleman among them. The long, sweeping beard that fell over his
+bosom was something splendid. If that man wasn't born in New England,
+he ought to have been--that's all.
+
+But I haven't room nor time, in a short report, to give particulars
+about a hundred or so gentlemen. They were all men that you've heard of
+over and over again, for in his invitations Mr. Brooks had just skimmed
+the cream off from Congress, and it was something beautiful to see it
+pour itself through the parlors into the great dining-room, built on
+purpose for "that night only."
+
+It didn't take long for the parlors to empty themselves into that room
+when a whisper went round that dinner was ready. In less than five
+minutes after, another fellow in white gloves came sliding into the
+room, and spoke low to Mr. Brooks,--we ladies were left alone, looking
+at one another, like babes in the woods.
+
+A cat may look on a king, and ladies do sometimes look in upon stag
+parties. Well, I got a little restless, and began to wonder how the cat
+got a good look, and how I could get a peep at the feeding stags.
+
+While the rest were talking, I slid off to one of the back windows,
+which opened upon the great banqueting hall--you have seen that term in
+novels--and, hid under a cataract of stars and stripes, I saw and heard
+all that was going on, and a splendiferous sight it was.
+
+The great hall was hung every which way with flags. They rolled over the
+ceiling in waves, fell down the wall in festoons and curtains, striped,
+starred, mooned, crossed, tangled in gas lamps, looped up with flowers.
+
+Rings of gaslights dropped half way down from the roof, and from them
+baskets of flowers swung over the great, long tables that were just one
+glitter of silver and glass, flowers and fruit, at which a hundred or
+more gentlemen were seated.
+
+Great candlesticks, spreading out with branches of gold and snow-white
+candles, stood half way down each table, and rising up above them were
+tall pyramids of flowers, crowded in with pineapples, grapes, pears,
+oranges, and sugar things enough to feed all the children in Washington
+for a month. Smaller flower-pots, crowded in with fruit, were scattered
+every once in a while along the tables.
+
+Back of Mr. Brooks's chair was a banner with a lot of lions rampaging
+over it, and a harp worked in one corner of it. Over that was another
+banner, with a full moon and a baby moon blazing away on it, and all
+around them was a whole hail-storm of stars that seemed to catch fire
+from the gas, and burn of themselves.
+
+The whole room was light as morning, and gorgeous as a sunset. Sisters,
+believe me, the way those men were enjoying themselves was enough to
+make a genuine woman grind her teeth. The popping of corks as they flew
+from the bottles was loud and swift as the guns fired on a Down East
+training day, and the gurgle of wine as it foamed into the glasses was
+mellow and constant as the flow of that brook through the hemlock back
+of our old school-house.
+
+Then the talking, the laughing, the hail-good-fellow way in which
+everything was done, just aggravated me out of a year's growth.
+
+By and by Mr. Brooks got up and made a speech, welcoming the Japanee
+guests and praising Japan beautifully. Then he asked General Farnsworth
+to do the same thing over again, which he did in the most splendid way.
+
+Then Mr. Iwakura got up and poured out a soft, slow flood of words, that
+seemed sweet as new cider, with which the whole company was charmed
+almost to death, though there wasn't a soul that knew what it was all
+about, any more than I did.
+
+Then Mr. Iwakura sat down and gathered his purple frock over his knees,
+satisfied that he had done his duty, whether the rest understood it or
+not.
+
+Then they all drank wine till there was no let up to that sound of
+militia firing and of running brooks, except when somebody was melting
+soft-solder over somebody else, which they tell me, here in Washington,
+is the high privilege of a stag party.
+
+My opinion is that they are ashamed to compliment each other so broadly
+when ladies are by, knowing that no crowd of females could be brought to
+the pitch of glorifying each other after that fashion, or would stand it
+to hear so much flattery wasted on a lot of men when they were by.
+
+
+
+
+XLII.
+
+IN THE BASEMENT OF THE CAPITOL.
+
+
+Well, sisters, that chunky woman on the top of the great iron wash-bowl,
+that some giant seems to have turned upside down on the roof of the
+Capitol, has more to do than any other female I'm acquainted with, if
+she can keep the flock of men they call Congress in any kind of order.
+No wonder she has the look of the kitchen about her, and seem to be
+carrying a bundle of soiled clothes on her head for a wash in the
+clouds! for, of all the sloppy places I ever heard of, this great marble
+building seems to be the beatomest. Congressmen seem to be always
+getting out dirty clothes here, beside whitewashing every now and then,
+raking each other over the coals, and doing all sorts of kitchen and
+garden work.
+
+Cousin Dempster told me all this before I went up to see exactly what
+Congress was, and it certainly upset me, you may just believe. That
+great building, which might be cut up into half a dozen palaces for
+kings to live in, turned into a wash-house and national laundry! The
+very thought made me creep all over.
+
+I always like to investigate matters from the foundation, so the first
+thing I did was to go into the basement story of the building, and see
+what the kitchen arrangements amounted to. Of course Cousin D. could be
+of no use to me, and Cousin E. E. declined the subterranean raid, as she
+nippingly called it, which ended in my going into the underground
+department alone.
+
+Well, the first thing that struck me was the duskiness of the place; it
+was like travelling through a sunset that had no color in it. The whole
+building seemed to have put on a gray mantle and gone to sleep. I went
+upstairs and downstairs, travelled over miles of stone floors, and
+through forests of great stone posts that looked strong enough to have a
+world built atop of them. Once in a while I caught sight of a man
+scooting along in the dusk before me like a black ghost; and once I
+heard noises like the rush of a steamboat down below me, and began to
+suspect that the wash-house and lime-slacking department was lower down
+yet. I opened two or three doors, and looked into a good many dark and
+deserted rooms piled up with books and crowded full of all sorts of
+things. Once or twice I saw the head of a man popping up between piles
+of books, but no sign of washing, as yet.
+
+Well, I wandered on and on, till at last I came to a great kitchen that
+looked lively enough. Lots of men were moving about, fires were burning,
+and there was a lovely scent of roast chickens and boiled garden-sass--I
+beg pardon, vegetables. I would have gone in and asked some questions
+about the wash-tubs, but not a female woman was to be seen--and I hope I
+know what is due to my sex too well for any attempt to draw the
+attention of men in the service of their country by the presence of
+attractions that--well, I was going to say that the charm of high female
+society might have seemed a little out of place so low down in that
+stone wilderness. So I took a new turn, and came out in a grand eating
+department, crowded full of tables, where ever so many gentlemen and
+ladies were eating, talking, laughing, and drinking bottled cider till
+their eyes sparkled.
+
+I went into the room with that quiet dignity which some people have said
+was the greatest charm of your missionary, and spreading out my skirts a
+little, sat down by one of the tables. A very genteel young man came up
+to me that minute, as hospitable as could be, and asked with a bow what
+I would please to have.
+
+"Oh, almost anything that isn't too much trouble," says I.
+
+Says he, "There is everything on the cart."
+
+He pronounced "cart" with a drawl that riled me, for, if there is
+anything I hate, it is the stuck-up way some people have of twistifying
+common words: but I didn't want to rebuke the fellow too much, and
+answered in the bland and Christian way you have so often praised, my
+dear sisters, that I did not wish to stay long enough for them to unload
+a cart, but if he had just as lief as not, would take some baked pork
+and beans--that is, if there was any handy.
+
+The fellow shook his head.
+
+"No pork and beans!" says I; "do you call this national house-keeping?"
+
+That brought the fellow up to a sense of duty in no time. He snatched up
+a little thin book that lay on the table, read it a minute, and then
+went off. By and by he came back with a dish in his hand, on which were
+a few beans, all brown and crisped to death, with a skimpy slice of pork
+lying across the top.
+
+I took the dish in my hands, and examined it up and down, right and
+left, with an air that must have cut that fellow to the soul, if he had
+one.
+
+"You call that pork and beans?" says I, a-lifting my forefinger, and
+almost shaking it at him. "Why, young man, it looks more like a handful
+of gravel-stones."
+
+The young man spread his hands a little, and looked so confused that I
+began to feel sorry for him.
+
+"Never mind," says I; "no doubt you have had the awful misfortune of
+being born out of New England, and that is punishment enough. It is the
+fault of our Congressmen if the great New England mystery of baked beans
+has not been explained and elucidated in the national kitchen," says I,
+"most people do degenerate so when they once get out of the pure
+mountain air. But then our statesmen may consider this a woman's
+mission. Perhaps it is. There was a time when females understood such
+things, but we have got to hankering after offices and votes and
+rostrums, till such things have become nostrums--excuse the rhyme, if
+you don't happen to be a poetical young man," says I; "it isn't
+extraordinary that such things are neglected, and that the great New
+English dish introduced by the Pilgrim Fathers has degenerated into
+this."
+
+Here I pointed sarcastically at the pebble-stones, and, with killing
+irony, asked him to send me something to eat.
+
+He took up the dish, and seemed glad to go--no wonder, my words had cut
+him to the soul. By and by he came back, and handed me that thin book
+which hadn't half a dozen leaves in it, and, says he:
+
+"Will madam make her choice?"
+
+I opened the book, and tried to see what it was all about; but there was
+nothing to read. A lot of English words twisted out of all shape and
+meaning, with some figures cut up in short rows, were scattered over the
+pages as if they had been shook out of a pepper-box. The only thing I
+could make out that seemed to have a sensible meaning, was--beef. This I
+read out loud--glad to find one good wholesome word to light on.
+
+"Roast beef," says the fellow, and away he went.
+
+There was no use trying to get anything like reading out of that ghost
+of a book; so I sat still and looked on, wondering what brought so many
+ladies into the Capitol, as they are not considered Congressmen yet.
+
+
+
+
+XLIII.
+
+PHOEMIE DINES WITH A SENATOR.
+
+
+Dear sisters: I had moved my chair back a little, for it seemed rather
+lonesome sitting there with nothing but a table-cloth spread before me,
+and a castor on it, when a gentleman came in and sat down on the other
+side of the table, just as if I hadn't been there.
+
+He took up the skimpy book, and began to read, as if he understood every
+word of it--figures and all. By and by a young fellow came up to him.
+They whispered together a minute, and the gentleman kept pointing at the
+book.
+
+Just then, the young man that I had been so sociable with, came up with
+some dishes in his hand, which he set down on the table, then spread his
+hands a little, as much as to say, politely: "Set to, ma'am, and help
+yourself;" which I did.
+
+Sisters, the national kitchens want renovating. There is female
+missionary work here enough to keep half our Society busy for a year.
+That beef was never roasted by a fire. I'll take my oath of that. It
+never swung on an iron skewer, inside of a tin oven before a
+hickory-wood fire, since it was a born calf. There's no cheating me in
+such things. Why, this beef had a taste of chickens, and oysters, and
+baked pork about it, so strong that you couldn't at first tell which it
+was, or if its birthplace was a barn-yard, a hen-coop, or the salt sea
+ocean.
+
+Yes, there _is_ mission work in these subterranean kitchens. Still, if
+members of Congress know how to wash and whitewash so well, they might
+take the cooking in hand too. Perhaps they have, though.
+
+When men try a hand at woman's work, or women take up the business of
+men, it's apt to mix things up till you don't know which is which. I
+rather think the members have been down here, while the women were
+lecturing on politics upstairs. It looks like it, in both places.
+
+Well, I didn't want to find too much fault. Human nature could not stand
+the pork and beans, but I tried my best to put up with the beef, and
+make believe it was delicious.
+
+Just as I took up my knife the other young fellow came to the table, and
+set some dishes down before the gentleman. Then he took a knife and
+hacked away at a long-necked bottle till he got the cork loose, and let
+the whole affair, foaming and sparkling, into a glass. The sight fairly
+made my eyes sparkle, for I was awful thirsty, and the rich gurgle made
+me more so.
+
+"Sir," says I, a-holding out my glass to the young man, "if that's
+Vermont cider, and I seem to feel as if it is, I'll thank you for a
+glass."
+
+The gentleman looked up quickly; turned to the young man with a funny
+sort of a smile, and nodded his head, just as if it was anything to him.
+
+I'm not quite certain about it, but if that foaming stuff was cider, it
+must have been made from russet apples, for it brightened me up all over
+till every drop of blood in me seemed to sparkle.
+
+"It would be near about impossible to drink that through a straw, it
+bubbles so," says I, feeling it my duty to be sociable, and make the
+gentleman feel quite at home at the national table. "I think the cider
+is about the only thing that don't degenerate when it leaves New
+England."
+
+"The cider," says he, opening his eyes wide.
+
+"Yes," says I, holding out my glass again, "that keeps its own vim, and
+a little more so. Take another glass yourself, sir!"
+
+I thought as I was first at the table, and a lady, that he would expect
+a little extra attention, and gave it with my usual bland politeness.
+
+He smiled, and his eyes began to sparkle under the gold glasses he wore.
+
+"Certainly," says he, "you are very kind; from Vermont I think you
+said."
+
+"Just so," says I. "Sprucehill. Let me help you to a little of this
+roast beef, if I may call it so."
+
+"Thank you," says he, and that funny smile crinkled his lips again, "I
+am well served."
+
+It struck me as rather singular, that he, being a gentleman, didn't
+offer me any of the dishes on his side of the table; but he didn't, and,
+as a gentle rebuke, I said to the young man who stood behind him:
+
+"Please to pass some of those dishes this way!"
+
+The fellow blushed and hesitated, and looked at the gentleman in gold
+spectacles, who blushed a little, too, but said to the young fellow:
+
+"Certainly; why don't you pass them over to the lady?"
+
+There was something in a dish that looked a little like mashed potatoes.
+I helped myself with a spoon, and tasted it.
+
+"What is this?" says I. "Your potatoes taste awful cheesey."
+
+"It is not potatoes, but calf's brains au gratin," says he.
+
+"Calf's brains, a grating," says I; "calf's brains, and I eating them.
+Young man, I'll have you investigated for this! Calf's brains, indeed!
+do you think I'm a cannibal. Take the heathenish dish out of my sight."
+
+The gentleman laughed, and says he:
+
+"I will relieve you of it."
+
+Then he drew it over his way and began to eat.
+
+I declare, sisters, I couldn't bear to see that man finishing up the
+dish as if he liked it. He seemed to have brains enough of his own,
+without wanting to rob a spring calf of what little belongs to it. But
+he finished the dish and got up to go, making me a real polite bow as he
+went away from the table.
+
+When he was gone I beckoned to the young man.
+
+"Is that man from the Sandwich Islands, or where?" says I.
+
+"That gentleman! Oh, he's a Senator from the West," says he. "The
+whitewashing committee hate him like poison. He gives them enough to do,
+I can tell you. Awful in that direction."
+
+"You don't say so," says I. "Is that the man who has raised the price of
+lime and whiting to such an extent?"
+
+"That's the very man."
+
+"Dear me! and he eats brains--cheesey at that. I never saw anything like
+it."
+
+"Oh, that is a very popular dish, ma'am."
+
+"With Congressmen?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am, with Congressmen."
+
+"Especially?"
+
+"Especially."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder," says I.
+
+When I hitched my chair back, and took up my satchel, the man put a bit
+of stiff paper in my hands, with some figures on it. I thanked him and
+went out, feeling a little lighter than I had done, on account of the
+cider. The young man followed me a step or two, and seemed as if he
+wanted to say something; but that was a familiarity I had no idea of
+encouraging; so I passed on, determined to find the other kitchen
+departments, and set up a private investigation of my own. But at the
+foot of a flight of stairs, all made of spotted marble, I met Cousin
+Dempster, who was looking for me.
+
+"Oh, here you are at last! Where on earth have you been?"
+
+"In the kitchen and dining-room, so far," says I.
+
+"Kitchen--dining-room!" says he. "Oh! you have been into the
+restaurant--not alone, I hope."
+
+"Oh, yes," says I; "there was plenty of company; but the cooking is
+enough to try a person."
+
+"Why, did you order refreshments?"
+
+"Refreshments were offered to me," says I, "and I accepted them, as a
+free-born American woman has a right to do at her country's table."
+
+"What are you talking about?" says Cousin Dempster, almost angry. "What
+is that in your hand?"
+
+"A bit of paper that the young man gave me as I came out," says I.
+
+"But you should have given this up," says he, turning red.
+
+"What for?" says I.
+
+"Did you pay nothing?"
+
+"Pay! of course not. Who ever thinks of paying anything to the
+Government?"
+
+"You do not understand."
+
+"What?"
+
+"You have been into a restaurant," says he.
+
+"That's more than I know of, never having been in one in my born days."
+
+"And have come away with this!"
+
+"Look a-here, Cousin Dempster," says I; "does this great nation keep a
+boarding-house, or a tavern, in its Capitol? That's what I want to know.
+Do you think I mean to insult the country I was born in?"
+
+"It keeps a restaurant for the accommodation of members," says he, "and
+you've been in it. Just give me that check; the country don't feed its
+statesmen--at any rate, directly."
+
+I gave him the square bit of paper, and, when he left me alone, just sat
+down on those marble steps and waited.
+
+I don't wonder these investigating committees want to shirk their
+duties. I, being only a committee of one, and self-constituted, feel as
+if I'd had quite enough of exploring downstairs. But what on earth
+Cousin Dempster is making such a fuss about, I have no idea. One would
+think there was something dreadful on that square piece of paper by the
+way he acted; but he's like everybody else, I suppose, when he gets to
+Washington, and can't make himself more than half understood on any
+subject.
+
+
+
+
+XLIV.
+
+MARBLE HALLS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--In my last report I gave you a dim account of the
+underground department of Congress. In fact, it was so dim down there,
+that I couldn't see anything clearly. I hope this report will have a
+little more brightness in it; but of that I am not at all certain, for a
+downright honest look at anything here in Washington is like snatching
+at a handful of fog.
+
+After wandering over all that town of cellars and basements, in search
+of the whitewashing department and the washing-room, I came away without
+seeing a sign of them. It seems to me that the cooking and eating is all
+that one finds done openly here. About that, too, there is something
+that riles the New England blood in my veins. No wonder I couldn't make
+out half that those waiter chaps said to me.
+
+There, in the great kitchen of the first nation on the face of the
+earth, free-born American citizens sit down contentedly and eat French
+dishes, with bull-frogs in them, I dare say, and eat them, too, on the
+European plan. The European plan! as if the fine old fashion set by the
+Pilgrim Fathers was not good enough for their descendants! It's enough
+to curdle the blood in one's veins to see what our country is coming to,
+with a plan of broken-down old Europe in the very basement of our
+Capitol. Do our members of Congress remember the time when their fathers
+ate samp and milk on a table set against the wall, with one leaf spread?
+Sometimes the richest of them in our State got a little maple molasses
+with the samp, but oftener it was skim milk, and nothing else. But men
+were men in those days; I--that is, I have heard my mother say so--of
+course, I wasn't old enough to know exactly at what time samp and milk
+got out of fashion as a first-class domestic meal. I can't help but
+think, sisters, that the male sex began to degenerate while we were
+children, or we should never have been left in our native village to
+form a society, which seems destined to enlighten this generation,
+without increasing it.
+
+Well, sisters, Cousin Dempster found me sitting on those hard, beautiful
+marble steps, thinking over these things in a saddening way. He insisted
+on it that I should leave off my subterraneous investigations, as he
+called my travels in the basement, and see Congress meet.
+
+I declare, it's a Sabbath day's journey from one end of that great long
+marble building to the other. The marble stairs I had been resting on
+came up near the Senate chamber. Cousin Dempster said, "But perhaps we
+had better go over to the House first."
+
+"Whose house?" says I, getting out of patience; "I thought we had come
+to see Congress."
+
+"So we have," says he; "it will assemble in a few minutes, so we must
+hurry and get into the House."
+
+"Why don't Congress assemble in this building?" says I.
+
+"Of course it does, at the other end," says he.
+
+"Then what on earth do you want to take me into any other house for? I
+want to see Congress! As for the houses in Washington, they are no great
+shakes, after all. New York wouldn't take the best of 'em as a gift."
+
+"Cousin Phoemie," says Dempster, sort of impatient, "you are the most
+extraordinary combination of a woman I ever saw."
+
+I stopped short and made him a curtsey to the ground--slow, graceful,
+and infinitely sarcastic. He seemed to feel it keenly.
+
+"Judges, a little more competent than you are, have said as much
+before," I observed, scathing him through and through with my eyes.
+
+"I mean no offence," says he, "but really you are the brightest,
+and--and stupidest woman!"
+
+"Girl, if you please," says I.
+
+"Well, girl. In some things a child could teach you; in others, you
+fairly dazzle the brightest of us."
+
+"Thank you," says I; "just crown me with bitter-sweet, and have done
+with it. If there is anything that riles me more than another, it is a
+double and twisted compliment."
+
+"There, there! do be reasonable, and hurry along," says Dempster,
+a-trying to shuffle out of the whole thing; "don't you see the members
+crowding into the House?"
+
+"I haven't seen the house yet," says I, not half pacified.
+
+"Of course not--how can you, till we get there?"
+
+Cousin Dempster walked on, and, of course, I had to follow.
+
+"Wait one minute," says I, "while I look at this great round picture
+overhead. What on earth is it all about? The women up there look mighty
+unsafe. Now, what room is this, with its roof in the sky, and its floor
+solid stone?"
+
+"It is the rotunda," says he; "the national pictures are all around you,
+but we haven't time to look at them now--some other day."
+
+I couldn't help looking back, for such a room I never saw in my born
+days. It was like a stone park roofed in so high up that the pictured
+women overhead seemed perched among the clouds. Over them the light came
+pouring like water down a cataract, filling the broad space below as if
+it had been all out of doors.
+
+But I had no time to see more, for Cousin Dempster led me through a
+hallway and into another round room, except at one end, where a gallery
+ran straight across and then curved around the whole room, hooping it in
+like a horseshoe. In front of the straight gallery ran a row of stone
+pillars--tall, large, and shiny as glass--spotted, too, like the
+leopards in a show, and towering up like the pillars in Solomon's
+Temple, which the Queen of Sheba travelled so far to examine. The idea
+that she took all that trouble to get acquainted with Solomon, is just
+ridiculous. Why, it would have taken the hymeneal monarch a whole
+lifetime to have introduced her to his family in a decorous way.
+Besides, if he provided for his own household out of the government,
+only think how busy he must have been in finding places for the
+relations of all his wives! No doubt he let the Queen of Sheba see his
+Temple, and left her to be entertained by two or three hundred of his
+wives. Not being a ladies' man, what more could he do?
+
+Well, as Cousin Dempster says, I do sometimes let my pen run away with
+me; but when it turns toward the Scriptural history of my sex, I let it
+run.
+
+
+
+
+XLV.
+
+RANDOLPH ROGERS' BRONZE DOORS.
+
+
+"Well," says I to Cousin D., "what room do you call this?"
+
+"Oh, this is the old House," says he.
+
+The old house! Sisters, there are times when I think Dempster is beside
+himself. I did not deign to answer him, except with a look that would
+have stopped the sap running from a young maple in the brightest April
+day you ever saw. He didn't seem to mind it, though, but went on as if I
+hadn't pierced him with my eyes.
+
+"These doors," says he, swinging back the half of a door that seemed to
+be made of brass and gold and powdered green-stone pounded together, and
+cut into the most lovely pictures that you ever set eyes on--"these
+doors open to the new House. They are by Rogers, and cost thirty
+thousand dollars."
+
+"Thirty thousand dollars for these two doors, Cousin Dempster! I have
+just been a-wondering if you were crazy, and now I know you are."
+
+"Upon my word," says he, "that is just what they cost."
+
+"What! thirty thousand dollars?"
+
+"Thirty thousand dollars."
+
+I bent forward, and looked at the door--close. It was sunk deep into
+squares, and each square had a picture of men and women that seemed to
+be busy at something.
+
+"What is it all about?" says I.
+
+"Every picture is taken from something connected with the history of our
+country," says he.
+
+"You don't say so," says I. "Who did you say made them all?"
+
+"Mr. Rogers, a sculptor from Ohio. One of the great geniuses of the age,
+and one of the finest fellows that ever breathed."
+
+"Do you know him?" says I.
+
+"Yes," says he. "I got acquainted with him in Florence, years ago, when
+Elizabeth and I went to Europe on our wedding trip. He was then a rising
+man, hard at work on the art that he has since done much to ennoble. I
+am glad to see his great genius embodied here, where it will live as
+long as the marble on the walls. The country has honored itself in this
+almost as much as it has disgraced itself in placing some of the vilest
+attempts that ever parodied art in conspicuous places here."
+
+Cousin Dempster's face turned red as he spoke--red with shame, I could
+see.
+
+"It is enough to make an American, who understands what real art is,
+ashamed of his country," says he.
+
+"But what do they do it for?" says I.
+
+"Because two-thirds of the members sent here do not know a picture from
+a handsaw! but impudence can persuade, and ignorance can vote. Why, I
+once heard a Member of Congress speak of the statues in the Vatican as
+coarse and clumsy compared with the attempts of a female woman who could
+not, out of her own talent, have moulded an apple-dumpling into
+roundness."
+
+Cousin Dempster had got into dead earnest now. He knew what he was
+talking about, and I couldn't help feeling for him.
+
+"Some day, Cousin Phoemie," says he, "I will take you round and show
+you the abominations which have been set up in this building--a disgrace
+both to the taste and integrity of the nation. You will understand the
+impudent pretension for which our people have been taxed in order that
+the National Capitol may be made a laughing-stock for foreigners, and
+those Americans who are compelled to blush for what they cannot help."
+
+"Cousin Dempster," says I, "why don't the press take these things up and
+expose them?"
+
+"That is exactly what I want," says he. "It is for that very purpose I
+want you to go around among these distorted marbles and things. Your
+Reports may do some good."
+
+"But I don't quite understand them myself," says I, blushing a little.
+
+"Trust genius to discover genius," says he. "You could not fail to see
+faults or merits where they existed. All the arts are kindred. Poetry,
+painting, sculpture, go hand-in-hand. You understood the beauty that
+lies in these doors at a glance."
+
+"One must be blind not to see that," says I.
+
+"Of course; well, cousin, we will give a day to these things before we
+go home; but now, hurry forward, or we shall be too late to see the
+House open."
+
+"Just as if there was a house in all Washington that wouldn't open for
+us if we chose to knock or ring," I thought to myself, but said nothing,
+for Dempster was walking off like a steam-engine, and I followed down
+one long hall, and up another--all paved with bright-colored
+stones--till it seemed as if I were walking over a rock carpet.
+
+
+
+
+XLVI.
+
+WAS IT A MEETING-HOUSE?
+
+
+Dear sisters:--At last we came to some wide marble stairs, with a twist
+in the middle, and they led us into another long hall with a stone
+carpet, out of which some doors covered with cloth were opening and
+shutting all the time for folks to go through.
+
+Cousin Dempster swung one open for me, and I went into what looked like
+a meeting-house gallery, with long seats a-running all around it,
+cushioned off with red velvet, or something. Right over what seemed to
+be the pulpit, was a square gallery by itself, which I took for the
+singers' seats, but it was full of men--not a female among them--and
+they all seemed busy as bees laying out their music for use.
+
+Cousin E. E. was sitting near this gallery. She beckoned to me, so I
+went in. I sat down by her and whispered:
+
+"I didn't know we were coming to a meeting. Dempster never said a word
+about it."
+
+"Hush!" says she. "The chaplain is going to pray."
+
+I did hush, and saw the congregation come in and walk down the aisles
+and take their seats. Some brought books that seemed like Bibles under
+their arms; and all of them took off their hats, as was proper.
+
+One thing struck me as peculiar: no ladies came into any place but the
+galleries, and up there they whispered and laughed in a way that made my
+blood run cold.
+
+By and by a man came in, walked down the broad aisle, and went up into
+the pulpit.
+
+Two or three men were sitting in the deacons' seat,--which ran along
+below the pulpit, and they began to whisper together--a thing I didn't
+like in the deacons of a church.
+
+The minister put his hands together beautifully. The congregation stood
+up, as good Presbyterians ought to do, and I stood up too, with my arms
+folded, and bending my head a little, while a solemn prayerfulness crept
+over me; but the next minute I dropped both arms and opened both eyes
+wide.
+
+The minister was coming down the pulpit stairs. The congregation sat
+down. The deacons each took up a pen--so did the singers, who hadn't
+sung a note yet.
+
+"What _does_ this mean?" I whispered to Cousin E. E.
+
+"The prayer is over," says she.
+
+"Over!" says I. "Why, the minister hadn't begun to tell the Lord what
+sinners we all are."
+
+"Oh!" says she, almost laughing out in meeting, "that would be too heavy
+work for one man. Only think how much of it there is to represent in
+this place."
+
+"Cousin," says I, "your levity in this sacred place shocks me."
+
+"Sacred place," says she. "Oh, Phoemie, you will be the death of me."
+
+"Have you no regard for your own soul?" says I, in an austere whisper
+that ought to have riled up the depths of her conscience.
+
+"My soul, indeed!" says she, with her eyes and her lips all a-quivering
+with fun; "as if people ever thought of such things here."
+
+I dropped into my seat--her sinful levity took away my breath.
+
+The woman absolutely began to talk out loud, and didn't even stop when a
+man got up in the congregation and began to exhort. In the distress her
+conduct gave me I did not hear just what he said, but at last he held
+out a paper. A handsome little boy came up and carried it toward the
+pulpit and gave it to one of the deacons.
+
+Up to this time I had thought the congregation Presbyterians, but the
+boy puzzled me. I remembered the little fellow in red at that High
+Church service, and thought perhaps the good old New England stand-by
+meeting had got some of these new-fangled additions to their board of
+deacons. The thought troubled me, but not so much as the conduct of
+that congregation. The ladies in the gallery behaved shamefully--I must
+say it. They whispered, they laughed, they flirted their fans and
+flirted with their lips and eyes. Sometimes they turned their backs on
+the congregation downstairs. They kept moving about from one seat to
+another. In fact, I cannot describe the actions of these females. The
+idea of piety never entered one of their heads--I am sure of that.
+
+There must have been a good many notices and publishments to give out;
+more than I ever heard of in our meeting-house, for ever so many papers
+were sent up to the pulpit, where another minister sat now ready to
+begin his sermon.
+
+I must own it, there was some confusion among the congregation in the
+body of the church. The members moved about more than was decorous, and
+there was whispering a-going on there as well.
+
+In Vermont the minister would have rebuked his congregation--especially
+the flighty females around me.
+
+I was saying this to Cousin E. E. when that man in the pulpit took up a
+little wooden hammer that lay on the desk before him, and struck it down
+with a force that hushed the whole congregation into decency at once.
+
+I was glad of it, and in my innermost heart said "Amen!"
+
+By and by a man got up to exhort. He must have been brought up as a
+clerk in some thread-needle store, I should think, by the way he
+measured off his long, rolling sentences, that seemed to come through
+the bung-hole of an empty cider barrel; and his arms went spreading out
+with each sentence, as if he were measuring tape, and meant to give
+enough of it.
+
+"Who is that?" says I, whispering to Cousin E. E.
+
+"That," says she, "is a gentleman from ----."
+
+"No doubt he's a member," says I; "how earnest he seeks for protection!"
+
+"Of course he is a member or they wouldn't let him speak," whispers she.
+
+"I know that," says I. "The Presbyterians don't allow any but members
+to speak in their meeting, of course; but it seems to me they do a great
+deal more talking than praying here, or singing either."
+
+"Oh, I don't believe any one but the chaplain ever thinks of praying
+here, and he cuts it short as pie-crust."
+
+"Don't be irreverent," says I.
+
+Cousin E. E. got up from her seat; so did Dempster.
+
+"Come," he said, "I am tired of hearing about salt."
+
+"Especially if the salt has lost its savor," says I, hoping to draw both
+their thoughts to the Scriptures, and get them in a proper frame of mind
+for the occasion.
+
+"The tax is what I want it to lose," says he, and I saw by his manner
+that thoughts of humility and prayer were far from him; so, rather than
+join in this mockery of holy things, I followed him out of that
+beautiful and sacred edifice, softened, and, I hope, made better by the
+service in which my soul had joined.
+
+"Well," says Cousin Dempster, when we stood once more on the stone
+carpet of the hall, "how did you like the House?"
+
+"What house?" says I.
+
+"The House of Representatives, to be sure," says he.
+
+"When I have seen it, I can tell you better," says I.
+
+"Oh, nonsense! you have seen it," says he, "in full session, too."
+
+"Look a-here, cousin," says I; "all this morning you've been talking
+about old houses and new houses, as if this heap of marble was a green,
+with buildings all round it. I've seen the place you call a
+rotunda--halls, with scrumptious stone carpets on them, and as fine a
+meeting-house as Solomon need have wanted. Now, if you want to show me
+that house where the Representatives meet, do it, and no more
+parsonizing about it."
+
+"But, cousin, I do assure you, we have just come from it. You have heard
+the members speaking."
+
+"I have seen a meeting-house, and worshipped in it," says I.
+
+"Are you really in earnest?" says he.
+
+"Would I, the member of a church, trifle on a sacred subject?" says I.
+
+"Oh!" says Cousin Dempster, a-leaning his back against the marble
+wall--"oh! hold me, or I shall laugh myself to death."
+
+I wish he had. There!
+
+
+
+
+XLVII.
+
+EASTER.
+
+
+My dear sisters:--Christmas isn't a New England institution, and High
+Churches are not indigenous to the Down East soil. The Pilgrim Fathers
+took a notion against that species of holidays, and their descendants
+were forbidden by law to make mince-pies and such like, in celebration
+of that particular day. In fact, Christmas was turned out of meeting,
+and Thanksgiving adopted in its place. As for High Churches, in the good
+old times there wasn't a steeple to be seen. The meeting-houses were
+spread out on the ground, roofed in like barns, and quartered off inside
+into square pews, like a cake of gingerbread. The only thing that looked
+like a steeple in those days was the minister, when he stood up to pray.
+Sometimes he leaned a trifle backward to let the congregation see that
+there was no chance that he would ever bow down to that old English
+Church, against which the dust from his feet had been shaken.
+
+The deacons ranged in that long seat under the pulpit, with iron-clad
+faces and hearts, that had grown rocky in their uprightness, were such
+men as you don't meet often nowadays. They not only shook the dust from
+their feet against the Church of England, but scattered a good deal on
+the Quakers and other sects that crept in from the Old World, with an
+idea that they might have a sneaking notion of their own where trees
+were so thick and men so upright; but you and I know they found out
+their mistake.
+
+Our blessed old forefathers sought Christian toleration for themselves
+when they came into the wilderness, not for anybody else. They knew
+exactly which was the shortest way to Heaven, and meant that other
+people should follow it straight up.
+
+Having cast off the old Church of England, and sang Thanksgiving hymns
+on Plymouth Rock--which after all, sisters, wasn't much of a rock to
+brag of as to size--of course our forefathers weren't likely to drag any
+of the worn-out institutions along with them, so, as I have said, they
+dropped Christmas, set their faces against steeples, turned their altars
+into cherry-wood communion tables, clad their souls in iron, and New
+England was purified from the dross of the Old World.
+
+This is why Christmas amounts to nothing among us.
+
+New England has always been an independent part of the United States.
+The footprints of the Puritans are not quite worn out yet, and in
+turning our back on saints and such, we have nigh about forgotten that
+our part of the country had anything to be thankful for, except a fine
+grain harvest and abounding hay crop.
+
+Well, not knowing much about Christmas, sisters, you will be glad to
+hear something about Easter, which comes at the end of Lent, and is a
+time of rejoicing in this city, I can tell you. Let me explain:
+
+Lent is a wonderful still time among the church people who are given to
+fish and eggs, and morning service for weeks and weeks while it lasts.
+But the last three days are what I want to tell you about; for during
+the time when hard-boiled eggs are so much the fashion, Cousin E. E. and
+myself were in Washington, where people rest a little from parties, and
+eat a good many oysters in a serious way, but could no more get up a
+regular Easter jubilee than they could tell where the money goes to that
+ought to build up the Washington monument, but don't.
+
+No; Cousin E. E., who keeps getting higher and higher in her church
+notions, was determined to spend her Easter at home.
+
+"Easter! what does that mean?" I seem to hear you say. "Is it a woman,
+or was it named after one? Is it--"
+
+Stop, sisters, that question is too much for me; I don't know. Wasn't
+there a handsome woman of the Jewish persuasion who put on her good
+clothes and came round the king, her husband, when her relations were
+all kept out of office, or something of that kind? Perhaps this Easter
+is named after her; but then it seems to me as if the names weren't just
+the same. Anyway, the three days they call Easter mean a solemn thing
+that we haven't thought enough of in our parts, up to this time.
+
+It means those three days when our Lord lay in the tomb. The first day,
+sisters, is held in remembrance of a death that was meant to make men
+holy. That was suffered for you and me. It is called Good Friday, and a
+great many people in these parts hold it as the most solemn day of all
+the year. I think it is. My own heart bows itself in dumb reverence as
+the thought of all it means settles down upon me. I wonder that so many
+years of my life have gone by without giving the day a thought. Surely,
+sisters, Christ did not die for the Catholics and Episcopalians alone.
+
+Well, sisters, I did not mean to preach or exhort out of season, but my
+heart has been touched, and out of its fulness I have spoken.
+
+"Are we a-going to your High Church?" says I to Cousin E. E. when she
+came to my room Friday morning, and asked if I was ready.
+
+"No," says she; "even that does not reach my ideas of what is due to the
+occasion. We will go still higher--to St. Stephen's."
+
+"Catholic, isn't it?" says I.
+
+"Yes," says she, with a sigh, "the Mother Church. You will, at least, be
+interested."
+
+"I never was in a Catholic meeting-house," says I, "but to-day I feel
+like worshipping anywhere, cold as it is."
+
+"Not so cold as our Lord's tomb," says she, shivering a little.
+
+I, too, felt cold chills a-creeping over me.
+
+"Come," she says, "it is time."
+
+
+
+
+XLVIII.
+
+A CHURCH HIGHER YET.
+
+
+Sisters, we never spoke a word all the way to St. Stephen's Church,
+which is not a mite higher, and not near so handsome as a good many
+other meeting-houses we had to pass. A crowd of people were going in,
+and we followed into the darkness; for the whole space was full of
+gloom, like a foggy sunset. Here and there lights shone out like stars
+in a cloud, just enough to make the gloom strike home. The church was
+shaped like a cross, and had more than one altar in it. That which stood
+at the head of the broad aisle had just lights enough around it to make
+its whiteness ghostly, and to tremble over a great picture back of it,
+where figures in some harrowing scene seemed to come and go in the foggy
+air.
+
+Yes, the air was foggy and thick, with sweet-smelling smoke, that came
+from some brass lamps a couple of little boys were a swinging back and
+forth by chains linked to them; and there, standing right in front of
+the altar, was a man all draped out in black robes, and a white
+overdress, praying. Sisters, it was awful solemn; I couldn't but just
+keep from sobbing right out.
+
+"Look!" says E. E.; "isn't the chapel of the Virgin beautiful?"
+
+I did look; and there at my left stood an altar covered with flowers,
+and blazing with lights starting up like a crown of glory through the
+darkness.
+
+"Why is that altar so bright, while all the rest of the meeting-house is
+almost dark?" I whispers to E. E.
+
+"That is the chapel of the Virgin, and there lies the body of Christ."
+
+"The body of Christ!" says I, with a start.
+
+"Yes," says she, bowing her head. "You cannot see it, for the flowers
+cover it, as we strew them over the graves of those we love; but the
+holy body of our Lord is there, waiting for the resurrection."
+
+"Waiting for the resurrection!" says I. "How can you say that, E. E.,
+when our Lord was resurrected almost nineteen hundred years ago?"
+
+"Oh!" says she, shaking her head and whispering, "that was so; but the
+body of Christ is there this minute, under the flowers."
+
+"Cousin E. E., are you crazy? Do you believe that in earnest?"
+
+"I do," says she a-folding her hands and dropping down her head.
+
+"But how--how can it be?"
+
+"I cannot explain, dear cousin; but it is so. It is, indeed."
+
+"E. E., are you a Roman Catholic?--do they believe that?"
+
+"Every one of 'em."
+
+"And are you a Roman Catholic?"
+
+"Not yet," says she; "you know well enough that I belong to the
+Episcopal Church; but my pilgrimage is not ended."
+
+Cousin E. E. bent her head and spoke low. I felt the old Pilgrim blood
+rile in me; but just as I was a-going to speak again, a low, mournful
+noise went a-rolling through the meetinging-house, that chilled me down
+like ice-water. It came from behind the great white altar, which looked
+to me like a big tombstone with night-fog floating over it. Through the
+fog I saw two rows of wooden seats, with high backs; and in them sat
+men, all in black and white clothes, singing dismally. No--it wasn't
+singing, and it wasn't reading; but a long, rolling drawl, in which a
+few tones of music seemed buried and were pleading to get out. With this
+dreary sound, came the sobs and mournful shivers of the cold wind
+outside, which made my blood creep.
+
+It was too much; I could not bear it. Tears came into my eyes like drops
+of ice; I felt preceding shivers creeping up my arms.
+
+"Do let's go home--I feel dreadfully," says I, catching hold of Cousin
+E. E.'s dress.
+
+"Wait," says she, "till they have done chanting the Psalms."
+
+I couldn't help it; but sunk down on my knees, covered my face with both
+hands, and let that awful music roll over me. It seemed like a call to
+the Day of Judgment.
+
+At last the sound died off; the wind outside took it up dolefully, and
+seemed to call us out into the cold air. We went, feeling like ghosts,
+and never spoke a word all the way home. How could we, with that awful
+feeling creeping over us?
+
+
+
+
+XLIX.
+
+EASTER SUNDAY.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--It seemed to me as if I never could go into that Catholic
+meeting-house again; but when Sunday came, E. E. got up so cherk and
+bright, that I couldn't say "No" when she wanted me to start with her to
+St. Stephen's meeting-house.
+
+"You will hear no more crying and sobbing," says she, "everything will
+be bright and beautiful; no more penitential psalms; no more darkness.
+Christ has risen!"
+
+My heart rose and swelled, like a frozen apple thrown into hot water,
+when I got into the meeting. It was raining like fury out of doors, but
+inside everything blazed with glory. The great white altar flashed and
+flamed with snow-white candles, bunched like stars in tall candlesticks,
+branched off with gold. Two great candles, as thick as your waist,
+burned like pillars of snow afire inside, on each side of the steps. Up
+amongst the golden candlesticks were two square Maltese crosses--like
+the cross we are used to, only one end is cut off short to match the
+others--all of white flowers, with just a little red at the tips, as if
+a few drops of innocent blood had stained them. Then there were
+beautiful half-moons made of milk-white flowers lying on beds of purple
+flowers, but there was no other color on that altar.
+
+On an altar which I had not seen in the darkness, when I was there
+before, a lamb--as large as life, made out of flowers so white that it
+seemed as if they must have grown in heaven itself--stood among the
+lights that shone, like crowded stars, out from behind it. Across its
+shoulders this lamb carried a cross so blood-red, that it chilled me
+through and through.
+
+Above this altar hung a great cross six feet high, which seemed to float
+in the air. It was made of gas-drops that quivered into each other, and
+struck out colors that the fire seemed to have drank up from the
+flowers, and turned into light that was glorious.
+
+Over this cross floated a crown of fire, that seemed to tremble and
+shake with every gust of air, as if it had just floated down from
+heaven, and, meeting the cross, hovered over it.
+
+I had but just time enough to see all this, when from the other side of
+the great altar, came a lot of boys, walking two and two, with white
+shoes on their feet, and white dresses--I should have called them frocks
+if it had been girls that wore them--all fastened with crimson buttons,
+and crimson silk scarfs were thrown across their shoulders. Then came a
+lot more, dressed in scarlet frocks and white shoes; and after them
+another class in white, with purple scarfs across their shoulders.
+
+These boys--they were real handsome little fellows--stood themselves
+around the altar. Then came two men, all in black and white, and after
+them four others, dressed like kings and princes, all in scarlet and
+gold, and lace and precious stones.
+
+These men knelt down on the steps of the altar. Then everybody in the
+meeting-house knelt too. After a few minutes they got up, and out from
+somewhere in the meeting-house, a low roar of music burst over us, and
+with it came a rush of voices singing out, "Lord, have mercy on us!
+Lord, have mercy on us."
+
+Then there was a lull, and after that a whole torrent of gushing music,
+with an undertone of rolling sounds, and out of the noise came these
+words that seemed to catch up one's heart and fly away with it:
+
+"Glory to God on high, peace and good-will to men!"
+
+Oh, how this rush of sound rose and swelled, and glorified itself! It
+seemed as if you could see Christ rising from the sepulchre, and all the
+angels of heaven rejoicing over it.
+
+Then came more music. I cannot tell you what it was like, only it made
+my heart stir and throb, as if it wanted to break loose and mount
+upwards, singing as it went.
+
+At last a low voice sung, all alone, clear and high as a bird in the
+air. After that, deep, deep silence settled on the whole congregation,
+and everybody dropped down on their knees. Then one of the men in
+scarlet and gold went a step higher on the altar, and took from it a
+gold cup, which he held high up in one hand. Out of this cup he lifted a
+round thing that looked more like a cracker than anything else, and held
+it up between his thumb and finger. I was going to ask E. E. what it was
+all about, but she was bending forward, with her face almost on the
+floor, and everybody around us was taking an extra kneel, which I did
+not understand. Everything kept still, the congregation bent close to
+the floor, and everybody seemed to be thinking to themselves for as much
+as ten minutes. Then the whole congregation lifted its head. The boys
+in red and white frocks swung the brass lamps, which sent clouds of
+sweet, white smoke up amongst the flowers, and out came another burst of
+music, louder, sweeter, and more triumphant than anything I had heard
+yet. It just carried me right off from my feet.
+
+After this, one of the crimson and gold men on the altar turned round,
+and spread out his arms. Two others caught hold of his dress, and held
+it out on each side, and dropped it again. The boys in white and scarlet
+and purple made themselves into double lines, and walked out of the door
+they came in by. The leading scarlet and gold man took the gold cup in
+his hands, and followed after, and the other men in their sparkling
+dresses--with those two in black and white--walked beside and behind him
+while he carried it out.
+
+There was a little stir in the congregation after this, but by and by
+the man who had stood on the steps of the altar and carried out the cup,
+came back in another dress, and went up into a little cubby-house of a
+pulpit, where he preached a beautiful sermon, which I didn't understand
+a word of, and then Easter was over in that church.
+
+When we got out of church I felt like a bird with its wings spread out
+wide. It was raining like Jehu, but I didn't care for that; the music,
+the flowers, the bursts of light had made me feel like another creature.
+Even the stormy sky looked splendid. But when we got home, I began to
+think over what I had seen and heard, and as soon as Cousin E. E. seemed
+to feel like talking, I put a few questions to her.
+
+"Cousin," says I, "who were the men that came out there, all glistening
+with gold and things, and stood on the steps of the altar?"
+
+"Them? Why, they were the priests."
+
+"Oh! And the one who held that cup in his hand--wasn't he something a
+little more particular than the rest?"
+
+"He was the arch-priest."
+
+"You don't say so! But what was that round thing he lifted out of the
+cup?"
+
+"That? Why, Phoemie, that was the Host!"
+
+"There was a host of people on the floor, of course; but I mean the
+little thing he held up between his thumb and finger?"
+
+"That?" says Cousin E. E., a-lifting up both hands, as if I'd done
+something dreadful. "That is the holy wafer."
+
+"The what, Cousin E. E.?"
+
+"The body of our Saviour."
+
+"Oh, cousin, how can you?" says I, a-feeling myself grow cold all over.
+
+"It is so, Phoemie. As yet you may not understand the mystery, but in
+time you will see it."
+
+I couldn't answer her, she was in such solemn earnest; but then and
+there I made up my mind that we should have to talk over that matter in
+earnest before long, for I felt the Pilgrim blood riling up in my bosom.
+
+"Do Episcopalians believe that?" says I.
+
+"Those that take a high stand do," says she.
+
+"Well," says I, "we won't talk that over just now. But whose boys were
+those that swung the lamps and stood round the altar?"
+
+"Oh, those were the acolytes."
+
+"Any relations to the boys we saw at morning service?" says I.
+
+"Oh, they are all the same."
+
+"Mercy on me!" says I; "what a large family of boys--and so near of an
+age, too!"
+
+E. E. lifted her head and gave me the ghost of a smile--that was all. I
+believe she felt that talking was a sin just then, and I felt a little
+that way myself.
+
+"That music was splendid," says I, "and the flowers. I don't think I
+ever was in any meeting-house that seemed so close to heaven. But then I
+always had a hankering after such things. And why not? If God gives us
+music and flowers, light and sweet odors, can it be wrong to render them
+back to him? Cousin, I never knew what power there was in such things
+till now."
+
+"Phoemie," says she--and a queer smile came over her face--"I shouldn't
+wonder if you go back, at last, a High Church woman. Then what would the
+Society say?"
+
+I felt myself turning red--as if I, Phoemie Frost, could change in the
+religion of my forefathers!
+
+"No," says I; "there I am firm as a rock; but with firmness, I hope,
+cousin, that I join toleration. It seems to me that our Pilgrim Fathers
+made a mistake when they expected all mankind to think with them, and
+another mistake when they put aside the holiest and most solemnly
+beautiful days of all the year--those upon which our blessed Lord was
+born, suffered, and ascended into heaven.
+
+
+
+
+L.
+
+THAT MAN WITH THE LANTERN.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I am back in Washington. So is Cousin E. E. and Dempster,
+who has got a case before Congress; and when a man has that he just
+makes up his mind to take permanent lodgings in a sleeping-car, and make
+his home by daytime in a railroad section.
+
+You never saw anything like the hurry in which such men live. As for the
+married ones, their wives scarcely see them at all unless they catch 'em
+flying with a railroad ticket in one hand, and a carpet-bag, swelled out
+like an apple-dumpling, in the other.
+
+To us women this kind of life is tantalizing--very.
+
+When Cousin D. came up from Wall Street, all in a fume, and says he:
+"Come, ladies, if you've a mind to go to Washington, just pack up and
+get your things," we both rushed into the street like crazy creatures,
+and came back with our pockets crammed, and our hands full of hair-pins,
+bits of ribbon, lengths of lace, and so on. These we huddled into our
+trunks the last thing, drew a deep breath, and said we're ready, half
+scared to death with fear that D. might cut short the hour he has been
+kind enough to give us, and start off alone--a thing he was just as like
+to do as not, being a man.
+
+It's astonishing how much can really be done in an hour. When our time
+was up we had five minutes to spare, and sat with our satchels in our
+laps, waiting for Cousin D.
+
+This time, being with E. E., I just said nothing, but let things drift,
+which, after all, is about the easiest way to get along. Instead of
+going in among the easy-chairs, as we did before, they took me into the
+sleeping-car, which is a great long affair, with what we call bunks, in
+our parts, made lengthwise on each side, with a narrow hall running
+between. The bunks had curtains, and looked ship-shape when they were
+once made up; but it was funny enough to see great tall men spreading
+sheets and patting down pillows for female women to sleep on.
+
+Cousin E. E. and I had a little mahogany pen, with two bunks in it,
+which is considered extra genteel, and we went to bed, first one and
+then the other, not having room enough for more than one to undress at a
+time. When our clothes were hung up, and we inside the bunks, the pen
+was choke full, and off we rattled, with a jounce now and then that made
+you catch your breath. It was like sleeping in a cradle, with some great
+hard-footed nurse rocking you in a broken trot.
+
+I had just begun to get to sleep, when what do you think happened?
+
+The door was pushed open, and a man looked in. I started up, riled to
+the depths of my woman's soul. Never before, since I was a nursing baby,
+had any man looked on my face after it was laid on my pillow.
+
+What did the creature mean?
+
+I scrouched down in the bunk, pulling the sheet over my head, and peeped
+through an opening, half scared to death.
+
+That man had a lantern in his hand, a dark lantern, with the fire all on
+one side. It glared into my bed like a wicked eye.
+
+"What, oh, what _do_ you want?" says I. "Remember, we are two innocent
+females that seem to be unprotected, but we have a gentleman outside--a
+strong, tall, powerful man. Advance another step and I scream."
+
+The man opened his mouth to speak; his one-eyed lantern glared upon me;
+he smiled as if overflowing with good intentions.
+
+"Go away," says I, speaking in a tone of command from under the
+bedclothes, "or if it is my purse you want, take it; but take that evil
+eye from my countenance."
+
+The man took the little pocket-book from my trembling hand; he opened it
+with cold-blooded slowness, took out a long strip of printed paper
+Cousin Dempster had told me to take care of, and tore it in two before
+my face. Then he put one of the pieces back, while I lay shaking and
+being shook till the teeth chattered in my head.
+
+"Spare me," says I, with the plaintive wail of a heroine. "Take all I
+have, pocket-book and all, but, oh, spare me; spare me!"
+
+He held my pocket-book towards me. I shivered, I shrunk; my hand crept
+forth like a poor timid mouse, and darted back again.
+
+The man--this stealthy railway burglar--seemed touched with compassion.
+My helpless innocence had evidently made an impression even on his
+hardened nature; he laid the pocket-book gently on the pillow, and
+modestly turned his one-eyed lantern away, pitying my confusion, and
+feeling, as any man with a heart in his bosom must, that I was scared
+out of a week's growth.
+
+I breathed again. My heart swelled with thankfulness that a great danger
+was passed. I pushed back the blankets, and looked out while a timid
+shudder crept over me.
+
+The man was there yet, stooping down to Cousin E. E.'s bunk. I heard
+paper rustle. Had he spared me to rob her? Why didn't she scream? Why
+didn't she command the creature to leave her presence?
+
+Robbery was nothing, but that cool way of breaking in upon two sleeping
+females had the ferocity of a wild beast in it. Was he killing my
+cousin--smothering her with pillows so that she could not scream out?
+The thought drove me frantic. My arms were goose-pimpled like a grater.
+
+"Why don't you order him out? Why don't you scream for Dempster?" says
+I, feeling a thrill of hysterics creeping over me. "If you don't, I
+must.
+
+"All right," says the burglarious wretch, giving us the dark side of his
+lantern, and slamming the door. Then all was mournfully still. I half
+rose and leaned over my bunk, pale, breathless.
+
+"Oh, cousin! speak to me if you are alive," I pleaded.
+
+"What is it; what is the matter, Phoemie?" says a sleepy voice from
+below.
+
+"Ah, thank Heaven, you are alive!" I cried, a-clasping my hands in a
+sweet ecstasy of gratitude. "Did he attempt to strangle you?"
+
+"He. Who?"
+
+"Why, that man. That prowling monster, with the one-eyed lantern!"
+
+"Oh, he only wanted my ticket; he meant no harm," says she, more than
+half asleep.
+
+I drew back into my bunk, and let her go to sleep. Ignorance _is_ bliss.
+She felt safe, and I left her. Why should I disturb her innocent rest
+with the knowledge that a railroad she trusted in was infested through
+and through with brigandation. If she knew the truth, I was certain that
+E. E. would never be coaxed or reasoned into travelling again, so I
+determined to keep a still tongue, and never mention this attempt at
+burglary again to any human creature.
+
+I have made up my mind to one thing, though. Phoemie Frost will never
+travel again without a pistol under her pillow. What good object can any
+man have in smashing into the midnight dreams of two innocent females,
+and wanting to examine their pocket-books? I tremble to think what the
+feelings of the great Grand Duke would be if he had heard of the
+terrible danger I have been in.
+
+Of course I never closed my eyes again till the long train of cars crept
+like a great trailing snake into the depot at Washington.
+
+
+
+
+LI.
+
+MRS. GRANT'S RECEPTION.
+
+
+Sisters, Washington is splendid just now. In New York the winter seems
+to have frozen up all the sap in the trees; not a bud on the limbs, not
+a tinge of green even on the willows, which are the trees of all others
+that give out their greenness first in the spring, and keep it latest in
+the fall. The trees that grow in the Park were brown and naked when we
+left the city.
+
+Here the buds are a-swelling. The willow-trees are feathered over with
+leaves as soft and pale as the down on a gosling's breast. The
+beech-trees are covered over with soft, downy buds, that float on the
+air like full-grown caterpillars. Even the ragged old button-balls are
+shooting out leaves like sixty, and the young trees at the Smithsonian
+Institution, and the old ones below the Capitol of the nation, are
+bursting into greenness, while the grass seems to spring up fresh in
+your path as you walk along.
+
+I declare it is a satisfaction to breathe the air which is kissing so
+many buds and flowers open; and I feel sort of guilty in doing it, when
+I know that the hollows around Sprucehill are choked up with dead
+leaves, if not with drifted snow, and it will be weeks yet before the
+maple-sap will take to running.
+
+Nature is an institution that I hope I shall always be fond of and
+appreciate; but men and women are, after all, the noblest work of a
+beneficent Creator, and, from the delicate greenness and the soft airs
+of spring, I turn to them.
+
+At two o'clock, yesterday, Mrs. President Grant had a grand reception at
+the White House. There hasn't been the ghost of one while Lent kept
+people down to a fish diet and morning meetings; but now, when the
+flowers of Easter-Sunday have all withered up, people begin to visit one
+another again, and this grand reception at the White House sort of opens
+the way and sets the fashions a-going once more.
+
+Well, when the time came, Cousin E. E. and I were on hand. My pink silk
+dress was a little rumpled; but I shook it out and smoothed it down.
+
+Cousin E. E. came out like a princess, in pale lilac-colored silk, with
+a whole snow-storm of lace crinkling over it. I declare, sisters, she
+looked fresh and sweet as the first lilac that blows! I was really proud
+to introduce her as my relation.
+
+Cousin Dempster, having a claim, had to go to the Capitol; so E. E. and
+I went together--no gentlemen being absolutely necessary to a daytime
+reception, you know.
+
+Well, we got out of the carriage as light and chipper as two birds. The
+driver held out his arm to keep our dresses from touching the wheel, as
+they streamed out after us; and I must say Vermont didn't suffer much as
+to ladies when we walked, with the slow dignity befitting persons with
+the eye of a State upon them, into the blue room, where Mrs. President
+Grant recepted. Well, I reckon the ladies were two to one against the
+men in that blue room, and it just looked lovely!
+
+In the centre of the room stood the round, blue silk sofa, I have told
+you about, cut up into seats, and rising to a point in the middle, as if
+a silk funnel had been turned bottom-side up there. On the nozzle end of
+this point a great white flower-pot stood, a-running over with pink and
+white flowers, rising in great clusters one above another, till they
+brightened the whole room with a glow like early morning.
+
+In front of this ring sofa the Mrs. President stood, looking just as
+smiling and sweet as a bank of roses. She had on a pink dress--no, not
+exactly what we call pink--but the color was soft and rosy as a cloud;
+snowflaky lace floated around her arms, and shaded her neck, which was
+plump, and white, and pretty as any girl's. She hadn't a sign of a
+flower, or anything on her head; but the soft, crinkly hair curled down
+to her forehead sweetly, and she seemed almost like a young girl.
+Everybody there said that they never had seen her look so handsome.
+
+Well, there she stood, with a nice little lady on one side, helping her
+recept; and she did it sweetly, which was likely, she being the wife of
+Senator Morton, of Indiana, one of General Grant's biggest sort of guns.
+You have heard of Senator Morton, of course. He was a first-rate fellow
+during the war, when he just buckled to and raised a half a million of
+dollars on his own account for the Government, which was grand in
+itself, and accounts for the way the people in Indiana almost worship
+him.
+
+Well, this lady was his wife. She looked young, and was dressed
+nicely--not just like a girl, but as if she had her husband's dignity to
+take care of, as well as her own good looks.
+
+When we got to the door of this room, a gentleman came up, and, after
+making a bow, wanted us to tell our names. Cousin E. E. answered:
+
+"Mrs. Dempster, of New York, and Miss Phoemie Frost, of Vermont."
+
+He didn't seem to hear distinctly, but bent his head; and says he:
+
+"Miss, did you say?"
+
+I flushed rosy-red, and my eyelids drooped, for I was thinking of the
+Grand Duke.
+
+"At present," says I.
+
+Then the gentleman called out so loud that everybody could hear him:
+
+"Mrs. Dempster--Miss Phoemie Frost."
+
+I say, sisters, did you ever see a cage full of canary-birds flutter
+when a cat was looking through the wires? If you have, that can give you
+some idea of the buzz, hum, and rustle that was going on when we came up
+to the front of that round sofa, and gave Mrs. Grant and Mrs. Morton one
+of those sliding curtsies that set off a long-trailed dress so well.
+
+Mrs. President Grant smiled sweetly, and held our her hand. I took that
+hand, I pressed it kindly--for I like that woman, whom poverty could not
+daunt, and sudden prosperity could not spoil. She's a good, motherly,
+nice woman, and my heart warmed to her as I took her hand in mine.
+
+"Miss Frost, I am delighted to see you back in Washington," says she;
+"especially as the weather promises to be so pleasant."
+
+"In some places we are apt to forget the weather, finding everything
+bright and pleasant without regard to it," says I.
+
+When I spoke, the ladies around crowded up to listen, and looked at each
+other, smiling. One or two gentlemen came up, too, and when I bowed my
+head and walked on, giving common people a chance, one of them came up
+to me, and says he:
+
+"Miss Frost, I think I have the pleasure of claiming you as a
+constituent," says he.
+
+"A what?" says I.
+
+"A constituent," says he, a-smiling softly.
+
+"No," says I; "I don't remember being connected with any family of that
+name."
+
+"But you are from Vermont?"
+
+"I am proud to say 'Yes,'" says I, a-bowing my best, in honor of the old
+State.
+
+"Then I have some claim on your acquaintance," says he. "My name is
+----."
+
+I reached out my hand. The fire flashed into my eyes. "Our United States
+Senator?" says I.
+
+"I believe the people have given me that honor," says he.
+
+"And honored themselves in the doing of it," says I.
+
+I declare the man blushed, showing that high parts and extraordinary
+knowledge haven't made him conceited. But I hadn't said a word more than
+the truth. Vermont, of all the States of the Union, I do think, has done
+herself credit in her choice of Senators. There isn't in all the Senate
+a man that either of 'em cannot hold his own with, and I don't believe a
+rough or ungentlemanly word or action has ever been on record against
+either of them."
+
+Before he could answer, a gentleman came and spoke low to him. Then he
+said, with a pleased look:
+
+"This is Mr. ----, our other Senator, Miss Frost, who is, I am sure, as
+glad to welcome you here as I am."
+
+I turned, and saw a tall, spare man, with the kindest, mildest, and most
+speaking face I ever set eyes on. His voice, too, when he spoke, was
+just benign. I gave him my hand. If I looked half as glad as I felt, he
+must have seen the warmest sort of a welcome in my eyes. I felt honored
+by an introduction to these men. Not because they happened to be my own
+Senators, but because they are men of heart and brains, capable of
+understanding what the people want, and both honest and strong enough to
+maintain what they understand. I write this without hesitation, knowing
+that there isn't a society or household in Vermont that will not agree
+with my way of thinking about them.
+
+I don't think much of beauty in a man, but there's no dreadful harm in
+being good-looking, and in that respect our Senators pull about an even
+yoke with each other, and can't be overmatched by many States in the
+Union.
+
+Well, we walked about the room, and had a good deal to say concerning
+the Old Mountain State, while the crowd went in and out down the east
+room, through the parlors, and into a great, long greenhouse, blazing
+out with flowers that grew so thick and smelled so sweet that I longed
+to stay there forever. But by the time I was ready to leave, the company
+had thinned off, and Cousin E. E. was waiting for me, a little out of
+sorts, for somehow I had lost her in the crowd; but she soon came to,
+and when I told her our Senators were going to call on us at the hotel,
+she chirked up. After all, Cousin E. E. _is_ a good-hearted creature as
+ever lived.
+
+
+
+
+LII.
+
+REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--My ambitious longings are satisfied. I have stood before
+the Mrs. President of these United States, and in that august situation
+sustained the honor and dignity of our Society in a manner that I hope
+will meet with your united and individual sanction. Mrs. Grant has had a
+great many ladies of one kind and another standing by her side as
+honored guests of the nation, but I do think the literary strata of the
+Union has never been fully represented before. I do not say this
+vaingloriously--far be it from me to claim anything on my own
+merits--but when the reputation of our Society is concerned, I am ready
+to stand up among the best, and hold my own even in the national White
+House.
+
+That I have done according to the best of my abilities, and, I trust, to
+the satisfaction of the Society, but I claim no credit for it. Any of us
+young girls can bow and smile, and give out words that melt into a vain
+man's heart like lumps of maple-sugar, and that is about all that is
+expected from the female women who perform Society in Washington, and
+real pretty, smart women most of them are; but after all, they are only
+accidental females, and get there just because their husbands happen to
+be elected to a place, and wouldn't even be heard of if some smart man
+hadn't given them his name--more than as like as not--before he knew
+himself how much it was worth.
+
+Now you will understand, sisters, that no man, though he should happen
+to be smart as a steel trap, and pleasant as a willow whistle, can give
+extra brains or sweet manners to a wife who hasn't got 'em in her own
+right. So there is a chance that some short comings in the female line
+are not very uncommon.
+
+The senators and judges and cabinet people are, as a general thing, the
+picked men of the nation, but they choose their own wives, and some of
+them haven't half so much taste in the fine arts, to which many of this
+generation of women belong, as they have knowledge about politics.
+Still, these ladies are what they call representative women, and,
+nationally considered, are the cream on cream of American society. That
+is a fact, too, as far as they represent their own husbands. By marrying
+great men, or those who are merely fortunate, they are only lifted more
+clearly into the public view, where their virtues and their faults are
+held up for general examination. Still, it is wonderful how popular some
+of them get to be, and how soon they learn the duties of their places.
+
+Sometimes a first-rate woman happens to marry a first-rate man, and
+takes her place by his side naturally. A good many such women have
+earned a place for themselves in society quite equal to any their
+husbands have been chosen to hold by the people.
+
+Mrs. Madison, Mrs. Polk and Miss Lane were among these, and, as a
+perfect lady, well known for years and years in Washington, Mrs.
+Crittendon, the widow of Senator Crittendon--formerly Mrs. Ashley--is
+always mentioned side by side with her husband, and stood quite as high
+among women as he did among men. In my opinion, there is a senator's
+wife from Minnesota that can hold her own with the handsomest and
+highest of those that have gone before; but as she is extra modest too,
+I give no names.
+
+Then there is another, I will say it, who has done honor to her position
+and credit to her husband, and that is Mrs. Ulysses Grant. She is just a
+good, honest, motherly woman, pleasant to look at and pleasant to speak
+to. She acts out what she pretends to, and pretends to be just what she
+is. If this woman hasn't pulled an even yoke with her husband, both in
+the war and after the war, no female of my acquaintance ever did. It's
+of no use talking, I like that woman.
+
+But I am a-going at a rate that wants pulling up, so I tighten the
+bridle and take a new turn.
+
+What I began to write about was, a reception at Mr. Horatio King's,
+which always takes off the first skimming of cream from Washington
+society.
+
+Mr. King is a New England man, and was born and brought up in Maine,
+which lifts him almost to a level with us of Vermont.
+
+In fact, in the way of statesmen and authors, I am bound to say that
+Maine pulls an even yoke with the Green Mountain State. So far as
+authors are concerned, I'm afraid she goes a little ahead of us.
+
+The city of Portland was just a nest of authors before they took wing
+and settled down in other places.
+
+John Neal, one of the most splendid men and brilliant writers that ever
+put an American pen to paper, was born there, and has spent most of his
+life in his native place.
+
+N. P. Willis was born in Portland; so was Sebe Smith, who called himself
+Jack Downing in his letters.
+
+Longfellow's family was rooted in that town long before he honored it by
+being born.
+
+James Brooks, who was for years a pillar of strength in Congress, and
+who started the first newspaper correspondence ever thought of, in the
+_Portland Advertiser_, which he edited before he was twenty years old,
+was a native of Portland, which city he represented in the legislature,
+then travelled all over Europe on foot, and settled down in New York
+before he was twenty-six. After this he spent twelve or fifteen years in
+Congress--earned a place, second to no man there, as a statesman,
+travelled over Europe three times, visited Egypt and the Holy Land, and
+finished his travels by a trip round the world, taken between the
+sessions of Congress. Beside this, he never ceased to be the leading
+editor of the New York _Express_, and his book about Japan, China, and
+so on, which Mr. Appleton, of New York, has published, is one of the
+best books of travel extant.
+
+Beside all these, Mr. King made his first literary start in Portland,
+where, as a young man, he edited a weekly paper. But he has lived most
+of his after-life in Washington, generally holding a high position
+there. During a portion of Mr. Buchanan's administration, he was
+Postmaster-General of these United States, and at all times he has been
+considered a man worth knowing.
+
+
+
+
+LIII.
+
+A LITERARY PARTY.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Of course I, being a young girl of New England, felt
+myself at home in Mrs. King's house the minute I entered it. There is
+something in the air of a dwelling like that, pure and breezy, like the
+morning winds on the Green Mountains. I felt myself growing frank and
+cheerful as I got into the hall. The parlors were crowded full--three of
+them--with people that one liked to look at, and longed to know; for
+every face had an idea in it, and, beyond that, a good many were right
+down beautiful.
+
+But beauty by itself isn't enough to get an invitation here, and good
+clothes count for just nothing, though there was plenty of them, and I
+didn't feel as if my pink silk was too much. Something a little more
+austere, in the velvet or alpaca line, might have been more appropriate
+to the occasion. Still, there was a rosy brightness about my silk that
+had a tendency to give a glow of youthful thoughtlessness to
+intelligence, and combine an idea of high fashion with genius.
+
+Mr. King, and his daughter, a proper, pretty stylish lady, stood near
+the door when I went in, with the train of my dress streaming back into
+the hall, and some natural rose-geranium leaves circling my brow in a
+way that was calculated to remind an observing person of Miss Corinne
+when she was crowned in the Capitol at Rome.
+
+Mr. King come forward to meet me with his hand held out. He is a thin,
+spare man, with the sweetest and kindest look in his face that you ever
+saw. I had intended to just touch his hand, and make a sweeping salute,
+half bow, half curtsey, that would take in the whole admiring crowd; but
+his frank, smiling welcome just took me right off from my feet, and I
+gave his hand a good, hearty New England shake that made him feel to
+home in a minute.
+
+Mr. King led me into the parlor, and gave me a soft seat among the
+cushions of a sofa in the middle room, just as Solomon must have waited
+on the Queen of Sheba. Then, feeling that the eyes of more States than
+Vermont were upon me, I spread out my skirts, leaned one arm on the sofa
+cushion, and settled myself just as Mr. Brady had done it when I sat to
+him for a picture; thus adding an artistic feature to the fashionable
+and intellectual embodiment of my first appearance. Thus, with downcast
+eyes and a modest demeanor, which must have been attractive, I waited
+for the literary programme that lay before us.
+
+It commenced beautifully. Mr. King took his place under the chandelier
+of the middle room, and welcomed his friends with a very poetic and
+touching little speech, which ended in a farewell which almost brought
+tears into my eyes. This was his last reunion for the year, and he
+seemed to feel the breaking-up a good deal, and his kind voice shook
+when he mentioned the possibility that death might carry off some of the
+friends who had brightened his home, before they all met again.
+
+When Mr. King sat down there was dumb silence for a little while; for
+the whole crowd seemed to feel all he had been saying, deep in their
+hearts. But this soon changed into smiles and a soft rustle of dresses,
+for a nice elderly gentleman got up and made a delightful speech, full
+of cheerfulness and nice friendly feeling, which brightened the whole
+crowd up like spring winds in a flower-garden.
+
+After this, another pleasant gentleman arose with a written poem in his
+hand, which he read under the gaslight, filling the whole room with the
+sound of his friendly voice.
+
+The poem was written to Mr. King. It was full of sweet thoughts and
+grateful thanks for all he had done to make his friends happy. But he
+blushed like a girl, for its praises seemed to take him by surprise,
+and, like all men of real talent, he is modest as can be.
+
+The lady who wrote this sweet poem was Mrs. Neeley, who has been writing
+to the Washington papers ever so long, in a way, too, that any woman
+might be proud of. She sat directly behind the gentleman who read her
+poem, and looked real nice in her crimson velvet dress.
+
+After this a lady got up and read something mournful about three curls
+of hair that a man had taken from his wife's head--golden when she was a
+child, brown when she was a bride, and snow-white when she lay dead.
+
+There was a sort of sob went through all the rooms when this poem died
+out. Then, after a little, every lady began to cheer up and laugh; for
+the same lady was reading a poem, half Dutch, half English, about a dog
+howling, which was so funny that I almost forgot my dignity as the
+representative of your Society, and near about clapped my hands--a thing
+I should have regretted to the day of my death.
+
+This dog poem set everybody into a state of high gleefulness and some
+music struck up in the front room, which could be heard a little now and
+then above the hum and rush of conversation that set in with the crowd,
+where artists, authors, and statesmen, and scientifics mingled in, and
+chatted promiscuously, saying such bright and wise and witty things,
+that they fairly made my eyes snap. I cut in, too.
+
+What is the use of being the emissary of a literary, scientific, and
+moral institution, if one can't hold up her end of the yoke in
+conversation? I did my best, sisters. An artist stood near me; I talked
+with him about pictures till, I do believe, he thought that I had been
+born in Rome, and cradled with Michael Angelo--an old fellow, that both
+painted and made marble men in Italy years ago. Then I had something to
+say about flowers to an agricultural bureau scientific, and about the
+chemistry of something to a savant or savan, or a word like that, of the
+Smithsonian Institution. I tell you, sisters, it was sharp work; but I
+flatter myself you were not in any way disgraced.
+
+By and by I was introduced to the Chief Justice of the Court of
+Claims--about as smart a lawyer, and clear headed a judge, as can be
+found in these parts, I can tell you. He was not long ago United States
+Senator from Missouri, and has left his mark among the statesmen there;
+but his genius lay as much in expounding the laws as in making them. He
+has written some capital law-books, too, and could mate with any judge,
+statesman, or author that came across his track. His wife joined in a
+little now and then, as only a right down sensible and handsome woman
+could. It does one's heart good to see a great man and most lovely woman
+mated so for once.
+
+That was just what I did in Mr. King's parlors, and, when we stopped
+talking, it struck me that the gentleman knew a great deal more of
+literature than your missionary has yet learned of statesmanship or law.
+In fact, an evening in Mr. King's parlors does teach one humility, and I
+begin to discover that a person may be capable of writing poetry, and
+making a fair report, without being able to teach science to a
+professor, jurisprudence--I hope I have got the word right--to a judge,
+or high statesmanship to a senator. In fact, in the present state of
+society, it seems to me that the best of us have got to live and
+learn--live and learn.
+
+
+
+
+LIV.
+
+DRESSING FOR A PARTY.
+
+
+My dear sisters:--You have no idea how many kinds of parties there are
+in Washington. Some are called receptions, because they take place in
+the daytime, in houses where every mite of sunshine is shut out, and the
+gas set to blazing as if it were midnight. That is, night isn't turned
+into day here one bit oftener than day is turned into night.
+
+Then there are ladies' lunch parties, where the daylight is allowed to
+shine in; and picnics, where one gets a little too much of it, besides
+being tired to death, and nothing to show for it.
+
+Besides these, there are political parties, where men get up
+entertainments that are called caucuses, which no lady is allowed to
+join in. Besides dinners and breakfasts, and so on, without end, which
+makes life in this city just one rush and tumult--to say nothing of
+Congress, which is just that, and a good deal more so.
+
+Last week, Cousin E. E. and I had so many invitations that we didn't
+know what to do with them. We should have had to go out to three
+breakfasts, two dinners, and six parties a night, if we had attempted to
+do more than read them all. For since Mr. King's literary reunion, the
+popularity of your missionary has increased like a rolling snowball, and
+her invitations came by the peck and half bushel.
+
+Well, out of this heap, there was one or two places that I felt like
+honoring with my presence. So E. E. and I sat down and wrote a little
+note--all ladies write _little_ notes nowadays--and relieved the intense
+anxiety of the people who had invited us, by saying, in the most polite
+way, that we would come.
+
+This act of kindness had its reward in the feeling that we had relieved
+more than one anxious host, and given certainty of a brilliant success
+to parties that must necessarily have been in doubt until certain of our
+coming. With my usual modesty, I say "our," wishing to give E. E. her
+little chance, you know.
+
+The invitation we resolved to honor was from one of the foreign
+ministers. Of course I expected that there would be a good many
+religious people there, and, as I hadn't mingled much with persons who
+were over pious for some time, I anticipated a refreshing season; for a
+foreign minister must have a noble missionary spirit, and, no doubt,
+came to Washington on purpose to reform the members of Congress, which
+is a work of Christian mercy, if ever there was one.
+
+For this reason, my spiritual nature was aroused, and I was burning with
+desire to help in the noble cause, and let foreign nations know that we
+had women in this country that could be at once brilliant and devout,
+celebrated and conscientious; in fact, women who could gracefully
+combine two characters, hitherto supposed to be opposite.
+
+Yes, I was resolved to go to this ministerial reunion. Had I not been at
+Mr. King's literary gathering, which lifted me, as it were, out of a
+frivolous, fashionable life into the purely intellectual, and now,
+should I refuse to bathe my soul in the purer element of high Christian
+fervor? No, a thousand times no!
+
+On a religious occasion like this, I felt that a modest dress--simple
+black alpaca, for instance, with a pink bow at the neck--would be about
+the thing; but Cousin E. E. got almost huffy about it.
+
+"Why," says she, "at the Foreign Minister's a full toilet is expected,
+always. It is but proper respect."
+
+"Cousin," says I, "no one can have more respect for the ministerial
+functions than I have; no one ever attended meeting more faithfully. Am
+I not a missionary myself? Do you think I would or could fall short of
+the mark of the prize of the high calling? If alpaca isn't the thing, I
+am open to reason and pink silk."
+
+"That will do," says she, a-brightening up, "looped up with black velvet
+and bows, and _décolletté_."
+
+"Dic o' nonsense?" says I, riling a little.
+
+"Well, low neck and short sleeves," says she.
+
+"At a meeting of ministers?" says I. "Cousin E. E., are you crazy?"
+
+"Well, do as you please," says she, "only I tell you it will be
+expected. I intend to be very low, with a strap for a sleeve, and all my
+jewels."
+
+"I shall be content with the jewels of the soul," says I, with an
+austere rebuke in my voice; for if there is anything that riles me up
+more than another, it is flashy dressing where one's mind should be
+given up to solemn thoughts. "Cousin E. E., there are times when levity
+of dress and lightness of speech are to be excused, but this isn't one
+of them. Put a bridle on your tongue, and something more than a strap
+over your shoulder."
+
+E. E. colored up, and gave her head a toss.
+
+"Phoemie," says she, "you are past finding out. Do as you please, and
+just let me do as I please."
+
+I lifted my forefinger in gentle warning; for, with all her fashionable
+crotchets, E. E. is a good soul as ever lived, and I don't want to be
+hard on her, feeling that great minds should be forbearing, especially
+in religious matters. So we parted good friends, and I went into my room
+to get ready for the solemn occasion.
+
+I took out my pink silk dress--for the alpaca was a little rusty--and
+laid it out on the bed. Then I ripped some black velvet ribbon from
+another old dress, and tied it up into bows that looked scrumptious as
+new. After that I brushed my hair out straight, and braided it in an
+austere fashion appropriate to the occasion. Not a friz or a curl was to
+be seen; for this once I threw aside the other woman's hair, and was
+from head to foot myself again.
+
+"Neat, yet genteel," says I to myself, when my dress was on and the
+black bows in place. "Nothing flash or frivolous, though everything
+refinedly elegant. No minister, be he ever so strict a disciplinarian,
+can find fault with me. I suppose the critics of all the religious
+papers will be there. Well, let them draw my portrait; I am ready for
+the ordeal."
+
+With these high thoughts in my mind I went downstairs; but the sight of
+my cousin made me step back with both hands thrown up. She was just on
+fire with jewelry and precious stones. They flamed out on her neck,
+twinkled in her ears, and shot fiery arrows through her hair. Her cheeks
+were rosy red, and her eyes had shadows about them that had come since
+she went down to dinner. Perhaps she had taken a nap in a dark room,
+though. The dress she wore was soft and white and floating, like a cloud
+in the sky; and there was black lace mixed with it, and roses tangled up
+with that. I declare to you, sisters, if that woman had been going to a
+worldly party, she couldn't have been titivated off more than she was.
+It riled me to look at her.
+
+Advice scorned isn't to be offered again. I said nothing, but let E. E.
+go on in her frivolous career.
+
+
+
+
+LV.
+
+FOREIGN MINISTERS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--We entered the carriage, where Dempster took the front
+seat, just buried up in his wife's dress, and sat there like an
+exclamation-point gone astray. As for me, I sat upright and thoughtful,
+resolved to do my duty in spite of their shortcomings.
+
+We reached a large brick house; before it a line of carriages kept
+moving like a city funeral, only people were all the time a-getting out
+and walking under a long tent that sloped down from the front door.
+
+"There will be a full Conference," says I, in my heart, for I was too
+much riled up by E. E.'s dress for any observation to her.
+
+One thing struck me as peculiar. None of the ladies wore their bonnets,
+and a good many had white cloaks on, huddled up around them as if they
+had been going to a party.
+
+If I hadn't known the house belonged to foreign ministers, I really
+should have thought from the look of things that we had lost our way,
+and got into somebody's common reception. As it was I got out of the
+carriage, and went up the steps with my bonnet on, and holding up the
+train of my pink silk, feeling that so much appendage was out of place.
+
+A colored person in white gloves opened the door, and waving his hand
+like a Grand Duke--oh, how that word goes to my heart--said:
+
+"Front door, second story."
+
+Another time I should have known that this meant that I could take off
+my things there. But now I felt almost certain that the ministers were
+holding a prayer-meeting, or conference, or something in "the front
+room, second story," so I went upstairs with a slow and solemn tread,
+feeling that the rustle of my pink silk was almost sacrilege.
+
+I went into the room and looked around. It was full of women,
+wonderfully dressed women, all in low necks and short sleeves, and white
+shoes--laughing, giggling women, who looked over each others naked
+shoulders into a great broad looking-glass crowded full of faces that
+couldn't seem to admire themselves enough.
+
+I stopped at the door. I scarcely breathed. What could all those
+rosy-cheeked, bare-armed ladies be doing in that house?
+
+I asked this question, of course, of Cousin Dempster, who came into the
+hall a-pulling his white gloves on.
+
+"Dempster," says I, in a low voice, "what does this mean? Where are the
+ministers?"
+
+"Oh, they are in the back room. You didn't expect them to be turned in
+with the ladies, did you?"
+
+"Well," says I, "it is customary in our State now, though it was not
+formerly, when the men sat on one side at prayer-meetings, and the girls
+on the other, but I didn't think that notion had got to foreign parts."
+
+I don't think Dempster heard me clearly, for that minute his wife came
+out of the room, blazing like the whole milky-way of stars.
+
+"Why, Phoemie," says she, a-holding up both the white kid gloves she had
+just buttoned on, "you don't mean to go down with that bonnet on?"
+
+"I should think you would be ashamed to go into a conference or a
+prayer-meeting with it off," says I, severely.
+
+E. E. stared at Dempster, and he stared at her. Then he hitched up his
+shoulders, and she gave her hands a little toss in the air.
+
+I didn't seem to notice their antics, but went with them downstairs,
+where I heard the sound of music, which didn't strike me as so sacred as
+it ought to be. Besides, there was a buzz and a hum like a hive of bees
+swarming, which was puzzling.
+
+When we went into the great, long room, that seemed running over with
+light, the crowded state of the congregation astonished me. There wasn't
+seats enough for one quarter of the worshippers.
+
+Sisters, I was the only one present who had studied the sacred decencies
+of a bonnet and shawl. The rest were dressed--well, they weren't dressed
+at all about the arms and shoulders, which shocked me dreadfully; the
+mere presence of a lot of ministers ought to have made women more
+decorous.
+
+Would you believe it, the people round the doors stared at me as if they
+had never seen a beehive bonnet, with feathers floating over it, before.
+
+Some people might have felt shocked at so many eyes turned on them, but
+I was in the straight and narrow path of duty, and their looks passed by
+me like the idle wind. If they didn't understand the solemnity of the
+occasion, I did.
+
+"There is the Minister," says Dempster, "let us pay our respects."
+
+"Why," says I, "there don't seem to be either a reading desk or pulpit
+here!"
+
+I don't think Dempster heard me, for he began to edge our way through
+the crowd, till we got clear into the room, which was so full of flowers
+and lights and music that I began to think the foreign ministers were
+keeping up Easter-Sunday yet.
+
+A gentleman was standing near the door with some ladies around him.
+Dempster took us straight up to him.
+
+"Your Excellency," says he, "Miss Frost. Miss Phoemie Frost, of
+Vermont."
+
+I didn't think that exactly a proper place to be introducing people in,
+and measured off my bow accordingly, and passed on without troubling
+myself about the ladies around him, who seemed to wonder at it. As if I
+wanted to know them!
+
+When we got into the crowd again, I whispered to Dempster:
+
+"Do tell me where the foreign ministers are!"
+
+"The Ministers! Why you have just been presented to the very highest of
+them," says Dempster.
+
+"What, that man," says I, "with precious stones a-twinkling on his
+shirt-bosom, and a bit of red ribbon in his button-hole, who seems to
+have cut up his words with a chopping knife? You couldn't make me
+believe that, Dempster!"
+
+"But it is, upon my honor, Phoemie; and those gentlemen standing around
+him are all Ministers, or persons sent out with them. Almost every
+civilized nation is represented here to-night."
+
+I looked around at the persons Dempster pointed out--some were young,
+some old, some you could understand, others you couldn't; most of them
+were talking and laughing with the ladies around them. I didn't see a
+downright serious face in the whole crowd.
+
+"Them ministers!" I said, scorning Dempster's attempt to deceive me.
+
+"Every one of them is a Minister now, or means to be."
+
+"Dempster, I don't believe you."
+
+"Well, ask some one else whom you can believe," says he, a-turning red.
+"Here is Miss ----, she can tell you."
+
+I didn't hear the name clear, but Dempster introduced me to a young lady
+that had just sat down by me.
+
+"Are those men who are chatting and laughing so, really ministers?" says
+I to her.
+
+"Most of them are; the rest are connected with the Legation," says she.
+"Elegant, don't you think so?"
+
+Before I could ask her what newfangled society had been got up under the
+name of Legation, a young gentleman with a round gold glass screwed into
+one eye, came out from the hive of ministers, and walked toward us,
+moving along slow and lazy, as if walking were too much for him.
+
+The girl was all in a flutter when she saw him a-coming our way. She
+looked at me as if I had a seat that she wanted for some one else, but I
+didn't move; and after shaking out her dress as a cross hen flutters its
+feathers, she pretended to look the other way, as if she didn't care a
+mite whether the young minister came up or not.
+
+Oh, the airs some of these school-girls put on is disgusting.
+
+The young divinity student came up with a sort of half-dancing step.
+
+"Miss," says he, a-bowing and chewing up his words as if he'd a piece of
+sweet flag-root in his mouth, "delighted to--aw--aw--have the honor of
+seeing you here--am, indeed."
+
+She bowed, she prismed up her mouth, waved her fan a trifle, and says
+she--
+
+"Of course you ought to have expected me. I am a little exclusive, but
+always make a point of coming here."
+
+The young--no, he wasn't over young, but did his best to look so. Well,
+this foreign student just turned his glass on me, his impudent little
+eye stared right through at my bonnet. Then he looked at that finefied
+girl, and they both smiled at each other.
+
+This riled me.
+
+Then a couple of young ladies crowded by us, laughing a little. The
+divinity student turned his glass--eye and all--upon them, then he
+turned to the young creature by my side, and says he, curling up his
+wisp of a mustache:
+
+"Now, really, miss, what is the reason all the American young ladies
+have the manners of chambermaids?"
+
+I felt my Yankee heart spring straight up into my New England mouth; but
+the foreign snipe wasn't speaking to me, so I sat still and listened for
+what that young creature would say.
+
+"The manners of chambermaids!" says she, "did you mean that?"
+
+"Really--yes--I think they have, you know."
+
+"Well, I will not contradict you, for you generally are right," says
+she, as meek as Moses--yes, Moses in the bulrushes, "but not quite all,
+I hope."
+
+The mean thing couldn't keep from trying to wring a compliment for
+herself out of this insult to the general American female.
+
+The fellow had sense enough to see what she wanted, and he gave it to
+her.
+
+"Aw--aw--of course there are a few lovely exceptions, you know," says
+he, a-bowing so low that his eye-glass dropped out of his poor little
+eye that looked like a green gooseberry without it. "I speak of American
+women, generally, as having the manners of chambermaids."
+
+I couldn't hold in one minute more. No coffee-grounds, twice soaked,
+ever riled up like my temper.
+
+"If _you_ find American ladies acting like chambermaids," says I, "it's
+because they feel compelled to adapt themselves to the company they are
+in."
+
+Here I bent my head with a low, dignified bow, and waved my fan with a
+calm but decided motion.
+
+That little humbug of a young lady looked half scared to death. The
+divinity student ground his glass into his eye, looked at me from head
+to foot, and says he:
+
+"Aw, aw!" and walked away.
+
+The girl looked after him as if she wanted to cry, but just then a great
+whirl of music burst from the next room, and I thought the meeting was
+about to organize, when a tall fellow, with his mustache quirled up like
+an ox-horn, came tetering up to the young female by my side.
+
+"May I have the honor?" says he.
+
+The girl turned her head sideways, and rolled up her eyes like a pullet
+drinking.
+
+"It is a quadrille, Count," says she, "and I never join in one."
+
+"A quadrille, pardonne! You are right. When you daunce--if you
+daunce--why, of course, you daunce a round daunce."
+
+The fellow flung out his white hands, making a little dive forward with
+each word; then he saw my face, which must have spoken volumes, and
+slacked off his antics. I don't think he liked the cut of my smile, for,
+crooking up his elbow, he leaned forward, and says he:
+
+"May I be honored with a promenade?"
+
+She took his arm, and the two fluttered off into the crowd, which was
+pouring off into a large room beyond the one we were in.
+
+"The meeting is going to commence now in good earnest," I thought. "I'll
+try and get a seat where I can hear."
+
+Cousin Dempster and E. E. came up, and I joined in. The lecture-room was
+long, and lighted up beautifully. Right in front of the door was the
+singers' gallery, hung round with red cloth, and over that hung great
+wreaths of flowers, but I saw neither pulpit nor reading-desk.
+
+"Where will the minister be?" I whispered to Cousin Dempster.
+
+"Oh, he will open the ball."
+
+"Open the ball! What _do_ you mean?" says I. "A minister dancing! I
+won't believe it."
+
+"Why, they all do," says he, innocent as a lamb. "No better dancers in
+Washington."
+
+Sisters, what _do_ you think of that? Was I to blame when I insisted on
+leaving that house at once? Would you have had me sit by and witness
+this degradation? "No," says I to Cousin Dempster, "I won't stay. If
+ministers of the Gospel will do such things, I, as a New England
+woman--girl I mean--would be committing a sin to look on."
+
+"But you do not understand. They are Foreign Ministers, sent here by
+other nations, which they represent."
+
+"So much the worse--how dare they set such examples?" says I.
+
+"Ambassadors! can't you understand?"
+
+"Of course I understand. All ministers are ambassadors from the Lord;
+but I never heard of their dancing, except that Shaking Quakers do now
+and then, which is a part of their religion, and they are only elders,
+anyhow."
+
+"But there is no religion in these things!"
+
+"I should rather think not," says I, a-walking resolutely toward the
+door. "Now it's of no use explaining and apologizing to me. Dancing
+ministers ain't of my sort. I'm going right straight home."
+
+Sisters, I went.
+
+
+
+
+LVI.
+
+GOOD CLOTHES.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I told you in my last Report that there were three or
+four invitations that I had made up my mind to accept, for I have got so
+now, that it is my privilege to pick and choose who I will honor and who
+I will not.
+
+Well, the person I distinguished this time was just one of the
+handsomest and nicest ladies that you ever sot eyes on. Everybody that
+knows her says that. No bird pluming itself on an apple-tree limb full
+of blossoms was ever more graceful; no church member could be more
+kind-hearted. She is just a sumptuous young woman who worshipped a
+true-hearted, high-minded father with all her might and honored him in
+all her acts. It is a great pity she wasn't born in Vermont, but that
+cannot be helped now. I wish it could.
+
+Of course I felt it a privilege to represent your Society before a lady
+like this; for it seems to me as if she were born to be an ornament to
+this great nation. I say this because I really think she is good as good
+can be. Miss Kate Chase, though she did marry a United States Senator,
+will always be best known to the country as Chief Justice Chase's
+daughter, and a compliment to her is a compliment to him, which I, as a
+distinguished wom--I beg pardon, young girl--could pay, and still
+preserve that reputation for correct deportment which, I am proud to
+say, follows me wherever I go.
+
+Well, not wanting to keep Mrs. Sprague in suspense, and feeling that she
+might be pining for my autograph to lie uppermost in the great dish, all
+gold and stone pictures, which she keeps full of letters and cards and
+things, I wrote her a sweet little letter, in my finest hand, with a
+green and red "P. F." twisted together on the straw-colored envelope,
+saying that I would come.
+
+After that I felt calm and content, knowing how much happiness I had
+given.
+
+Cousin Dempster and E. E. had an invite too. I really hope they have
+sense enough to know the source from which all these attentions come,
+but sometimes I doubt it. Still, they do look up to me.
+
+The night came, and found me ready. E. E. had told me that when Mrs.
+Sprague gave a party, her guests almost always came out in span-new
+dresses. Her entertainments were _the_ entertainments of the season.
+Nobody had yet been able to come up to her, let them try ever so much,
+and people dressed accordingly.
+
+Of course I wasn't going to be behindhand on a fashionable occasion like
+that, where a certain person was sure to be an object of special
+admiration and envious criticism, so I went to work at once, and turned
+my pink silk wrong side out with my own hands.
+
+Then I took an hour or so of solitary shopping, and had the things I
+bought carried straight into my own room, for I had given out that I had
+a sick headache, and wanted to sleep--a fib so delicate, that it seemed
+almost conscientious, besides being worth forgiving on account of its
+originality.
+
+Well, I worked away like everything, determined to show the world, for
+my own private enjoyment, that genius wasn't limited to writing, but
+would sometimes break out in silks and laces and flowers, with
+astonishing effects. So my heart rose, and my fingers flew.
+
+That headache of mine lasted three days, without intermission. During
+this season of affliction, my meals were brought up on a hotel tray, and
+I took care to order them myself--the toast and tea, which cousin sent
+up at first, not being quite satisfactory as a persistent diet.
+
+At last my dress was ready. E. E. said _she_ had ordered hers from
+Worth, ever so long ago, expecting that something super-elegant might
+turn up, like Mrs. Sprague's party. I didn't ask who Worth was, not
+thinking a masculine mantua-maker worth inquiring about; but I kept a
+close mouth about my own toilet--that word needs explaining, sisters.
+With us it means a half-moon table, curtained down, and ruffled over
+with spotted muslin, and set under a looking-glass. But here it means
+your whole dress-frock, boots, everything that you wear from top to toe.
+This is why the word "toilet" comes in so naturally in my Report. But
+understand, it does _not_ mean a table--quite the contrary.
+
+You should have seen me when I came out of my room that evening. Up to
+this I had been harmonious in my dress, but newness was the thing here,
+so I had studied the grandly poetical harmony of contrasts. My aim had
+been something poetical and striking.
+
+My pink silk had turned beautifully. It looked good as new, if not more
+so; the fresh lining hunched it out behind, till a good-sized baby could
+have sat on it, as such little fellows billow themselves among the
+clouds in an old picture. Contrast, I have told you, was my
+idea--novelty my object. Pink and white roses I had worn, black velvet,
+too, and natural geranium-leaves, which are given to wilting fearfully;
+so I cast these things all aside, and looped up my dress with pond
+lilies, of a rich orange color.
+
+Sisters, the effect was wonderful. The broad green leaves on the pink
+ground, the yellow flowers clustering amongst them. The lilies of red
+gold entwining my head was a picture in itself--to say nothing of the
+tall and elegant young person who, as I may write, carried off the
+dress.
+
+You should have seen Cousin E. E. when I swept into the room, where she
+stood ready, my pink silk rustling, my golden lilies on the high quiver,
+my hair crinkled in front, curled behind, and looped up with those
+yellow flowers. Sisters, her surprise was really a tribute.
+
+I did not deign to ask her how she liked my dress. The look that
+followed her first surprise was clouded with the envy she did not dare
+to speak. I was seized with a desire to punish such malice, and swept up
+and down the room, looking back on my train, as a peacock spreads his
+tail-feathers in the sun.
+
+E. E. looked ready to burst. She saw that her own dress was nowhere, and
+resented it in angry silence. So I kept on walking slowly up and down,
+in order to bring her into a reasonable state of mind, which Christian
+exertion, I am sorry to say, failed.
+
+Dempster came in, and he, too, was struck dumb with admiring surprise.
+He looked at me, then at E. E., but said nothing. Still the comparison
+must have been humiliating to a man who really does take some pride in
+his wife.
+
+
+
+
+LVII.
+
+THE PARTY OF THE SEASON.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--The carriage was full to overflowment; E. E. and I filled
+it with the sumptuosity of our garments. Dempster was nowhere. Now and
+then the carriage jolted his head into sight--that was all.
+
+Mrs. Sprague lives in a great, square corner-house that looks rich and
+respectable--two things that do not always come together in these days,
+when people creep into society, and build themselves up there on the
+property that should belong to the Government. It has some wide, jutting
+windows, and plenty of room inside.
+
+The hall-way was crowded full of ladies, and so was the stairs. Some
+were going up, and some were coming down. The first in shawls and
+cloaks, the others with their arms and necks uncovered, or with just a
+shadow of lace on them, nothing more.
+
+The great square chamber that we went into was as full as a bee-hive.
+Silks swept and rustled against each other like oak-leaves when the wind
+shakes them. The great looking-glasses were full also--you saw a crowd
+of handsome faces coming and going in them all the time. Each glass was
+like a picture always changing.
+
+The bed was covered over with cloaks and shawls, but you could see that
+the bedstead was beautifully carved, and the pillow-cases were ruffled
+all round and edged with lace. On a table near the door was a case of
+shiny black wood, curlicued with gold, and lined with velvet. In it was
+a lot of gold things, essence bottles, knives, scissors with gold
+handles, and glass cases with gold lids. It lay open, and anybody could
+use the things that wanted to; I didn't, but had a good look while E. E.
+was titivating in the crowd before the glass.
+
+My dress must have carried out the grand idea in my mind when I made
+it, for all the ladies stopped, and gave me a good, long look before
+they went out, and I could see smiles of approbation dancing about their
+mouths. My triumph commenced, sisters, even in the dressing-room.
+
+Dempster was waiting for us, and we followed him downstairs into the
+largest and handsomest room I've seen in Washington City.
+
+It was just afire with lights. The great curving window was crowded full
+of flowers; every table in the room blazed out with them. Two
+folding-doors, like those we have in a Vermont meeting-house, opened
+into another great room, just as rainbowish with light, and smelling
+just as sweet with flowers--I never saw anything like it.
+
+A crowd went in with us, and we had to wait till they let us go up to
+Judge Chase and Mrs. Sprague, who stood in the front room.
+
+Goodness gracious, what a female woman that is! No willow tree was ever
+half so graceful, and, as for manners, the nicest woman I ever saw is
+nowhere to her. Her dress--well, I really cannot say that it didn't pull
+an even yoke with mine--at any rate the contrast between us was
+striking, nothing could have been more so. But I can say, without
+vanity, the crowd as it came in stopped to look at mine quite as much as
+it did at hers. Original taste, you know, sisters, is everything; then
+literary genius united with taste isn't easily matched. Still, Mrs.
+Sprague's dress was well worth noticing.
+
+"What did she wear?" I hear you say.
+
+Sisters, your wishes are laws to me.
+
+This lady, for she _is_ a lady, every inch of her, as I have said, was a
+complete contrast to your missionary. Her dress had three colors; blue
+satin in front, wreathed across with a wreath of rosebuds and leaves
+over each flounce. Running up each side were other wreaths, fastening
+down the edges of a long train of white silk, that was fastened in a
+wide box-plait at the back of the neck, and swept away to the carpet,
+where it fell and floated like a snow-drift scattered over with roses,
+for they were done in needle work all over the white robe, and seemed to
+grow there. The dress was cut square about the neck, and filled in with
+lace. She had half-sleeves, too, a thing I was glad to see, for some of
+the stuck-up persons who came there with no sleeves, and their dresses
+cut short about the neck, might have taken it for a rebuke. Thank
+goodness, I didn't.
+
+Mrs. Sprague wore some jewelry. A wreath of blue stones with white ones
+that shone like rain-drops in the sunshine, was fastened in her hair,
+and hung quivering in her ears. She had gold bands, full of fiery
+stones, on her arms, and some gold thing fell down to her bosom, set
+with something that looked to me like half-ripe cherries. Pink coral, E.
+E. said it was.
+
+There now, you have Mrs. Sprague's dress, and you have mine. I say
+nothing. Certainly hers was handsome. I am not the person to draw
+comparisons, but, from the notice given to mine, I had no reason to be
+dissatisfied.
+
+Chief Justice Chase stood by his daughter, and shook hands with me in
+the most friendly manner--he was quite impressed, I can assure you. He
+was large and tall--in fact, grand in his appearance. His smile was
+enough to make any one long to know more of him. It reminded me a little
+of the great Grand Duke's, which made my heart beat a little sadly.
+
+We moved into the crowd. There I saw a lot of those foreign ministers.
+One of them bowed to me. I gave him a dignified bend of the head. This
+messing-up of divinity and parties goes against my ideas of propriety.
+
+A Vermont minister would be turned out of his pulpit if he ventured to
+show himself in a worldly gathering like that.
+
+"What are you so dignified about, Cousin Phoemie?" says Dempster.
+"Didn't you see the minister bowing to us?"
+
+"Yes," says I, "but I don't mean to encourage backsliding and worldly
+amusements in Christian leaders. They have no business here."
+
+"But they are not particularly Christians," says he.
+
+"I should think not," says I; "and the Churches that sent them here
+ought to know how they are going on."
+
+"But the Churches did not send that gentleman. It was the Queen."
+
+"Exactly," said I; "and isn't she the head of the Church. No, no,
+cousin, you can't make excuses for them."
+
+"But their mission is political," says he.
+
+"Of course," says I. Church and State--I understood."
+
+A whole lot of candles, white as snow, were burning over the wide doors.
+That opened into another long room where a great picture, worked with a
+needle, years and years ago, hung on the wall, and crowds of people were
+moving about. Then came a storm of music, and I saw one of the ministers
+teetering off with a lady as if he were going to dance again.
+
+"I declare I won't look on," says I to Dempster; "take me somewhere
+else."
+
+He did take me into a little room full of books, and there--standing
+round a table on which a great giant of a china bowl stood, filled to
+the brim with punch, on which slices of lemon floated temptingly--we
+found some more of them ministers, each one with a full glass in his
+hand.
+
+Sisters, I stood there like a monument, and saw them drink that punch
+with my own eyes--more than one glass apiece, too. Ministers, indeed!
+
+While we stood watching them in one door, they went out by another, and
+then Dempster took us in.
+
+E. E. sat down on a sofa; so did I. Dempster went up to the great bowl,
+and began to dip out the punch with a big silver ladle as if it had been
+soup. He filled two glasses. A slice of lemon floated on each one; they
+looked deliciously cool, and I was thirsty. Sisters, I took that glass,
+and I drank of the punch. After that I began to feel more charitable
+toward the foreign ministers. In fact, I rather think a sweeter and more
+benevolent feeling came over me in all respects, for a soft mistiness
+settled on the crowd, and the dancers were peculiarly mazy. I felt
+myself smiling blandly, and, in fact, glided into a state of dreamy
+enjoyment that was pleasant.
+
+The music stopped; the dancers locked arms, and moved toward an open
+door through which a fresh flood of light was pouring. We followed into
+a great tent, hung all round with damask linen. Two long tables, loaded
+down with great vases full of fruit and flowers; steeples, and towers,
+and baskets, made out of candy, and running over with sugar things;
+peaches, and grapes, and all sorts of fruit, natural as life, but candy
+to the core--all delicious and gorgeous and--well, I haven't language to
+express it; but the whole thing was sumptuous.
+
+All down and around these two long tables great wreaths of flowers and
+leaves, half buried in moss, made a border of bloom, and over them the
+light came pouring, while the music sounded nearer and nearer, and the
+crowd poured in.
+
+Really, sisters, I can say no more. That whole scene was more than I can
+describe. It just sent me home dizzy with bewilderment.
+
+
+
+
+LVIII.
+
+DOWN THE POTOMAC.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--The Father of our Country was a great man--no doubt on
+that subject. He conducted a war on small means and with few men, which
+gave us a country that will be a crowning glory of all ages, if we don't
+melt down and go to nothing under the hot sunshine of our own
+prosperity. He was a great man and a good boy, not because he cut down
+the cherry-tree and wouldn't lie about it, for good boys and great men
+are not made out of one action, but a harmonious character which
+produces many good actions.
+
+Then again, I am not so certain that the action was what it is cracked
+up to be, anyway. In the first place, good little boys don't cut down
+their father's fruit-trees. Generally, they like to climb them a great
+deal better, especially when the cherries are ripe. I know that--being a
+girl, who could have borrowed a hatchet and made myself immortal by
+chopping instead of climbing to pick half-green cherries, which I did,
+and tore my frock, besides getting a pain in the--well, heart, which two
+things betrayed me just as the little hatchet betrayed George.
+
+Now, when my mother asked me what the mischief I'd been about, I didn't
+think of saying I couldn't lie, because I could, and longed to do it;
+but I knew that New England women would find me out and give me double
+"jessie" if I piled a whopper on top of the green cherries and torn
+frock, so I told her I didn't know, being conservative--took my whipping
+like a man and a trooper, scorning to cover up two sins under one pious
+truth.
+
+I didn't follow George Washington's example, for two reasons. First, I
+had never heard of the hatchet; and again, the story don't wash to a
+degree that is expected of high-priced morality. When the youthful boy,
+Father of our Country, said he _couldn't_ lie, he was a-doing it that
+very minute. What boy ever lived that couldn't lie? Lying is born in
+'em, and they take to it as naturally as a kitten laps milk.
+
+The fellow that wrote that story was a botch. Why didn't he make little
+George say, "Father, I won't tell a lie; so there--I cut down the
+cherry-tree with my little hatchet."
+
+There would have been something heroic and above-board about that--a
+struggle against temptation foreshadowed, and a brave determination to
+stand up to the rack, fodder or no fodder, worthy of a boy that meant to
+be father of the man, who in his turn was the father of his country,
+thus doing up all his paternity in a wholesale way. But to say he
+couldn't was so sneakingly good that I don't believe it of him. In fact,
+I don't believe one word of the story.
+
+Put that down on the records of your Society.
+
+Of course, one never thinks of George Washington, that a nice boy,
+showing a hatchet, does not come in as the first picture.
+
+The reason I happened to think of it was an invitation to go in a
+Government steamboat down to Mount Vernon, Washington's old homestead,
+and see the tomb where he was buried.
+
+Of course I wanted to go. When the President of these United States gets
+out a Government steamboat on purpose to carry a distinguished New
+England female down to the tomb of her country's forefathers, it's an
+honor she's bound to accept.
+
+I did accept it with enthusiasm, and at once invited Cousin Dempster and
+E. E. to go with me, for it always gives me pleasure to act as a sun to
+their moon.
+
+The Japanese were invited to join me on the boat, and as many as two
+hundred other people were allowed to go down, which I was rather glad
+of--they being amongst the best--and my nature being social, as you
+know.
+
+Well, between nine and ten in the morning, we drove up to the Navy
+Yard--a place where the Government builds the ships that are always
+being altered, and mended, and made worse than they were before. It's
+like a village on the water, is this Navy Yard, with a high wall around
+it, and a gate big enough for our carriage to go through, which it did,
+taking us down to the water in fine style.
+
+"Do you want to go on board the 'Tallapoosa'?" says a man on the wharf.
+
+"The 'Tallapoosa'!" says I to Dempster. "What outlandish thing is that?"
+
+"The steamboat," says he.
+
+"Well, why don't they call it a steamboat?" says I; "such airs!"
+
+With that, I jumped out of the carriage, taking a neat dancing step as I
+touched the ground, and spread my parasol.
+
+Just then another carriage drove up, choke full of little dark men.
+
+"It is the Japanese," says Dempster.
+
+"The Japanese! How can you say so?" says I. "Where are their punch-bowl
+hats and stiff veils?"
+
+"Oh," says Dempster, "they have given those things up, and dress just as
+we do now."
+
+"Dear me!" says I, a-looking into the carriage from under a slope of my
+parasol. "How funny they look with stovepipe hats, and boots, too--oh
+my!"
+
+The Japanese were getting out of their carriage, but they seemed as if
+afraid of straining too hard on their clothes, and stepped on the ground
+as if it was paved with eggs.
+
+Bang!
+
+"Oh, goodness gracious!"
+
+It was I that screamed out these words, and I hopped up at least half a
+yard from the ground, for somewhere, close by, a great gun went
+off--roaring over the water, like thunder.
+
+"What does that mean? Does anybody want to murder us?" says I, shaking
+like a poplar-leaf.
+
+"No, no," says he, "they are only saluting us."
+
+"Saluting _me_?" says I. "How dare they? Of course they knew I should
+jump and scream. So loud, too! No young girl would stand it."
+
+With that, I lifted my parasol, and walked across the plank on to the
+deck of that steamboat, and sat down.
+
+Them Japanese came after, and sat down close to me. Mr. Iwakura looked
+at me, and I looked at him. He smiled, and I smiled. This Japanee knows
+how to smile with his eyes, and that's more than a good many other men
+can do.
+
+Then I felt it my duty to talk a little, as these Japanese had been
+invited on my account; so, thinking that he would expect something
+original from me, I said:
+
+"I think we shall have a pleasant day, Mr. Iwakura."
+
+"Yes," says he, in real cunning English, looking as if he appreciated my
+little speech.
+
+"I really hope," says I, "that you and your friends will feel quite at
+home."
+
+He said "Yes," again, and smiled.
+
+That smile was catching.
+
+"I wonder if Mr. I. left a wife behind to languish for that peculiar
+expression? If not--"
+
+I checked these roving thoughts as incompatible with former ideas.
+
+The steamboat was puffing and blowing, and giving a scream now and then.
+It began to tremble--it veered and made a slow plunge down the river.
+The decks were crowded with ladies and gentlemen--all smiling
+happy--that seeming to be overjoyed to have the pleasure of coming with
+me.
+
+The Potomac River is just lovely. All the trees along its banks were
+budding and feathering out with greenness. We passed by a town. Then a
+great round heap of stone walls, that they called the Fort. The grass
+was green around it, and some soldiers came out on the walls to look at
+us as we swept by.
+
+It was pleasant; I felt the occasion to be something like that on which
+that Egyptian woman went down the River Nile in a row boat; so I lowered
+my parasol as we passed the Fort.
+
+At last the steamboat made a dead stop in the river. We were right
+opposite Mount Vernon. I looked at the sacred old place from the water.
+It was lovely in itself, standing there on a high knoll, carpeted with
+soft spring grass, and with tall trees a-bending over it. The sunshine
+lay on the water and the shore, but that old house was a good deal in
+shadow, and all the more pleasant for that.
+
+Some smaller boats came up to the steamboat. We got into them and went
+ashore.
+
+
+
+
+LIX.
+
+MOUNT VERNON.
+
+
+Mount Vernon had looked lonesome enough till now; but when we all landed
+it was like a picture. We wandered about; we broke up into little
+crowds, and the whole place was alive with happy people.
+
+Mr. Iwakura and the rest of the Japanese walked slowly up the road.
+Dempster, E. E., and I went with them till we came to a tomb dug into
+the bank, with an iron fence before it.
+
+Iwakura took off his stove-pipe hat and held it, just as if he had been
+at a funeral. The rest did the same, looking sad and touchingly solemn.
+
+I dropped my parasol low, to hide the tears that came gushing up to my
+eyes, without warning. Cousin E. E. began to sob.
+
+I turned away, longing to creep off into some dark corner, and have a
+good cry all by myself.
+
+A good many of the people had gone up to the old homestead which is
+spread out low on the ground, and has a stoop with pillars running all
+along the front. From this stoop you can see the bend of the river and
+the blue of its water through the trees. There was a well near by that
+put me in mind of home; a lot of girls were drinking from the bucket,
+and chirruping together like birds around a spring.
+
+I didn't like the sound just then, and went into the hall-way of the old
+homestead. There was nothing worth while in it but a great, big, heavy
+key, covered with rust, and big enough to knock a man down with.
+
+"This," says a gentleman, a-standing close by me, "is the key of the
+Bastille."
+
+I jumped back.
+
+"What!" says I--"that old prison in Paris, where men were buried alive,
+without trial?"
+
+"The same," says he. "Lafayette gave it to General Washington."
+
+I felt myself shuddering, but said nothing. The subject struck me dumb.
+We went upstairs into the chamber where Washington died. It was not over
+large, and low in the joints; but the windows looked out on the trees
+and the river, which took away some of its gloominess. Nothing but a
+bedstead, with high, spindling posts, was there.
+
+"Did he die on that?" says I to a gentleman near me.
+
+"No," says he, "but on a bedstead just like it."
+
+I turned away. What business had a sham bedstead in that room? The idea
+of it riled up something besides sympathy in my bosom. I had rather see
+bare walls than a bedstead _like_ the one he died on. Why don't they
+take it down?
+
+We went into the parlor. It isn't over-large, and looks cheery. An old,
+coffin-shaped piano was there, with broken wires; some old china plates
+and dishes were piled together. That was about all.
+
+I couldn't stand it. The tomb had sunshine about it, and wasn't half so
+gloomy. The hall-door was open, and I went out. A little way from the
+house was Washington's flower-garden, where a few jonquills and crocuses
+were spotting the earth with yellow. Near that was a large brick house,
+long and low, crowded full of plants which had flowers on them.
+
+This wasn't Washington's greenhouse, but a brand new one, which looked
+like a spring bonnet worn with a ten-year old dress. This riled me too.
+It seemed to me that the old homestead should be kept just as Washington
+left it. Newfangled improvements are an aggravation.
+
+Before I came away from Washington there was a good deal of talk about
+the lady who lives here and takes charge, but I couldn't for the life of
+me find out anything that seemed extravagant or wrong about her. The
+truth is, the ladies of this country have spent years collecting money
+to buy Mount Vernon, and make it a place sacred to the nation, but they
+failed in obtaining a fund large enough to maintain it with honor.
+
+The society give this lady no remunerative salary, and nothing but a
+pure missionary spirit could keep her in that dull and mournful place.
+If she raises money enough to keep the homestead in repair, it is all
+any one ought to ask, and all the nation wants. But for my part, I scorn
+this quiddling way of making money. There is a meanness about it that
+disgraces the nation.
+
+The thing that should be done is this: put the whole concern into the
+hands of Congress. It ought to belong to the nation. Washington was not
+the saviour of a lot of women only, but of the whole country. Let the
+country have possession of his old home, and appropriate all the money
+needed to keep it in perfect order, as Washington left it. If the women
+of America raised money enough to buy the estate for no better purpose
+than to peddle out a sight of Washington's tomb for twenty-five cents a
+sight, and keep flowers to sell, they have sent their patriotism to a
+mighty small retail market.
+
+Well, in the afternoon we all went on board the steamboat again, and had
+a good time running up and down the river, which is just one of the
+things I should like to do every day; for the day was bright enough to
+keep one out-doors forever, if it would only have lasted so long.
+
+When we had got out of sight of Mount Vernon, a band of music came on
+deck, and played like anything, while we went down into the cabin, one
+party at a time, and ate dinner, which tasted delicious, I can tell
+you--to say nothing of the bottled cider, and such like, that kept the
+corks a-flying about like bullets.
+
+It is wonderful what smartness that cider gives to a person. It sparkles
+through one like the first spring sap in a maple-tree.
+
+When I went on deck again, my limbs felt springy as a steel trap, and I
+couldn't help dancing along, for a band of fiddlers and toot-horns was
+a-pouring out music, that, joined to the cider, was enough to make one
+want to dance with her own grandfather.
+
+They did dance, sisters--I own it, with shame and contrition. I joined
+in with the other young girls, and flatter myself they know by this time
+what a genuine Virginia reel is.
+
+Forgive me, I know it wasn't just the thing for a church member to do,
+especially while returning from that tomb; but bottled cider and
+fiddlers must be a stronger power in the hands of the Evil One than
+anything I have tried yet; and more church members, and ever so much
+older persons than me, just made that deck shake with their dancing,
+half the way up that beautiful river.
+
+Still, my head aches this morning, and I have a sort of backsliding
+feeling. The truth is, Tombs and Virginia reels don't seem to gibe in
+together.
+
+
+
+
+LX.
+
+MR. GREELEY'S NOMINATION.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--What do you think of the dear old Mountain State now?
+Have you reason to be proud of her, or have you not? Do you understand
+what she has done lately in the way of literature--in the female line, I
+mean--and now, only think of it, the next President of the United States
+is expected from that sacred and hilly soil.
+
+I know that Vermont will be almost tickled to death about this. It will
+be a crown of glory to her mountains, and a song of rejoicing in her
+valleys. The sap in her maple-trees will start earlier, run brighter,
+and sugar off more gloriously than it has ever done before. Up to this
+time, Vermont has never had her share of honors at the national Capitol,
+but now her time has come.
+
+I am so glad I went to Mr. Greeley's birthday party, and I haven't a
+doubt that a great many other persons feel pretty much as I do about
+it. When I shook hands with him there, and saw him standing in the midst
+of his friends, with his kind face looking smooth and enticing as a
+sweet baked apple, I little thought it might be the next President of
+these United States that was enjoying himself over a birthday. But
+things do get tangled and untangled dreadfully in this world of
+ours--don't they? and the most uncertain thing on this side of sundown
+is any man's destiny. The most certain thing is the popularity of
+success. It seems to me now as if I think considerable more of this
+great Vermonter than I did last week, but what has he done to make
+me?--that's what I should like to know. He's just the same man; has just
+as many faults--no great new supply of virtues. In fact, what has he
+done this week more than he did last, that I should feel a sort of honor
+and glory in being his friend?
+
+I have been putting these questions to myself, and the answer makes me
+feel a little meachen. I am the missionary of one of the most august
+bodies that can be found in this or any other country. I represent a
+body of blameless, heroic ladies, whose glory it is to be above
+prejudice, and capable of self-judgment--ladies that are ladies, and
+wish to set an example of Christian womanliness to their own sex and the
+rest of mankind, feeling that "the eyes of all Vermont are upon them."
+
+I am all this, yet I feel the humiliation of thinking all the better of
+a man because a great hullabaloo of other men have declared before the
+world that they want him for President of these United States. This is
+weak, but natural--natural, but awfully weak. Why should we let crowds
+of men we never saw judge for us? But then, how are we to judge for
+ourselves?
+
+After all, this self-government is a difficult thing to carry out. What
+man really does govern himself?--either through his brain, or heart,
+some one else governs him. He gives himself up by the wholesale to a
+crowd, or by retail to his own family.
+
+In the parlor of our hotel last night there was nothing but confusion
+and commotion. I went down there with Cousin E. E., for we all felt the
+glory that had settled down on us in a reflected way, and longed to
+enjoy it before folks. So down we went, trying to look as if nothing was
+the matter, but feeling the smiles quivering and playing about our lips
+like lady-bugs about an open rose.
+
+The parlors were full. Everybody had something to say. Some were
+smiling, some looked ready to cry, and others looked grim as gunlocks;
+but most of the faces we saw were beaming like a harvest moon.
+
+As for me, I felt--yes, as the poet says, "I felt--I felt like a morning
+star."
+
+"Well, Miss Frost, how do you like it?" says a little mite of a woman,
+with pink ribbons spreading out on her bosom. "What do you think of the
+nomination?"
+
+"Think?" says I. "Why, this is what I think--the sun will rise and set
+on the top of the Green Mountains like a crown of glory, after this."
+
+"Will Vermont go for him?" says another, cutting in.
+
+"Will the mountains stand on their old rocky base?" says I. "What a
+question!"
+
+"Then you think it will?"
+
+"Think! I know it will. When did that glorious old State neglect one of
+her own sons?"
+
+"But it's so strange!" snivelled the little woman.
+
+"Strange!" says I; "what is strange?"
+
+"Why, that Mr. Greeley should be nominated."
+
+"Well," says I, with cutting irony, "do you think it strange that the
+people of this country should choose an honest man once in a while?
+ain't we always ready to reward merit? Haven't we done it in the
+military way with General Grant? Haven't we a right to go into a new
+field? First the sword, now the pen."
+
+"Oh! not that; but--but--"
+
+"Well, but what?"
+
+"He's so--so peculiar."
+
+"Yes, he is," says I, "if integrity, simple good faith, and sound sense
+is peculiar--and I begin to think it is."
+
+"Do you know him, Miss Frost?"
+
+I drew myself up, and that feeling I have spoken of came over me. It was
+a temptation, and--well, I and Mrs. Eve are a little alike in our
+feminine weaknesses; I'm glad I have Bible support in the disposition to
+fib a little that comes over me.
+
+"Do I know him?" said I. "Yes, intimately."
+
+"Ah!" says she.
+
+"You can judge how intimately," says I, smitten with compunction, and
+craw-fishing down into a deceiving truth, "when I tell you that I was an
+honored guest at his birthday party."
+
+"You don't say so!" says she.
+
+I didn't feel bound to remind her that I had said so, and only drew
+myself up a trifle, and waved my fan back and forth with a dignified
+movement.
+
+"And you really think well of him? But, then, he is an editor, and
+authors always have a sort of affinity for gentlemen of the press," says
+a pert young creature, twisting her head on one side, and coming up to
+me.
+
+"I think well of him," says I, "because he is a man that has worked his
+way up in the world by the hardest; studied wisdom from the type he was
+setting, when he had no time for books; worked like a Trojan to support
+himself days, then sat up half the night to improve his mind. Mr.
+Greeley is in all respects a self-made man. This nomination is but the
+proper and natural crown of a busy life like his, of integrity like his,
+and of wisdom like his."
+
+"You talk earnestly," says a gentleman, coming up into the little crowd
+that grew thick around me.
+
+"Because I feel earnestly," says I, a-doubling up my fan, and laying
+down the law with it. "I don't pretend to know a great deal about
+politics, but I do know something about the history of my country, and
+it has never been better governed than when self-made men have ruled
+over it; but here is something more--the editor of a great daily journal
+is gathering up knowledge and wisdom every day of his life. He has
+opportunities for watching events and judging of actions that prepare
+his own mind for the exercise of power when it comes. "Why," says I,
+warming up, "the greatest statesmen that you have are editors and
+self-made men. The fact is, men who have worked their own way in the
+world, haven't time to be rogues, and very seldom are even grasping. It
+is your lazy fellow, who lives by the cunning that he calls wits, who is
+not to be trusted. For my part, as two candidates have to be in the
+field to have a good run, I am glad that those Cincinnati folks had the
+sense to take a man right out of the bosom of the people to govern the
+people. Brought up so close to the public heart, he'll know how it
+beats. Having been a working man, he'll know how to feel for toilers
+like himself, just as General Grant now feels for the soldiers."
+
+"You talk like a book," says the young lady, a-twisting her head the
+other way.
+
+"I didn't know till you told me, miss, that books did talk," says I,
+opening my fan again.
+
+"Oh, yes, they do," says she, giggling.
+
+"Bound to talk, I suppose," says I, a-smiling in my usual bland way.
+
+They all laughed at this, but the girl looked around as if she wondered
+what it was all about.
+
+I just made a little inclination of the head, and went on:
+
+"We were speaking of self-made men, I think," says I; "such men have
+drifted away from New England, like shooting stars. Wherever they may
+shine, New England is proud of them, and claims them as her own; for
+this reason; and because I love my country, I am glad Horace Greeley is
+on the highway to be its next President. With him and Grant running neck
+to neck, I shan't care much which beats."
+
+
+
+
+LXI.
+
+WOMEN AND THINGS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I wish you could have seen that stuck-up thing, with all
+the color taken out of her hair, perking herself up for an argument with
+me. All the people in the room had crowded round us, which set her all
+in a flutter.
+
+"Oh, pray excuse me," says she, a-shaking her curls, "we are broaching
+into politics, and I assure you," says she, a-primming herself up, "I
+know nothing about such subjects."
+
+"Why," says I, "you speak as if ignorance were something to be proud
+of."
+
+"I--I do not pretend to know anything of politics, at any rate," says
+she, a-coloring up with inward madness.
+
+"Indeed, what is politics," says I. "The history of the present? Why
+should the most refined lady on earth be ignorant of one period of
+history more than another?"
+
+"Politics are things going on at the present time, and no real lady is
+expected to take interest in them," says she.
+
+"What is the present time? The breath we are drawing--nothing more. That
+very breath has now gone into the past, which is history. All the rest
+is guess-work and prophecy," says I.
+
+"Dear me, how strong-minded you are," says she, giving her curls a toss;
+"I suppose you would be splendidly eloquent on Woman's Rights too."
+
+"No," said I, "all my life I have had more rights than I have known how
+to use, so I leave that question to persons who have no better field of
+ambition. Mine happens to be of a different kind. I want to make women
+wise, good, generous, faithful to duties that come down to them from
+their mothers. I want to improve women, miss, not turn them into
+contemptible men."
+
+"By talking politics?" says she, as saucy as a sour apple; "what is the
+good of that if you don't go in for voting?"
+
+"What is the good of any knowledge which may be turned into blessings by
+woman's influence?" says I, blandly.
+
+"Then you believe that women ought to have influence in politics," says
+she.
+
+"I think that women should have influence everywhere," said I, "but only
+as women. We are governed through the heart, and those finer portions of
+the intellect that people call taste. Men plant the grain and timber of
+every-day life with their strong hands, which God made for that very
+purpose. We women fill in the hollows and crevices and swelling banks
+with flowers and ferns and delicate shade-trees, which make the vigorous
+work of their strong hands beautiful."
+
+Sisters, I said this to that stuck-up girl because I wanted to express
+an opinion on this subject--first, because it was my opinion, and again,
+because I know that it is yours, going as you do for it in a spirit of
+feminine spontaneosity. I don't want the nature of our Society
+misunderstood. We are not Woman's Righters, nor Woman's Wrongers, but
+straight out women, wanting nothing better on this earth than to be just
+as God made us, with a full, free, and generous development of all the
+femininities that belong to the sex.
+
+For my part, I don't want to be a man; his work is too rough and hard
+for me. His thoughts have too heavy and coarse a grain. His clothes
+wouldn't fit me any better than his thoughts and duties.
+
+We being women, according to a beneficent God's intention, have got
+enough to occupy a whole life in the same path that our good old New
+England mothers trod. We don't want to get out of that path into any
+other, and we don't mean to entice the children that are growing up
+amongst us into an idea that pure-thinking, hard-working womanliness
+isn't the highest and best destiny that God has yet given to his
+creatures.
+
+I have no patience with women who scorn their own sex so much that they
+would rather turn into weak, meddlesome men than work, study, bring up
+children, and live as high-souled, loving women should. As for voting
+and all that, it's just turning gold into brass, and getting nothing but
+the baser metal for change.
+
+Why, influence is a thousand times sweeter and more certain than legal
+power, and that is given to every woman who loves and is beloved.
+
+As for my part, I should be ashamed if I couldn't persuade ever so many
+men to do any right thing I wanted. Shouldn't I be a fool to swap off
+that influence for the rights that only one man owns for himself?
+
+If women want power, let them be sweet, good, and persuasive, wise
+enough to have their opinions command respect, and bright enough to
+enforce them pleasantly. That is the way to move nations, if the mind of
+woman ever can do it. At any rate, it is the way to govern families and
+make them respectable in the next generation; and out of families
+nations are made.
+
+"Have you ever noticed one thing?" says I to the people about me.
+"Whenever women get dissatisfied with themselves and hanker after the
+rights of men, the very foundations of life seem to be breaking up all
+around us. Marriage ties fall into ashes like fire in hatcheled flax,
+morals are burned up, families torn to pieces, and society falls into
+revolt against law and religion. When women begin to hanker after votes,
+they hanker after divorces too, and, while they want unlimited power
+with men, throw away the noblest of all power over men--that of honest
+respect and a sacred consciousness of protecting."
+
+If women will break through all the delicate safeguards and childlike
+purity which keeps them so much above men, that they are aspired after
+and worshipped, let them take the consequences. To be hustled in
+conventions, hissed off from platforms, and received with hidden sneers
+by three-fourths of mankind, doesn't seem to me half so pleasant and
+respectable as the friendship of one's neighbors, and the love of one's
+own family; but, if they like it better, I haven't the least mite of an
+objection. Only such things force an honest woman into awful bad
+company once in a while, and it sometimes happens that ambition leads
+them to shake hands with persons that sweet charity itself could never
+persuade the best of them to touch with a ten-foot pole.
+
+"Don't think," says I, "that I go against female progress, or would stop
+its infinite capabilities--far from it. There are questions mixed up
+with this subject that ought to have our warmest sympathy and most
+ardent help. Female labor is one of them, and in that lies the greatest
+moral question of these times.
+
+"When a woman finds herself doing the work nature carved out for her,
+with a man crowding her out, doing no more, yet getting double pay, only
+because he happens to be a man, it is a burning shame and disgrace to
+both sexes. If that injustice can't be swept away by fair means, I go in
+for trying any that a female woman can handle without bringing herself
+down to a level with the males who seem to be as sick of being men as
+some of our sex are of being women.
+
+"Still, it seems to me that the best way of doing this is by such
+appeals for justice as have brought the women of New York State more
+freedom than they know what to do with. At this day there is no legal
+slavery for any woman in the great Empire State. The fact is, the women
+there have got their feet on the necks of the men. But this don't
+satisfy them, and they are all the time crying out for more, as the
+Scripture says, like the leeches--which is a passage of Scripture that I
+never have quite understood, because leeches in our day suck your
+_blood_ without asking, and I never yet heard of one who went farther
+than a bite in the way of crying out.
+
+"Excuse me," says I, drawing breath, "if I sometimes digress, and turn
+down a Scripture path in search of scientific truth or illustration. I
+was saying that a woman in New York State is to all intents and purposes
+master of herself--herself and husband too. If she has money when a poor
+fellow marries her, it is all her own to do with as she has a mind to,
+just as much as if she had never been married at all. But he has to
+support her, anyway, keep up the house, pay all the bills, settle her
+debts, if she is mean enough to make them, and she can be hoarding up
+her own money all the time, while he has no more right to touch a cent
+of it than the man in the moon.
+
+"More than this; when he dies, she comes in for a full third of his real
+estate for life, and has half his personal property, to sell, give away,
+or do with as she pleases. If _she_ dies, he cannot touch a red cent.
+Then, again, she can sell all the real estate that belongs to her,
+without so much as asking his advice, but he cannot sell an acre or a
+wood-shed, and give a clear title, without her written name to the deed.
+Then, again, if he earns money, the law makes him support her; if she
+earns money, he has no right to a cent of it.
+
+"Poor, downtrodden creatures are these women of New York State--don't
+you think so," says I. "Is it a wonder they get dissatisfied with their
+hardships, and hanker after more power, more freedom, and less work?
+When marriage is so profitable, is it strange that some of them want a
+great deal of it, and go through the divorce courts three or four times
+with a rush, picking up scraps of alimony and leaving scraps of
+reputation along the way.
+
+"If it wasn't that I mean to stand by my own sex through thick and thin,
+I should say that the laws lean a trifle over on the woman's side in
+York State; but, being a woman, I keep a lively thinking, while the
+other poor, downtrodden souls rush to the women's rights meetings, and
+wring their hands in desperation over the wrongs I have just explained."
+
+"But what has this to do with your Society?" says Cousin E. E.
+
+"Everything. We are in for Infinite Progress. We want women to be all
+that God intended them to be--the full companions and helpmates of men.
+We want them to cultivate all the Christian and kindly virtues, not only
+because they make women lovely and beloved, but because men are
+humanized, softened, and made better by such help and such
+companionship. When men seek peace, rest, the inspirations of prayer,
+they turn at once to us for tender guidance and sympathy. Would they do
+that if we elbowed them at the polls, or held knock-down arguments at
+the primary elections? No, no! If we can soften human misery, strengthen
+weakness, make women wiser and men better, it is all that the best woman
+among us can ask."
+
+Sisters, I had got too much in earnest. I felt the blood come like a
+dash of wine into my face. It seemed to me as if I were on a platform,
+lecturing, and the thought covered me with confusion, like a crimson
+garment. I bent my head slightly, and went away dreadfully ashamed of
+myself.
+
+
+
+
+LXII.
+
+A TRIP TO ANNAPOLIS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Another of those pleasant excursional entertainments
+which this nation gives to genius in the female line has been offered to
+me, and I accepted. For my part, I think the country ought to be
+encouraged in giving these little testimonials to her favored children.
+She hasn't done much of that in former years, but has practised a good
+deal more on foreigners than she has ever thought of doing where
+home-made writers are concerned.
+
+Them Japanee potentials always seem to go along when an entertainment is
+got up for me, and, if that didn't rather mix things up, I should be
+glad of it; for Mr. Iwakura is just splendid in his black coat and
+stovepipe hat, and talks beautifully with his little black eyes; I feel
+it in my bones he has not left a heathenish impediment behind, or
+anything that ought to stand between him and a wife who might carry
+fresh missionary spirit into his benighted land.
+
+Of course, all the other Japanees were on hand, and seemed to feel proud
+and chipper, as if the party had been made for them instead of me; but I
+didn't mind that a bit. Even if they did think so, what harm? There is
+so much happiness in delusions, that I wouldn't rob those nice-looking
+heathens of one for the world.
+
+Besides the Japanees, a very distinguished party had been invited to go
+with me, and I couldn't help but feel the whole thing a triumph.
+
+There was Postmaster-General Creswell, with a head of hair and a beard
+that warmed you, it was so silky and bright. There was his wife, too, a
+real pretty creature, with manners as sweet as her face; and Mrs. Fish,
+almost a mate for a lady I will not name for queenliness; and Governor
+Cook with his wife. Besides these, there were lots of young people, and
+old people, and middle-aged people, filling car after car, till we had a
+whole train all to ourselves. The party was large, but so is a genuine
+New England heart, and I managed to make them all welcome in an
+off-handed, queenly way, which I hope was understood. It certainly was
+by Mr. Iwakura, who lifted his stovepipe hat and bowed like a native
+Vermonter before he sat down.
+
+Sisters, I do think there is a meaning in that--a Japanee isn't likely
+to study the elegancies of our manners for nothing. Still, I wish he
+wasn't a heathen. The Greek Church of Russia sat heavy on my conscience,
+but a heathen! I shall have to meet all this politeness with the icy
+chill of Christian reserve, unless--the thing is possible, for, to love,
+all things are so--that heathen should adopt our religion with the
+stovepipe hat.
+
+There was a thing that troubled me a good deal before I came away from
+the hotel that morning. I have been told that Mr. Grant and our Vermont
+statesman have got up a little spirit of rivalry about being
+President--a thing I never dreamed of, they seemed such good friends,
+and, till now, I thought Mr. Grant had kind of half invited his old
+friend to take the chair. But it isn't so by any manner of means, and
+I'm afraid there may be some little dispute about it in the end, which
+will be unpleasant to those who like them both.
+
+Now, sisters, here comes in the benefit of being a female, which is
+great in such perplexing cases. Female women are not expected to be
+consistent, and they're not expected to take sides for any great length
+of time. They can just climb any fence that comes handy, and sit on it
+with the dignity of hen turkeys at sundown if they have a mind to, and
+no one has a right to scare them up. But, considering myself as an
+exceptional female, whose duty it is to have ideas, I scorn the fence,
+and come right up to the crib, corn or no corn.
+
+It is a duty I owe to the State, and from that I shall never turn aside.
+Besides--I own it boldly--in this case duty and a hilarious state of
+pleasure unite and make me jubilant as a Fourth of July salute. I like
+Greeley because he is first-rate as an author, an editor, and a man. I
+admire Grant as a brave soldier and as a man too, but then, the old
+State! I don't care who knows it--from this day out, white is my color.
+
+But, feeling this in my very bones, how could I accept the great
+national compliment of a special train filled with admiring friends from
+the Government, which is General Grant?
+
+I spoke of this to Cousin Dempster, and, says he:
+
+"This makes no difference in the world. Take all you can from the
+Government. That is high patriotism."
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"Cousin," says I, "it kind of seems to me that this special train is a
+sort of a trap. How can I, a free-born Vermonter--national in some
+respects, and brimming over with first-class patriotism, but Vermont to
+the back-bone--first and foremost, lead off a party like this, one car
+choke full of Mr. Grant's cabinet people. Now, if Mr. Greeley and Mr.
+Grant should rile up against each other--which I hope they won't--don't
+you see that I am in an awful mixed position?--the National Government
+on one side with that stupendous soldier at the head, and that great
+white-hatted Vermonter on the other?"
+
+"That is, you want to be neutral," says Dempster.
+
+"Well, yes--kind of neutral," says I, "and a little for both."
+
+"Not exactly on the fence, but cautious," says he; "keep your boat in
+harbor till the tide rises and the wind blows, then hoist sail and catch
+up with the old craft that has been tugging on in shallow water?"
+
+"No," says I, feeling the old Puritan blood beginning to boil up. "That
+may answer for some people, but not for me. An idea has just struck me;
+a woman's political ideas should be suggested, not proclaimed."
+
+Without speaking another word, I put on my things, went right down to
+Pennsylvania Avenue, and bought a soft white hat, a little broad in the
+brim, which I turned up on one side. Then I went into a milliner's
+store, carrying it in my hand, and made a woman curl a long white
+feather over the crown, which gave the whole affair a touch of the
+beehive, stamping it with beautiful femininity.
+
+With this hat on my head, and a double-breasted white jacket over my
+black alpaca, I took my honored place in the cars that day.
+
+Of course I sat in the cabinet car, feeling myself the sole
+representative of Vermont in that august company. The ladies looked at
+me sidewise when I came in; some of the cabinet men half winked at each
+other and tried to smile. But that white hat was no laughing matter, and
+they wilted down before it.
+
+
+
+
+LXIII.
+
+AMONG THE CADETS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--The train started, and there I sat in my glory till we
+got to Annapolis, just the sleepiest town, crowded full of the oldest
+houses and the slowest people that I ever saw in my born days. Some
+colored persons were dawdling around the depot, and a few lazy white
+folks passing down the street, stopped to look at us as we got out of
+the cars. Especially my white hat and double-breasted jacket seemed to
+take them.
+
+Once I heard something that sounded like the beginning of a cheer, but
+the voices were so lazy that they couldn't carry it out, so it muttered
+itself to death, and that was the end of it.
+
+Twenty of the Japanees were with me when I alighted from the car and
+spread my white parasol, which hovered like a dove over us, for I made
+it flutter beautifully as we passed along.
+
+The cabinet people followed after, and just as we were forming to go
+down street, like a military training, my white hat and feather leading
+them on, a gentleman came up to us and began to shake hands all round.
+He was a tall, genteel sort of a person, with light hair and a beard
+soft and silky as corn tassels; but all under his eyes, blue powder
+marks were scattered, as if he'd spent half his life firing off Fourth
+of July powder salutes, and had burst up on some of them.
+
+While I was wondering who it could be, Mr. Robeson, who has some
+dealings with navy yards and shipping, come up to where I stood, and
+says he:
+
+"Miss Frost, allow me to present Commodore Worden, the gentleman who
+distinguished himself on the first Monitor."
+
+Sisters, that minute the powder marks on Worden's handsome face were
+glorified in my eyes. I reached out my hands. I pressed his, my beaming
+eyes covered him with particular admiration. Feeling as if I were the
+colonel of that company, I longed to lift my white hat and give him a
+military salute. What I did say was significant.
+
+"Worden," says I, "when certain events come about--I say nothing, but
+this hat and jacket are typical of what I mean--when these great and
+luminous events fill the hemisphere your glorious bravery on that iron
+flat-boat shall have its full record. I will myself send your picture to
+the great Grand Duke of all the Russias, and if there is a higher notch
+in the public shipping than you have, I know nothing of the friend whose
+colors I wear if anybody stands before you. I have seen the picture of
+your Monitor. To my eye it looks like a flat-iron, with the handle in
+the water; but it did good work, and so did you. Grant knows it. My own
+immortal statesman will appreciate it."
+
+Commodore Worden bowed, and smiled, and squoze my hand so long that I
+began to feel anxious about my white gloves. But he dropped it at last,
+and we all moved on, my white feather waving in front, just like that
+which King Henry of Navarre wore in battles. Only mine was a peaceful
+emblem, dyed in the milk of human kindness, and curled up in the
+sunshine of prosperity.
+
+We marched through dull streets and round deserted corners, cutting in
+and out every which way till we came to a large gate, which shut the
+Navy Yard out from the rest of mankind.
+
+Then we filed through into a beautiful meadow, with the grass cut short,
+sprinkled over with trees, and cut into footpaths. Part of it was
+bounded by water, the rest by rows of handsome houses and great
+buildings that looked like factories shut up for want of work.
+
+The minute I and Mr. Iwakura walked through the gate, bang! went a
+cannon; bang, bang, bang! seventeen times.
+
+"What on earth is that?" says I, turning to Dempster, who was just
+behind me.
+
+"It is a salute for us," says he.
+
+"Us!" says I, with accents of disdain that put him in his place at once.
+
+"For you, then," says he, smiling in a way I didn't like, for, having no
+envy in my own disposition, I cannot endure it in others.
+
+Mr. Iwakura and I walked on slowly. He looked at me and smiled as the
+guns kept going off, till I counted seventeen; then they stopped and I
+was glad of it, for I remembered that our meeting-house bell tolls once
+for every year, when a person dies, and I felt a little anxious about
+the number of guns they might pile on to live folks. But they stopped
+short at seventeen, which is an age no girl need be ashamed to own, and
+which showed how young some persons can look in spite of hard literary
+toil.
+
+Well, first we went into Commodore Worden's house, where Mr. Iwakura and
+I were introduced to Mrs. Worden and some other ladies. Then the rest
+came in for a little notice, and we filed off into the grounds again,
+where there was a general training of boys in blue jackets, with buttons
+and things, all armed with guns, which they handled like old militia
+men. Sometimes, when they poked their guns right at us, I kind of got
+behind Mr. Iwakura, who, being small, wasn't much of a shelter, but
+better than nothing. In fact, I was rather glad when this part of the
+fun died out.
+
+After this, we went into one of the big houses where the blue boys live,
+and a whole lot of little, make-believe ships were shown to us, and two
+Japanee boys told Mr. I. how they were worked--which would have been
+interesting, only we didn't know a word of that language, nor much about
+the baby-house of ships, and didn't listen to what was said in English.
+
+Then the boys in blue and buttons went into the meadow again, and got
+out a lot of small cannon, and banged, and ran in lines and squads down
+to the river, as if they were awful mad with the water and meant to dam
+it--dam it up, I wish you to understand, for even indirect profanity
+isn't in my nature.
+
+After this, we all went down to a great, lumbering old ship, which is
+all the home these blue boys have the first year they come to the
+Annapolis school, which, being a sailor institution, gives them a taste
+for creeping into holes and sleeping on a yard or two of rope swung to
+the ship's beams--which may be pleasant fun, but doesn't look like it.
+
+Sisters, it was getting along in the day, and, though in a certain sense
+spiritualized by genius, I was hungry. Mr. Iwakura, too, had a pitiful
+look in his black eyes; but a storm of music called us from hankering
+thoughts, and we all streamed, at a faster double-quick than the boys
+could show, into the great dining-room of one of the big houses. A
+splendid table was set out there, which we gathered round like a
+half-starved regiment on training-day. Then began such a practice in
+cider bottles, flying corks, and cider foaming and fizzing into glasses,
+as beat all the cannon and howitzer blazings of the day--for that ended
+in something, and the rest didn't.
+
+It is astonishing what effect eating and drinking has on the feet; I
+could hardly keep from dancing all the way from that dining-hall to the
+other building, which is kept especially for dancing. Well, we did
+dance, for the music just took one right into the midst of it, want to
+or not. Besides, we hadn't been to a tomb, and nobody had been killed,
+so we just went in for it. My alpaca dress isn't over long, and I wasn't
+afraid of showing my feet when there was no train to tangle them up. We
+danced with our bonnets and hats on--we ladies, I mean--and the way my
+white feather rose and fell and fluttered over the rest was enough to
+wake up the American heart in every bosom present.
+
+
+
+
+LXIV.
+
+AMERICAN AUTHORS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--You have heard of Mr. Shakespeare, a writer of old
+England, who died, years and years ago, in a little country place in
+England. He was celebrated for several things besides writing. Going to
+sleep under trees is one of them; shooting deer that belonged to
+somebody else--who took him up and made an awful time about it before a
+justice of the peace, who fined him, or something--is another. Then,
+again, he married an elderly girl, and forgot to live with her ever so
+long. While she stayed at home, he went up to London, and wrote plays
+and played them before her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, who ought to have
+reminded him of his married elderly girl, being her own royal self of
+that class, only not married. There is no reason to think she did have
+much influence in that direction though, for that particular queen was
+more celebrated for keeping husbands away from their wives than bringing
+them cosily together.
+
+The truth is, from the very first--when she got up a series of romping
+platonics with Lord Seymour, her step-mother's husband, to her last,
+gray-headed old flirtation with the young Essex--her taste ran against
+the practical idea of husbands living with their own wives. That
+non-matrimonial creature may have tried her power on Shakespeare--who
+knows?
+
+Sisters, there is one part of this man's life and character that may
+shock your religious feelings. _He wrote plays_; _he acted plays too_;
+and that female queen encouraged him in it. Now, ever since I went to
+see the "Black Crook," I scorn myself for ever having one mite of
+charity for such things, and I haven't the conscience to say one word in
+their favor to you, as a Society. Still, this Mr. Shakespeare did write
+some things that might have sounded tolerably well in a lecture or a
+sermon that wasn't too strictly doctrinal.
+
+Last night I was talking with a lawyer from away "Out West," who spoke
+real kindly about Mr. Shakespeare's writings, and seemed to think if he
+had put off being born until now, and settled "Out West," where he could
+have given him a hint now and then, he might have made a first-rate
+literary man. "Even as it is," says he, "I do my best to make him
+popular, for he wrote some very readable things--very readable, indeed.
+For instance, not long since, in an exciting slander case, I quoted
+these lines, with a burning eloquence that lifted the judge right off
+from his bench:
+
+    "'He,' says I, 'that steals my purse, steals stuff;
+    'Twas something, t'aint nothing, t'was mine,
+    'Tis hisen, and has been slave to thousands;
+    But he that hooketh from me my good name,
+    Grabs that which don't do him no good,
+    But makes me feel very bad indeed.'"
+
+"Is that the genuine old English that Mr. Shakespeare wrote in?" says I.
+
+"Oh, that is the beauty of it," says he. "Shakspeare was no doubt a very
+respectable writer, but perfection is the watch-word of modern progress.
+Of course one doesn't introduce a quotation of his without all the
+modern improvements. Shakespeare--"
+
+"_Mr_. Shakspeare," says I, determined to keep up the dignity of
+authorship with my last breath.
+
+"Well, Mr. Shakspeare would have made a very superior writer if he had
+lived in this country and been fostered by an American Congress."
+
+"An American Congress," says I. "What on earth did that ever do for
+writers?"
+
+"Why, don't it publish books for the members to give away. Isn't that
+encouraging literature?"
+
+I said nothing, never having read one of the books in my life, and never
+having seen any one that had.
+
+"Then," says he, "hasn't every man that can write the life of a
+President of these United States before his election, been made an
+ambassador, or counsel, or something? Didn't Pierce send Hawthorne to
+Liverpool, not because of his transcendant genius, but for the reason
+that he had written a paltry life of himself?"
+
+"_Mr._ Hawthorne," says I, with expressive emphasis.
+
+"And didn't General Grant send Colonel Badeau to London, after his life
+was taken by that young man?"
+
+"I give in," says I; "the literature of this country has been fostered
+beautifully. Hawthorne was rewarded for degrading the finest genius this
+country has ever known, by writing a commonplace life of a ordinary man;
+and Adam Badeau was made a colonel, and is now figuring in London,
+because all the talent he ever had was crowded into such a book. Yes, I
+give in. But one thing is to be relied on, each of the Presidents
+struggling to rule over this country next, has brains enough to write
+his own life. Grant has written his out with a sword, and Greeley can
+handle his own pen. He won't have any debts of that kind to pay off, and
+I'm awfully mistaken if the authors of this country won't stand almost
+as high with him as corporals in the army do now. In his time bayonets
+will be stacked, and pens have their day. During the next four years I
+shouldn't wonder if Mr. Shakspeare might have a little chance if he were
+alive."
+
+"That puts me in mind," says the Western gentleman, "that a statue of
+Shakspeare is going to be unveiled in the New York Central Park
+to-morrow."
+
+"To-morrow?" says I; "then I'm off to New York to see it done. By and
+by, when we have put all the British authors in marble, some one born in
+America may get a chance."
+
+"But Shakespeare belongs to the world," says Cousin Dempster, who was
+sitting near me.
+
+"All men or women of genius belong to the world," says I, "just as far
+as the world knows them; but the country in which a great man or woman
+was born, and has lived and written, is the place where he should be
+first honored. Have we done anything of that kind yet? I'm not saying
+one word against Mr. Shakespeare; his monument ought to be in the most
+beautiful spot we have; but let the next statue be that of some
+first-class American. Mr. Shakespeare belongs to us as much as he did to
+England, because when he lived England was our country, and he belongs
+to us now. But since then we have cut loose from the Old World, and
+built up a powerful nation, where great authors, both men and women,
+have worked out their own birthright of genius, with no help but the
+power God has given them--worked it out, too, with not half the
+recognition that our Government and our people, to their shame be it
+spoken, have given to coarser and weaker intellects from over the sea."
+
+"Why, Phoemie," says Cousin Dempster, "don't get so excited; do you know
+that you are talking like a book?"
+
+"It must be an English book if any American takes much notice of it,"
+says I; "but rile me up on this subject, and I don't know or care how I
+talk. In our part of the country we are Americans to the backbone, and
+we mean to keep so."
+
+"Well, but this statue of Shakespeare was first thought of by the actors
+who have been living over his plays years and years--Booth, Wallack,
+Wheatley, and your dead and gone Halleck, set it a-going.
+
+"What Shakespeare did for theatres, theatre people know how to
+acknowledge. They have some spirit; but what author ever comes forward
+and asks a place for his fellow-author? How can they expect the country
+to be generous to them when they do nothing for each other?"
+
+It kind of took me down when Cousin Dempster said this, and not having
+anything to observe, I said nothing, but got right up, and says I:
+
+"If we mean to start for New York, it's time to be getting ready."
+
+
+
+
+LXV.
+
+THE STATUE OF SHAKESPEARE.
+
+
+Well, sisters, we got to New York in time, and went right up to Central
+Park, which was just one garden of flowers, all in full bloom. The
+trees, too, were of a bright, lovely green, and the little lakes blue as
+a baby's eye, sparkled and rippled wherever the sun shone and the wind
+swept over them. A wide green circle, with lots of trees shading it, and
+great heaps of bushes heavy with pink and white flowers everywhere
+around it, was just alive with men and women. They were all in their
+Sunday go-to-meeting best, some on the grass, some in carriages, and all
+chatting, laughing, and enjoying themselves mightily, but crowding
+toward one spot.
+
+Under these trees, where the grass was greenest, and the flowers
+brightest, there was a sort of pyramid, covered over with star-spangled
+banners of bright silk. Sweeping round that, like a ring cut in two,
+were platforms with rows on rows of seats, built against flag-poles,
+from which ever so many flags were a-streaming out on the wind. These
+seats were crammed and crowded full of people. The centre platform was
+roofed in, and just running over with men holding fiddles, drums,
+twisted horns, trumpets, great puffy bass viols, and everything else
+that could turn music into thunder, and thunder back into music.
+
+There was an inside circle nearer to the pyramid, and our tickets took
+us there, among the greatest people of the country, which was an honor I
+felt in behalf of the society. This was the penetralia, which, I
+suppose, from the first syllable, was got up especially for authors. I
+took my seat in that honored place, and, spreading my white parasol,
+looked about me, feeling the exaltation of my position in a modest way,
+but willing that others should make their little mark even if I was
+there.
+
+Well, the first thing that came was a crash that made me hop right up,
+and near about break my parasol. No wonder; for more than a hundred men
+were just flooding the air with music, that rose and fell and fluttered
+till the trees and bushes shook under it. I do believe the sweetness and
+the thundering outbursts would have inspired me to break into some good
+old tune myself, if there hadn't been so much rustling and talking and
+flirting all around me. As it was, there arose a clatter of confusing
+sounds that gave one's nerves a jerky feeling that I for one haven't got
+over yet. I do wonder why city people have no better manners. I should
+just as soon think of speaking out in meeting, as of chattering when
+others wanted to listen to music.
+
+Well, after a hard tussle between the people and the music, the people
+came out first-best--more shame to 'em. Then a gentleman they call Judge
+Daly--a real nice-looking person--got out and reached out his arms
+toward the pyramid, wrapped up in flags.
+
+The minute he did this all the people began to stamp and clap their
+hands, and fling out their handkerchiefs as if they had gone crazy. The
+more he tried to speak, the more they stamped and clapped and shouted;
+and he kept a-bowing real graceful, till by and by they stopped and let
+him speak.
+
+Then he went right on and told them all about the statue, which ought to
+have been done and put up on the day that Mr. Shakespeare was three
+hundred years old, only the statue wasn't ready then, but that was of no
+account, when we considered how beautiful the whole thing was, and what
+an honor it would be to American art. Judge Daly was all alive with this
+idea, and spoke splendidly. When he had done, I just laid down my
+parasol, and clapped my hands till a pair of three-button gloves gave
+out. Sisters, that one clap cost me just three dollars and fifty cents.
+
+When Judge Daly sat down, a gentleman walked up to the pyramid, and
+stood by it looking awful pale and anxious, as if the thousands and
+thousands of eyes bent on him had drawn all the blood from his body. He
+was a fine, handsome-looking man, and somehow I took a shine to him at
+first sight.
+
+All at once his face flushed up, and I saw that he held the end of a
+rope in his hand. While I was a-looking and wondering, he gave the rope
+a jerk, and down come those silk flags, all in a wild flutter, and there
+stood Mr. Shakespeare as if he'd just stopped to rest a minute after
+walking, and had been struck with an idea which he was thinking over.
+His head was just a little bent, and he held a book up against his
+bosom, with his finger between the leaves.
+
+Mr. Shakespeare must have been a proper handsome man about two hundred
+and seventy-five years ago. No wonder that elderly young lady fell in
+love with him. I could have done it myself, not because I am elderly,
+far from it, but because he was--well, I suppose because he was
+Shakespeare, and awful handsome at that.
+
+Queen Elizabeth must have given him the suit of clothes he wears; for
+when I said his trousers were too puffy and short for my liking, and his
+cloak nothing to speak of in the way of a covering, a gentleman near me
+said the dress was Elizabethan.
+
+This rather set me against the memory of Mr. S. He ought to have died
+rather than take anything from that cruel, hard-hearted old--I was going
+to say old maid, but refrain, not wishing to be hard on her, cruel as
+she was.
+
+Oh, mercy, what a shout that was. It seemed as if every heart in that
+great crowd had burst out in a glow of admiration. Mine just fluttered
+like a night hawk. I stood up and whirled the white parasol over my
+head; more than that, I split the other glove, and was glad of it.
+
+That Mr. Ward had been working eight years on the statue he had just
+uncovered, and our enthusiasm was his best reward. There he stood face
+to face with the people, who were to give him pain or cruel
+disappointment. I felt for him. No wonder his face turned white and then
+red as fire. Years of labor for one hour of triumph. He deserved all the
+praise he got, and that was stupendous.
+
+The statue was now all uncovered, and the sunshine lay upon it. Sisters,
+it is beautiful; but one thing troubles me--the color. Was Mr.
+Shakespeare of that complexion, or has the great man been darkened out
+of regard to the Fifteenth Amendment and Mr. Sumner? When a man is
+statued in bronze, does he always turn out a mulatto? I don't like the
+idea--it's carrying the Civil Rights Bill too far.
+
+Judge Daly had made a present of this statue to the park, in his speech.
+Now Mr. Stebbins, the President of the Park Commissioners, came forward
+and thanked him for it in the nicest way. He was just the man to do it,
+though he is a broker and banker; for he cares quite as much for art as
+he does for gold. Wherever he finds genius, this man spends his money
+like dew upon it. It was he that gave Miss Kellogg her first start in
+music, and a good many other stragglers have secretly been helped by him
+when they felt almost like giving up. For my part, I honor and glorify
+such men.
+
+The next thing I saw was a grand-looking old man, with a long, white
+beard falling over his bosom, and soft, white hair floating about his
+head. I held my breath when this man arose, and while the crowd yelled
+and shouted and made the ground tremble under me, I looked at him with
+my heart in my eyes. What Shakespeare was to England, this old man is to
+America--the best part of the land that gave him birth. He made a long
+speech, a beautiful speech. I have read his poems, so have you; but the
+poetry of his spoken words, of his voice and looks, is grander than
+written language, and nothing that I can write will give you the least
+idea of it.
+
+For my part, I hope that the next statue set up in the park will be that
+of William Cullen Bryant. What is the reason that we should wait till a
+man is dead before we give back something for the genius with which he
+has honored his country? The readers that may come up three hundred
+years from now owe him no more than we do. What are we waiting for,
+then? When Mr. Bryant sat down, there was another earthquake of
+applause, which had but just time to stop, when it burst out again for
+Edwin Booth. The best actor, and one of the handsomest men you ever saw,
+came forward and read a long piece of poetry, which just made the blood
+stir like wine in your veins. There was a double gust of genius in this
+poem; because the poet Stoddard wrote it, and then Booth gave it the
+fire of his soul and the music of his voice, which seemed to float and
+whisper around the statue long after the crowd had scattered itself over
+the park.
+
+
+
+
+LXVI.
+
+RACING DRESSES.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Don't be startled; don't hold up your hands in holy
+astonishment when I tell you that I--Phoemie Frost--your moral and--I
+say it meekly--religious missionary, have been to a horse-race. I am
+shocked myself now, in the cool of the morning, not exactly because I
+went, but from what happened after I got there.
+
+Have I done wrong? Can a missionary, without knowledge, do her duty? If
+she knows nothing of sin, how can she warn against sin?
+
+Then, again, is the running of swift horses sinful?
+
+Sisters, I am troubled. The more one knows, the more one is perplexed
+and put about. It is so easy to condemn things by the wholesale that you
+know nothing about. One can speak so positive about them, for total
+ignorance admits of no argument, and is entirely above all evidence.
+That is why ignorant stubbornness is so self-satisfied and comfortable.
+
+After all, I begin to think that "ignorance is bliss." Is there anything
+on this earth more snoozily comfortable than a litter of white pigs
+revelling with their mother in a mud-puddle--say in August? What do
+these contented animals care for the mud that soils their whiteness,
+with the pink skin shining through--rosy pigs, as one may call the kind
+I am speaking of. Think of them muzzling about in the rily water, free
+as air; then turn to your learned pig, chained to a master by the forced
+action of its own intellect--poor thing! obliged to play cards with its
+fore-foot, teach geography, and cipher out numbers like a
+schoolmaster--and then say if ignorance isn't bliss! Look in the little
+black eyes of the animal, and see the sad and hungry look that knowledge
+has brought to him!
+
+To know is to want--to want is to suffer.
+
+Where was I? Speaking about horses, naturally I wandered off down to
+other grades of animals--the laziest, largest, best-natured creatures of
+all--but, as you may observe with propriety, not suggestive of
+horse-races, which I admit and apologize for.
+
+Well, right or wrong, I have been to the races at Jerome Park, which is
+a hollow among the hills, clear out of New York, and the other side of
+Harlem River. There, every spring and fall, the best horses owned about
+here are set a-going like wildfire, and the one that beats is thought
+the world of.
+
+The park isn't much of a piece of woods, after all; a good-sized maple
+camp in Vermont has got twice as many trees, but then a good deal of it
+is turned out to grass. Then, again, a level turnpike curls in a ring
+all round one of the hills, and on the top of that is a kind of hotel,
+or long tavern, with a tremendous stoop stretched around it, where the
+upper-crust of fast horsedom crowd in to see the creatures run.
+
+On the other hillside, right against the tavern, is a great long, open
+shed, with seats after seats sloping down from the inside, where the
+lower-crust of fast horsedom crowd in from the railroads, and so on.
+They have to pay for going in, but, for all that, haven't a right to go
+across to the upper side, which must be aggravating.
+
+All the men that go to the upper-crust tavern wear a huge round thing
+with a ribbon fastened to their coats, and strut awfully under them, as
+if they were the crowning glory of all creation. Maybe they are; I don't
+know, not being highly educated in horsiness.
+
+Well, Cousin Dempster has one of these medals, which he hitched to the
+lappel of his coat that morning. Cousin E. E. had been fidgeting awfully
+all the week about a dress she was bent on wearing, and when it didn't
+come home from the dress-maker's till late the night before, I really
+thought she would take a fit right before us all. But the dress came at
+last, and then she wheeled right round the other way with joy.
+
+"Such a dress!" says she. "There won't be anything to match it. All my
+own idea, too"
+
+Here she tumbled a cataract of silk from a great paper box, and shook it
+out till it fluttered like the leaves on a young maple-tree.
+
+"Isn't it superb?" says she; "peacock green and peacock blue
+intermingled like a poem, sloping folds up the front breadth two and
+two, bunching splendidly behind, frilled, flounced, corded, folded,
+trailing, and yet demi to a large extent. Cousin Frost, Cousin Frost!
+did you ever see anything so original, so--so--"
+
+"Scrumptious," says I, a-helping her out, "peacock green and peacock
+blue; if we only had the half-moons on the train now."
+
+She looked at me earnestly; her soul had taken in the thought, and it
+burned in her eyes.
+
+"Oh, why didn't I think of that?" says she.
+
+I smiled. It takes genius to understand the fine irony of genius. Cousin
+E. E. is bright, but the subtle originality of a new thought isn't in
+her. That usually does in a family what this Government is trying so
+hard for--centralizes itself in one person.
+
+It is not difficult to say where this supreme essence condenses itself
+in our family. Still, I do not object to other members making their
+little mark, and if E. E. can make hers in the peacock line, why not?
+
+To my fancy, that dress was a nation sight too much. It was all in a
+flutter, silk heaped on silk. E. E. tried it on, and fairly waded in
+silk when she walked. There was neither elegance nor simplicity in it,
+nothing but a sickening idea of extravagance and money.
+
+E. E. looked like a peacock, walked like a peacock, and seemed to feel
+like one. She took a little mite of a bonnet from a box that came just
+after the dress, and put it on. It was shaped like the small end of a
+loaf of sugar, with a pink rose and a bunch of green and blue feathers
+on the top, bee-hivy in height, but brigandish in shape, slightly
+pastoral, and a little military.
+
+"Isn't it stylish?" says she, setting it on the top of her curls and
+puffs, with such an air.
+
+"Original," says I, "but you know which is _my_ color."
+
+E. E. laughed till the feathers shook on her head.
+
+"Oh!" says she, "Dempster and I are prudent. After the middle of July
+perhaps we may--"
+
+"Till then," says I, "you'll sit on the fence peacock fashion."
+
+We had more words, for E. E. is nobody's fool; but just then Cecilia
+came in, and I made myself scarce.
+
+
+
+
+XLVII.
+
+THE FIRST HORSE-RACE.
+
+
+Well, we started for the races in high feather. Cousin D. had just got
+his open carriage cushioned off beautifully. His horses had rosettes on
+their heads, and little looking-glasses about as big as a dollar
+flashing between their ears.
+
+Cousin E. E. wore the peacock dress and the brigandish hat. The parasol
+had a red coral handle, and, to own the truth, no horse on the
+race-ground looked faster than she did.
+
+I followed her modestly. My pink silk seemed to grow brighter when it
+settled down against her green and blue; my white hat was looped up on
+one side with a white cockade, and the white feather streamed out banner
+fashion. With me all was simplicity, patriotism, and whiteness--pure as
+the distinguished individual of whom they were a delicate typification.
+
+The drive up to that race-ground was just too lovely for anything. The
+horses fairly flew. The wind just shook the white fringe on my parasol,
+and kept my emblematical feather dancing after my hat. Cousin Dempster
+drove, and that girl Cecilia sat high up on the front seat by him, with
+her short dress ruffled and pinked about the bottom like a full-blown
+poppy; her--well, ankles visible to the knees, and all her hair floating
+out loose and crinkly. I say nothing, but ask you, as females of
+experience, what kind of a woman will that stuck-up child make, in the
+long run?
+
+The race ground was gay as a general training when we got there. It had
+rained lately; the trees and grass were green as green could be, and
+thousands of red-birds, yellow-hammers, blue-jays, and golden-robins,
+seemed to have settled down around the long tavern, the hill-side, and
+under the old trees. I declare, the sight was beautiful.
+
+Cousin D. had to show his badge and thing at the gate; then we drove up
+to the long tavern with a dash, hopped gracefully out of the carriage,
+and walked right in among the great crowd of gentlemen and ladies
+chatting, laughing, and moving about the long stoop.
+
+Sisters, I do try to be humble, but it is awful hard work. When I went
+into that crowd, with my pink silk trailing and that white feather all
+afloat, the whole congregation seemed to break into groups and hush up,
+just to look at me. I didn't pretend to notice this delicate ovation,
+but walked slowly forward, and with a becoming blush on my cheek, while
+E. E. and that child kept bowing and shaking hands with everybody they
+met.
+
+After I had seated myself in one of the great splint-bottomed chairs
+that stood in dozens on the stoop, the crowd felt at liberty to go on
+again--and it did. A flock of birds couldn't have twittered and tittered
+and flitted more joyaceously than the females crowded together on that
+stoop.
+
+But I soon had something else to look at. Down in front of the hotel a
+lot of horses were prancing to and fro, up and down, breaking into a run
+here, wheeling round, going back, standing still, and generally cutting
+about in a promiscuous manner, as if they were dying to have a dance in
+the street.
+
+Sisters, in all your born days, you never saw anything like those
+horses! Slender, smooth as glass, with eyes like balls of fire, they
+just took the shine off from everything in the horse line that I ever
+set eyes on. But the animals were nothing compared to the funny-looking
+creatures that rode them. A circus was nothing to them--neither is a
+theatre. Some of them were dressed in red, some in yellow, some in blue;
+one had on purple--all fitting just as tight as the skin to a rabbit's
+back. Each one had a boy's cap on his head; and, in fact, they all
+looked like boys out on a spree. There was a place just above the long
+tavern where most of these fellows always took their horses after a
+little run and blow--that was a little, cubby house, built up high from
+the ground, in which some men stood like captains on a steamboat.
+
+By and by there was a stir among the horses and a hustle among the men.
+
+"They're going to start! they're going to start!" says everybody to
+everybody else. A flag on the little house seemed to break down. Then
+off the whole lot flew like a flock of wild birds. The flying horses
+rushed along the road, beating time on the hard ground, and fairly
+taking the breath from one's lips.
+
+I gave a little scream, and jumped up. The whole crowd rushed forward,
+and seemed as if it would pour itself over the railing of the long
+stoop.
+
+"Where have they gone?" says I. "What has become of 'em?"
+
+"Here they come--here they come," shouted the whole crowd, answering me
+all at once.
+
+And they did come skimming along the road like
+wildfire--flash--flash--now two horses abreast--now one ahead--now
+another--then a sudden pull up, and the brown horse had won. Now it
+seemed to me as if the whole squad came up pretty much at the same time,
+but the whole crowd fell to clapping hands over the brown horse. I
+clapped too, and swung out my handkerchief as well as the rest; for when
+a multitude go into a thing like that it just sets one wild.
+
+Then the flag took another fall, and off went another squad of horses,
+and around the hill they went out of sight. Then came a stormy sound of
+hoofs, and another streak of lightning dash in which a chestnut-colored
+horse showed his head first, and then came another rolling thunder-clap
+from the crowd, and "Joe Daniels has beat," ran from lip to lip, as if
+"Joe Daniels" had been up for the Presidential election and got all the
+votes.
+
+Then the people cooled down, and, after a long wait, there was another
+rush, as if a whole training band had broke loose. We had hardly time to
+draw a deep breath, when they all came sweeping round in front of the
+long tavern, two of 'em just a little ahead, running so even and so
+fast, that I really believed that both of them beat the other, till the
+crowd began to clap and shout Alarm, which frightened me, for I thought
+something dreadful had happened; but Dempster hushed me up, saying it
+was the name of the horse that had won the race, and he was glad of it,
+for his friend Travers was one of the warmest-hearted, kindest fellows
+in the world, and ought to have a horse win every day of his life. This
+friendly little speech set me clapping my hands, both for the horse
+Alarm, his orange-colored rider, and the jolly-hearted man who owns
+him.
+
+There was a great commotion after this. The whole crowd was in a wild
+whirl of excitement. All the ladies were talking about gloves and pools,
+and gentleman riders, while the gentlemen talked fast, looked eager, and
+were restless as caged birds. Something was going to happen now, I was
+sure of that.
+
+"Do tell me what is the matter," says I to a gentleman that cousin had
+just introduced to me, "everybody is so excited."
+
+"Yes," says he, "all on the keyvive."
+
+What queer names they do have for horses. Alarm had just come in ahead,
+and now Keyvive.
+
+"What kind of a horse is the Keyvive?" says I.
+
+He didn't seem to hear me. No wonder, for that very minute five horses,
+with such nice-looking fellows on their backs, took a start, like a
+flock of wild deer, and went up the road so swift that before I could
+see them they were gone.
+
+"It is the hurdle-race," says the same gentleman, "splendid--splendid;
+what a leap!"
+
+His eyes were bright as stars; they fairly danced in his head.
+
+I sprang up, for a great wind seemed to be rushing around the hill. Then
+I gave a scream, for some wicked person had built a fence right across
+the road, and those five horses were galloping like mad right toward it.
+
+"Oh, stop them--stop them--for mercy's sake!" says I, a-clasping my
+hands, and pleading wildly to every one around. "They'll be killed--they
+don't see that awful fence."
+
+While I was screaming, the whole five horses came, one after another,
+sailed right over the fence, dived down like hen-hawks after a chicken,
+and away toward another fence that choked up the road. Before I could
+shriek out, and warn them, over they came, like a whirlwind, without
+touching the fence or seeming to care--over, and away up the road,
+taking one's breath with them.
+
+"Mercy on me! what a providential escape!" says I to the gentleman;
+"what wicked wretch could have heaped up things in the road? I do hope
+they'll be found out and sent to State's prison. Why, it's just as bad
+as blocking up a train of cars. Such nice-looking riders, too!"
+
+The gentleman looked a trifle puzzled, then he smiled a little funnily,
+and says he:
+
+"Perhaps you do not understand that this is a 'hurdle-race.'"
+
+"No," says I; "they told me that it would be horse-racing--nothing worse
+than that."
+
+"Well," says he, "it is nothing worse than that, only a little more
+dangerous, and to you ladies more interesting, because the riders are
+all gentlemen."
+
+"What, those men in the caps, gentlemen--not circus-riders, nor
+nothing?"
+
+He laughed, and says he:
+
+"I dare say no one of them has ever been in a circus since he left off
+tunics, but they have learned to hunt, and love these hard leaps."
+
+"You don't mean to say that they skiver over such fences on purpose?"
+says I.
+
+"Indeed they do, and build them higher and broader every year."
+
+"You don't say so," says I, feeling my eyes open wide.
+
+"They love the peril, for that increases the excitement."
+
+"What if some of them were to be flung head over heels?"
+
+"Oh, that has happened."
+
+"Not to-day?"
+
+"Yes, but fortunately the man was not killed."
+
+I felt myself a-growing pale.
+
+"But they don't know of it. Everybody is laughing," says I.
+
+"Yes, it is generally known, but that is a part of the excitement. In a
+crowd like this, it is difficult to realize trouble or death."
+
+"How strange!" says I, putting the handkerchief that I had torn with
+hard shaking into my pocket, with a deeply penitent feeling.
+
+"It is strange," says he; "but this is no place for deep feeling, or you
+would not see so many smiling faces around you, for a gentleman who owns
+some of the race-horses, and came up only a day or two ago to see them
+tried, is lying dead in his home now."
+
+My heart sank. I felt tears crowding up to my eyes. Death in one
+place--all this gorgeous confusion and wild gayety here. A lonely widow,
+weeping bitter tears; all these gay fluttering young people reckless and
+happy, in spite of it.
+
+I arose, and looked around me. No one seemed to feel this man's death.
+Never in my whole life had I been in such a whirlpool of gayety. There
+was not a sad or thoughtful face in the crowd. Yet many of the persons
+there had known the man who lay dead in the city. I had never heard of
+him till then, but no smiles came to my lips after that mournful
+knowledge reached me. In the midst of all this hilarious gayety I felt
+the shadow of human suffering creeping over me, and I rode home from the
+race-park in sad silence.
+
+
+
+
+LXVIII.
+
+OFF AGAIN.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--New York City is full of epidemical contagions.
+Horse-racing is one of them. Every spring and fall it rages fearfully,
+especially among the female women who wait for the races--dress up for
+the races, and come out with splendiferous spontaneosity, whenever the
+fast horses are ready to run.
+
+I have been up to see the creatures rush once, and sent you my report,
+which, owing to verdancy of mind caught from the Green Mountains, was
+only skim milk to which I now pour in cream with a liberal hand. To own
+the truth, it takes more than one visit before a regular New England
+young lady can understand the inns and outs of a horse-race.
+
+Now, I dare say you think it a sort of agricultural fair for
+animals--for the horsey kind meant to show off their beauty, try their
+speed, and encourage farmers to go in for improvement.
+
+Exactly, and a good deal more so. Why, sisters, it's gambling--just
+gambling, open handed and above board, in which the upper-crust female
+women of New York take a hand with the men, and glory in it. But I mean
+to tell you all about it in the regular way, and shall do it as I go
+along.
+
+You never saw such a crowd of carriages, wagons, buggies, and queer
+horse machines as crowded along the road when we got within three or
+four miles of the race-course. When we come to the long bridge that runs
+across the Harlem River, there were two lines of carriages stretching
+before and behind us, just as far as we could see, horses that tossed
+their heads and champed their bits, and shone like satin under harnesses
+mounted with gold and silver, with little looking-glasses flying in and
+out over their heads, and hoofs that struck the ground like the feet of
+a Vermont girl when she dances from the heart.
+
+All these carriages were filled as if they were on the way to a high
+jubilation, choke full of ladies, with parasols hovering over them like
+wild birds taking wing, and great clouds of silk, lace gauze, and shiny
+stuff a-billowing over the sides, till you could but just see the silk
+cushions they leaned against. Then, again, some were crowded over with
+gentlemen, mostly in white hats--which delighted me--some with cigars in
+their mouths--some not--but every one of them just boiling over with
+good-nature and fun.
+
+This was the way we went. Cousin Dempster has made a good deal of money
+in Washington--contracting, or something--and he got a spick-span new
+open carriage for this high occasion--a carriage made soft as a bird's
+nest with brown satin cushions, and that glittered outside like a crow's
+back whenever the sun struck it.
+
+We had a great big fellow, in new plum-colored clothes on the driver's
+seat, and another genteel youngster by his side--all plum-color and
+hat-band, like the coachman. Inside, there was Cousin E. E. with a
+pea-green dress on, all flounces and fringe, and overskirts piled up so
+high behind that she couldn't lean back, and your missionary, Miss
+Phoemie Frost, in her pink silk (turned again), and the white hat with
+plumes of snow, which bespoke at once her good taste and her most sacred
+political preferences, which would keep going on both sides all I could
+do.
+
+There, in the front seat, with his back to the horses and his face to
+us, sat Dempster, looking out with envy and bitter feelings on the men
+in buggies, that were laughing like fun, and smoking like New England
+stone chimneys. At such times I do not think that Dempster appreciates
+all the sweet benefits of female society.
+
+Last and least, I am sorry to say, was that child, Cecilia, with a pink
+parasol about as big as a good-sized toadstool, fluttering before her
+face, and all in a storm of flounces above her knees, with nothing but
+kid boots and silk stockings below.
+
+I do wonder what possesses Dempster and E. E. to train that child along
+wherever they go! She is just the aggravation of my life.
+
+Well, with our open carriage yeasting over with green, pink, white, and
+blue, which Dempster broke up with a lean streak of black, we rolled
+through the gate of the race-grounds and came up, with a magnificent
+sweep, to the back door of the club house, when E. E. and I gave a neat
+little jump, and tipped gracefully around the long stoop, right into the
+upper crust society of New York.
+
+Sisters, it was like wading right into a flower-bed! Everybody there had
+on her good clothes--I may say, her bettermost clothes of all. Red,
+green, purple, blue, white, black--every color or shade of color to be
+found in the sky, in flowers, in fruit, or in water, rustled against
+each other. Sisters, it was gorgeous! But one thing struck me as
+peculiar--most of these female ladies had the loveliest pink color in
+their cheeks all the time. While my face was turning red and white, as I
+grew warm or comfortable, theirs kept one steady pink. Ladies with hair
+as yellow as gold had ink-black eyebrows and lashes--things we never see
+together in the country. I don't understand it. Well, we had but just
+got seats on the largest stoop when the people below us let off a squad
+of horses that seemed to fly; for the mud was soft as mush on the road,
+and their hoofs made no more noise than as if they had trod on velvet.
+
+Just before these horses made their first dive, Dempster came up to us
+with a person who carried a white hat in his hand, and held it out as if
+he wanted something put into it. I thought that somebody had been
+cheating the poor fellow, for there was nothing but little, crumpled
+bits of paper in the hat. Of course I did not want to equal these
+treacherous people in meanness, so I took out my pocket-book and dropped
+a five-cent piece into the hat, smiling benignly on the good-looking
+suppliant as I did it. I really was ashamed of Cousin E. E.; for instead
+of giving the poor fellow a trifle of money, she just nipped up one of
+the crumpled bits of paper, and, opening it, called out, laughing like a
+girl:
+
+"I've drawn the favorite! Oh, isn't that splendid!"
+
+I declare I was mortified by such silly nonsense, and wanting to keep up
+the credit of the family, dropped another five-cent piece in the hat,
+and nodded toward E. E., as much as to say: "Never mind; I give it for
+her."
+
+Instead of thanking me, the man stared and turned a trifle red, as if
+the gratitude that filled his heart were trying to burst through his
+face. It was a noble feeling, and I appreciated it by another kind nod
+and smile.
+
+Then he held out the hat to "that child," and she, too, snatched up one
+of the papers and began to giggle over it. I declare you might have
+lighted a candle by my face, it burned so.
+
+"Is there no end to such meanness?" thought I, and once more I opened my
+pocket-book.
+
+"No matter, Phoemie, I'll attend to that," says Cousin Dempster, waving
+his hand at me.
+
+Out came his pocket-book then, and he took from it a handful of
+greenback-bills, which he gave to the man, who laughed as if he were
+half-tickled to death, and well he might be, for Dempster was as
+extravagant as the female portion of his family had been mean.
+
+"Here is the last number, and our pool is complete," says he, taking a
+bit of paper from the hat, and dropping it into my lap. "Don't trouble
+yourself, Phoemie, it's all right."
+
+I did trouble myself, in spite of his smiling face. Charity is one
+thing, and ostentation is another. After my gift, which I must say was
+liberal enough, there was no need of such a display as Dempster made. No
+wonder the man looked pleased as he marched away, with the money in one
+hand, and that white hat in the other.
+
+When the horses came rushing by again, and made a sharp halt just above
+the house, the man came up to us choke full of pleasure, and wanted to
+look at my paper. I thought he was taking liberties, but gave him the
+mite of paper, and drew back in my seat, in proper fashion.
+
+"Your horse has won," says he; "Mid-day has the race by a length."
+
+With that he laid a roll of bills in my lap, and went away, bowing low,
+till his white hat almost touched the floor.
+
+"Mercy on me! what does this mean?" says I, a-taking up the money. "Is
+the man crazy?"
+
+"It means that you have won the pool," said Dempster.
+
+Before I could ask him what on earth he meant, Cousin D. was swept off
+by a crowd of ladies, and three sandy-haired horses were put upon the
+run. I could not tell one horse from another, they were so alike; but
+they all were long and lank, with hind legs that looked as if all their
+strength lay in that direction to a wonderful extent, and the way they
+threw them out was surprising.
+
+About this time I saw a great many white hats flying about, and men had
+pocket-books in their hands, while ladies talked wildly about gloves and
+neckties, and clapped their hands when the horses rushed by, and the
+word "pool" was in everybody's mouth--in fact, it was Bedlam let loose.
+
+
+
+
+LXIX.
+
+THE STEEPLE-CHASE.
+
+
+Sisters:--This horse hurdling is something that just lifts you right off
+your feet. All that I had seen was nothing to what was to come. All
+along the winding road, and the lots each side, some men went to
+building fences, till every few yards were fenced in, and yet seven
+long-legged, long-bodied, and not over fleshy horses, with riders in
+white, in blue, in yellow, and striped brown and yellow, were ready for
+another start, which they made like a thunderburst.
+
+On they came, flying and flashing through the lots, like a flock of
+birds, right up to the first fence. I sprang up--everybody sprang up,
+wild and anxious--I expected to see the whole grist of them pitch
+head-foremost against the rails, when up they all rose, and away they
+went straight over, and off like a shot to the next and the next,
+clearing one after another, before you could draw a deep breath. Across
+lots, down the road, in and out they went, jumping fences, now abreast,
+now in a swift line, till they came up all at once to a pond of water.
+
+I screamed right out, and felt myself growing cold, for they were
+rushing toward it full split, and it was wider across than the
+mill-stream back of our school-house.
+
+"Stop 'em, stop 'em! They'll be drowned, they'll be killed!" I screamed
+out, just crazy with fear.
+
+No one minded me; the whole crowd was too busy watching those wild
+riders to mind me if I had yelled like an engine whistle. They came
+rushing up nearer--nearer, almost in a line, as if some enemy were
+ahead, and the whole squad meant to ride right through and trample
+everything down. They were close by the water now, with a low fence that
+side. On they rushed--a whole cloud of hoofs ploughed up through the
+air, and those seven horses went shooting like sparrows over the fence
+and across the water. Their hoofs struck fire from the stone wall on the
+other side, and away they went, pell-mell, their riders shooting out
+colors like a broken rainbow, and the crowd cheering them on as if it
+had been a sham fight on training-day.
+
+On they flew like a young whirlwind, though one bay horse they called
+"Blind Tom" fell short. The rider, trying to bring him up, was pitched
+over his head, at which the crowd was hushed, but burst out again when
+Blind Tom left the poor fellow behind, and dashed on with the other
+horses neck and neck round the fields, leaping a fence or two, before
+the poor stunned rider could roll over and pick himself up.
+
+Oh, it was too droll--that plucky horse, dashing along with the rest,
+shooting over the fences, up to time, and acting like a soldier charging
+under command. I could just have gone down and kissed the splendid
+creature, and the whole crowd--thousands and thousands--set up shout
+after shout that you could have heard almost on the Green Mountains.
+
+Another horse came out first best on the second round, but a couple of
+men, right behind me, insisted that Blind Tom ought to have the
+money--what money I didn't understand--but I agreed with the men, if
+there was anything that a horse could accept, Blind Tom was the animal
+for the money.
+
+Sisters, there don't seem much that is wrong about this. You can't see
+any amount of deep iniquity in it, can you now? I didn't discover
+anything poisonous to the moral character; but then we female women
+don't always see deep enough into great social and religious questions,
+and horse-racing is one.
+
+What do you think the gloves and neckties meant? What hidden sin lay
+buried under the pools? What, after all, took that great multitude up to
+that beautiful hollow among the hills? Gambling, my dear; male and
+female gambling, nothing more, nothing less. The horses run for money.
+The jockeys ride for money. The men bet money, hats, gloves, hundreds,
+thousands, on this horse and that. Everybody gambles, and everybody
+likes it.
+
+Sisters, that poor man's hat was a pool; there wasn't a drop of water in
+it; still it was a pool. The two five-cent pieces I threw into it were a
+dead loss to charity. The scraps of crumpled paper meant dollars. The
+heap of bills that I tucked away in my pocket-book, innocent as twenty
+lambs, was money that I had won gambling, ignorantly, innocently.
+
+With Christianity at my heart, and gambling money in my pocket, I feel
+demoralized as a church member; yet I must confess it exhilated me as if
+I had been on the top of a high mountain, and was looking down with
+delicious dizziness. I a gambler, I a diver into pools no larger than a
+man's hat, but dangerous as the bottomless pit! I cannot realize it; and
+when realized, it seems to me as if I couldn't be properly penitent.
+That sort of thing doesn't seem so awful to me as it did before I got
+into it, in this pleasant, innocent, and sweetly promiscuous manner.
+
+Is this "rolling sin like a sweet morsel under the tongue"? Am I getting
+faithless to the trust with which I set forth on this city mission?
+
+This much I will say in my own behalf: horse-racing, if pernicious, is
+awfully pleasant, and horse-betting (gloves and neckties I mean)
+is--well--ditto.
+
+_Such_ a ride home as we had! Trees and grass, cool and green--no dust.
+The sun going down, and throwing red shadows across the fields.
+Carriages crowded full of smiling people, horses wild to pass each other
+and get home; yourself deliciously tired, with half a dozen swift
+horses chasing each other through your brain, and trampling down your
+conscience.
+
+Well, sisters, I may have been wrong, but frankness is my peculiarity,
+and I should like to try it all over again, just once. Don't think hard
+of it, but I should.
+
+
+
+
+LXX.
+
+PREPARING FOR SEA.
+
+
+Dear Sisters:--With an aching head and bitter taste in my mouth, I take
+up my pen to write. Myself, and not myself, I sit here as if I had just
+come out of the upheaving of an earthquake. If I write anything of what
+happened yesterday, it must be sensational; for, of all sensations that
+ever riled up a human constitution, that I felt while out to sea beat
+all that I ever knew or heard of.
+
+I have been out to a yacht race.
+
+Horse-racing is a science not unknown, in its rudiments, to our rural
+population. You can remember when we took our first lessons, bareback,
+with a rope-halter looped around the horse's nose for a bridle. No--that
+was our second lesson; the first was on father's old grey horse, which
+was blind of one eye, and had a natural saddle curved into his back.
+Being a mite of a child, I sat in that hollow like a bird in its nest,
+hung on to the mane with one hand, and held a crooked stick before the
+eye that could see when I wanted the creature to turn. In this way I
+began my horse-alphabet. First, we waded through the plantains and
+burdocks, at a slow walk, with a stumble now and then, which set my
+little heart to quaking like a swampy bog trod upon. Then I grew
+venturesome, and the old grey warmed into a soft trot, which shook me up
+like anything, but was more exhilarating than the walk. With my bare
+feet pressed close to the animal's side and my fingers gripped into his
+mane, I began to rattle my stick timidly against his shoulder; at which
+he broke trot and racked himself off into a canter, which made my heart
+leap with every fall of his hoofs, and filled it with the courage of a
+trooper.
+
+Didn't we wade through the burdocks and sweet ferns then! Didn't we ride
+round and round that pasture lot, without giving the dear old beast time
+for a bite of grass or a fair nip at the sweet ferns! Didn't my crooked
+stick rattle and my hair fly out in the wind! Didn't my mother scream
+after me, and my father rush out like a crazy man, with both arms spread
+out, and try to head Old Grey off! Of course he did. But the dear old
+horse didn't want to give up, and I didn't mean that he should; so he
+shied, and, of course, having nothing to hold him in by but the tuft of
+hair and the stick, he left father behind, and, I do believe, kicked up
+a trifle, just to show his independence.
+
+That was my first lesson on horseback. On the second, my father insisted
+on haltering the creature, which gave me a pull at his head, and mane,
+too, which rather interfered with the use of my crooked stick, and
+bunched me up, till father called out to me to sit up straight--which I
+did, at last, going it with both hands on the halter, and the hair
+blowing about my face like a veil. That morning Old Grey and I jumped a
+brook a full yard wide, and cleared both banks beautifully.
+
+After that I did a great deal of bareback riding, along the road and in
+the pasture lots, and could sit and ride like a trooper before I ever
+got into a side-saddle or knew what a curb-bit was.
+
+Sisters, that is the way to learn things--begin at the beginning, and
+get a firm, steady seat before you attempt to cut a dash. The lady that
+can't sit her horse handsomely without regard to bit or stirrup, needn't
+set herself up as much of a rider--at any rate, in our part of the
+country.
+
+So much for one kind of racing. Now for the water-course.
+
+We used to send little boats, dug out with a jack-knife, under paper
+sails, down that brook by the school-house, and see them swamped among
+the cowslips or capsized in the eddies, when we were in the A B C class.
+Some of us went far enough to sail down the mill stream in a canoe dug
+out of the trunk of some big tree. In fact, I have a remembrance of
+crossing a large river in a scow pushed forward with awful long poles.
+But beyond these rudimental experiences, ship-rowing is not indigenous
+to the Green Mountains, as a general thing, and I do not see how it can
+ever become a Vermont institution, yet awhile. Therefore I say,
+horse-racing you can understand, but ship-racing is really a novelty in
+the Mountains.
+
+Now, a yacht, sisters, is nothing more or less than a baby schooner,
+which has two masts, or a sloop, that has one, built up slender and
+graceful, with a cock-pit, which is in the stern, and a cooking-room,
+which is in the bow, and all the other fixings which make it as much
+like a ship as a first-rate baby-house is like an old homestead.
+
+Dempster has been to Washington, and got some contracts or something,
+and what does he do but come home one hot day when we were all just
+sweltering in white loose gowns, and says he:
+
+"Girls, what do you say to going down to the Regatta?"
+
+"The Regatta," says I, "what is that--anything cool?"
+
+"Why, it is a race given by the Yacht Club," says he, "and of course it
+will be cool if we go out to sea."
+
+"Well, I don't object to seeing, if that will make things cool," says I;
+"but how a club can race, except when it is in a policeman's hand, I
+can't begin to make out."
+
+Cousin D. gave one of his long, hearty laughs, and says he:
+
+"Now, really, Phoemie, don't you understand what a club is?"
+
+I felt the blood rise up into my face.
+
+"Don't I know what a club is?" says I. "Well, I should rather think so.
+There are hickory clubs, oak clubs, yellow pine knots, that answer
+pretty well, and locust clubs, but how a little ship can be turned into
+a club beats me!"
+
+"Oh, it isn't one ship that makes the club, but a good many," says he,
+"crack ships, too."
+
+I just dropped the two hands I had been holding up, quite out of breath.
+
+"So a good many ships make one club, do they?" says I.
+
+"Just so," says he. "When a lot of men join together for any particular
+thing, it is called a 'club.' There is the Jockey Club, the Union Club,
+the Rural Club, the Union League Club, the Yacht Club."
+
+"Oh, for mercy's sake, do stop before you club me to death," says I,
+clapping both hands to my ears. "We have got timber enough in Vermont,
+but clubs of any kind are not in our line. Just tell me what you want of
+us, and we'll say Yes or No."
+
+"Well, I want you to get into my new yacht, and go a little way out to
+sea," says he.
+
+"To see what?" says I.
+
+"The Regatta."
+
+"Can't you for once speak honest English?" says I.
+
+"Well, a Yacht Race," says he.
+
+"That is, little ships running races," says I; "but where?"
+
+"On the Atlantic Ocean," says he.
+
+My spirit rose. I have seen the East River and the upper bay, and more
+than once have caught a view of the Long Island Sound from the
+car-windows, but a live ocean--a great, broad, heaving ocean, with waves
+roaring up thirty feet high, is an object we do not often get a chance
+to contemplate on the slopes of the Green Mountains. Would I go and see
+that? Wouldn't I?"
+
+"Then you will go?" says Cousin Dempster.
+
+"Go!" says I, "yes, if I have to walk afoot with snow-shoes on."
+
+"Well, then, get your yachting clothes ready," says he.
+
+"Pink silk?" I suggested.
+
+"Oh, no; something that can stand the water," says he.
+
+"Say black alpaca, with a white hat and plumes--principle and patriotism
+before anything else," says I.
+
+"That will be lovely on the blue waves," says Cousin E. E. "I will wear
+a blue feather, and Cecilia shall turn up her Leghorn flat with an
+anchor."
+
+"That's just the thing," says Cousin D., with maritime enthusiasm. "I
+have had the yacht painted white, and on her long white pennant you will
+find a name all Vermonters love particularly, and the world generally."
+
+"What is her name?" we all said right out at once.
+
+"The Vermonter," says he, straightening himself up proudly.
+
+We all sprang to out feet, and clapped our hands with the wildest
+enthusiasm.
+
+"I'm not afraid to dare the wildest storms on the ocean with that
+craft," says I.
+
+"Nor I."
+
+"Nor I."
+
+Sisters, it was a spontaneous outburst of pure state patriotism--even
+that child Cecilia seemed to feel it--for ten minutes after she was busy
+as a bee, sewing a silver anchor on her Leghorn flat, and that day, for
+the first time, I kissed the child with spontaneosity.
+
+
+
+
+LXXI.
+
+YACHT-RACING.
+
+
+Sisters:--When you go to a yacht-race, the first step is peculiar. You
+get into a carriage or a car, and ride down to the docks. Then you steam
+off in a ferry-boat to Staten Island, get into a thing they call a yawl,
+which floats like a cockle-shell, and carries two or three people, and
+row off to one of the cunningest, prettiest, slenderest, most
+scrumptious little ships you ever set eyes on, sitting on the water like
+a white duck with its wings spread.
+
+Some black-walnut steps fell down the side, over which I climbed, with
+my heart in my mouth, and jumped into a little pew, with a sofa running
+round it, and some light cross-legged chairs ready for visitors.
+
+The sun was hot overhead and up from the water, so I just went down into
+the prettiest little cabin you ever saw, all finished off with shiny
+wood, like a lady's bedroom, and carpeted with sky-blue, with a pale
+touch of gray in it. Right by this were two lovely little bedrooms, all
+blue and cloud color, with snow-white beds and cloudy curtains. There
+were four beds in the cabin, too, built into the wall, and lots of
+silver things were shining on brackets and silver hooks.
+
+A sofa, all cushioned with blue, ran down each side of the cabin, and on
+one of these I took my place while the rest came in.
+
+Cousin D. had invited a dozen people to try his new yacht, and when they
+all came swarming in, it was cheerful as a beehive.
+
+Some cramped themselves in the cockpit, some flung themselves on the
+long sofas of the cabin, some got under the sails, cosey as birds in a
+tree, two and two; but I always remarked that two men and two women
+somehow never got together; they were sure to split up one of each sort,
+just as they are apt to do on land.
+
+Well, the yacht spread her sails, made a graceful dive and off she went,
+her canvas snapping and her colors flying. A whole squad of other
+vessels set sail too, and off we went like a flock of birds.
+
+The water of the bay was blazing like quicksilver. Some white clouds
+cooled the sky a little, but everything around was sweltering with
+hotness. On we went, fleet and cheerful, sending up the water in
+sparkles, and flying toward the ocean, with green banks on each side of
+us, and that gloriously hot sun heating up the air like a furnace.
+
+By and by we passed a couple of great stone forts, and came out into the
+ocean. Oh, what a broad blaze of sky and water--blue and silver
+everywhere, blue and silver!
+
+On these waters, far out, lay a crimson ship, settled down like a
+mammoth red bird, and around that a crowd of little vessels, with their
+sails spread ready for flight. Ever so many steamboats, crowded with
+people, waited a little way off for the race to begin.
+
+One of these steamboats had the President of these United States on
+board, and hung out its flag that all the world might know where to find
+him. We didn't try, but kept modestly down among the small craft.
+
+By and by there was a fluttering among the yachts around the red ship;
+then a gun banged off, then another, and away the whole flock went,
+flying across the water in a white cloud.
+
+After it went the steamboats, ploughing and snorting through the water,
+and after them a whole storm of sailing craft, all on the wing, each
+dashing up foam like fury.
+
+Now the wind rose higher, and seemed to cool the air, while it spread
+out all the sails as they flew before it. This seemed to bring in a
+whole army of little waves from the great ocean, and, as true as you
+live, every wave had a white hat on.
+
+I jumped up and fairly clapped my hands when I saw these waves trooping
+in, battalion after battalion, all tossing up their white hats and
+dancing forward, as if the winds were singing Yankee Doodle behind them.
+
+Then the party in our yacht gave a shout.
+
+"They are rounding the spit," says Cousin D. "Do look, Phoemie."
+
+I did look, but saw nothing particular--who could? What would one spit
+be in a whole ocean of water.
+
+Then came another shout.
+
+"They have marked the boy."
+
+"Goodness, gracious," says I, "is there a boy overboard? Do fling out a
+boat-hook or something!"
+
+"Do not disturb yourself, Phoemie," said Cousin D.; "that particular boy
+has been swimming in one spot these ten years."
+
+"And alive yet?" says I, feeling my eyes widen like saucers.
+
+"Just as live as he ever was," says he.
+
+"You don't say so," says I. "Can we see him from here?"
+
+"Yes; yonder!"
+
+Cousin D. pointed toward something in the water, black, with a red cap
+on. There did not seem to be much danger of his sinking, for he kept his
+head high, and a good many boats were near enough to keep him up. I lost
+sight of him, and watched the vessels flying off again. But somehow,
+when they came in sight once more, my enthusiasm was all gone, and I
+began to feel limp and dreadfully discouraged. I haven't had such an
+uproar about my--well--heart, since the Grand Duke sailed, and that was
+very different, a sort of affectionate flutter, while this is beyond
+ex-pres-sion.
+
+Sisters, at the end of the last sentence, my head fell into one of those
+blue cushions, and I have a dreamy feeling that waves with white hats on
+were bowing to me right and left.
+
+I have lifted my head again. The yachts are coming in full split. As
+each comes up, the steamboats and vessels give a yell that makes the sea
+tremble, and scares all the birds in the neighborhood. One time they
+shriek--that is for the _Gracie_. Then there was a deep, long howl--that
+was for the _Jantha_. Then there was a yell, a shriek, and a howl, all
+together, which was for the _Vixen_.
+
+What yacht beat, I don't pretend to know, but it comes to me as if in a
+hideous dream that it was the _Vixen_.
+
+The next thing I have on my mind was, a table set out in the cabin, and
+the popping of corks from long bottles, with a sound that made me quiver
+all over. Then I recollect that some one was persecuting me with offers
+of something nice to eat, for which I shall loath them as long as I
+live.
+
+Sisters, I did _not_ see a single ocean wave thirty feet high--far from
+it--but those I did see were quite high enough. If you don't believe me,
+go to a yacht race, that's all.
+
+
+
+
+LXXII.
+
+MUSIC THAT IS MUSIC.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I love music. My soul was brought up on Old Hundred, and
+refreshed from time to time with Yankee Doodle. The lively tones of a
+fiddle drove me wild with delight, in my foolish, school-girl days; and
+I cannot keep my feet still when one rattles of money-musk or the Opera
+Reel even now, when enthusiasm is delicately toned down into graceful
+ease.
+
+The truth is, Nature is full of music, and we who live in a mountainous
+country know how much of it is to be found outside of instruments and
+the human voice. In fact, the sweetest music I ever heard has come to me
+through the woods--not from the birds, but the whispering leaves. Have
+you ever listened--with your heart--and learned, by the faintest sound,
+the different voices of the trees--the quick, soft rustle of the maple;
+the stronger sound of the oak-leaves; the weird, ghostly shiver of the
+pine-needles? I know little of music, if anything out of heaven can
+touch a human soul more tenderly than these sounds. Then the birds--what
+joyous or solemn music they can make! Have you never felt your heart
+leap to the singing of a robin among the branches of an apple-tree in
+full blossom, or shiver and grow sad at sunset, when the cry of a lonely
+whip-poor-will comes wailing through the dusk?
+
+There is the music of trees in the spring, when their blossoms are sweet
+and their leaves are just unfolding--soft, cheerful, happy music, full
+of tenderness and love. Then there is the low, drowsy music of the
+summer-time, when bumble-bees and lady-bugs and humming-birds fill the
+warm air with greedy droning as they plunder the wild flowers of honey.
+
+Did you never close your eyes, half go to sleep, and listen to them,
+with a lazy consciousness that you could rest and enjoy, while those
+little, busy creatures were singing at their work? I have, a thousand
+times.
+
+Then comes the fall, when the hills are burnt over with red and gold and
+brown. How the full, rough-edged leaves strike together, with a sound of
+copper and brass--with a rustle and shiver that makes one think of
+military funerals. Then comes the swift, rustling sound of ripe nuts
+rattling from burs and husks; the coarse, bass voices of the crows among
+the naked stubble-lots; the mellow crash of corn-stalks, as the cattle
+tread them; the slow, liquid grinding of cider-mills, and the sharp
+sound of the hackle, where flax is broken for the spinning-wheel.
+
+After this, comes stormy music--fierce, high winds, whistling sharp and
+shrill through the long, naked branches of the woods, which answer them
+back with moans and sighs and wild shrieks that make you shiver at night
+and hide yourself under the bed-clothes.
+
+When I was a little girl, sisters, my heart rose and fell to music like
+this till I suffered terribly, sometimes, without speaking a word to any
+one--for these are feelings which one never does talk of--there is no
+language that I ever learned which will express them. But I have never
+heard any music that could reach my soul like that which God gives us in
+the blossom season--the summer, the fall of late fruit--and the bleak,
+hard winter, when the clash of ice against ice has a sound that no man
+or woman can reach.
+
+This is my idea of music, and that is scattered far and given to all men
+alike. You can't gather it up and deal it out in great, thundering
+gushes. It isn't to be got for five dollars a ticket. In fact, the best
+and sweetest things we have are given to the poor and rich just
+alike--free, gratis, for nothing.
+
+
+
+
+LXXIII.
+
+HUBBISHNESS.
+
+
+Sisters:--The music I have just been writing about is not fashionable by
+any manner of means. Boston, the great central hub of all creation,
+can't bottle it up or engage it by the ton to astonish all creation
+with. She must have the manufactured article, and has sent all over the
+world to get it.
+
+Every fiddler, flute-player, drummer, and curlecued horn-man in Europe
+has been brought over here to thunder-out and roll-off billows of sound
+for people to pay for and wonder at.
+
+We have a Niagara of waters that astonishes the world. Now the people of
+Boston are determined to give us, in a great, wild, conglomeration of
+voices, a full Niagara of sound.
+
+I am New England all over, from the top of my beehive-bonnet to the sole
+of my gaiter, but--confidentially, among ourselves--don't you think
+Boston takes a little too much on herself? That narrow-streeted,
+up-hilly city isn't all six of the New England States by a long shot.
+
+My opinion is that Boston is putting on airs, and I for one don't mean
+to put up with it. I hate stuck-up people, and I despise stuck-up towns.
+
+Of course it is my duty to see all things in behalf of the Society, and
+to do my best to lay them before you. I cannot say that my ideas of
+Boston have not toned down considerably since I came to New York. Still
+New England is New England, and Boston is Boston, if she does now and
+then make a tremendous old goose of herself, and sometimes threatens to
+cackle the hub all to pieces.
+
+Cousin Dempster hasn't much to do in summer-time, so he was on hand for
+the Great High Jubilee; and E. E. was just crazy to go; for she is what
+you call musical, and goes right off the handle whenever a fellow that
+can't speak English plays on the piano or sings to her in some language
+that she don't know a word of.
+
+Well, we went, and found Boston just running over with people. Every
+house along the crooked streets had one or two flags a-streaming from
+the roof, or out of the windows--star-spangled banners tangled-up with
+red and yellow and all sorts of colors; some with eagles, some without,
+but making every street gorgeous, as if the Fourth of July had burst out
+before its time.
+
+The Coliseum is a tremendous building, big enough to roof-in forty
+thousand people, and leave room for the whole swarm of drummers,
+toot-horners, piano-thrashers, blacksmiths, anvils, and swivel-guns,
+with a thousand people to blow, thrash, and blast them off, and twenty
+thousand singers behind, ready to pile in the thunder of their voices.
+
+The Coliseum is grand, barny in its structure, and all outdoorish when
+you get into it; but there is a good deal to see before you do get into
+it. The streets were just jammed-up with people when we came in sight of
+the great building, which stands out in a bare piece of ground, without
+a tree near it, and the hottest sun you ever wilted under beating down
+on everything around it, till I felt as if approaching the mouth of a
+great New England brisk oven, heated to bake a thousand tons of beans
+in. The streets were blocked with people.
+
+The little wooden bridges built over the railroads were creaking under
+the tramp of a never-ending crowd. The street cars were crowded like
+beehives till the horses could not move, and some of the cars broke
+down, choking up the track.
+
+Female women, with red books in their hands, scrambled through the
+crowd. Little tents and shanties were scattered all about, everybody
+talked fast and loud--some in one language, some in another. It was like
+going into the Tower of Babel, with all the languages in full blast.
+
+From one of the shanties we heard the sound of a loud, eager, wild
+voice, as of some fellow going to be hung, and wrestling for his life.
+
+"What is that?" says I to Dempster. "What on earth are they doing in
+there?"
+
+"Oh, it's a prayer-meeting," says he; "some man is wrestling with the
+Lord in behalf of sinful souls."
+
+"Oh, that's it," says I, just disgusted: "Well, I hope he'll get through
+with his wrestling before we come this way again. To haul religion and
+force prayers into such a crowd as this, is making a farce of
+Christianity. We have churches for such things, and the calm of a holy
+Sabbath set aside for the service of God. Who has time to think of such
+things here?"
+
+"Oh, it takes all sorts of men to make a world," says Dempster, pushing
+his way through the crowd, while E. E. and I followed, with that child
+a-dragging after us.
+
+We went at the rate of three feet in as many minutes, and that
+wrestler's voice was wrangling over us all the time. If the angels
+caught one sentence, I'm sure they must have clapped their wings to
+their ears and left the hub to take care of itself.
+
+
+
+
+LXXIV.
+
+THUNDERS OF MUSIC.
+
+
+Well, at last we crowded and fought our way into the Coliseum, which was
+pretty well filled up when we got through the entrance.
+
+It was a sight, I must say that. Before us was a whole mountain-side of
+benches, rising one above another till you could hardly see the end of
+them--benches, benches, benches--crowded down and running over with
+people, all in a state of bewildering commotion--humming, whispering,
+and rustling together like ten millions of bees in a mammoth hive.
+
+You never saw so many female women together in your born days. Think of
+it, thousands and thousands with crimson books fluttering in their
+hands, as if each woman had caught a great red butterfly and was holding
+him out by the wings. All these female women were rigged out in gorgeous
+dresses, rustling, moving, and flaming with all sorts of colors, like a
+hillside covered with gorgeous flowers, broken up with a dash of
+blackness now and then, as if a thunder-cloud had settled down amongst
+them. These black patches were the musicians, the flower garden was the
+singers--almost all female women, with fans, and voices, and red books
+in motion.
+
+Below were the people, crowded together by the acre, all jolly, smiling,
+and looking as if Boston were ready to burst her tire and whirl on her
+own bare hub, with all her spokes a-whizzing.
+
+Flags streamed and blazed on the walls, the roof, and around the
+pillars. All the stars in the skies seemed to have been torn down,
+scattered on a blue ground, and hung over that great building. It was a
+grand sight, I must say that--grand, but hubby.
+
+It was the German day, Cousin Dempster said. England had had her turn,
+France had flared up, and now Germany was to splurge just as much as she
+was a mind to.
+
+Well, Germany did splurge, but she began with a loud, deep, woe-begone
+rush of music, that seemed to roll out from a graveyard where everybody
+lay uneasy in his grave and was begging to get out. This ended off when
+the day closed with a dreary, low complaint, as if they had begged long
+enough and gave up. Now and then they broke in with a grand crash that
+made me start from my seat, and went off in a low wail, with a storm of
+music between.
+
+Something lively followed the first moan. Then a lady got up and sang
+all alone by herself, and her voice went floating through that great
+barny place, full, loud, and clear, as if ten thousand nightingales--not
+that I ever saw or heard a nightingale in my life, but I persist in
+it--as if ten thousand nightingales had broken loose in a swamp of wild
+roses.
+
+"Who on earth is that?" says I to E. E.
+
+"Madame Puschka Leutner," says she, clasping her hands. "Isn't she
+delicious?"
+
+Then out E. E. drew her handkerchief and set it flying.
+
+"I never heard anything like it, so strong, so sweet, so spreading,"
+says I, flirting out my own handkerchief with enthusiasm. "The human
+voice is something worth while in the way of music after all."
+
+It was no use saying more, for up jumped all the thousands of people in
+that great encampment, out went a swarm of white handkerchiefs, flocking
+together like a host of frightened seagulls, and the roar of the people
+went up like thunder.
+
+Then a great band of men, mostly with yellow beards and rosy faces, got
+on their feet, and went at the fiddles, the twisted horns, the drums and
+things, like crazy creatures, and the way the music rose, and swelled,
+and thundered out was enough to drive one crazy.
+
+Once more that great crowd burst in with yells and shouts, and a wild
+storm of praise. Then one of the yellow-haired men stood up alone with a
+wide-mouthed toot-horn, made of bright brass, in his hand. After looking
+around a minute, he just put the horn to his mouth, and blew a slow,
+long blow. Then he went at it tooth and nail, bringing out great round
+tones that seemed as if they never would grow faint or die away.
+
+I have heard a great many toot-horns in my life; in fact, I have blown a
+tin one myself to call the men folks in to dinner; but never did I hear
+anything like that. It was what Cousin E. E. called wonderful--so-low.
+
+I couldn't quite agree with her there, for to me it seemed wonderfully
+loud and riotous, but it was enough to make one in love with brass
+toot-horns forever.
+
+By and by something happened that just took the starch out of my New
+England soul. There, in the midst of all those dashy singers, one
+hundred and fifty men and women of the colored persuasion rose up in a
+human thunder-cloud, and broke into that noble song of freedom, which is
+a glory to one New England woman, and a glory to New England, for no
+better thing has been written since the "Star Spangled Banner:"
+
+    "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming Lord."
+
+Oh, sisters! there mightn't have been the highest-priced music in those
+colored voices, but the words are enough to wake up a dead warrior; they
+went through and through me as the wind stirs a forest. It was something
+to hear those dusky-faced freedmen chanting the glory of their own
+emancipation--something better than music, I can tell you. But the
+thrill of the thing was all gone when twenty thousand white people, with
+drums, trumpets, fiddles, organs, everything and every creature that
+could make a noise, thundered in, and bore all the sentiment off in a
+wild whirlpool of thunder.
+
+I do wish the white people would stop helping the colored population so
+much. They only drown them out and stifle them. Why couldn't the
+jubilant darkies be left to sing their own song, and rush on with old
+John Brown without being whirlpooled up in twenty thousand white voices.
+They could have stood their own without help, I reckon.
+
+There was a little resting spell after the darkies sat down; then came a
+great heaving crash and storm of music. Everything from a jew's-harp to
+an organ was set a-going, and behind them thousands of women sent up
+their voices amid a crash of anvils, the thunder of guns, and the
+ringing of bells that plunged one headlong into a volcano of sound that
+was neither music, nor thunder, nor an earthquake, but altogether a
+stampede and whirlwind of noises that engulfed you, body and soul.
+Ring--crash-bang--thunder rolling, rolling--oceans in tumult--whirlwinds
+of sound--armies crashing together--the world at an end!
+
+That was what it seemed like to me. Sisters, I haven't a nerve left in
+my body; my temples throb, my heart feels as if it had been blown up
+with brass horns. There is a drum beating in each temple. Oh, if I could
+only hear a robin sing, or a brook in full flow--anything soft, and
+low, and sweet--it would be a relief.
+
+
+
+
+LXXV.
+
+SARATOGA TRUNKS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Do you know where Long Branch is? I reckon not, owing to
+its being a sandy slip, cut off from the edge of New Jersey, and not
+much of a place over two months in the year; it hasn't got into the
+geography books as a school item of importance, though, if a President
+or two more should settle in there, it might lift it a notch higher.
+
+But in duty bound, I am here in pursuit of my great social mission, and
+can tell you, confidently, that Long Branch is a great watering-place,
+brim full, and running over with fashion once a year, when the hot sun
+drives all the upper-crust people out of New York, and everybody that is
+anybody feels the want of extra washing.
+
+When I speak of watering-places, do not understand that I mean a tavern
+corner with some brook emptying itself into a huge wooden trough for
+horses to drink out of. Of course, that is our Vermont idea; with a
+willow-tree shading the trough. That, no doubt, gave the name here. But
+the two things are no more alike than trout streams are like the broad
+ocean.
+
+I ask no questions, always finding it best to wait and watch, and learn
+for myself; but when Dempster asked me if I would like to go down to a
+watering-place in New Jersey, I asked him if there wasn't Croton Water
+enough in the pipes for all the horses they kept.
+
+Dempster laughed, and said it was salt water he was thinking of, and
+asked, right on that, if I had got a bathing-dress?
+
+"A bathing-dress," says I. "Goodness, gracious, no. When I bathe, as a
+general thing, I--that is--I take off--"
+
+Here I broke off, and felt myself turning red. I declare, Cousin
+Dempster has a way of putting things upon you for explanation, which I,
+as a single lady, with expectations, of course, find embarrassing.
+
+Just then, E. E. came in, all of a flurry about her trunks; she wanted
+more and must have 'em, she said. Seventeen Saratoga trunks, and a
+basket or two, were just nothing to what she needed. Dempster must go
+out and get half a dozen more. Why, her fluted skirts alone filled three
+trunks.
+
+Dempster went. To own the truth, he is an obedient creature as ever wore
+coat and--well pocket-handkerchiefs. It wasn't long before a lot of
+trunks--big enough for country school-houses--were piled into the hall,
+and then Cousin E. E. began to revel. Her bed was crowded and loaded
+down with skirts, dresses, shawls, bonnets, round hats, broad flats,
+peaked caps. You never saw such heaps and mountains of clothes; such a
+litter of small things; such stacks of boots and shoes.
+
+It really seemed as if she was fitting out an army of feminines. Even
+Cecilia was down on her knees packing, and E. E. was deep in a high
+trunk with her slippers half dropping from her feet as she punched
+things in and pressed them down. The help, black and white, kept running
+up and downstairs like hens with their necks wrung. Every few minutes
+there came a ring at the door, and paper-boxes and bundles were set down
+in the hall, and struggled upstairs when any of the help thought it
+worth while to bring them, which was once in about ten minutes, all
+morning.
+
+I think Dempster made a cowardly attempt to get out of the way, but it
+was of no use. On such occasions men are wanted, especially when the
+bills come in, and E. E. knows her privileges.
+
+
+
+
+LXXVI.
+
+THE DOLLY VARDEN.
+
+
+As I stood looking on, wondering if cousin really meant to turn the
+house inside out, and set up a village of trunks somewhere on the
+sea-shore, that hard-working creature lifted her face, and looked at me
+deploringly.
+
+"Oh, Phoemie," says she; "are you packed? How cool you look."
+
+"Packed," says I; "oh, yes; I always keep my pink silk folded."
+
+"But your summer things, are they ready? Surely you'll have a Dolly?"
+
+"No," says I; "its years since I have thought of a doll, and I haven't
+the least idea of going back to my play-house days."
+
+"But I mean a dress," says she, lifting her head out of the trunk, and
+wiping the swe--well, perspiration from her face. "A Dolly Varden. Don't
+you understand?"
+
+"A dress, and some Miss Dolly Varden, all at once! Now I can't think
+what dress you mean; and, as for that young person, I don't know her
+from a bag of sweet corn. How should I? Never having been introduced!"
+says I.
+
+E. E. just sat back on the floor, and drew a deep breath.
+
+"Oh, Phoemie," says she, "you are so stolid about some things. Why, it
+is only a dress I mean."
+
+"Then what did you drag in that young person for?" says I.
+
+"Because she gives her name to the dress."
+
+"I'm sure the dress ought to be very much obliged to her. That is if she
+came by the name honestly," says I.
+
+"And it's all the rage now. You must order one, Phoemie."
+
+"What, the dress or the girl?" says I.
+
+Cousin E. E. got out of patience, and sprung up red in the face. Across
+the room she went, slopping along in her slippers, flung back the lid of
+the trunk that seemed to be overrunning with poppies, marigolds, and
+morning-glories, and, giving something a jerk, brought up a puffy, short
+gown of white muslin, blazed all over with great straggling flowers--the
+morning-glories, poppies, marigolds that I had seen bursting up from the
+trunk.
+
+"There is a Dolly," says she, a-shaking out the puffy, short dress, as
+if it had been a banner.
+
+"Not by a long shot," says I, laughing. "It may be a whopping big doll's
+dress; in fact, it looks like it, for what woman on earth would ever
+think of wearing that? Why, the flowers would set her on fire."
+
+"This is for Cecilia," says she, "but I have one just like it, and mean
+to wear it if you've no objection?"
+
+"Not the least in the world," says I. "It isn't my mission to stop
+peacocks from strutting and showing their half-moons if they want to."
+
+E. E. laughed. She is a good-hearted creature, and I set store by her
+after all.
+
+"I will try this on," says she. "They are all the rage, I tell you. Try
+one, Phoemie; your tall figure would set one off splendidly."
+
+"Do you really think so?" says I, beginning to take a notion to the
+great bunches of flowers which did stand out from the white ground with
+scrumptious richness.
+
+"I am sure of it. No one carries off a dress so well," says she, "and it
+will be expected of you. Distinguished persons are so criticised, you
+know."
+
+I looked at the dress again; the flowers were natural as life; the
+muslin was wavy, and white as drifted snow.
+
+"But the cost?" says I. "A burnt child dreads a blisterous
+contamination. That pink dress of mine is a scrumptious
+garment--palatial, as one might say, but costly. The value of
+twenty-five yards of silk is a load for any tender conscience."
+
+"Oh, a Dolly doesn't take half as much," says E. E.; "besides short
+skirts are the style on the sea-shore. The expense really isn't very
+enormous. In fact, almost any one can afford a Dolly."
+
+I yielded. Human nature is weak, and I had a letter yesterday from uncle
+Ben, saying that the hay and corn crops are promising. Besides, there is
+a sort of reason just now why I should be a little self-liberal in the
+way of dress. As Cousin E. E. says, people do expect something better
+than alpaca and calico of high genius--especially when the form is tall,
+and the figure commensurate to the genius.
+
+"But have I time? That French dressmaker will want three weeks, at
+least."
+
+Cousin E. E. saw by this that the austerity of my economical education
+was giving way; so she jumped up, flipped the slippers from her feet,
+and was soon buttoning her boots and tying her bonnet, ready for a
+start.
+
+"Where are you a-going?" says I.
+
+"Where they'll take your measure and send the Dolly home to-morrow
+morning, or down by express. Leave it to me, and you shall have
+something really beautiful."
+
+"Let there be plenty of flowers," says I.
+
+"Of course," says she, "bright, rich colors."
+
+"Hollyhocks," says I, "are my favorites; dandelions and feather-edged
+poppies come next; then a vine of trumpet flowers tangling the bunches
+together, would look scrumptious."
+
+"I see you enter into the spirit of it," says she; "but have you got
+everything else?"
+
+"Everything else? Of course I haven't. Who has, in fact? But my pink
+dress is turned wrong side out, and packed."
+
+"Have you a flat?" says she.
+
+"A flat! I? Not that I can call my own. Dempster has introduced half a
+dozen, but I don't claim them."
+
+"Oh, I don't mean men, but a broad straw flat that answers for a bonnet
+and an umbrella."
+
+"No," says I; "I have a Japanese thing that opens like a toad-stool,
+and shuts like a policeman's club. Will that do? That Japanese
+embassador gave it to me, with such a tender look. I never open it that
+his smile does not fall upon me like sunshine in a shady place."
+
+"That will be distinguished; take it, by all means. But you will want
+the straw flat, and a bathing-dress as well."
+
+"Now, Cousin E. E., says I, "what do you mean?"
+
+"Why, you mean to bathe, of course?"
+
+"Cousin E. E., have you ever seen a Vermont lady--not to say a woman of
+genius--who did not bathe?" says I, with dignity.
+
+"But you will go into the water?"
+
+"To a certain extent," says I, "that has always been my habit."
+
+"But the ocean--salt water?"
+
+"Well," says I, "salt water is beyond me; but if that is the fashion
+down at Long Branch, I don't object to a trifle of salt."
+
+"The bathing is delightful," says she. "At the turn of every tide you
+see parties in the water all along the shore."
+
+"Parties in the water--_parties_?"
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen."
+
+"What!!"
+
+"Children, too."
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen bathing together! Cousin, you--well, if I were
+telling a story like that to a congregation of born idiots, they might
+believe me--that's all."
+
+"But it is true."
+
+"And you call this a civilized country!" says I, blazing with
+indignation. "Emily Elizabeth Dempster, do you mean to say that men and
+women--gentlemen and ladies--go down to the salt water and bathe
+together?"
+
+"Indeed they do."
+
+"I don't believe it! I won't believe it! If my great-grandmother were to
+rise from her grave and swear to it, I would tell her to go back again
+and hide her face. Somebody has been imposing on you, Cousin E. E."
+
+"Believe it or not, it is the truth," says E. E. "Ask Dempster."
+
+"Ask Dempster! Do you think I have lost every grain of modesty, that
+such an outrageous question should pass my lips?"
+
+"Well, believe it or not, as you like," says she, "I haven't time to
+prove it; only it isn't worth while to scout at what every one does, and
+you are a little apt to do that, Phoemie."
+
+"So, if I lived among hottentots, I mustn't object to rancid-oil on my
+hair--but I think I should, anyhow."
+
+"Well, well; get on your bonnet, or the Dolly Varden will never be
+finished in time," says she, laughing.
+
+I put on my beehive, and we both went right down town. On our way we saw
+a wire woman standing in a broad, glass window, with a dress on, that
+took the shine off from anything I had ever seen in the way of a dress.
+
+"There is a Dolly," says E. E., "and really, now, I do believe it would
+fit you."
+
+We went into the store, had the wire woman undressed, and her Dolly
+carried up-stairs, where I put it on, behind a red curtain, with a
+chatty female woman hooking it together, and buttoning it up in puffs
+and waves that made me stand out like a race-horse with a saddle on. The
+girl was French, with a touch of the Irish brogue--just enough to give
+richness to the language.
+
+I asked her what was the reason of it, and she said in their
+establishment a great many of the upper crust Irish came to trade, and
+she had caught just the least taste of a brogue in waiting on
+them--which was natural, and accounts for the accent so many of these
+French girls have, which I must own has puzzled me a little.
+
+When my dress was on, E. E. and this French girl led me up to a great,
+tall looking-glass, and stood with their hands folded, while I took an
+observation. The French girl clasped her hands, and spoke first:
+
+"Tra jolly," says she.
+
+"No," says I, "that is not exactly my state of mind--composed I may be,
+but not jolly, by any manner of means."
+
+"She means that the dress is beautiful," says E. E.
+
+"Oh!" says I, "why didn't she say so then?"
+
+"Well, she did, in her way."
+
+"Magnifique," says the girl, cutting the word off with a squeak.
+
+"Why can't you open your mouth wide enough to say magnificent," says I,
+"if you like it so much; nipping off words with a bite isn't one thing
+or another."
+
+"Oh, but it is, beside the dress, that figure," says she, a-spreading
+her hands.
+
+After all, the girl did manage to express herself. I was sorry for not
+understanding her at first.
+
+Before I could say this, Cousin E. E. got out of patience.
+
+"Does the dress suit? for we have no time to throw away," says she.
+
+"Suit," says I, turning round and round with slow enjoyment of that
+queenly figure in the glass. "Of course it does. Why, cousin, it is
+superb; the bunching up is stupendous. Then the pattern--a whole flower
+garden in full bloom."
+
+"Then it had better be sent home at once, for we must go early in the
+morning," says she, short as pie crust.
+
+I paid for that Dolly Varden with satisfaction. It might have been
+dear--I think it was, but there were no extras, and I knew what I was
+about from the first. Besides it was a smashing affair, rain-bowish,
+beautifully puckered up, and blazing with flowers.
+
+Well, we went into the street, and then Cousin E. E. began:
+
+"One minute, Phoemie; I want some hair pins."
+
+We went into the next door and got the hair pins, then out again. After
+walking about fifty feet she broke out once more:
+
+"Dear me, I forgot the black ribbon."
+
+In she darted through another door, and came out stuffing a bit of
+twisted paper into her pocket. Ten feet more and she turned square
+about:
+
+"Some pins, Phoemie; I must get some pins."
+
+So we kept darting in and out of doors till there wasn't another in the
+street, and went home with both our pockets stuffed full of pins, lace,
+gloves, combs, buttons, and a general assortment of other small things,
+all of which E. E. had forgotten till the last minute.
+
+That night I left her plunged headforemost into a huge trunk, with a
+sloping roof, her feet just touching the ground, and complaining
+bitterly because Dempster was not at home to help press the things down.
+
+
+
+
+LXXVII.
+
+STARTING FOR LONG BRANCH.
+
+
+Early the next morning a big wagon-load of trunks drove from the door.
+Then a carriage came up ready to take us to the boat. It was awful hot,
+and the air in that house was so close one could hardly breathe. The
+parlors were all shut up. The stone girl and that other fellow had white
+dresses on, and for once made a decent appearance. The chairs and sofas
+were all done up in linen, the blinds were shut, and the whole house
+looked like a church whose minister had been sent off on his travels at
+the expense of an adoring congregation.
+
+E. E. and I stood in the hall, I with a satchel in my hand, she with a
+little brown affair buckled on one side of her waist.
+
+That child was a-standing in the open door, watching the men pile the
+trunks on the wagon.
+
+"Mamma," she called out, as the man drove away, "I'm sure they have left
+a trunk, for I counted, and there was only nineteen."
+
+E. E. ran to the foot of the stairs.
+
+"Dempster, Dempster!"
+
+Down came Dempster, looking hot and worried.
+
+E. E. called out:
+
+"Do stop the wagon, something is left."
+
+Dempster ran into the street, stopped the man, and stood in the hot sun
+counting over the trunks. His face was in a blaze when he came back.
+
+"It's all right," says he, "twenty of them, full count. Come, get into
+the carriage."
+
+E. E. moved forward a step or two, then halted.
+
+"The basement door--is it bolted?"
+
+Dempster dived down to the lower hall and up again, panting for breath.
+
+"The scuttle," said E. E., pointing upwards.
+
+Dempster rushed upstairs, banged away at the roof, and ran down again.
+
+E. E. drew down her veil, and tightened her shawl.
+
+"Oh, Dempster, have you locked the wine-cellar?"
+
+Again Dempster made a rush into the depths of the earth, and came up
+again dripping with swe--well, perspiration.
+
+"There, I think everything is safe now," he said, offering E. E. his
+arm.
+
+She took it a moment, then dropped it suddenly.
+
+"Dear me! Dempster, you haven't been near the stable, and I haven't a
+doubt it is wide open!"
+
+Dempster said something between his teeth which I tried my best not to
+hear; then off he went down the pavement, looking as if he would give
+the world to knock some one down. By and by he came back, panting like a
+mad dog.
+
+"Anything more!" says he, savage as a jack-knife, wiping his face with a
+white pocket-handkerchief.
+
+"Yes, dear," says E. E.; "I'm afraid I left my parasol--just run up and
+see."
+
+Dempster went, and came down with the parasol in his hand.
+
+She took it, and got into the carriage. I followed, and "that child"
+dived in after me. Dempster had his foot on the step, when E. E. broke
+out again:
+
+"Oh, darling, what shall I do?--Snip has been left behind. I think you
+will find her in the bath-room."
+
+Dempster dashed the handkerchief across his face, ran up the steps in
+desperate haste, and by and by came out with E. E.'s little black dog in
+his arms.
+
+E. E. reached out her arms, but Cecilia snatched it from her father.
+That moment a policeman went by, and E. E. leaned through the carriage
+window.
+
+"Why, Dempster, you have forgotten to see the policeman."
+
+Dempster followed the man, diving one hand down into his pocket. I saw
+him draw out some money, which the man took; then poor Dempster came
+back on a run, and plunged into the carriage.
+
+"Drive on--drive on, I say--or we'll be too late for the Long Branch
+boat!"
+
+The man did drive on, but E. E. jerked the check-string.
+
+"Oh, husband, do oblige me just this once--I have left my longest back
+braid on the bureau!"
+
+"No," says Dempster, "I'll be--"
+
+I put my hand over Dempster's mouth.
+
+"Dempster," says I, "if you ever want to be a Christian, this is the
+place to begin in, for here patience can have its perfect work."
+
+My gentle rebuke had its effect. Dempster got out of the carriage, and
+once more mounted those stone steps.
+
+By and by he came back with a long braid of hair trailing from his hand.
+Then he planted his foot on the carriage step with decision, and says
+he:
+
+"Drive on!" which the man did.
+
+
+
+
+LXXVIII.
+
+THAT HAIR-TRUNK.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--We are here at Long Branch, bag and baggage--Cousin
+Dempster, E. E., myself, and that creature Cecilia, who is more trouble
+than the whole of us put together. We came down in--not on--the
+_Plymouth Rock_, which is nothing of the sort, but a steamboat, as long
+as all out-doors, with room enough for a camping-ground for the next
+generation on the decks, and rows of staterooms that would line the main
+street of Sprucehill on both sides, and have some to let. There was a
+whole lot of fiddlers and horn-players on board that began to play the
+minute we came in sight--a compliment that I should feel more deeply if
+it hadn't become so common; but somehow wherever I go, those musical
+fellows start up, and grind and blow till one almost begins to wish for
+the privacy of an obscure position.
+
+Fame is beautiful, and reputation is the glory of genius; but when they
+are sounded out by fiddles in broad daylight, and blasted over creation
+by wide-mouthed toot-horns, innate modesty shrinks within itself.
+
+I really felt this way when a squad of music-grinders burst out in high
+jubilee the moment my foot touched the deck. It was a compliment, of
+course, but the sun was pouring down upon us, hot as a fiery furnace.
+
+The express-men were smashing our twenty-two trunks on deck end
+foremost, caving one in every minute or two, and I felt too hot and
+anxious for reciprocity when the musicians struck up, for all the genius
+and ambition was just burned out of me.
+
+When we got aboard, the thermometer was running up so fast that another
+hitch would have made it boil right over. Those glass things ought to be
+made longer at both ends.
+
+I haven't a blinding faith in express-men since I saw three of E. E.'s
+best Saratoga trunks stove in, so I let the music storm on while I kept
+watch of my own hair-trunk, which came down from my grandmother on the
+father's side, who fed the calf that gave up the skin that covers that
+trunk only with its innocent life. She fed it with skim-milk from her
+own saucer, and set store by the trunk on that account up to the day of
+her death. Then she willed it to me in a codicil, that being more sacred
+than the original testament, she said, which I cannot understand--all
+testaments, old or new, being first in my estimation.
+
+Well, of course, I kept watch of that trunk, and when I saw a great
+broad footed Irishman take it from the wagon and pitch it ten feet on
+deck, I just shut my parasol, clenched it in the middle, and went up to
+him.
+
+"How dare you pitch my property on end in that way?" says I.
+
+"I hain't touched none of your property," says he, a-wiping his forehead
+with the cuff of his coat. "Never see a bit of it."
+
+"That trunk is my property," says I, pointing toward it with my parasol,
+which I still held belligerently by the middle.
+
+"Well," says the fellow, eyeing the trunk sideways, "it does look sort
+of pecular, but still I reckon it's nothing more 'en a trunk, after
+all--one of the hairy old stagers--but only a trunk, anyhow!"
+
+"Sir," says I, with emphatic dignity, for the honor of my ancestors was
+concerned, "that is a traditional trunk--a testamentary bequest from my
+grandmother--who was revolutionary in her time."
+
+"What," says the man--"what is that you say?"
+
+Here a real nice-looking gentleman came up to where I stood, and says he
+to the man:
+
+"You should be more careful, the trunk is evidently an heirloom."
+
+"You are very kind," says I, relenting into a bow; "it's only a
+hair-trunk--grandmother's loom went to another branch of the family."
+
+"Well, anyway, I'll put the crather by itself, and bring it to yez safe,
+marum, never fear," says the Irishman; and with that he sat down on my
+blessed grandmother's trunk and wiped his face again. Then he waved his
+dirty hand and motioned that I should go away, which I did, and found E.
+E. spreading her skirts out wide on a settee, and looking as innocent as
+twenty lambs if any one seemed to turn anxiously toward the extra seat
+she was covering up for me.
+
+I took the seat thankfully, spread my parasol, and tried to catch a
+mouthful of air, but there wasn't a breath stirring. The water in the
+harbor was smooth as a looking-glass. The sky was broad, blue, and so
+hot with sunshine that it blistered one's face to look up.
+
+I put a blue veil around my beehive, and wilted down into my corner of
+the settee. Dempster stood by us blowing himself with a broad-brimmed
+hat, but not a breath of air he got.
+
+"I'll run down and see how the thermometer is," says he. "Never--never
+did I swelter under such a stifler in my life."
+
+Off he went, swinging his hat. In a few minutes he came back again,
+panting with the heat.
+
+"It's a hundred," says he.
+
+"What?" says I.
+
+"The thermometer," says he.
+
+"And is it that which makes things so hot?"
+
+"Of course," says he, "one hundred is as much as we can bear."
+
+"Then, why on earth don't they get rid of some? What is the use of
+piling-up things to this extent? For my part I never will travel on
+boats that carry these red-hot thermometers again. It's as much as one's
+life is worth. Nitro-glycerine is nothing to it; that blows you right
+straight up, but these other things pile on the heat and never come to
+an end."
+
+Congress ought to put a stop to such dangerous freights being piled-up
+in steamboats. It's enough to breed suicides on the water.
+
+Dempster wanted to laugh, I could see that, but his face just puckered
+up a little, and it was all he could do in that line. So he took a
+camp-stool, pulled his new white hat over his eyes, and fell into a
+soggy sort of sleep. There he sat, kind of simmering, like a baked apple
+in the mouth of an oven, till the steamboat stopped on the end of a
+sand-bank, and gave a lazy snarl, as if it was glad to get rid of us.
+
+After this they packed the whole cargo of live people in a line of cars,
+and sent them off sweltering through the sand with the engine roaring
+before them like a fiery dragon.
+
+
+
+
+LXXIX.
+
+AT THE BRANCH.
+
+
+By and by, we came to Long Branch, where the engine gave another long
+whoop, and were turned out into the sunshine again among stages, wagons,
+carriages, and all sorts of wheeled creatures, all looking as if they
+had been in a whirlwind of red dust.
+
+Cousin Dempster had sent his carriage ahead, and there his handsome bay
+horses stood sweating themselves black, and dropping foam into the dusty
+road. We got in, helter-skelter--no one cared which was first--and were
+driven toward the sea-shore.
+
+When we got in sight of the water the horses made a sudden turn, and
+wheeled into a wide, dusty street, that runs right along the edge of the
+water. It was an awful grand sight, but the waves didn't seem to have
+strength enough to move, only gave out a lazy sob once in a while, as if
+they were tired of carrying so many loafing ships about that hadn't
+spirit enough to flap their own sails.
+
+Long Branch is a real nice place after all; and just the broadest,
+coolest, and most scrumptious tavern in it is the Ocean Hotel, which
+stands just back of the sea-shore, stretching its white wings widely,
+from the centre building a quarter of a mile, I do believe, each way.
+Before the house is a great green lawn, with walks and carriage roads
+cut through it that lead from the house to the high bank, against which
+the ocean keeps beating all the year round.
+
+On each side the walks are great white marble flower-pots--vases they
+call them here--choke full and running over with flowers and vines, and
+great broad-leaved plants that looked cool and green, hot as it was.
+
+"Oh," says Cousin E. E. "Isn't that beautiful? So fresh, so bright, it
+is like a moving garden."
+
+So it was. All along those deep verandahs that run clear across the
+front of the hotel in double rows, were swinging baskets full of flowers
+and cool green leaves--hundreds of them--brightening the whole broad
+front of the hotel, and under them was a crowd of people--gentlemen,
+ladies, and children--reading, chatting, sleeping in the great easy
+willow chairs, or walking up and down on the soft grass.
+
+Sisters, I know now exactly the way an Arab feels when he finds a bright
+spring--which they call an oasis--in the deserts of Sahara, and hears
+the leaves shiver and the waters murmur. This hotel looked cool, still,
+and refreshing like that. All the front was in shadow, before it lay the
+deep blue water. Inside was Mr. Leland, a potentate among hotel-keepers,
+ready to make us at home.
+
+There it was again. Ovations will follow me. I had but just taken off my
+dusty clothes, bathed my face and hands with cold water, and stepped out
+on the verandah, when a storm of music burst out from a little
+summer-house on the grass. Wherever I go this sort of ovation follows
+me. Music and flowers seem to be my destiny. No matter where I roam, in
+all the steamboats and hotels they send storms of homage after me. Well,
+I am grateful, and I hope bear these honors with Christian meekness.
+
+I have been riding all along the beach. The sun has gone down and the
+ocean ripples to the softest and blandest wind I ever felt. The vessels
+that move on it show signs of life now. Their great white sails bend and
+strain with a look of power. The day has been hot, but a cool wind comes
+off the water, and you breathe once more.
+
+Sisters, do not be led to suppose that the Ocean Hotel, large and grand
+as it is, means all Long Branch. Why, there is a mile of hotels and
+cottages running along the beach, all swarming over with people. As you
+ride up the street you pass dozens and dozens of little summer-houses,
+full of young people looking out at the sea, which comes in with a slow
+rush and swell now that leaves a lonesome feeling in the heart.
+
+
+
+
+LXXX.
+
+THE RACE-COURSE.
+
+
+There is a race-ground three miles from here, where everybody is going
+this morning, though the weather is hot and the ocean is sound asleep,
+with great silver scales of sunshine trembling over it.
+
+New York has come down in crowds to Long Branch, and all the hotels have
+emptied themselves on to the race-course. Three miles of road are
+covered with moving carriages, wagons and stages--one cloud of yellow
+dust rolls along the road without a break. Every carriage is gay with
+brightly dressed ladies. Thousands go up or down on the railroad, whose
+engine stops and pours out clouds of black smoke close by the race
+track. From the cars a stream of people now on to the course, packing
+themselves into the benches of the Grand Stand, or scattering on the
+grass around it.
+
+When we got into the enclosure fifteen thousand people were waiting,
+some in the hot sun, others in the hot shade, all choked with dust and
+sweltering with heat.
+
+We were late. There was but one thing that we wanted to see: the race
+between Longfellow and Harry Bassett--two of the swiftest horses in the
+country.
+
+If horses could gamble I should call these two beautiful creatures
+black-legs, and the gayest of gamboliers; but as they can't do it
+themselves men and women do it for them.
+
+This time twenty-five thousand dollars was to go to the swiftest
+horse--twenty-five thousand dollars--enough to build a meeting-house.
+Doesn't it make you tremble in your shoes; but that isn't all. Everybody
+was betting with everybody else, just for the fun of betting.
+
+I saw a little shaver there, ten years old, who boasted that he had won
+three pair of gloves from a little girl of eight.
+
+The cream of that fifteen thousand skimmed itself off and consolidated
+in a handsome square building that they call the Club House. We went
+there, of course, and soon got seats among a crowd of upper-tenists on
+the roof, which took in a view of the whole race-ground.
+
+One or two horses, with funny little fellows on their backs, were moving
+up and down before the Grand Stand, but no one seemed to care about
+them. Harry Bassett and Longfellow were all they wanted in the way of
+fast horses.
+
+Sisters, don't fancy now that Longfellow is of a poetic, or even
+literary, turn of mind. Nor do I want you to think that his owner named
+him after our great New England poet because he was fired with
+admiration of his genius. Nothing of the kind. I don't suppose that "old
+Kentucky gentleman" ever read a line of Longfellow's poetry in his
+life--may be, though I hate to think so, he never heard of him--at any
+rate this great, long, swift, beautiful animal was named after himself,
+and nobody else. His body is long and slender, very long, and that is
+why the colt got his name. I wish it had been the other way, but it
+wasn't, and truth is truth. In fact, I'm afraid literature isn't
+appreciated on the race-course. It takes all the romance out of one to
+know that this grand young horse was named after his own body, and not
+after our great New Englander.
+
+Never mind about the name now, Harry Bassett is coming down the road,
+and slackens his speed in front of the Grand Stand. A beautiful,
+beautiful animal, with limbs like a deer, and a coat smooth as satin,
+colored like a plump ripe chestnut. Fifteen thousand people clap their
+hands, stamp their feet, shout, cheer, and flutter out their
+handkerchiefs as the horse goes by.
+
+Sisters, you never saw anything like it. A camp-meeting, where every
+man, woman, and child was just converted, might be a comparison, with
+drawbacks.
+
+Harry Bassett took all this cool as a cucumber. It didn't disturb a hair
+on his glossy coat. The creature knew that he was being admired, and
+liked it--that was all. Down he came by the Grand Stand, past the Club
+House, where he got another ovation and another whirlwind of white
+handkerchiefs, and, wheeling round, walked back again and gave the other
+horse a chance.
+
+Longfellow came next--a little larger, a little longer, and heavier in
+the limbs--a splendid horse; but he did not take my fancy as Harry
+Bassett did. From the first minute I wanted that chestnut beauty to
+beat; there was something about him, I can't tell what, but he suited
+me.
+
+I was half put-out with Longfellow for being such a grand, powerful
+fellow. When he came opposite the Grand Stand, out flew the
+handkerchiefs and out rolled the thunder, just as it had when Bassett
+went by. Both the animals were so handsome that you couldn't help
+clapping your hands.
+
+Bless you, the splendid creature didn't care a cent for it all. The
+crazy applause passed him like wind. He liked the fresh air, and gloried
+in a swift run, on his own hook; twenty-five thousand dollars were
+nothing to him. But he showed off his magnificent proportions and
+allowed the hot sunshine to stroam over his brown coat with the most
+abominable indifference.
+
+I insist upon it, Longfellow is a noble horse, but not so handsome or so
+lithe in his movement as Bassett. If these two creatures should ever
+come to Sprucehill, I know you will all stand by me in what I say--but
+then every one of you would be turned out of meeting if you only looked
+at a race-horse through a spy-glass.
+
+Well, when the two handsome beasts had shown themselves off long enough,
+they drew up together and made ready for a start. A red flag was
+floating close by them. There was no noise now; not a man in all those
+benches clapped his hands. Instead of that, the whole crowd seemed
+afraid to breathe.
+
+The red flag fell. The two horses started close together, and kept so
+once round the course; then that long-bodied fellow began to stretch
+himself a little ahead. They passed us like two arrows shot from one
+bow, Longfellow's head showing first. Once more they went round. Now a
+roll of wild, thundering noises followed them. Longfellow was ahead; you
+could see a gap of light between them. Beautiful Harry Bassett tried his
+best; but that long-bodied trooper just flew, and came out yards ahead.
+
+I declare it riled me. I know that the chestnut beauty could have beaten
+if something hadn't been the matter with him. Poor fellow! he looked
+awfully down in the mouth when he was ridden up right into the whirlwind
+of noises that rejoiced over that other horse. It seemed to me as if he
+knew the pain and humiliation of defeat, just as well as if he had been
+human; I am sure he did. Still, sisters, I stand by Harry Bassett.
+
+Oh, mercy, how hot it was coming home those three dusty miles! How tired
+and thankful I was when we got safely into the Ocean Hotel, with plenty
+of lemonade and ice-water, with a cool wind blowing up from the water.
+
+Sisters, I sometimes think you do not quite appreciate all the
+sacrifices that I make for you. The great want of our society, has been
+a thorough knowledge of what is going on in the wide world outside of
+Vermont and the Hub. That deficiency I am determined to make up by extra
+mission duties in the direction of general human nature. In order to
+prove or condemn a thing, one must see it in all its features. If
+ignorance were goodness, the universe would be crowded with pious
+people. But it isn't any such thing; and your pioneers and missionaries
+who mean to teach, musn't be afraid to learn. Now, there is a good deal
+to be said about races, and if 'twere not for the betting--which is
+gambling, under another name--I should rather like it. A noble horse in
+full training is a brave sight; and, next to a noble man or woman, I,
+for one, am glad to see him put forward. There isn't a bit of harm in
+swift running; but then twenty-five thousand dollars lost and won
+between two horses, is a snare and a delusion that the noble beasts have
+nothing to do with. I do not like that, and am quite sure that you will
+make it a subject of particular denunciation. I hope you will. Not that
+such things have ever found a mite of countenance in Vermont; but horses
+are raised there, and that may lead to something dreadful. If a patch of
+ground level enough for a race-course can be found in the State, some of
+these New Yorkers will be for fencing it in; and the way they are
+progressing here, some ambitious fellow may be wanting to charter the
+Green Mountains for a hurdle, for horses all but fly in these parts.
+
+Understand me--I am not blaming the animals--they are just splendid; but
+betting, especially among women, is my abomination. It is an open gate
+through which feminines slide into a habit of gambling. I don't like it,
+and the sooner our American feminine women know my opinion, the sooner
+they will be ready to turn back and consider what they are about.
+
+
+
+
+LXXXI.
+
+CLIMBING SEA CLIFF.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--You are right. My mind has been too much in the world. I
+have been led into walks of life that do not accurately jibe with the
+pious experiences of former days. I confess my shortcomings with
+humiliation, and am resolved on a season of mission duties in another
+direction than horse-races. They are exciting, and give one a
+high-stepping inclination. Still, my motive is good.
+
+"Try all things, and hold fast to that which is good," is scriptural,
+but on some occasions may be temptations, especially when the thing that
+is good happens to be disagreeable, and the other is awfully enticing.
+
+Any way, sisters, I am determined to do my duty in every walk of life,
+and the foremost duty this moment takes me far away from Long Branch,
+puts me on two steamboats and two short snatches of railroads, which
+land me at the foot of a great, sandy, high-sloping hill--some people
+call it a bluff--but which religious people of several denominations
+call "Sea Cliff Grove."
+
+Now, Sea Cliff Grove is a sacred institution, lifted high up toward
+Heaven, and bathed in an especial odor of sanctity, conglomerated from
+ever so many different churches, and so centralized in a place that may,
+to the fanciful mind, be considered a city set on a hill.
+
+Indeed, it is. If Jordan is a hard road to travel, Sea Cliff Grove is an
+awful hill to climb, even in a covered stage, with two long, thin horses
+dragging the blessed pilgrims upward with all their might.
+
+Before we got clear up, there was now and then an encouraging glimpse of
+brightness from the dome of the tabernacle, covered over with tin, which
+blazed and sparkled and shone in the hot sunshine, till it set one's
+brain to sweltering. If it hadn't been for a cool fringe of trees
+running along the edge of the hill, it seemed to me as if the whole
+bluff must have burned up, and gone off in a blaze of glory. That dome,
+which looked like a great cone, roofed in with milk-pans set on edge,
+was the crowning glory of a new tabernacle--not the one built without
+hands, for it took a great many hands to build this great, rambling
+affair, besides the cottages and tents and long, open stoops, that look
+out on the sea from morning till night.
+
+Among these tents and little houses and the great tabernacle, the man
+who drove us took his ten cents a-piece, and set us down, and wheeled
+about, singing "Old Hundred" to his horses, and swinging his whip with
+slow solemnity as he lumbered down hill again.
+
+Then we started off afoot in search of Cousin Dempster's cottage, for he
+had sent on ahead, and hired one of the little cubby-houses for us to
+stay in till the religious season was over.
+
+We found our cubby-house at last, but somebody else had got their nine
+points of the law out of it. So the man sent on beforehand had pitched a
+tent on the grass, which we went into like Indians just returned from a
+hunting-party--dusty, thirsty, and sort of wolfish for something to eat.
+
+We took off our bonnets, and pinned them by the strings to the walls of
+the tent, which were of the best tow-cloth I ever saw out of Vermont.
+Then we shook ourselves, as hens do when they have been rolling in the
+dust, and pushed back our hair with both hands, which E. E. said was
+making a rural toilet worthy of the occasion. Then I, with the kindest
+intentions, shook out E. E.'s--full panier--and found it puckered-up
+with green burdock burs, which she had got on from the weeds on her way
+to the tent. These I picked off, one by one, while she was stamping her
+foot with a spirit that shocked me dreadfully in that sacred place, for
+all around us the people were singing and praying, and shouting
+"Hallelujah" and "Amen" and "Glory," in a way that made the pious
+teachings of my grandmother rile up within me. I looked upon the burdock
+burs as a judgment upon Mrs. Dempster, especially as I hadn't any
+puckerings in my dress to catch them in, and she had brought all her
+wordliness on her back.
+
+
+
+
+LXXXII.
+
+FIGHTING FOR THE BODY.
+
+
+By and by the shouts and noises hushed up a little, and there was a
+stampede, like a rush of cattle, in the grounds.
+
+"Come," says Dempster, "or we shall get nothing to eat."
+
+"Does that mean dinner?" says E. E., with a hungry look.
+
+"Just that," says Dempster, "so look sharp; for here it is every man for
+himself, and the----"
+
+"Dempster!" said I, stepping back with pious horror, "do you know where
+you are?"
+
+"Exactly; but I know, too, that unless we look sharp, we shall feel flat
+when we get to the dining-hall and find everything swept off."
+
+We took the hint. I lifted the skirt of my alpaca dress gently, between
+my thumb and forefinger, just enough to give an idea of the ankle
+without revealing it, and went out of the tent, imbued with the spirit
+of the place, but humiliated with worldly craving.
+
+Sisters, if the denizens of this Sea Cliff are only half as earnest in
+their souls' salvation as they are in replenishing poor, frail human
+nature, there will be a glorious harvest of regeneration this holy
+season. The way they poured out of the tents, the houses, the long
+stoops, and through the bushes was fluttering and noisy as the flight of
+ten thousand chickens from a barn-yard. Still the crowd did not break
+all at once from the spiritual to the temporal wants of human nature.
+They kept on praying and singing in breaks and snatches clear up to the
+dining-hall, when the old earthly Evil One got uppermost, and each man
+seizing a knife and fork, went at the first dish he saw, and held on to
+it with one hand, while he did double express duty with the other.
+
+Sisters, this crowd of sinners sanctified, and to be sanctified, was
+made up of about the hungriest mortals that I ever set eyes upon. The
+way those safety-seeking souls took care of their bodies was
+regenerating, I can tell you. For my part, after seeing every dish swept
+away from before me, with Christian fortitude becoming to the place, my
+carnal nature rose uppermost, and, seizing upon a plate of summer
+squash, I held on to it valiantly, while E. E. snatched a potatoe with
+its jacket on, from a flying dish, and Dempster wrestled with one of the
+saints for a plate of bread, as Jacob wrestled with the angels; only
+this saint was six feet high, wore a hood-brimmed straw hat, and carried
+off the plate of bread in his hands, after all.
+
+I greatly fear Cousin Dempster didn't meet this test of a meek and lowly
+spirit with the fortitude of a martyr. In fact, I'm afraid he said
+something beside "Amen" between his grinding teeth, when that plate
+disappeared.
+
+As for E. E. and myself, we got a spoon between us, and dined on the
+squash, generously giving up the potato to Dempster, with an admonition
+which did not seem to suit him much better than that stone-cold
+vegetable.
+
+Well, when we had vegetated the inner man to this extent, and watched
+the swarm of hungry eaters devouring the food like a cloud of ravenous
+locusts, Cousin Dempster laid down his potato-peel on the table with
+mournful sadness, and said, plaintively:
+
+"This is all we are likely to get; let us go."
+
+"Wait," says I, "some one is going to return thanks."
+
+"What, for two spoonfuls of squash and one hollow-hearted potato for
+three of us? Never!" says Dempster.
+
+Really, sisters, the spirit will have a tough job before it brings the
+proud nature of Cousin Dempster into a state of perfect sanctification.
+E. E. and I gave him a beautiful example, and looked as humbly grateful
+as two hungry female women could, over a double spoonful of watery
+squash; I fear he did not appreciate it though, for when a deep Amen
+rolled down the hall, after the thanks were given, he meanly growled
+out--well, a very peculiar word, that made my heart jump into my mouth.
+In any other place, I should write out boldly that Cousin Dempster--but
+in that out-door sanctuary--no, the secret of what he said shall go with
+me to my grave.
+
+
+
+
+LXXXIII.
+
+LIONS AND LAMBS.
+
+
+Sisters:--The tabernacle under that tin roof will hold, well packed, six
+hundred anxious souls--each with a weak, human body attached. The seats
+are all cushioned with the softest pine, and have luxurious board backs.
+A stage rises grandly for the ministers of many churches who harmonize
+and fraternize like lions and lambs, each shepherding his own flock and
+drawing converts into his fold, wherever he can find a straggling sinner
+on his knees. The dining-room all at once emptied itself into the
+tabernacle; the ministers mounted the stage, and out in front came a man
+whose first words woke you up like the blast of a war trumpet.
+
+A stout, smart, almost grand-looking man, who looked over the crowd as
+if he owned every man and woman in it, and meant to regenerate them in
+flocks, or turn them over to what-you-may-call-him at once. His dark
+face, broad forehead, and silver-gray hair looked strong, if not
+handsome. His light eyes gleamed out from behind a pair of gold
+spectacles, and when he got in earnest his heavy brows drew together and
+left deep lines between them which made him look stronger yet.
+
+"Who is that?" I whispered to Cousin D.
+
+"Inskip," says he, "the greatest gun amongst them."
+
+"Dear me!" says I.
+
+There was no time to say more, for that great gun was pouring a hot
+storm of eloquence into the crowd, and stirring it up as a north-easter
+lashes the hemlocks on our mountains. Sisters, the scene was wonderfully
+impressive. I felt the old revival spirit in all my bones. When he
+stopped a minute for the crowd to say Amen, the word rattled out like a
+discharge of guns on a training day.
+
+By and by his discourse grew warmer and more startling. He just pitched
+headforemost into the cause, and stirred up that great congregation like
+a tornado. The Amens grew noisy, and were let off from lip to lip like
+fire-crackers on a Fourth of July. Then some one sang out "Hallelujah!"
+and another "Glory, Glory, Glory!" till the whole congregation broke
+into a young earthquake. Some started up, some rocked on their seats,
+and half a dozen fell to the ground, trembling, praying, and shouting
+"Hallelujah."
+
+There was a mixture of all sorts of people in the crowd, which made it
+yeast over like a baking of bread when the rising is lively. When one
+got a-going the rest set in. Half the crowd were crying and the other
+half clapping hands.
+
+Then Mr. Inskip rested a little, and a real handsome young gentleman
+stood up and sung beautifully. When he got through, the crowd joined in,
+every man, woman, and child singing on his own hook, which was noisy,
+and might have been harmonious if half of them had settled on the same
+tune, which they did, but cut across each other and sung out "Glory,"
+when they forgot everything else, which made the music a little uneven.
+
+Of course when a crowd like that gets a-going in a full blast of
+eloquence, stirring up consciences, and dancing and thrilling along the
+nerves, there is sure to be a whirlwind of magnetism heaving souls
+against each other till they cry out with the shock.
+
+I looked around; the crowd was all in commotion; every face burned with
+excitement of some kind, for under that man's voice human nature was
+stirred, aroused, lashed into a fury of wild enthusiasm. Female women
+grew pale, and trembled on the hard seats; men wilted down into
+childish softness; children cried and shouted.
+
+Before the stage was an open space, left free for sinners under
+conviction to come up and beseech the thrice-regenerated ministers to
+exhort and pray for them. Into this space those mostly stricken in the
+crowd, came like sheep looking for a shelter, some sobbing, some
+praying, some half sullen, as if the man's eloquent pleading for souls
+had forced, rather than persuaded them into that "Pen of the Penitents."
+But with each new convert, Brother Inskip broke forth in a new place,
+and the crowd shouted "Glory!" "Amen!" "Hallelujah!" till you could not
+hear yourself think.
+
+The enthusiasm was catching. I felt it blaze and tremble over me from
+the crown of my head to the sole of my foot, and when a young minister
+joined in, and poured the notes of a beautiful hymn on the tumult, my
+heart fairly swelled with the glory of it.
+
+I looked around for my cousins.
+
+There was Dempster, with the eyes fairly dancing in his head, clapping
+his hands like an overgrown boy, though he did drop them when he met my
+look, and turned his head away, half ashamed of his own feelings.
+
+I looked around for E. E., who sat with her mouth half open, while sobs
+came through her trembling lips.
+
+"Oh, cousin, cousin, what shall I do? Have I really been regenerated, or
+has the Lord sent me here this day to be made a new creature?"
+
+I did not answer her; there was no chance for free thought or cool
+reason in a crowd like that. In fact, I began to feel like a vile
+sinner, myself, and as if being unregenerated was the duty of every
+female woman every time a camp-meeting offered a good opportunity.
+Seeing E. E. crying there as if her heart were breaking up, and both men
+and women wild with joy or grief all around me, I just caved in, pulled
+out my handkerchief, and sobbed with them, though what on earth we were
+all crying about I couldn't have told to save my life.
+
+The truth was, the more some women cried the more others shouted; and
+when the meeting was over, everybody told everybody else what a
+refreshing time they had experienced under Brother Inskip's preaching,
+which was true as the Gospel, if tears refresh the soul as rain does the
+earth.
+
+
+
+
+LXXXIV.
+
+EXPERIENCES.
+
+
+After the preaching was done, the crowd broke up into sections and had a
+half-dozen prayer-meetings and spontaneous love-feasts, where men and
+women, and sometimes little children, got up and told all the strangers
+within hearing how wicked they had been--with tears, and sobs, and
+groans, that made one's heart ache. Still one and all of them seemed to
+enjoy their own depravity and put themselves down as such horrible
+sinners, that any amount of praying could not have dug them out of the
+degradation into which they dived headforemost and seemed to revel in,
+for a thousand years at least.
+
+Everybody told his experience.
+
+Among the rest, a young man from the Hub, slim as a beanpole and fiery
+as a race-horse, prayed and shouted, and sung, and blazed away at the
+crowd, like all possessed. His straight, black hair was parted down the
+middle of his forehead, and his mustache rose and fell like fury as the
+words of warning came like red-hot shot through his lips.
+
+"Who is that?" says I to Cousin Dempster, who was listening with all his
+heart.
+
+"That," says he, "is Corbett, the young fellow who shot Wilkes Booth
+through the crevices of the old barn in which he had taken shelter."
+
+I shuddered all over, and I'm afraid the spirit of prayer had a shock.
+
+That young man was about the last person I should have expected to see
+praying, storming, and exhorting at a camp-meeting. He told us all how
+he had become so sanctified by the Lord, that small-pox could not touch
+him, though he went into the midst of it and nursed people down with the
+deadly disease, right straight through.
+
+In fact, he seemed to think sanctification a certain preventative
+against small-pox, only I suppose you must be sure to get the genuine
+thing, just as he had got it.
+
+Then another little fellow got up and told us that he had been an awful
+bad boy in his early days, and learned to chew tobacco and drink
+cider-brandy when he wasn't more than knee-high to a grasshopper. That
+the cider-brandy and tobacco had stuck in and defiled him through and
+through, till nothing but saving grace could have washed him clean and
+made his soul white as a lamb, which it then was, Glory hallelujah.
+
+All the congregation chimed in here and struck up a solemn chorus of
+Glory, Glory, Glory, Glory, which ended in a rejoicing "Amen," when the
+young man informed us that religion had reformed all his depraved
+tastes, and now he both hated and despised cider-brandy, tobacco, and
+all the abominations he had formerly hankered after.
+
+Before the young man sat down, another was on his feet, brimming over
+with sympathy.
+
+"I too," says he, "have got an experience which urges me to bear
+testimony that what our precious brother says is true. I know it. I feel
+it in my own soul, for I, too, have met with regeneration, whereby all
+things with me have become new. Why, brethren, before I got religion I
+couldn't bear the sight of tomatoes, cooked or raw. They were an
+abomination to my unconverted mind; but now that I have got religion,
+there isn't a wigitable that grows, which I set store by as I do
+tomatoeses. So I can testify that old things pass away, and everything
+becomes new."
+
+After bearing this testimony, the man wiped his mouth with one hand, and
+sat down, his head meekly bowed.
+
+"Cousin," says I to E. E., "as camp-meetings do not belong to our
+special persuasion, and as I do not feel the regenerating spirit grow
+strong in my bosom just at present, supposing you and I go back to the
+tent? Don't you see it is getting to be after dark now, and we have had
+an awfully warm day in all respects."
+
+Cousin E. E. arose, looking heavy-eyed and worn out.
+
+"Yes, Phoemie," says she, "I have gone through a good deal, and feel the
+nothingness of everything but religion. Oh, cousin, if one could always
+feel as we do here."
+
+I shook my head, but only answered:
+
+"Come, cousin, we can hear the still, small voice better alone in our
+tent."
+
+She yielded, and we started to make the best of our way out of the
+crowd, but five or six thousand persons swarmed around that regenerating
+camp-ground, and it was some time before we got safely into our own
+tent. Then I sat down by Cousin E. E., drew a deep, long breath, and
+said, "Thank goodness," with all my heart.
+
+
+
+
+LXXXV.
+
+THE SECOND DAY.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I have been two days at this camp-meeting, fasting,
+because I have given up the fight about something to eat, and awake all
+night because the hot weather almost drove me into the anxious seat,
+from dread of a hotter place.
+
+I hope you are satisfied with the way I have been walking this straight
+and narrow path of missionary duty. I wish I could say quiet path, but,
+being of an honest turn of mind, I must say it is both steep and noisy.
+Just at this minute a prayer-meeting and revival is going on in the next
+tent to ours and the groaning and shouting is enough to drive one crazy.
+The tent is crowded full of women and children, and I don't know which
+jump the highest or make the most noise.
+
+Well, I am not a wife--which you know is not my fault; neither am I a
+mother, which, under the circumstances, I am grateful for; but why
+little boys and girls should be brought here, and put in the way of a
+second birth, puzzles me. One event of that kind ought to be enough for
+any family of moderate ambition. In fact, I know of people who would do
+without any, with Christian fortitude. But here we are--men, women, and
+children--trying to save each other with all our might, and doing it in
+a way that brings strangers together with a jerk sometimes.
+
+Just as we were coming into the camping-ground this morning, where the
+whole road was beginning to swarm again, a nice old lady, in a gray
+dress, and with a little, white muslin shawl pinned over her bosom, came
+up to me, and, lifting her meek eyes from under her sugar-scoop bonnet,
+informed me that the Spirit was upon her. She was exercised with a sense
+of duty regarding my sinful condition, which was miserably apparent in
+the white feather that curlecued itself around my hat, and the cut of my
+gaiter boots that had heels enough to send a dozen souls to everlasting
+ruin.
+
+I looked down at my boot, which is a scrumptious one, and said, with
+thankfulness, that I couldn't see anything in them that should carry the
+souls off; besides, they could be heeled again.
+
+The woman shook her sugar-scoop bonnet at me, mournfully, and said
+something about a wicked and perverse generation, as if all mankind were
+standing in my gaiter boots, and she was rebuking it in a lump.
+
+"Oh, sister!" says she, "if I could only make you see with my eyes, and
+hear with my ears! Why will you be so perverse? Have you no fear of the
+eternal flame that burneth and burneth forever?"
+
+"Fear!" says I, a-looking up at the hot sun, and wiping my forehead. "I
+should think so! If all creation has a hotter place than this, I'm too
+big a coward to hurry that way. If there is an ice-house in the
+neighborhood, I should prefer that by all manner of means, by way of a
+punishment, if I deserve any."
+
+"Ice!" says she, solemnly. "Ice! have you never read the Scriptures?"
+
+"Several times," says I, with sarcastic forbearance. "My father had a
+book of that kind, which he sometimes opened."
+
+She could not understand the delicate irony of this answer; but pressed
+forward like an old camp-meetinger as she was.
+
+"Did that good father never read of a place where a drop of water could
+not be found to cool a certain person's tongue?" says she. "If not, your
+paternal ancestor fell short of his duty. It is no wonder his child
+should have gone half through life without a ray of saving grace, and
+with a white feather in her hat."
+
+Sisters, I was riled. "Half through life," says I. "Madam, do you know
+how old I am?"
+
+She looked at me half a minute, with all the eyes in her head; then,
+with the cool air of a woman counting money, said, "about for--"
+
+Sisters, I _cannot_ repeat the audacious falsehood of that creature's
+calculation. It was enough to rile up venom in the heart of a born
+cherubim. If ever a fiend took the disguise of a sugar-scoop bonnet, I
+have encountered one. A heart of stone lay under the innocent folds of
+that muslin half-shawl.
+
+"Madam," said I, with a look of overpowering indignation, "you must have
+begun and ended your arithmetic in multiplication. Take off half of the
+years you have mentioned."
+
+The woman smiled so knowingly, that I longed to-- Well, no matter, she
+smiled, and says she:
+
+"At any rate, you are not too old for the mercy-seat."
+
+"I should think not," says I.
+
+"Look yonder."
+
+I looked at half a dozen children jumping, kneeling, praying, and
+singing before the revival tent, which had been so full of worrying
+noises all night long, that none of us had got a wink of sleep.
+
+"Look," says she; "unless you are born again, and become like one of
+these, there will be no chance that you will ever enter the kingdom of
+Heaven."
+
+I looked at the lovely children, and I looked at her.
+
+"Excuse me," says I, "the object don't seem quite equal to the trouble.
+I have no notion of going backward in my life. In the first place I was
+too handsome a baby in the beginning to hanker after a change, and since
+then--I say nothing; but really, I have seen a good many people that
+claim to have been born again, and, so far as I can judge, they don't
+look a mite better, or a day younger, after taking all the trouble,
+which is discouraging."
+
+"Discouraging!" said the woman; "why, you are talking of regeneration!
+Come--come with me to the anxious-seat--hundreds are flocking there
+now."
+
+"Excuse me," says I, "if you please. Crabs may change their shells, and
+snakes creep out of their skins--I rather think they do sometimes--but
+born-again females look so much like the old pattern, that it don't seem
+to me worth trying after one is grown up."
+
+"Many an older person than you are has been born again," says she.
+
+"You don't say so," says I, a-fanning myself with a palm-leaf, for every
+drop of blood in my body grew hot when she talked about my age, and I
+was mad enough to bite a tenpenny nail in two with my front teeth.
+
+"Yes, I do say so, humble as I am," says Sugar-scoop. "Look out there.
+See those women in Israel--three precious souls, just gathered into the
+fold. For two days they have been constantly at the redemption-seat. The
+spirit is upon them now. Their souls are struggling to be free. Before
+another morning they will be born again."
+
+I looked at a group of women she pointed out, and the human nature
+within me yeasted over. They were three of the homeliest creatures I
+ever set eyes on--long and lank, with faces like sour baked-apples.
+
+"Oh, my beloved sister," says Sugar-scoop, a-laying her cotton-gloved
+hand on mine; "can you look on that heavenly sight and not pray to be
+like unto them?"
+
+I shook the cotton glove from my arm, and the hand that was in it, just
+as St. Paul shook off the viper.
+
+"Like them, madam--like them! If I were one-half as lank and homely, I
+should want to be born again once a week, at least."
+
+Sugar-scoop lifted both hands in awful horror.
+
+"There are souls," says she, "given up to eternal darkness, I fear. Oh,
+sister, how I tremble for yours!"
+
+I was trembling with indignation. What right had this woman to assault
+me in this fashion? I did not know her; she did not know me. My white
+feather was a badge of noble patriotism; my gaiter boots fitted a foot
+that has been an object of encomium with every shoemaker who has been
+honored by taking its measure--to say nothing of a glance given it by
+imperial eyes. Does religious zeal justify uncivil intrusion? What right
+had this sugar-scoopy woman to exhort me? How did she know that my heart
+was not already in the right path?
+
+I asked this very question:
+
+"Madam," says I, "by what right do you pretend to teach me, a stranger,
+of whose life you can know nothing?"
+
+"I'm in the service of the Lord," says she, "looking up lost sheep. When
+I find one, torn and draggled with sin, it is my duty to drive it into
+the fold, where its fleece can be worked white as snow."
+
+"But how can you tell? By what authority do you claim the right to judge
+of a person you have never seen?"
+
+"Are we not told to go out into the highways and the hedges, and force
+them to come in?" says she.
+
+"Whether they want to or not?" says I.
+
+"Exactly," says she; "their not wanting to come into the fold shows the
+state of wickedness into which they have fallen."
+
+"But how do you know that I am wicked?" says I.
+
+She looked at me a long time, as if the idea were new to her. She had
+been so eager in raking up sinners, that it seemed to hurt her feelings
+to think that any human being she met wasn't on the high road to--well,
+what's its name?
+
+"That feather," says she, "isn't a mark of regeneration."
+
+"No," says I, "but it is the badge of a patriotic idea."
+
+The creature didn't take in this delicate political hint. In fact,
+anything fine or keen is sure to puzzle your woman of one idea.
+
+"Where do you go to meeting?" says she, as abrupt as a cracked stick.
+
+"Where my father did, generally," says I.
+
+She looked at me queerly from under her sugar-scoop.
+
+"Haven't backslid, nor nothing; because, if you have, remember, before
+it is too late, that the last state of a backsliding sinner is worse
+than the first."
+
+
+
+
+LXXXVI.
+
+THE BLACKSMITH'S CONVERSION.
+
+
+Before I could answer that audacious woman, a man came along with green
+spectacles on his eyes, and a broad straw hat on his head.
+
+"What, sister, hard at work? got hold of a case, I reckon; but press
+forward to the mark of the prize."
+
+"Oh, brother," says Sugar-scoop, "can't you stop a moment, and sow a
+morsel of seed on this barren rock. This is a precious sheep."
+
+"Lamb, if you please," says I, quickly.
+
+"No," says she, as smooth as oil, but no doubt boiling over with inward
+spite, "I have eyes, and can see. Sheep is the word. She is a precious
+sheep that, perchance, has once been in the fold, but is wandering far
+away from the straight and narrow path."
+
+"A backslider," says he, eying my face over his spectacles.
+
+"Hardened," says she.
+
+"Take her to the anxious-seat. Brother Blank is just the man for her
+case. You've heard of Brother Blank, just from the West, and burning
+with zeal. Heard of the way he converted a blacksmith out there--a
+great, stout, burly, unregenerated fellow. Why, compared to him, this
+poor, sinful creature is just nothing. That was a mighty work. What, you
+never heard of it? Well, I was there, and heard all about it on the
+spot.
+
+"You see, Brother Blank, who belongs to the Methodist wing of this
+camp-meeting, was sent out by the conference to a sparse Western
+district, where the meeting-houses were a good way apart, and there was
+any amount of horseback riding to be done. On the cross-roads, near one
+of the stations, there was a blacksmith shop, where a great, two-fisted,
+tough old sinner was blowing up red-hot coals into red-hot flames,
+morning and night, which ought to have reminded him of the eternal fires
+which threatened him, but only kindled his wicked soul into fierce
+rebellion against God.
+
+"Now this fellow had an awful spite against the ministers, and never let
+a new one pass his shop, without going out with his leather apron on,
+and a hammer in his hand, to scare the pious soul half to death with
+abuse, if nothing worse. When Brother Blank came on the district, he had
+to ride by the four corners like the rest; but he was a brave soldier of
+the Cross, and rode a first-rate horse, besides being a tall, powerful
+man in body as well as in spirit. I rather think he had heard of the
+blacksmith, but that made no difference to him, he neither rode faster
+nor slower when he came in sight of the shop, but looked straight ahead,
+and trusted in the Lord.
+
+"The moment Brother Blank came in sight, that miserable heathen brought
+his hammer down on the anvil with a crash, flung it across the shop, and
+went out with his fists clinched, his great bony chest bare, and his
+eyes blazing like sin.
+
+"'Hallo!' says he, standing right in the middle of the road.
+
+"'Hallo!'
+
+"Brother Blank drew up his horse, and says he:
+
+"'What's wanting, my friend?'
+
+"'I want you to just tumble down from that saddle, and pay toll,' says
+the old sinner. 'No minister passes this corner without stopping to take
+a thrashing from these.'
+
+"Here the blacksmith held up two clinched fists, hard and black as
+sledge-hammers.
+
+"'No nonsense; but get off, I say,' he bellowed out.
+
+"Brother Blank had a heavy whip in his hand, with a short plump lash,
+which he began to play with.
+
+"'Get down, I say!'
+
+"Brother Blank got down and laid the bridle on the neck of his horse.
+
+"'Now step out here and take it like a man,' says the blacksmith. 'The
+last two ministers were such puny fellers, there was no fun in thrashing
+them; but you're something worth while. Stand out, I say.'
+
+"While he was talking, the fire-blowing wretch rolled up his red flannel
+shirt-sleeves to the elbow, and went at Brother Blank with both fists.
+
+"Now, sisters, Brother Blank is a true Christian--meek as a lamb in
+prayer and persuasion, but the sight of that audacious old sinner riled
+up the natural man in him awfully. He stepped back. His right arm swung
+out, and that whip-lash curled round the fellow's bronzed neck like a
+garter snake. Again and again the lash fell, now across the red face,
+now across the naked arms, but generally left great red welts, like the
+bars of a fiery gridiron, across his chest.
+
+"Blind with the blows, and crazy with rage, the fellow struck out
+fiercely, but the lash stung him at every point, and at last he was glad
+to yell for quarters. Then it was that Brother Blank remembered that his
+mission was to convert sinners.
+
+"'Down upon your knees,' says he, pointing to the dusty road with his
+whip--'down upon your knees, and pray the Lord to forgive your sins.'
+
+"Down the fellow went, plump on his two knees, and down Brother Blank
+went beside him right in the dust of the street; and the way he wrestled
+for that blacksmith's soul was a lesson to all faltering Christians.
+
+"'Lift those blood-shot eyes to Heaven and pray,' says he, and his voice
+was tender with compassion.
+
+"'I won't. Pray for me,' says the sinner.
+
+"He did pray. All the old Adam had left Brother Blank's soul when he
+laid down that whip. It was flooded now with the milk of human kindness.
+In a voice, strong as his right arm and clear as his conscience, he
+poured forth a petition to Heaven, so loud, so powerful, so full of
+Christian force, that the blacksmith began to tremble on his knees, the
+two hands that had been clenched like sledge-hammers clasped themselves,
+till the palms met and were uplifted to Heaven as a child pleads with
+its mother.
+
+"By and by another voice--hoarse, deep, and earnest--joined with the
+prayer of Brother Blank. All that it said was, 'God be merciful to me a
+sinner;' but that was enough, for there was that stout old reprobate
+with his face to the earth, his broad chest swelling with repentance,
+and great tears making furrows through the cinders and ashes on his
+cheeks, penitent as a child, and meek as a spring lamb.
+
+"When Brother Blank saw this, his feelings came forth in a grateful
+shout, tears leaped down his own cheeks, and in one voice these two men
+thanked God for the soul that had been saved."
+
+When the man with green spectacles had finished his story, he took out a
+silk handkerchief from the crown of his hat and wiped his own eyes;
+then turning to the Sugar-scoop, says he:
+
+"Let this encourage you to persevere to the end, for 'while the lamp
+holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return.' If this person is
+hardened in the perversity of a depraved nature, think of the
+blacksmith, and do not despair."
+
+"Did that heathen blacksmith hold out?" says I, so interested in the
+cindery wretch that I passed over his comments about my perversity.
+
+"Hold out!" says he; "I saw him at a camp-meeting three years after, and
+heard him tell the story with his own lips. Brother Blank himself was
+sitting on the speaker's stand, and the blacksmith pointed him out to
+the people, and called on him to say if it was not his prayers that had
+snatched him as a brand from the burning.
+
+"Brother Blank got up and walked with a lazy motion down the platform.
+Putting both hands behind him he smiled benignly down on the agitated
+face of his old enemy. Then he looked around on the congregation, and
+spoke:
+
+"'Yes,' says he, 'I really do believe that I was the humble instrument
+of mauling some grace into that precious brother's soul.'
+
+"Sisters, that was a glorious moment for Brother Blank; think of it--a
+human soul turned heavenward in the midst of its wrath; persevere with
+this one. Leave her not till she is brought to the anxious-seat, and so
+by regeneration to membership with the church."
+
+"But I am a Church member," says I.
+
+"A Church member?" says the man with spectacles.
+
+"Certainly," says I.
+
+"In good standing?" says the woman, dropping her underlip.
+
+"A missionary from one of the first societies in the world," says I,
+with becoming dignity.
+
+The woman with the sugar-scoop bonnet looked at the man with spectacles,
+and the man with spectacles looked at the woman with the sugar-scoop
+bonnet. Before they could begin again I bowed my head with a lofty and
+dignified air, and walked away; which, I take it, was something of a
+rebuke to people whose religious zeal runs ahead of their good breeding.
+
+I have left that camp-ground and descended a hundred or two feet nearer
+the earth again, without feeling the worse or very much the better for
+it. The path of duty is sometimes awful steep. I found this precipitous
+to a wonderful extent. I really think nothing but the saving grace of
+church-membership kept me from the anxious-seat; but the opportunities
+of a new birth are not unlimited, and when one is folded and tethered
+among the lambs, there is a little awkwardness when you are exhorted to
+have it all done over again by a new minister and another church.
+Fortified with a certificate of church membership, I passed through the
+whirlwind and storm of this camp-meeting, with that graceful dignity
+which has won the high post you have kindly imposed on me.
+
+True, sisters, the pressure brought to bear upon me was long, strong,
+and persistent. A fierce raid was instituted against my back hair and
+the soft puffings of my frizzes in front. My white hat was a terrible
+source of trouble to those who want regeneration in nothing but
+religion; and the feather seemed to get more notice than the preaching
+did wherever I happened to take it.
+
+
+
+
+LXXXVII.
+
+THAT OVATION OF FIRE.
+
+
+Sisters:--I give you this little dash of camp-meeting, because I wish to
+level myself gradually and gracefully down to the gay sinfulness of Long
+Branch again, where the salt air is revivifying, and our return is a
+source of complimentary jubilation at this no-end of a hotel. We came
+here in the ten o'clock boat--that floating mansion-house, which Mr.
+James Fisk left as a memorial of the public good a splendid sinner can
+do when he is active and oriental in his taste.
+
+I am used to these things now; but it was gratifying as we drove up in
+Dempster's carriage from the railway to hear a glorious burst of music
+swell out from a round summer-house on the lawn. A serenade of that kind
+was what I had not expected, and my heart swelled with not unworthy
+triumph when I listened. The moment that crowd of musicians saw my white
+feather, they struck up "Lo, the Conquering Hero comes," with a soft and
+touchingly subdued sweetness, which threw an exquisite femininity into
+the air, and plainly marked out its object.
+
+Feeling this, I bowed a graceful recognition to those superior
+performers, who answered with a prolonged blast from the most curlecued
+of the long toot-horns as our carriage swept down the curving road that
+forms a horse-shoe--just a little broad at the heel--in front of Messrs.
+Leland's hotel.
+
+Feeling that many admiring eyes were upon me, I stepped with dignity
+from the carriage, and walked with a downcast look, which I did my best
+to make unconscious, through the gay crowd that had gathered in front of
+that long portico, only just to get a glimpse of me as I went in.
+
+Sisters, I had compassion on these people, and walked with slow
+gracefulness through their midst, determined to give even the humblest a
+chance to see how true genius can deport itself when ovations of music
+and respectful admiration recognize its greatness.
+
+There was a great publisher present when we got back to the hotel. I
+have no doubt that he listened to the music of that band when it gave me
+this harmonious reception, and I hope he indirectly felt the compliment
+reverberate back on himself. It was an honor he deserved to share with
+me, or any other high-bred, intellectual person to whom he had opened a
+golden pathway to the Temple of Fame through his numerous art journals.
+
+I had an idea of the gentleman in my mind, and tried to single him out
+from the crowd of persons standing in silent homage on the balcony as I
+passed into the hotel, but I think he was not there.
+
+Before the day was out, I could give a good guess at the reason why he
+did not appear to claim the honor of my acquaintance. He was meditating
+a delicate little surprise for me--one of those poetic fancies that take
+root only in highly artistic minds. By and by you will hear what it was.
+
+In Washington, and at the Grand Duke's reception at Sandy Hook--why that
+strip of salt water, which lets ships in and out from New York to the
+Atlantic Ocean, is called a hook, I cannot make out, for the life of me;
+and as for its being sandy--well, in my opinion, it is deep, salt water,
+and nothing else. But, as I was a-saying, in Washington, and at Sandy
+Hook, the largest guns of the nation did me homage. Here I am received
+with bursts of music from the middle of a home-lot belonging to the
+hotel; but this evening the crowning glory of an ovation was given me by
+the great publisher, who, unseen, and with the most delicate attention,
+startled me into a wild enthusiasm of gratitude.
+
+By guns on the water, by guns on shore, and by enchanting strains of
+music, my appearance in society has been heralded. Now the cap-sheaf has
+been placed on all these honors by a compliment of fire combined with
+the most exhilarating music. On Saturday nights, every hotel along the
+beach is crowded from ground-floor to gable, and gay as a spring
+morning. Then the husbands and brothers and beaux come down from New
+York, till all the trains run over with masculine humanity. When the
+cars come in, it really is a sight to behold. Out from a long train of
+cars rushes a swarm of men, with here and there a feminine sprinkling,
+carrying carpet-bags, satchels, umbrellas, and little baskets of fruit.
+Then they cluster in a thick, black cloud around the depot, like bees
+swarming from their hives. The streets all around are choked up with
+carriages, hacks, omnibuses, wagons, and all sorts of wheeled things, in
+which drivers sit, on the sharp watch, and ladies and girls wait for
+their men folks to get in and be drove away. I beg pardon--driven away.
+
+On Saturday night, every female seems to own a mate of some kind, and be
+on the watch for him. Then the engines give a snarl, and carriages make
+a grand start and go off in a line, stringing down Ocean Avenue a mile
+or so, and leaving clouds of dust rolling along the beach, each driver
+going it as if he were crazy to leave all the other fellows behind.
+
+Well, this fills the whole Branch with delightful confusion. The ladies
+put on their most scrumptious dresses, and the masculines blaze in red
+and blue and green neckties that almost set you on fire.
+
+Everybody dances on Saturday night. Streams of music pour upon you in
+cataracts if you walk up the beach after dark. All the doors and windows
+are open, and you feel dizzy with the idea that all creation has got
+into one grand whirl. This is Saturday night at Long Branch, as a
+general thing; but the particular Saturday night after we came from the
+camp-meeting, was the beatinest thing of all. Early in the evening the
+people seemed to flock in crowds to this hotel. They came afoot; they
+came in carriages; they came by the omnibuses, load after load. Cousin
+E. E. was astonished, and couldn't understand it. "Never," says she,
+"have I seen such a crowd before. What can it mean?"
+
+I said nothing, but kept a deep and satisfied thinking. What did it
+mean? Hadn't _I_ just arrived? Hadn't the news spread? Was not this a
+popular uprising--a great wave of homage to the worth and genius of a
+woman whom I did not care to mention? These thoughts were in my mind
+when a great storm of music broke out from that summer-house in the
+front home lot. Then whiz went a fiery snake, clear up into the sky,
+where it bent its head, opened its mouth, and poured a stream of burning
+stars down over the people.
+
+Mercy, what a great crowd those falling stars lighted up! The street in
+front of the hotel was black with people. The long, long stoop was
+swarming with them--the ladies all in scrumptious dresses; the gentlemen
+with red and blue ribbons on their hats, and the same colors glowing at
+their throats. This I saw by the light of the gas-globes and of those
+shooting stars that dropped like great jewels through the still air. The
+sight of that fiery snake frightened me; I jumped like a pea on a hot
+shovel, and gave a little scream.
+
+"What does it mean? What temptatious snake is it?" says I, a-trembling
+all over.
+
+"It's a rocket," says E. E.; "a publishing gentleman is going to
+compliment the ladies with a display of fireworks."
+
+"The ladies!" thought I, in silent irony. There is but one lady to whom
+so noble a compliment can be paid, and that lady--is--but no matter!
+
+I did not say this in words. Let E. E. have her vanities and her little
+delusions. She does assume a few airs on account of our relationship,
+but I seldom notice it--let her make her little mark in society. It
+pleases her, and does not hurt me. Only, an ovation like this--to think
+she, or any one else, could share that with me, is asking a little too
+much.
+
+Out went another snake, curling along the grass, shooting straight up,
+with a venomous blue light in its folds that was enough to frighten one;
+but it sort of melted away in sparks, and then a great wheel of
+fire--crimson, blue, green, yellow, rainbowish in every line and
+spoke--began to whirl round and round at the other end of the home lot,
+sending out great curving plumes of sparks, and twisting them into ten
+thousand rainbows, all winding, whirling, and shooting fire like a great
+wheel of jewels and revolving stars.
+
+Another broke out, and began to whirl close to one of the mammoth
+flower-vases, raining light down upon it, till the great white vase
+shone like snow, and all the flowers it held were frosted over with a
+beautiful light.
+
+Then another wheel--another and another--kindled and burst out, sending
+torrents of fire every which way, changing, flashing, shooting out
+gorgeous flames of color, till the grass was all aglow with light, and
+flashed under the vivid rain of sparks like a meadow full of
+lightning-bugs.
+
+Now the whole front of the hotel was blazing with wheels, and the air
+was alive with fiery serpents that spit forth a storm of great jewels
+before they died. Between the wheels, tall thickets of fire started up,
+and rose into quivering trees, and shot golden fruit of many colors into
+the air, lighting up the crowd like ten thousand gorgeous lamps tossed
+upward and broken as they fell.
+
+All this time the music was swelling through the fiery display, and the
+crowd clapped hands, as if enough honor could not be done to the
+occasion. My heart swelled--I felt this homage intended by this display,
+and the wild sympathy of the crowd filled me with a tumult of grateful
+feelings.
+
+I arose, and, with one hand on my heart, bowed profoundly every time the
+crowd clapped its multitudinous hands. It was a glorious moment. I
+longed to meet the publisher face to face, and tell him how profoundly
+his generosity had touched my soul; but, with that modesty which ever
+accompanies true merit, he kept in the background, and hid away from the
+thanks my soul was panting to give.
+
+Oh, Sisters, I wish you had been here in a body to see how this great
+white house--a half a mile or so long--was turned into a snow-white
+palace by the flood of fire in front of it. Then the sea--the great,
+heaving sea--on the other side of the road, was red as blood, and bright
+as gold, when the flames shot highest. I tell you, the golden gates of
+the New Jerusalem could not have been more beautifully luminous.
+
+Earth, sea, and air were kindled with light, and full of shooting-stars
+for a whole hour. Then, as the fires began to wane, and the jewels to
+melt, two great, tall balloons, striped red, white, and blue, were
+illuminated, and sent sailing up and up in the air, each with a trail of
+shooting-stars dropping along its path. Up and up, higher and higher,
+the balloons rose, with a slow, graceful movement, and drifted away to
+sea--away, away, away--till they shone like little stars, and went out
+in the distance.
+
+Then a great shout went up from the pleased multitude, which increased
+to frenzy when I once more showed myself.
+
+My white hat was on; the feather floated out in the air like a banner.
+In my hand I held a fan. In the fervor of my emotion I pressed it
+against my bosom. The people saw it, and the storm of applause that
+burst from them fairly took me off my feet. Emotion overcame me; I
+retired from that long stoop.
+
+Cousin E. E. followed me. She hasn't been herself since the
+camp-meeting; and when I asked her if it was not a beautiful ovation,
+she shook her head and answered, that all flesh was grass, which I don't
+believe any more than I believe that grass is flesh, which I know is not
+the fact, each being itself independent grass and independent flesh.
+
+"Well," says I, "call it grass, or anything you please, but wasn't the
+whole thing perfectly gorgeous."
+
+"Yes," says she, "it was a pretty compliment to the ladies of the
+hotel."
+
+Sisters, that jealous, provoking woman said "ladies of the hotel," not
+"the lady of the hotel." She is an aggravating creature, sometimes; I do
+believe she is jealous of the homage which is lavished on your
+missionary. At any rate speeches like this look like it. Don't you think
+so?
+
+I said nothing. A tart reply trembled on my tongue, but the atmosphere
+of that camp-meeting still clung to me, and I forbore to rebuke her.
+
+Sisters, I was too lenient; somehow or other E. E. has spread her
+selfish idea through this hotel. The ladies were all carried away by the
+fireworks--no, excuse me, that would be dangerous to such as had tindery
+tempers, but they could talk of nothing else, and made a great fuss
+about the compliment paid to them. To them--as if any man who has an
+appreciative soul would think of diffusing a compliment among a crowd of
+ten thousand people; but the vanity and presumption of some females are
+just disgusting. But for the secret consciousness that no one could have
+been intended but myself, their conceit would provoke me. As it is, let
+them have their conceity illusions. Others may think what they please,
+but I have an inner consciousness that is satisfaction enough.
+
+
+
+
+LXXXVIII.
+
+LET HIM GO.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--You know, or can guess, at the anxious state of mind in
+which a sensitive female-woman must have found her experiences since the
+great Grand Duke left this country. I am told that the Imperial Court of
+Russia is hard to please in the way of marrying its sons--that nobility
+is not considered enough, and nothing but the child of an emperor or of
+a king will satisfy the pride of Czar Alexander.
+
+But emperors are not to be found, like huckleberries, in the woods, and
+those among them that have lots and lots of children can't always find
+mates ready cut-out and made-up for all of them in the very uppermost
+crust of all the world.
+
+When emperors are scarce, and imperial children plentiful, is it strange
+that some of them should be sent to a free country, where the highest
+royalty in all the world is to be found waiting for orders.
+
+Republics have but one kingly order, that of individual genius, which
+ranks above kings all over the world, and is aspired to by queens,
+whenever a queen is gifted with superior ambition, as little Victoria
+Guelph was when she wrote her book of travels, and the life of her
+first-class husband.
+
+That which a queen hankers after, the son of an emperor may be glad to
+mate himself with. Is it wonderful, then, that a Grand Duke of all the
+Russias should aspire to the first feminine genius of a free land, and
+to a certain modest extent receive encouragement from her?
+
+A union between an archduke and the first lady writer of this
+country--excuse me, but truth is stranger than fiction--was a
+consummation that you as a Society ought to expect, and this nation, in
+its administrative capacity, ought to have insisted upon. If an aspiring
+and unprotected female cannot receive the support of her own Government,
+where can she go for it.
+
+Sisters, this union between Sprucehill and Russia is a great national
+question, which ought to have agitated this country from the shores of
+the two oceans, the Mississippi and Rocky Mountains inclusive.
+
+There has been considerable of an internal rumbling sort of a
+convulsion, earthquaky and threatening, in various sections, which ought
+to have given timely warning of what the true national feeling was; but
+somehow Russia don't seem to understand it, and I'm beginning to think
+that there is secret treason here at home--deep, double-dyed treason--of
+which your missionary is the object.
+
+It is a shameful fact that the Government has taken no sort of interest
+in an engagement which would have linked the two great social centres of
+Russia and Sprucehill in a close and loving union.
+
+From the day my Alexis had an interview with President Grant my
+heart-history has been allowed to drag like a lazy funeral train.
+Before, all was bright and luminous, with beautiful aspirations; but
+from that time suspense has coiled around me, hope has flared up,
+blinked, and almost died out. I did not understand it then. It seemed to
+me that fickleness was in the heart of the great Grand Duke.
+
+But I did him a cruel injustice. If our two hearts and destinies are
+severed, it has been by the underground machinations of this
+Administration. General Grant saw what was going on, and has cruelly
+circumvented two young and unsophisticated hearts that were knitting
+together, like ivy round an oak sapling.
+
+I am determined on it. The country shall hear of my wrongs. Sprucehill
+shall have redress for the insult put upon her favorite daughter. In all
+that General Grant has done in the way of omission, nothing approaches
+the inactivity which has wrung my heart, as wet blankets are twisted in
+the strong hands of a washerwoman.
+
+_He_ has not written me a line. His letters must have been interrupted.
+Evil machinations have been at work. The Government detectives are
+everywhere scattering slanders and distrust. I shouldn't wonder a bit if
+they have been to our old homestead on Sprucehill, mousing among church
+registers, and interviewing family physicians. Well, let them. Since I
+learned to write, some figures have been changed in the old Family
+Bible, and, thank goodness! old Doctor Perry is dead. The keenest
+detective won't find much difference between 1830 and 1850. It only
+requires that the curve of the three should be rubbed out, and a dash
+sharpened to a point added. If they look for eighteen hundred and thirty
+there, I can tell them it isn't to be found. Let them search--that's
+all!
+
+This was my state of mind three days ago. Now I am revivified with extra
+animation. Hope has perched on my white hat and sits there waving its
+feather like a pennant.
+
+I am glad from the bottom of my heart that I didn't follow the duke
+across the ocean. After all a duke is only a man, hard to catch and
+expensive to cage. Why should we trouble ourselves about princes and
+dukes and lords, when we have the most genuine of all manly articles
+right under our feet. Dukes are scarce and hard to scare up, but there
+are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. That's my motto
+to-day.
+
+
+
+
+LXXXIX.
+
+DONE UP IN A HURRY.
+
+
+Sisters:--the atmosphere of Long Branch is propitious, not to say
+exhilarating, for close by this half-mile of a hotel is another, crowded
+full at this time of the year, in which we can hear fiddling and dancing
+every night of the week. The hotels at watering-places are celebrated
+for several things, particularly low ceilings, widows, youngish ladies,
+and girls like our Cecilia, who wonder every day of their lives how
+their mothers ever got along decently till they were born to tell them
+how.
+
+Well, the most enterprising of these hotel accompaniments are the
+widows. Their superior advantages of experience is just overpowering,
+and these advantages are used with unscrupulous freedom. I say this with
+feeling, being one of the class that suffers from such unwarrantable
+competition.
+
+A widow was in the hotel I have spoken of. Yes, what might be called two
+widows rolled into one, for she had put two husbands into their little
+beds, and tucked in the sods comfortably before she came to Long Branch
+in search of a third.
+
+Sisters, she found him; her little traps and lines and baits had been
+all out to no sort of purpose for three or four weeks. She danced in the
+parlor, exhibited all the lines of a plumptitudinous figure at the
+bowling alley, which is a place I never saw, but have heard about;
+walked on the beach with a Leghorn hat on, curled up at the ears, and in
+front too, and Japanese umbrella, brown outside and yellow in the
+interior, which looked as if she had lots of money and meant to put it
+on the market with a dash.
+
+There was a great deal said about this widow. Some observed that she was
+handsome. Some said she wasn't--mostly ladies. Some observed how
+graceful she was, at which others smiled and shook their heads. One
+person persisted in it that she was awful rich--two or three hundred
+thousand dollars, at least. Then that was contradicted. Forty thousand
+was more than any one could prove she had. Others persisted that her
+wealth, like her virtues, was unlimited. In fact, being a widow, she
+made the best of it and let people talk, minding her snares and traps
+and things all the same.
+
+Last week a strange man came to that hotel. It was Saturday morning, and
+the first object that his eyes fell upon at breakfast was this widow,
+without the sign of a cap, and with a long curl straggling down to one
+shoulder, very fluffy and enticing. He looked at the curl; then his eyes
+wandered up to the widow's face. That face had smiled through a couple
+of matrimonial campaigns, and received the first battery of admiring
+eyes with a sweet, downcast look, innocent as blanc-mange. Then she
+lifted her eyes with slow modesty, and glanced wonderingly at her
+admirer, as if she were sort of bewildered by his looking so much that
+way.
+
+The stranger did not smile, but a light came over his face when he
+caught that childlike glance. Then both these innocent creatures fell to
+eating. Then he happened to look up again. So did she--a romantic
+coincidence that sort of affinitized them to a great extent, before
+anybody saw what was going on.
+
+After breakfast the stranger hunted up some one who knew him and the
+widow also. An introduction brought the two halves of that pair of
+scissors together, and the blades fitted beautifully. All they wanted
+was the rivet. But wait.
+
+At twelve o'clock that day the stranger ventured to ask a favor. Would
+the widow give him a little music?
+
+The widow said she would. The sweetness of a whole boiling of maple
+sugar was in her smile as she sat down by the parlor piano, and sent her
+two little hands fluttering over it like a pair of white pigeons with
+love-letters under their wings.
+
+The widow flew her fingers; the widow looked at the stranger from under
+her eyelashes, and her voice thrilled through him till he began to think
+of magnolias and mocking-birds and other ornamental things which soften
+a man's feelings down to the fluffiness of a feather bed.
+
+When she had done singing, he asked her to walk with him on the beach.
+She gave another slow lift of her eyelashes, said she would, and ran
+upstairs after the Leghorn and the Japanese umbrella, brown and yellow,
+with as many bones in it as the first April shad.
+
+They walked the beach up and down, she leaning heavier and heavier on
+his arm at each turn. Then they sat down on the sand with their faces to
+the sea, and held the umbrella so as to shade off the people on the
+bank--they didn't care for the sun a bit--and in that condition they sat
+and talked and talked and talked.
+
+By and by he got up from the sand. She lifted her eyes with a pitiful
+look of helplessness. He reached out his hand, and she rose to it
+gracefully, like a trout to a fly. The hand clung to his more than a
+minute after she got up--the sand was so uneven, you see. The stranger
+bore this with Christian fortitude, and really seemed as if he rather
+liked it. In fact, he encouraged her to hold on; and she did, with her
+sweet widowed face lifted to his just long enough to set his heart off
+like a windmill, when she dropped it again.
+
+When they came up the flight of wooden steps that leads down from the
+bank, both her white hands were clasped over his arm as loving as the
+soft paws of a kitten, and he looked like a fellow that had been out
+shooting doves, and had come in with his net full.
+
+They went in to lunch, and ate spring chickens; then they ended off with
+silly-bubs, which is a sweet froth that melts to nothing on the
+tongue--delicious, but not exactly hearty food.
+
+Two hours after lunch, the stranger asked the widow to ride out with
+him; which she did, in the puffiest and silkiest of dresses, and with a
+lace parasol, lined with pink, between her and the sun. This was one of
+her snares, for she depended on that pink lining for her blushes,
+having left them a good way behind her somewhere about the first
+wedding.
+
+The drive was paradisical. They talked, they smiled, they said the
+loveliest little things to each other with delicious reciprocity. He
+drove, and divided his manly attentions between her and the horses,
+giving her a generous share, which was creditable to him as a man.
+
+It was nearly twelve o'clock that night when those two people went up to
+their neglected couches--nothing but a widow would have stood the shock
+of such impropriety among the critical of her sex; but she didn't care a
+mite.
+
+Early the next morning, which was Sunday, these two persons were seen
+coming out of the little cubby-houses under the beach in the queerest
+sort of dresses--I cannot describe them, because, up to this time, beach
+flirtations have been forbidden subjects with me.
+
+But they came out on the beach, clasped hands, and walked right into the
+biggest waves they could find.
+
+What she said to him there I cannot tell, but by and by they came back
+to the hotel, the sneakiest-looking creatures you ever set your two eyes
+on.
+
+I don't know when it was that she brought him to the point, but the
+widow had netted him so close that he didn't even try to flounder.
+
+That night there was sacred music in the hotel parlor, and, somehow, a
+minister of the Gospel dropped in, with a white cravat on, and waited
+for something, looking as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.
+
+He hadn't been there long before the strange gentleman came in with a
+swallow-tailed coat on, a white vest and cravat, with ball-gloves on his
+hands.
+
+Hanging on to his arm was that widow, in a long, white dress, that
+streamed after her in windrows, and with a shower of lace falling over
+her.
+
+The minister got up, and opened his book. The people hanging about
+hushed their talk, and in less than ten minutes a third gold ring was
+chucked over the other two that weighed down the widow's finger, and she
+walked off with number three as proud as a white peacock.
+
+It took this widow just two days and part of a night to spring her traps
+and draw her hooks--but, then, she was a widow.
+
+Sisters, there is a good deal of commotion in our hotel just now. Rural
+single ladies talk of going over to the other place.
+
+I had a little hankering in that direction at first, but, come to think
+it over, mean to stay where I am. It isn't the house that has done this,
+but the bland atmosphere of Long Branch. If that sort of thing is
+indigenous to the place--and I mean to test it thoroughly--Russia is
+welcome to the Grand Duke; a whole-souled American is good enough for
+me. Besides, Russia is an awful cold place, and I don't think I ever
+could bring myself to eat cabbage-soup or the roe of a sturgeon.
+
+Sisters, if this sort of thing lies in the atmosphere, don't you think
+it would be a good thing for the whole Society to come down here next
+summer? A generous diffusion of masculine energy into the course might
+be a desirable change. For my part, I don't mean to leave this place
+till frost comes. I believe this thing is going to be an epidemic at the
+Branch, and when contagions rage I am sure to catch any disease that is
+going. I have had the measles twice, and two pretty severe tugs with the
+scarlet-fever. In fact, I was celebrated, as a child, for catching
+double. One thing is certain--I never ran away because a disease was
+catching, and I'm not going to do it here. On the contrary, I am making
+over one of my old alpaca skirts into a bathing-dress. If I know myself
+I shall fight it out on that line, if it takes all winter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XC.
+
+THE YELLOW FLAG.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I have gone and done it! Now let me give you a little
+wholesome advice. It comes out of my superior knowledge of the world,
+and experience of the human heart. Never say that you won't do a thing,
+because if you do, just as sure as you live it is the very thing that
+you are sure to plunge into, whether you want to or not. Besides, people
+who know enough to doubt themselves, understand that men and women are
+made up principally of human nature. Now human nature is a great fraud,
+and isn't to be trusted when he's found in the interior of your own
+heart, or anywhere else.
+
+In one of my reports, I expressed myself as shocked out of a year's
+growth, when I heard about gentlemen and ladies going into the salt-sea
+waves together, and submerging themselves like mermaids in the swell and
+foam of the ocean. I said, in the heat and glow of modest feminine
+shrinkitiveness, that nothing on earth, or in the water, should induce
+me to do it; but circumstances alter cases, and the capacity of eternal
+change is the essence of genius, which is always making new combinations
+and discarding old prejudices.
+
+I say it with reluctance, but truth demands frankness. Sometimes I am a
+little hasty in my conclusions.
+
+Have I said enough--need I go on to explain that the result of a thing
+proves its propriety?
+
+Now, bathing in company, in the abstract, does seem--well, peculiar. I
+might add other words which at one time came uppermost in my mind; but,
+looking toward results, I feel constrained to say nothing on the social
+aspect of multitudinous ablutions, but go into the high moral question
+which has slowly presented itself to my understanding.
+
+Isn't there a passage of Scripture somewhere that speaks about "fishers
+of men"? I think there is, and I am inclined to see that kind of
+business from a high moral stand-point. If men are to be legally caught
+with a dripping dress and an old straw hat for bait, who shall say that
+the thing is wrong? If men are told to go down to the sea in ships, what
+should prevent a female woman from going down in a four-cornered straw
+hat, a flannel tunic, and--well, pantalettes on? Everything depends on
+the point of view from which one sees a thing.
+
+As a marine picture, salt-sea waves rushing in upon a sandy beach can
+hardly be considered complete without throwing a little life into the
+foreground; but when that life is composed of a flock of old straw hats,
+and a lot of staggery, blinded, dripping people under them, I can't say
+that I hanker after this particular marine view.
+
+From an artistic stand-point then I reject the whole subject; but as the
+means of catching a heart afloat, that same picture offers numerous
+facilities.
+
+Well, sisters, as a social institution I no longer sneer at sea-bath
+flirtations. When two days of them end in matrimony, it isn't worth
+while to fight out the question on that line any longer. I give in.
+
+Such engagements may be unstable as water, but a damp engagement is
+better than none at all.
+
+With these sentiments, I finished off my bathing-dress, and put a red
+ribbon over a high-crowned, square-brimmed hat, coarse and clumsy, which
+was to keep my face from the sun, and my flowing tresses from the briny
+ocean waves.
+
+Early in the morning I went out into the veranda, and took a survey of
+the ocean--the broad infinite expanse of waters into which I was about
+to plunge in search of--well, health.
+
+In front of the veranda, on the high bank, was a pole, like the
+liberty-poles we run up on almost every village green of New England. On
+that pole a pale yellow flag was flying.
+
+A chill ran over me, and I know that my arms must have been roughened
+like a grater.
+
+"The yellow-fever." I knew it was in the harbor, shut up there by the
+authorities. Had it escaped through Sandy Hook, and come poisoning the
+waters along shore? Now that I was ready for the first plunge, were my
+best hopes to be frustrated? Had I sat up all night sewing red braid on
+that tunic, and those--well, Turkish pantalettes, for nothing? Had I
+conquered a great New England prejudice, to be conquered myself by
+careless health officers? Why hadn't they taken an example by some of
+the old stock, and divided the whole thing among them in perquisites? I
+only wish they had.
+
+Sisters, it was a keen disappointment. I was looking at that yellow
+flag, with tears in my eyes, when Cousin E. E. came on to the veranda.
+
+"Come, Phoemie," says she, bright as a May morning, "where is the new
+bathing-dress? It will be splendid bathing!"
+
+I looked at her, I looked at the ocean and at the path that led down to
+the beach, along which half a dozen real nice-looking gentlemen were
+picking their steps like rabbits toward a sweet-apple trap. It was
+tantalizing.
+
+"Yes," says she, as contented as a lamb, "it will be lovely bathing this
+morning; I mean to try it."
+
+"Try it," says I; "haven't you read that yellow-fever is in the harbor?"
+
+"Well, what then?" says she. "It won't hurt us."
+
+"Won't hurt us," says I. "Did you ever hear of poison getting into water
+that could be washed out? No, if it is in the harbor, some of it will
+drift down here. Look, you can see it sweltering in the waves now."
+
+She looked out on the ocean, where a faint yellow tinge rippled and
+shone with treacherous temptatiousness.
+
+"Oh, that is only the sunshine," says she.
+
+"But the fever," says I, "I know it is in the harbor, for the newspapers
+said so. They have run up the yellow flag wherever it is to be found.
+See there."
+
+Cousin E. E. sat down and dropped both hands in her lap.
+
+"Cousin Phoemie," says she, "I really don't know whether you are a real
+genius or the greatest goose that ever lived. You are just a puzzle to
+me. Who ever heard of yellow-fever in the water?"
+
+"I have," says I, "in the harbor, and isn't the harbor all water?"
+
+"Yes," says she, "that is true."
+
+"Then, isn't it dangerous to bathe in that water, and don't that flag
+give us warning not to do it?"
+
+"Cousin," says she; "as I said before, you know too much for common
+ideas to make an impression. Now do try to understand. There is one ship
+in the harbor that has yellow-fever on board--that is all. It will not
+be allowed to spread from that one ship."
+
+"Oh," says I, drawing a deep breath, "then it has not poisoned the
+water."
+
+"Not at all."
+
+"But the yellow flag?"
+
+"That means good bathing, and plenty of it. Come along. Don't you see
+people crowding down to the shore?"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCI.
+
+THE MAN THAT SAVED ME.
+
+
+I ran into my room, and came out with a bundle in one hand and a coarse
+straw hat in the other. That group of gentlemen was just dropping down
+the bank out of sight, and after them went a crowd of girls, with their
+parasols flaming in the sun like a bed of poppies.
+
+"Come," says I, all joyful animation, "I am dying to begin."
+
+E. E. spread her parasol, and off we marched.
+
+We came to the steep bank, and went down a flight of wooden stairs to
+the sandy shore. Right under the bank was a long row of cubby-houses,
+made of boards.
+
+"This is ours," says E. E., "come in."
+
+I went in. Sisters, what happened in the privacy of that board
+sanctuary, is not for the public--let this satisfy the curious.
+
+Two ladies went into that little retreat, with bunched-up skirts,
+beehive bonnets, and a general assortment of dry-goods, such as weighs
+down the ladies of the present generation to an extent that approaches
+martyrdom.
+
+Two persons came out skimped down into nothingness. They had grown tall
+and slim, not to say spooky. There was a deficiency of glossy ringlets
+under the two hats that squared off in front and behind, and were
+flapped down over each ear.
+
+E. E.'s plumptitudinous figure was mostly lost and gone, and I--well, I
+felt like a church steeple on a very high hill. I say nothing, the
+subject being one of great delicacy; but from my experience in those
+Turkish--well, pantalettes--the female that begrudges her husband that
+class of garments, must hanker after change more than I do. When I came
+out of the little house, Dempster stood on the sand with a pair--well,
+of garments like mine, only more so, on, and a flaming red upper
+garment, bright enough to set the waves on fire, covering his broad
+bosom.
+
+Another gentleman stood near him--blue and brown in his sea-outfit,
+youngish, and with eyes that made me wilt like a poppy the moment they
+fell upon me.
+
+My goodness, how I did feel in that dress! It was all I could do to keep
+from kind of scrouching down to hide my bare feet; but it was of no use,
+so I dug them deep into the sand, and felt myself blushing all over,
+while that gentleman in blue fixed his eyes upon them.
+
+Anyway, there was nothing to be so mightily timorous about, for,
+according to my calculation, two smaller or whiter feet didn't leave
+their prints in the sand that day, though I do make that assertion with
+my own lips, that ought to be mute.
+
+Cousin Dempster came forward, took both E. E. and my trembling self by
+the hand, and led us to the water.
+
+I took one glance: a swarm of straw hats, a crowd of men, women, and
+children were floundering, swimming, screaming, laughing, tumbling
+through the waves, that lifted them up, flung them down, pitched them
+forward, and behaved in a way that no well-bred ocean would have thought
+of doing.
+
+I shrank--I shivered--the heart seemed to die in my agitated bosom when
+the first wave kissed my feet; I gave a little scream, but checked
+myself bravely. The waves were full of men, some of them were looking at
+me.
+
+I determined to act bravely, and be the heroine of the occasion. I let
+go of Dempster's hand. A wave struck me, my head went down and my feet
+went up. In my fright and anguish I remembered their size and whiteness,
+and found consolation in the thought while I strove to right myself.
+
+It was in vain; while I staggered with one big wave, another took me
+unawares, like a thief in the night, and dragged me under, like a wild
+beast growling over some poor helpless lamb--it tore me away. I
+shrieked--I plunged--I fought madly for my life. Up through the vivid
+green of the waters the sunshine came toward me like light upon beaming
+emeralds. I clutched at it. I tried to scream; but my mouth filled with
+water, green flashes shot through and through my eyes. I began to pray.
+The Green Mountains, the farm, and all my life there shot through my
+brain; things I had forgotten came uppermost, and those thoughts grew
+pleasant while the waters seemed roaring me to sleep.
+
+Something came toward me, bluish. Was it a monster of the deep hungry
+for the life that was so fast dying out?
+
+It seized me. I was born upward on a great wave, and swept off into the
+light. The claws of some monster, or the arms of some friend, held me
+close. Which was it?
+
+Some power of good or evil, beastly or human, had dragged me into the
+sand, where white foam curled around me, and the sun struck down upon my
+eyes like fire.
+
+Some man was thanking another for a great favor; a crowd of people came
+swarming around me. I attempted to open my eyes, but the water dripping
+down from my hair came into them sharp and salt.
+
+"Is she sick? Is she afraid? Do tell who it is?"
+
+These questions came from women who had rushed up from the waters, and
+flocked around me like mermaids. I did not care about them, but by and
+by it came to me that men might be there as well. I lifted my hand,
+swept the wet hair back from my face, and, with a smarting pain in my
+eyes, saw my deliverer.
+
+His blue garments were black with dripping water, the thick hair
+streamed over his forehead, his bare feet looked hard and powerful on
+the sand. It was the man under whose admiring eyes I had blushed and
+trembled.
+
+"My preserver!" said I, clasping my wet fingers in an ecstasy of
+gratitude; "shall I ever live to thank you for the poor life you have
+saved?"
+
+He smiled, he shook his head; I am afraid he laughed, such was his joy
+and exultation; yet the modesty of true greatness possessed him still.
+
+"It is nothing," he said. "A wave knocked you head-foremost--that was
+all."
+
+I knew better. It was the inherent greatness of a noble soul that
+impelled him to make nothing of his own heroic act. He must have
+supported me miles on miles in those stalwart arms. No protest of his
+could lessen the bravery of his action or the force of my gratitude. If
+woman's gratitude and woman's love are anything, his reward shall be
+great.
+
+They bore me into that weather-beaten cubby-house, and there, with the
+help of E. E., my dripping garments were taken off, my wet hair done up
+snugly under the braids that had been left behind, and, filled with
+tender gratitude, I walked up to my hero in blue before going to my
+apartment in the hotel.
+
+"Let me see you to-morrow," said I, pressing the hand of that heroic
+man. "Then I may find language to express my life-long gratitude."
+
+He bowed; he drew his hand, with evident reluctance, from my clasp, and
+retreated.
+
+Ah, sisters, my destiny has come! I feel it in every breath I draw, in
+every sweet thought that haunts my brain. To-morrow I shall see him
+again. To-morrow!
+
+Oh, sisters, he has just left me. Alas! alas! for human aspirations. I
+had written thus far when he came.
+
+I received him in my room, looking pale, and, I think, interesting, for
+the sweet romance of my feelings left its imprint on my features. He
+came in with hesitation, and sat down on the edge of his chair, looking
+ill at ease, as if wishing to escape a mention of his own heroism. I
+felt a glow of admiration, a thrill of tender gratitude.
+
+"You have saved my life," I said, clasping my two hands, "and from this
+hour I devote that life to your happiness. Tell me how I can begin to
+repay you."
+
+He sat uneasily; he shifted in his chair. Then he murmured:
+
+"Anything you please; I never thought of asking. It was only my duty."
+
+"Heroic man!" I exclaimed; "and brave as modest. It is my pleasure to be
+more than grateful. Never, never can I repay you save with the warmest
+and sweetest emotions of a woman's heart. I owe you--ah, how much--how
+much!"
+
+My hands were clasped, my eyes were uplifted; emotion prevented me
+finishing my sentence. He spoke, while my soul halted for words--
+
+"Well, if you think so much of just helping you out of the way of a
+seaward wave, supposing we say five dollars. It is my duty, as
+bathing-master, to help people up from the sand when they get face
+downwards, as you did; but as you insist, I don't mind a fiver."
+
+Oh, sisters!
+
+
+
+
+XCII.
+
+PLEASURE BAY.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I really do think that Cousin Dempster is one of the best
+creatures that ever lived. He seems to understand all the wounds and
+pains that a female woman's heart is exposed to, and sort of eases them
+off, so that you are cheated out of half your natural suffering.
+
+I cannot say that the bathing in the salt-sea waves was not a failure as
+a matrimonial speculation; but that is my luck. In some respects, the
+future to me is like a mirage--I put my hand out hopefully, and grasp
+nothing but fog.
+
+That bathing-master was a fine-looking man until he opened his mouth and
+attempted to sit down on a chair. He created a pleasant delusion in my
+bosom for a few moments, and then--well, we will say nothing more about
+that--the private sanctuary of a female woman's thoughts are too sacred
+for a Report.
+
+If I wept in the stillness of the night, no one but the angel that
+records broken love-dreams will ever know of it. With this precious
+angel I am in full sympathy. He has done too much of that kind of
+writing for me not to feel the cruel pangs of the long list of
+disappointments with which his books are blotted.
+
+Well, I arose the next morning after my experimental bath, heavy-eyed,
+heavy-hearted, and altogether blue as indigo. Cousin Dempster saw this,
+and his generous heart seized upon a remedy.
+
+"Let us go down to Pleasure Bay," says he. "What do you think of a day's
+crabbing?"
+
+"Crabbing?" says I, "just as if I didn't feel crabbed enough already. Do
+you want me to keep it up all day?"
+
+Dempster laughed; so did E. E.; just as if I'd said something awful
+funny, which I wasn't in the least conscious of, not having a spark of
+fun left in me since that salt-water deluge and its consequences.
+
+"Oh," says he, as good-natured as pie, "there is nothing like Pleasure
+Bay when one has the blues--a lunch under the trees, and a boat before
+the breeze."
+
+I stopped him; the dear, good fellow was launching off into poetry
+without knowing it; association with genins is doing everything with
+him. There is no knowing where he might have ended, if I hadn't lifted
+my forefinger, for a whole gust of poetry was riling up in his earthly
+nature like yeast in a baking of bread.
+
+"I'll go to Pleasure Bay," says I, "but, for goodness sake, don't try
+that sort of thing again; genius isn't catching, and though you have
+married into our family, don't expect that it will spread like an
+epidemic into yours, because it won't."
+
+"Why not?" says he; "is there nothing in association?"
+
+"Well, I can't exactly decide," says I; "strange things do happen in
+that direction. I have heard of young women marrying literary men who
+never wrote a line worth reading before, who burst out into full-blown
+geniuses right in the honeymoon. But it is wonderful how much their
+style was like their husbands'. Of course, those must be cases of
+especial affinity. When a woman has ransacked a poor fellow's heart, she
+naturally begins to pillage his brain, and I reckon he must like it at
+first; but after that, he subsides into himself, and she subsides into
+herself, and somehow she writes just as she did before, and so does he!"
+
+"Then there are plenty of young ladies who carry their ambition and
+their flirtations in among the newspaper people and stray Bohemians,"
+says E. E., kindling up to the subject; "for every time they get into a
+new flirtation, which is once in about three months, their style
+changes, giving them a wonderful versatility of talent that, somehow,
+dies out after awhile, as she grows old and homely."
+
+"That is," says Dempster, laughing, "every time a literary lady of this
+stamp changes her lover, she changes her style, too."
+
+"Exactly," answers E. E., "and where she hasn't any good-natured lover
+she retires into modest privacy till one comes along."
+
+I just listened, holding my breath.
+
+"What," says I, "does fraud and deception creep into the sacred
+literature of our country? I cannot believe it."
+
+"Can't you?" says E. E.; "but you have never been in Bohemia."
+
+"No," says I, "that is a part of Europe that I hope to visit, but never
+have. Is it a popular place for Americans?"
+
+"Oh, wonderfully popular, for people who dash off things here and there,
+write for this and that, and are willing to give half that they earn and
+know to any adventurer that comes along, free gratis for nothing; or, on
+occasion, sell reputation by the line, and for a price. Oh, Bohemia is a
+splendid place for adventurers and adventuresses to forage in!"
+
+"What!" says I, "genius sell itself?"
+
+"Yes," says she, "and its readers, too."
+
+"Cousin E. E.," says I, "you slander the grandest, the purest, the most
+sublime people on the earth."
+
+"Do I?" says she, nodding her head and laughing. "Wait and see."
+
+"Remember--you are speaking of authors, the first and purest aristocracy
+known to our free nation."
+
+"No; I speak of would-be authors--guerillas in literature--men and women
+of erratic ability, who adore inspiration and scorn work; for
+authorship, I am told, and believe, requires the hardest work of any
+calling in the world."
+
+"I'm afraid it does," said I, drawing a long breath, "but then such work
+brings its own prompt payment. The power to write is happiness in
+itself."
+
+"But what has this to do with Pleasure Bay?" says Dempster; "we mean to
+go there--not to Bohemia."
+
+"Just so," says I, a-tying on my bonnet.
+
+We got into Dempster's carriage, and after a delightful drive, we came
+down on the edge of a little bay, with green grass growing close down to
+the shore, and great, tall trees clumped here and there all around it.
+
+I was so charmed with the scenery that I didn't realize where we were
+till the carriage stopped before a white house, with a long wooden stoop
+in front, when we got out and walked right away down to the shore, where
+a plank platform ran out from the land, and a cunning little boat, with
+white sails, lay dipping up and down like a duck in the water.
+
+Sisters, I'm not timersome, but getting into a boat that rocks like a
+cradle in the water tries me, I must own to that. With what holding on
+and keeping your dress well down upon the ankles, one is seized with a
+sense of being awfully unsteady. This riles up the constitution to a
+state of dizziness that makes your ears buz like a bumblebee's nest.
+
+I was thankful to get seated at last, and, tucking up my dress, prepared
+at once for a long sea-voyage. E. E. had slung a great straw gypsy hat
+on her arm, by the strings, when she left Long Branch, which she bent
+down over her head like an umbrella with herself for a handle; over that
+she spread a broad yellow parasol that blazed in the hot air like a
+great sunflower.
+
+"Phoemie," says she, a-looking up from under her straw tent, "didn't you
+bring a flat?"
+
+"No," says I; "the young fellows of that stamp didn't happen to be about
+when we started."
+
+"Dear me! you'll burn your face up," says she; "that beehive is no
+protection."
+
+"About as much as one of your York flats would be," says I. "But
+supposing I hoist my parasol, too--one don't need a beau for that."
+
+The sun was pouring down like blazes, and I was mighty glad to spread my
+parasol, I can tell you; so I did it, and settled down on the same bench
+with E. E.
+
+Dempster had been awful busy on shore, pulling out fish-lines, looking
+up nets that swung like a great hang-bird's nest, on the end of a pole:
+and now he was on his knees, hacking a fish into chunks, which he tied
+to a line and dropped into the bottom of the boat. At last he lifted his
+great straw hat, wiped the blazing warmth from his face, and jumped in.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCIII.
+
+NETTING CRABS.
+
+
+Oh, sisters! judge of my feelings, when directly after Dempster, came a
+splendid gentleman--a creature of romance, shaded from the vulgar gaze
+by a felt hat, and dressed like a mariner along-shore. He lifted his hat
+to me, and also to E. E.--with a lofty reservation in her case.
+
+"Mr. Burke," says Dempster, with a degree of carelessness that, I am
+sorry to say, is characteristic--"he will teach you how to catch the
+creatures; for there is an art in it."
+
+"Then I shall never succeed," says I, in a low, gentle tone of voice.
+"Where anything but pure nature is expected, I must always keep in the
+shade. You know, Cousin E. E., what an artless young thing I always
+was."
+
+E. E. smiled--not at me but right up in the face of that strange
+gentleman. I declare, I never saw anything so bold in my life! But it
+was of no use; he came and sat down close to me. In fact, he took the
+parasol from my hand with a gallant air that made my heart beat like a
+partridge on a log. In one respect that movement wasn't an advantage:
+the parasol was not large enough to shade two, and he held it
+carelessly, as was natural to a dashing, splendid creature like him; but
+somehow the shade always fell on his side. I felt dreadfully certain
+that freckles were falling like split peas all over my face. Still he
+smiled so sweetly and looked so magnificent that, freckles or no
+freckles, I was ready to give him up my beehive, too, if he had only
+looked as if he wanted it.
+
+Dear me, how that boat did heel up and rock as we went sailing off down
+to a green grassy point, where the gentleman told me the crabs swarmed
+like lady-bugs around a full-blown rose--pretty simliar, wasn't it,
+sisters, and so original?
+
+I was dying to know what sort of a fish a crab was, never having seen
+any in our brooks. Were they like sun-fish, rainbowish and flat; or like
+trout, sparkled over with dripping jewels; or small and silvery, like
+shiners and pin-fish?
+
+I did not like to ask that magnificent stranger about this, and let him
+believe that crabbing had been an amusement of my childhood up in the
+Green Mountains--not that I said so outright--but my idea of discretion
+is to say nothing of a thing you don't understand, but wait and find
+out. What is the good of telling the world how much you don't know?
+
+Well, I hadn't the least idea what a crab was, but the name made me feel
+a little rily. The water was full of them; I was pretty sure to find
+out; so I waited.
+
+By and by, Dempster flung a great stone co-slash into the water, and
+tied us up just below a little green point of land that took the
+sunshine in its long grass till it seemed full of drifting gold which
+spread out upon the water in soft, shiny ripples.
+
+E. E. shut down her parasol. Mr. Burke shut mine. "Now," says he, "for
+the lines."
+
+With this he took up a lump of raw fish, gave it a swing and a splash
+into the water, and handed me the other end. Dempster gave another line
+and a chunk of fish to his wife, and then took one of the hang-bird nets
+and stood by as if he meant to do business.
+
+By and by I felt a sort of hungry nibbling at the end of my line, and
+gave it a jerk just as if it had been a brook trout, hard to catch.
+
+"Oh, goodness!" I just dropped the line and screamed like everything,
+scared half to death. If ever an innocent female caught a claw-footed
+imp, I came near doing it then. Why the animal, varmint, double and
+twisted serpent--I don't know what to call it--clung to the bait till I
+hauled him clear out of the water, and then fell back with a big sprawl
+and an awful splash, sinking down again like a great mammoth spider that
+made the water bubble with disgust.
+
+"What was it? What was it?" I said, turning my scared face on Mr. Burke.
+"What kind of young sea-devil is this?"
+
+He laughed, and laid down the net he had just taken up.
+
+"You pulled too quick," says he. "Crabs are like women."
+
+"Like women," I shrieked. "What, those horrid things? Sir, I thank you!"
+
+My voice shook so I could hardly get the words out with proper irony. A
+generous rage in behalf of my sex possessed me.
+
+"You did not hear me out," says he, pleasant as a sweet apple. "I was
+going to say crabs were like women in this respect. They must be led
+along, enticed, persuaded up to the bait."
+
+"Oh!" says I, "that is a sentiment I can appreciate, but the comparison
+is dreadful."
+
+"There is hardly anything in nature which would not be dreadful compared
+to some females that I know of," says he.
+
+I laid one hand on my bosom and bowed, but the next instant I felt one
+of those scraggly fiends pulling at my line, and I drew it softly in,
+hand-over-hand. Oh, how the beastly thing crept and crawled, and spread
+its scraggles as it nibbled and rose with the bait! I declare it made
+the flesh creep on my bones.
+
+"That's right, draw gently--lure him up. Ho!"
+
+As he spoke Mr. Burke just slid his net under the varmint, and flashed
+him up into the air, bait and all.
+
+Sisters, there is no use in talking; if these creatures they call crabs
+ain't great salt-sea spiders, no such animals exist; and eels ain't
+fish, that's all.
+
+Oh, I wish you could see them crawl up through the sea-grass and spread
+themselves. I declare it is just awful.
+
+Well, down went this crab--which they all gloried in, being a great big
+gridiron of a fellow--into a hole in one end of the boat, and out went
+my bait after another.
+
+At one great pull I brought up two wapping big fellows at a time, and
+trolled them on while Mr. Burke scooped them up. Chasing dragon flies in
+the old times was nothing to it.
+
+E. E. was busy as a bee on her side of the boat, Dempster ladled the
+animals up for her, till we had a couple of dozen trying to creep away,
+and fighting each other like chickens in a coop.
+
+By this time I could see that E. E., like a good many other people I
+could mention, was getting sort of restless for other attentions than
+those her husband could give. She kept casting side-glances at Mr.
+Burke, and at last says she to Dempster:
+
+"Dempster, it isn't expected that a man should always be a-hanging about
+his wife. It's time for you to do some netting for Phoemie."
+
+E. E. said this almost in a whisper, but I heard it, and all the temper
+in me riled up to my throat.
+
+Sisters, this married woman was just dying to change off her husband for
+the beau that was devoting all his energies to me. I felt that the
+crisis had come that self-interest and a high moral standard demanded
+that I should keep this man from the lure of a married woman. I owed it
+to myself, to Dempster, and, above all, to the cause of morality, to
+hold that man firmly to his post.
+
+"Phoemie," says Dempster, coming up to me and looking as if butter
+wouldn't melt in his mouth, "let me scoop for you?"
+
+Before I could speak Mr. Burke took that nefarious hint and went over to
+E. E.
+
+I gave Dempster a look of withering contempt, and flung my bait out with
+a splash that must have scared all the crabs out of a year's growth.
+
+"No," says I, "you may be willing to desert the marital outposts, but I
+will not help you. Go back to your wife; I can catch all the crabs I
+want without help."
+
+"Well, just as you like," says Dempster, and, settling down on the bow
+of the boat, he pulled his hat over his eyes and went to sleep, then and
+there.
+
+Three crabs come up to my bait--nibble, nibble, nibble. I drew in the
+line, they crawled through the water after it. Still I drew and drew.
+Three great plump fellows came to the top of the water. It was a good
+chance to call Burke away. He was leaning over E. E. and whispering,
+while she listened.
+
+"Here, here!" screamed I, "three at a haul. Will nobody help me?"
+
+That man did not seem to hear me, but kept on whispering, while E. E.
+listened with a smile on her lips and her eyes half shut. The sight made
+me awful mad.
+
+"I'll catch them myself," says I, and down I plunged my hand into the
+water. I meant to grip the crab, but he gripped me.
+
+Oh, mercy, how he pinched and bit, and screwed his claws around my hand.
+It seemed as if he were twisting it into a corkscrew. I shrieked--I
+yelled--I tried to shake the varmint off--to dash him to atoms against
+the side of the boat. It was of no use: his sharp claws dug into me in
+fifty places; he bit like fury. The blood ran down my fingers, my voice
+grew weaker, but it broke up that flirtation. It was a cruel price, but
+I paid it cheerfully. While I retain my moral sense, no married woman
+shall degrade her sex by a flirtation in my presence. Never, never!
+
+Yes, my screams broke up that well-arranged plan to delude Mr. Burke
+from my side, and it broke up the crabbing party too.
+
+Dempster woke up and hauled in the lines. We had thirty crabs
+floundering in the hold, all fighting like imps of darkness.
+
+"We'll have them for dinner," says Dempster, ferociously, "they won't be
+so lively half an hour from now."
+
+He was right, it took us just fifteen minutes to sail back to that white
+house with the long stoop. Fifteen minutes after that, every crab was in
+water so hot that they gave up clawing and began to turn furiously red.
+
+Half an hour after we sat around a long table out under the trees, with
+a great platter of those scrawny creatures lying with their red shells
+uppermost, a good deal easier to catch than they had been, I can tell
+you.
+
+Mr. Burke was busy as could be, telling me how to put in my knife under
+the red shell, so as to lay the sweet white flesh open.
+
+I say nothing, but it seemed to me there was one jealous female around
+those premises, and that female certainly was not me.
+
+The meat of those creatures is just delicious--what there is of it.
+
+Take it altogether, sisters, it seems to me that catching and eating
+crabs is an amusement which promises better than bathing.
+
+If I am not very much mistaken, Mr. Burke held my hand longer than was
+quite necessary when he said good-night after we reached the hotel. I
+saw E. E. looking at us sideways, and I let it rest--rest lovingly in
+his clasp long enough to wring her heart. What right has she to have any
+feeling about it, I should like to know? Isn't she married?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCIV.
+
+EXTRA POLITENESS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Life is a pleasant thing to have when its chariot-wheels
+revolve in smooth places. I went to bed last night angry with Cousin E.
+E. Ever since Mr. Burke was introduced into our party she has exhibited
+a desire for gentlemen's attention which I think entirely unbecoming a
+married lady. I do not wish to be severe or captious; such feelings
+should be left to maiden ladies of an age that I have not yet dreamed of
+reaching. But a married woman who hankers after any other man's society
+than that of her own lawful husband is--well, not to speak harshly, an
+example that some people may follow, but I won't.
+
+This morning, as we sat on the long stoop of the hotel, gazing out on
+the broad expanse of the boundless ocean, Mr. Burke came gently to my
+side, and spoke:
+
+"Miss Frost."
+
+My heart beat; my eyelids dropped, but I lifted them, in shy innocence,
+to his face, inquiringly, wistfully. What would he say next?
+
+"Miss Frost, have you ever seen a clam-bake?"
+
+I reflected a moment. Were clam-bakes indigenous to our Vermont soil?
+Were they a product of the mountains, or a spontaneous growth of the
+river vales?
+
+"I do not think I have ever seen them growing in Vermont," says I, at
+last; "yet there are few roots or vegetables, wild or tame, that I don't
+know something about. There is wake-robin, on the mountains, with its
+spokes of red berries; and snake-root, and adder's-tongue; but I don't
+remember clam-bakes among them, and I know they are not cultivated in
+our parts as garden-sas, I beg pardon, as vegetables."
+
+Mr. Burke smiled out loud, and his black mustache curled down on each
+side of his lips delightfully.
+
+"I fancy you have never seen anything of the kind in Vermont. Clam-bakes
+are only found at the sea-side--principally around Rhode Island. I don't
+think they prevail much in the mountains, as yet."
+
+"You don't say so!" says I. "Then they are a salt-water plant?"
+
+"Principally found in the sand and mud."
+
+"That don't seem to me very remarkable," says I; "most vegetables are
+found in one or the other. Watermelons, for instance, grow best in a
+bare sand-bank: perhaps your new-fangled vegetable is of that species?"
+
+Again his black mustache gave a lovely curl, and his black eyes looked
+into mine so tenderly, as if something I had said tickled him almost to
+death.
+
+"You _are_ an original creature," said he.
+
+I put one hand on my heart, and bowed.
+
+"People about Sprucehill, especially the Society of Infinite Progress,
+have done me the honor to think so," says I.
+
+"But about the clam-bake--if you like it, we must start for Pleasure Bay
+at once," says Mr. Burke.
+
+"Do they grow down there?" says I.
+
+"Not as a general thing, but we shall make out to get one up, with a
+little trouble."
+
+"Do they grow so deep?" says I.
+
+"You will see when we get there. Mrs. Dempster is ready, and the
+carriage is waiting."
+
+To please that man I would have done almost anything; but it did seem a
+wild-goose chase for a lot of grown people to rush down to Pleasure Bay
+for the fun of pulling up a lot of the strangest vegetables that ever
+grew.
+
+"Do make haste!" cried E. E. through the green slats of her
+window-blinds.
+
+I got up and shook out my dress.
+
+"It will be such fun!" she called out. "Mr. Burke has been so kind as to
+invite us, so don't keep him waiting."
+
+I lifted my eyes to the dark orbs of that noble-looking man, and he must
+have known from the expression that I did not mean to keep him waiting
+in any respect. Gently bending my head, I withdrew.
+
+I came from my room like a moving picture, with my black alpaca newly
+flounced, and surmounted by that fleecy white jacket with great buttons
+and double-breasted in front. Then my white hat, curled up victoriously,
+and the feather waving above it and curlecued around it, was enough to
+tantalize a minister.
+
+Mr. Burke smiled graciously when he saw me come forth clad in the
+whiteness of my principles, and I knew that the sympathy between us was
+national as well as individual.
+
+E. E. came out of her room flaunting a red jacket and a long black
+plume. Dashy for a married woman! But I said nothing. Let that young
+woman work out her own destiny; I am not her husband. I caught her
+sending sly glances from under her eyelashes at Mr. Burke. I wish
+Dempster had been close by, to see for himself, that's all.
+
+If there is anything on earth that I detest, it is a flirty married
+woman.
+
+We rode down to Pleasure Bay, four in the carriage, with that child
+perched up alongside of the driver. E. E. wanted to sit opposite to Mr.
+Burke, and, seized with a fit of extra politeness for that occasion
+only, insisted on it that I should get in first--which would have
+brought me face to face with Dempster. But I, too, was suffering under a
+sudden epidemic of good manners, and stepped back, bowing till the white
+feather shaded my face. She kept waving her hand; but I would not be
+persuaded into pushing myself before a married woman, and at last she
+got in, biting her lips as if she had a tenpenny nail between her teeth.
+I followed, looking innocent as a cat with cream on its tongue, and away
+we went.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCV.
+
+THE CLAM-BAKE.
+
+
+Two carriage-loads of people were at Pleasure Bay, wandering about under
+the trees in front of the hotel. Down between them and the bank was a
+lot of men piling up a heap of round stones and crossing sticks of wood
+over them till a high sort of a cross-beam pinnacle was built, to which
+one of the men set fire. Mercy, how it blazed up and flashed through the
+cracks in the wood! They seemed to enjoy the blaze, and worked like
+beavers around it--though I don't know how a beaver works, never having
+seen one.
+
+Some of the men went down to the water, and, dragging up great armfuls
+of dark green and yellow grass, swelled out here and there with bulbs
+and blisters, laid it in a heap before the fire. Some of the others sat
+down on the rocks, with pails of potatoes and sweet corn between their
+knees, which they began to wash and tie up in their husks.
+
+I was awful curious to know what all this was about, but made up my mind
+to wait and see; for Mr. Burke seemed so anxious and busy that I didn't
+want to stop him by asking questions.
+
+When the wet weeds, potatoes, and corn came on, I thought that the next
+thing would be some clam-bake; but instead of that, a fellow came down
+from the house with a lot of young chickens, picked clean, which he
+carried by the legs, and another loafed up from the water with three
+great horrid green monsters, like crabs swelled out--green as the
+sea-weed, and so dreadfully crawly that the very sight of them made me
+creep all over.
+
+"What on earth are those creatures?" says I to Dempster; "mammoth
+cockroaches that have taken to a seafaring life, or what?"
+
+"Why, lobsters," says he.
+
+"Lobsters!" says I. "Not a bit of it. All the lobsters I have ever seen
+were bright red, and still as mice."
+
+"That was after they were cooked," says he. "Wait till these come out,
+and they'll be red enough, I promise you."
+
+Well, I waited and watched, for what these men were up to was more than
+I could make out. When the wood was all burned down they brushed the
+coals and ashes away with an old broom, and two colored men came up from
+the shore, carrying a two-bushel basket full of little longish-round
+creatures, hard as stone, and with a long black sort of a knot hanging
+out of one end. They were dripping wet, and pieces of sea-weed clung to
+them, as if they grew in the water like the crabs and lobsters.
+
+Well, when the ashes were swept away, and nothing but the hot stones
+were left crowded close together, the two nig--well, colored persons,
+lifted that great basket between them and poured the round creatures
+among the hot stones till they sissed again. Then they piled on a heap
+of sea-weed, and a cloud of steam came pouring through. Then another
+layer, and over that the potatoes and corn were poured down and laid on.
+Then another layer of weeds, and the chickens and three great large
+fish, done up in cloths, were laid out for a steaming, and with them
+those live, green lobsters. Oh, mercy! how they did spread their claws
+and crawl through the sea-weed! It was enough to make you creep all
+over; but the men soon smothered them with steaming grass, which heaved
+up and down for a while, and then sank off, till the lobsters lay as
+dead as the chickens, and made no more fuss about being roasted alive.
+
+By this time the whole heap--grass, chickens, corn, lobsters, and other
+shell creatures--was big as a small haystack. At last the two colored
+persons came down with a long tin pail, in which was a roll of butter
+and some vinegar. They sunk the pail down into the steaming sea-grass,
+clapped the corn on, and buried it with all the rest. Then more sea-weed
+and an old boat-sail flung over all, and that little mountain of
+roasting things was left to steam and sizzle while the whole party went
+to take a walk along the shore.
+
+Mr. Burke kept by my side, and part of the time he carried my parasol,
+shading my face with it in the tenderest way.
+
+He said something about the clam-bake, but I had really got so sick of
+everything in the fish, fowl, or vegetable line, that a curiosity, more
+or less, was of no consequence, so I said I should know how I liked
+clam-bakes better when I had seen one.
+
+He answered that would be soon, for half an hour was enough to put one
+through.
+
+Sisters, I was in no sort of hurry about it, for the rest of them were
+busy chatting and talking, so that we were just as good as alone, and
+the moments were precious as gold sands in an hour-glass.
+
+By and by some one set up a shout. Mr. Burke wheeled right round, and
+says he:
+
+"They are going to open the clam-bake; come and see it done?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCVI.
+
+THAT CLAM BAKE.
+
+
+He walked fast. I followed him with reluctant footsteps. What did I care
+for clam-bakes or any other new-fangled vegetable while he was by my
+side?
+
+The crowd were all around that heap of sea-weed when we came up. Men,
+women, Irish help, and nig--well, colored freemen, with eager eyes and
+open mouths, were waiting for the sail-cloth to be taken off. On the
+grass, under the trees, a great long table was set out with plates,
+glasses, castors, and things. At the end, two pails of ice, with the
+necks of a dozen bottles peeping up like hungry birds in a nest, stood
+ready for somebody to uncork.
+
+Well, the nig--freedman gave that sail a jerk, and a cloud of salty
+steam rolled up from the sea-grass. Then he raked away a winrow of that,
+dug out a pail of melted butter and vinegar, and held a lobster up by
+one claw, looking red as a British soldier's jacket. The creature had
+given up fighting, and hung in his hand meek as Moses. The poor thing
+was green enough when he went in, but came out blazing red and steaming
+hot.
+
+More sea-weed; chickens dripping with gravy; heaps of corn; potatoes,
+mealy, and broken open; fish, and then those longish-round shell
+things, heaped in plates and dishes, were carried off to the table. We
+followed those dishes; we sat down to eat. Those longish hard-shelled
+creatures had all burst open, and something that smelt delicious lay
+inside, with black heads sticking out.
+
+I watched to see what the rest did with those animals, then seized one
+by the head, drew him out, soused him in the melted butter, and dropped
+him softly into my open mouth.
+
+"Delicious, scrumptious, beyond anything I ever ate in my life," says I,
+when Mr. Burke leaned toward me and wanted to know how I liked it. "But
+what are these black-headed things with shells, called?"
+
+"Oh, soft-shells--the best part of the clam-bake, I think," says he.
+
+"I reckon you are right," says I, taking another little fellow by the
+nape of the neck, and biting him off at the shoulders. Then I drank a
+glass of the sparklingest cider you ever tasted, and went in for an ear
+of corn, smoking hot, and the breast of a chicken.
+
+Mr. Burke wanted me to eat some of the red lobster, but the thought of
+it made me creep all over, so I asked to be excused, and said I
+preferred a dozen or two more soft-shells.
+
+There was a good deal of first-rate cider drank around that table, and
+we left a bushel of open shells under the trees, besides a heap of
+lobsters, clams, and chicken bones, well picked.
+
+Then we went back to look at the place where they had been cooked, and
+found nothing but a heap of smoking stones, a ring of burnt grass, and a
+pile of steamy sea-weed. Somehow, the sight of it all made me feel sort
+of faint, and it didn't seem to me that I should ever want to eat or
+drink again.
+
+We went home from Pleasure Bay in the carriage, feeling lazy and kind of
+half sea-sick.
+
+That night I dreamed that a whole regiment of green lobsters were
+crawling over my bed, clawing at me fiercely as they went. Then I
+thought that Mr. Burke came and shoved them off with both arms flung
+out, and invited me to breakfast on a heap of empty shells, dipped in
+butter, which set awful heavy on my stomach.
+
+In fact, I had a worrying night, and got up feeling as if I had been
+feasting on tenpenny nails and roasted flat-irons.
+
+
+
+
+XCVII.
+
+ONE HOUR OF HEAVEN.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--You haven't the least idea of what warm weather is in
+Vermont. Why, if one of your mountain trout streams could have run
+through New York, it would have boiled over and cooked the poor little
+speckled creatures that live in its waves. You never saw anything like
+it in your born days. The sea breezes at Long Branch seemed to come over
+an ocean of melted lead, blasted up by some old furnace of a volcano.
+For one whole week I was just dying of envy, when I thought of the pigs
+roving loose in our village, with such lovely mud puddles to lie down
+in, without caring a sumarke whether their clothes were mussed--excuse
+that word, I got it here in York--or not.
+
+While I was panting for breath on the sea-shore, I could think of them,
+with home-sick longing, up to their throats in the soft, mushy fluid of
+a delicious puddle, with swarms of yellow butterflies rising, floating,
+and settling around them, as if a bed of primroses had got tired of
+growing in one place, and had burst off on a grand spree through the
+air, settling down for a drink now and then.
+
+Yes, sisters, I was brought, in the hot blast of those summer days, to a
+state of unchristian envy, and would have been glad to swap places with
+flounders, or have slept in some cellar, with a block of ice for a
+pillow.
+
+But nothing that I ever saw lasts for ever, or if it does I haven't
+lived long enough to prove it. Still, one gets restless in weather like
+this, when human beings are dropping down dead in the streets of a city
+close by in dozens, from sunstrokes.
+
+This morning I sat in my room, with a short gown and not over many
+skirts on, looking through the green slats of my door, and watching the
+sunshine shimmer down on the waves where the little white vessels were
+folding their sails, and going to sleep like birds too lazy for flying,
+when a colored person came to my door, and says he:
+
+"Mr. Burke's compliments, and will Miss Frost take a walk with him on
+the beach?"
+
+I started up, and, says I:
+
+"Won't I!" Then I composed myself, and sent back compliments, and Miss
+Frost will have great pleasure in complying with Mr. Burke's polite
+invitation.
+
+When the--colored messenger was gone, I sat down in the Boston rocker,
+clasped my hands, and drew a deep, deep sigh of ecstatic expectation.
+Then I remembered that he was waiting, and sprang to my feet.
+
+With my two shaking hands I fastened the other woman's hair over my own,
+that would neither curl nor friz worth a cent that awful hot day. Then I
+put on a white muslin dress, that looked seraphically innocent, and
+tightened it up with a plaid silk sash, that circled my slender waist
+and floated off like a rainbow breaking through a cloud.
+
+Then I took my parasol in one hand, held my flowing skirts up with the
+other, and went forth to meet my destiny. Oh, how my feet longed to
+dance! How my girlish heart beat and fluttered in this innocent bosom.
+
+He was waiting for me in the long stoop, leaning against a post, and
+fanning his manly head with the broad brim of his Panama hat. Oh, how
+majestic, how--but language fails me here.
+
+Arm in arm we walked along the beach. He leaned toward me, I leaned
+with gentle heaviness on him--delightful reciprocity--eloquent silence.
+A soft breeze blew up from the ocean, and kissed us both with refreshing
+softness.
+
+"Ah!" said the noble man by my side, "this is delicious."
+
+"Deliriously so," I murmured.
+
+"You feel the revivifying effect?" says he.
+
+"Exquisitely," says I, leaning a little more confidingly on his stalwart
+arm.
+
+He bent his stately head and looked down into my eyes. Sisters, the
+thrill of that glance shook my delicate frame as bumble-bees set a
+full-blown rose to trembling when they swarm in its heart.
+
+"Shall we go down to the sands?" says he; "the incoming tide is dashing
+them with coolness."
+
+I understood the delicate meaning conveyed in these words. Nothing could
+be more exquisitely suggestive. The tide--what was that but his own
+noble self? The sands--pure, white, untrodden--in my whole life I never
+heard anything more typical.
+
+"If you desire it," I said.
+
+"If I desire it. Ah! Miss Frost, it is for you to say."
+
+My heart leaped to this as a speckled trout snaps at a fly. Nothing so
+near a proposal had ever reached me before. But a New England woman is
+modest; she does not snatch at the first offer--far from it. I pretended
+not to understand the badly hidden meaning of his metaphor. A little art
+of this kind is feminine and excusable, even in a young girl dignified
+with Society membership and a mission. I felt that he could appreciate
+it. He did. Some people were below us on the sands. They paused to look
+up as this noble creature handed me down those wooden steps. The effect
+must have been artistical. My cloud-like skirts floated softly on the
+zephyrs. My scarf streamed out like a banner. I am afraid the curve of
+my boot might have been seen from below, for many admiring faces were
+turned that way, and Mr. Burke cast his eye downward in a fugitive
+manner.
+
+At last we reached the sands, on which both the sun and waves were
+beating luminously. By a ridge of white sand he paused.
+
+"Shall we sit here?" says he, with tender questioning.
+
+"Anywhere," says I, with sweet feminine complacency.
+
+Then I dropped down on the sand ridge, and sweeping my skirts together,
+cast a timid glance up and around.
+
+That noble man was spreading a silk umbrella. There was a hitch in the
+spring, and, such was his eager impatience to occupy the seat I had so
+delicately suggested, that a real naughty word broke from his lips--a
+word I, as a missionary, never could forgive, if it hadn't been the
+proof of such loving impatience. As it was, like a recording angel, I
+blotted it out of my memory with a forgiving sigh.
+
+That refractory umbrella was hoisted at last, and its owner placed
+himself on the sand beside me, holding it not seaward, but like a tent,
+shading us two from the whole world, while the sun took care of itself.
+
+"This," says he, "is a sweet relief. Don't you find it so, Miss Frost?"
+
+I answered him with a sigh, soft, but audible.
+
+"Yes, one can draw a full breath here," says he. "I was sure you would
+enjoy it."
+
+"I do, indeed," says I, playing with the sand in the innocence of my
+heart.
+
+Evidently embarrassed by deep feeling, he too began to sift the white
+sand through his fingers, which came so near mine that they made me
+catch my breath for fear he might clasp them. On the contrary, he gave
+up the temptatious exercise, and throwing a generous restraint on
+himself, began to talk metaphorically and metaphysically about many
+things, especially about gathering maple-sap, of which he questioned me
+tenderly, veiling the hidden meaning in his heart, by a seeming interest
+in our trees.
+
+He asked me, with infinite meaning in his voice, at what period the
+sparkling sap began to mount up from the curly roots of our maples, and
+vivify the trunk, twigs, and branches of that noble tree.
+
+I understood his meaning, delicately veiled as it was. He wished to
+reveal his contempt of young saplings compared to the vigorous tree. It
+was a poetic way of comparing young snips of things with whole-souled
+girls, who had all the bloom of youth, and all the strength of maturity.
+
+I spoke my mind on the subject. I said that strength, greenness, a
+full-grown trunk were necessary before sweet wholesome sap could
+circulate from root to top of a sugar maple. That saplings amounted to
+just nothing at all. In fact, they kept absorbing, but gave forth
+nothing; that a rich maturity was desirable before the maple became
+important as a forest-tree or an object of wealth.
+
+I think he understood me--or rather he understood that I, with the
+exquisite intuition of genius, understood him. For right off, on that,
+he said that he would like to live in Vermont, and own maple-trees
+himself; that native sugar was a sweet business, and must have a
+softening tendency upon those who entered into it.
+
+He sometimes bought it of little boys in the cars, and always felt a
+soothing influence after eating it, that made him long to drink the
+native sap fresh from the tree. In fact, he took a deep interest in
+Vermont and all its institutions.
+
+While we were talking on these sweet subjects, quite a breeze sprang up
+from the water.
+
+Things brighten around us. The sky looked blue. The heaving waves of the
+ocean began to swell and sparkle as if a diamond mine were breaking up
+in their depths. I am satisfied that Long Branch is all that it has been
+cracked up to be--and more too, when kindred souls meet on its sandy
+shores.
+
+"How bright! how beautiful!" says he, backing off suddenly from the
+maple question, which had covered a world of hidden meaning, and looking
+out to sea, with a delicate wish, no doubt, to spare my blushes.
+
+"Some persons have been kind enough to think so," says I, "but it isn't
+for me to say."
+
+"I love the fitful changes--the soft transparency: nothing can be more
+lovely," says he.
+
+The occasion required downcast eyes and shrinking silence. I gave him
+both. There could be no better answer for a speech so personal and yet
+so poetic.
+
+"I hope you share my feelings in this."
+
+That moment--that precious, precious moment--was broken in upon in a way
+that makes me clench my teeth as I write. Up the sands, racing forward
+like a young colt, came "that child," with her flat flying back by the
+strings, and a broken parasol in her hand; up she flew toward Mr. Burke.
+
+"Come here," says she, "I want you to whip that boy out there within an
+inch of his life. I broke my parasol over his head, but it wasn't half
+enough; I want you to give it to him good."
+
+"But what has he done," says Mr. Burke, no doubt riled to the depths of
+his noble heart, as I was.
+
+"Done enough, I should think. He mimicked the way I carried my parasol,
+and said some folks wanted to be young ladies before they could
+read--that's what he has done," says the creature, flaming out like a
+bantam.
+
+"Perhaps we had better go in," says Mr. Burke, lifting himself out of
+the sand.
+
+"Not till you've given him hail Columbia," says the creature, taking a
+new grip on her broken parasol.
+
+"I rather think he has got that," says Mr. Burke, reaching out his hand
+to help me up.
+
+I arose. I jerked that Leghorn flat by the strings, and tied it under
+the creature's chin with a pull that made her scream. Then I took Mr.
+Burke's arm and mounted the wooden steps, with a feeling at my heart
+that is not to be described by mortal pen. What a world of bliss that
+wicked little wretch broke in upon. His soul was verging towards mine so
+beautifully. The final words were burning on his lips when she rushed
+in. Still, memory is left, reason is left. I know what was in that
+noble heart, and that knowledge is bliss.
+
+I felt this: I knew his meaning. To a common woman he might have said,
+"I love you dearly. I wish above all things to spend my life with you;"
+but to a creature made up of sensitive pride and poetic niceties,
+unclothed proposals of this kind must be quite out of place. Of course I
+understood all that, and felt the refinement of his conduct deeply.
+
+What more _could_ a man say than this? In order to be delicately
+personal, one must talk by comparisons. To praise the State one is born
+in, is to praise one's self. To seize upon any material thing for a
+poetical comparison with a human being, is to be intensely complimentary
+to that being.
+
+For the first time in my life I feel the sweet certainty of duplication.
+My heart swells with the beautiful faith of hope deferred. Those
+heavenly lines we have sung so often together in our meeting-house come
+back to my mind--
+
+    "To patient faith the prize is sure--"
+
+I dare not go farther and complete the rhyme, because human sensation
+should not encroach on the divine; but the spirit of that hymn sings in
+my heart; for if there is anything on this earth that woman should be
+grateful for, it is love.
+
+Yes, my sisters, at last I feel that I am beloved. A ray of sympathetic
+feeling has darted from a grand and noble soul to mine, changing that
+dull, sandy coast to Elysium.
+
+Last night, when I retired to the secrecy of my chamber, it seemed to me
+that if ever a woman's heart--beg pardon, a young girl's heart--was born
+again, mine had become more tenderly infantine than it was when I lay
+one week old in my loving mother's arms.
+
+The moonlight was streaming through the muslin curtains of my room when
+I entered it. It was an ovation of silvery light dawning upon the new
+life that opens before me. I do not know how other people feel when the
+crisis of fate is on them, but in my heart there is room for nothing but
+infinite thankfulness.
+
+Yes, sisters, I think you can conscientiously congratulate me. Virtue
+does sometimes meet with its own reward, especially when it is combined
+with youthfulness, elegance, and high mental attributes.
+
+
+
+
+XCVI.
+
+C. O. D.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--The cruelty of one female woman to another is something
+awful. As a general thing, E. E. Dempster is a good-natured, amiable
+person, but her conduct on the very day after that heavenly season on
+the shore was worthy of the Spanish Inquisition. She has lacerated the
+heart in my bosom, and torn me away from this place like a ruthless
+highwayman. That is what she has done.
+
+Early in the morning, while I was dreaming sweetly of the sea-shore,
+that unfeeling female rushed into my room.
+
+"Phoemie," says she, "you can't sleep any longer. We are packing up for
+the city. Cecilia has been insulted here, and I won't stay another hour
+in the place."
+
+"What! what is it?" says I. "How could you! He was just giving up
+metaphor and coming squarely out in the sweetest way."
+
+"You will have no more than time to pack your trunk before the train
+starts," says she.
+
+"Starts--what for! where?"
+
+"For New York, and after that to Saratoga; Cecilia insists on it, poor,
+sweet darling."
+
+"For New York?" says I.
+
+"On the way to Saratoga."
+
+"But--but who is going. Is--is--?"
+
+"Why, you and I, Dempster, and that sweet, ill-used child. Would you
+believe it, that rude boy's father refuses to whip him, and said a girl
+that could give a black eye with her parasol was--well, I can't find the
+heart to repeat it. At any rate, she doesn't stay another hour under the
+same roof with that little fiend."
+
+"But is that all--Oh, tell me is no one else going?" says I feeling as
+if a ton of lead had been heaped on me.
+
+"Dear me. There is no one else to care for the poor child. Of course, no
+one will take it up but us. So make haste."
+
+Out she went, leaving me just heart-broken and ready to give up. How
+could I go? how could I leave him and "the Branch," as if my soul were
+fleeing from his?
+
+It was of no use. E. E. was set upon going, and I couldn't help myself.
+
+Well, sisters, two hours after I left that bed we had packed up bag and
+baggage, given a cart-load of trunks for the express-men to smash or
+carry, just as they liked, and then took a little run of railroad, and a
+sail in a steamboat so grand and airy, and no ending, that we began to
+feel sorry that James Fisk was dead, or that his splendid ghost didn't
+roam along the steamboat track and keep things ship-shape, as he left
+them.
+
+Well, in that steamboat we reached New York, warm, restless, and nigh
+about ready to give out, or take a friendly sunstroke and be peaceably
+carried away to a cool vault in some shady graveyard.
+
+I mentioned this alternative to Cousin Dempster, but he shook his head
+and answered that some of us might find ourselves waking up in a more
+uncomfortable place than the streets of New York; which I thought
+impossible, but said nothing.
+
+Well, we had a few hours to stay in the city before a boat would be
+ready to take us to Saratoga Springs--a name that sounded so cool and
+refreshing, that I longed to get there and breathe again.
+
+Cousin E. E. said, when we went ashore:
+
+"Phoemie," says she, "there are a few hours before us; suppose we go
+a-shopping? I want ever so many things. Saratoga is a dressy place, and
+I haven't a thing to wear."
+
+Then, before I could object, says she to Dempster:
+
+"A check, my dear, or if you have the funds on hand."
+
+Dempster gave a sigh that shook his manly bosom through and through, and
+says he:
+
+"There," drawing a roll of bank bills from his vest pocket, "will that
+do?"
+
+E. E. unrolled the bills and sorted them out.
+
+"Ten, twenty, fifty, ten, ten, ten, fif-- Why, Dempster, what do you
+mean? How far will a hundred and fifty dollars go? I want to spend more
+than that on Valenciennes lace for Cecilia's dress. The child must have
+something to wear."
+
+She spoke in a grieved, half-angry way, that touched Dempster to the
+heart. He took out his pocket-book, but not another sign of money was in
+it. Then he felt in three or four pockets with the air of a man who was
+tormented with doubts of finding anything. At last he stopped looking.
+
+"I haven't another red cent about me, dear. Indeed I haven't."
+
+"Dear me, what am I to do? There is a guipure sacque at Stewart's that I
+must have."
+
+"Couldn't you get along without it?" says Dempster, with such pathetic
+earnestness that I really felt sorry for him.
+
+"Get along without it! How can you ask?"
+
+"That Brussels lace thing," faltered Dempster.
+
+"What, that? I have had it six months at least; besides, I saw another
+just like it at the hotel, and that is enough to disgust one with
+anything. If people will pattern after me, I can't help it. Then again
+one gets so tired of the same thing."
+
+"But I have no more money."
+
+"Can't you draw a check?"
+
+"My check-book is at the office."
+
+"Always so when I want anything. Now, Dempster, this is too bad."
+
+"Well," says Dempster, desperately, "get the thing, and tell Stewart to
+charge it?"
+
+Cousin E. E. turned her face away. It was awful cloudy, and I could see
+that she was biting her lips. She had an awful long bill at Stewart's
+already. Then her face lighted up.
+
+"Can't I have them sent C. O. D., by express? You will have time to get
+plenty of money before then," says she, as soft as silk weed.
+
+"I hate the system," says Dempster; "money in hand is the only way a
+lady should make purchases. Then she knows what she is about. Everything
+else leads to extravagance. I hate bills as if they were copperheads;
+they are things I never will forgive."
+
+I saw that E. E. turned pale, and a red flush came around her eyes as if
+she were just ready to burst out a-crying.
+
+Dempster thought it was because he had stood out about the money and
+gave in a trifle.
+
+"For this once," says he, "have the things charged, but bring the bill
+with you. I must know what I am about in these matters."
+
+"But I mightn't find them all in one place. Hadn't we better make it a
+C. O. D., just for once?" says she, pleading for her own way as if her
+mouth were full of humble pie.
+
+"Do as you please for this once," says he, half out of patience, "but
+remember, I am set against bills and running accounts--pay as you go
+along, is my motto."
+
+E. E. drew a deep breath, and, putting the money in a little mite of a
+leather satchel fastened to her side by a belt, took up her parasol and
+prepared to march off.
+
+Cecilia followed after, surveying her little toadstool of a parasol, and
+stooping forward as she walked, like an undersized kangaroo.
+
+I only wish E. E., or even Cousin Dempster, could see that child as I
+see her. But they can't. Where she is concerned, they seem born fools,
+both of them.
+
+Well, off we went one way, and Dempster the other--he to get the money,
+and his wife to spend it. I looked on, and wondered how any man living
+could afford to get married. The whole thing made me down-hearted, and
+half-ashamed of my relationship with a woman who could worry money out
+of her husband like that, and not feel how mean she was--could not my
+cousin see that she was poisoning the soul of her own child by an
+example which she was just as certain to follow as she was to live.
+
+Well, we got into a carriage and drove up Broadway; but instead of going
+to Stewart's great marble building, E. E. stopped at some other places,
+and kept buying and buying till I got tired out, and sat on a round
+stool by the counter, saying nothing, but thinking a good deal. Each
+place we left, I heard her say, "Grand Union Hotel, Saratoga: C. O. D.,"
+till I got tired to death of the word.
+
+At one place my cousin and that child had a grand set-to in the store.
+Cecilia wanted a bright-red silk dress to wear under her lace one; but
+E. E. liked blue best, and ordered it. Then Cecilia declared she didn't
+want any dress at all, broke her new parasol striking it against the
+counter, and ended off by flinging herself down on a stool and drumming
+her feet against the counter--so mad that she cried till everybody in
+the store heard her.
+
+Of course E. E. gave in, just to pacify her, while I would have given
+fifty of the brightest silver dollars ever issued by the U. S.
+Government, for the happiness of giving her the neatest little trouncing
+she ever got in her life. But luxuries like these, I can hardly expect
+just yet. How that cousin of mine can give up a parental prerogative so
+tempting to the hands I cannot imagine. I really would not put so much
+pleasure off an hour.
+
+
+
+
+XCVII.
+
+TAKEN IN.
+
+
+Well, after trapesing about from one store to another till I was nigh
+about tired to death, E. E. concluded that she had got through her
+shopping, except a few things that we could carry in our pockets, which
+kept us rushing in and out of every little shop we came to for an hour
+longer. Then she said we would stop into Purssell's and get something to
+eat, for she was beginning to feel hungry. This had been the case with
+me ever so long; not that I hankered much in hot weather for hearty
+food, but I felt a sort of faintness; and when she said something about
+Purssell's having delicious peaches, I knew that they were exactly the
+thing which would appease all the internal longing of my nature.
+
+But just as my mouth was beginning to water, E. E. took out her watch
+and gave a little scream.
+
+"Why," says she, "who would a-thought it? We have but just fifteen
+minutes to reach the boat in?"
+
+My heart sank. The taste of those peaches had almost got into my mouth,
+but now a taste of dust came in their place. I could just have sat down
+and cried.
+
+"Never mind," says E. E.; "we can get dinner on board."
+
+"Dinner on board!" Thin soup; hot meat down in the bottom of a
+steamboat, with a smell of oil, sour water, and musty linen all around
+you--that is what "a dinner on board" means, and nothing else. The very
+thought made me feel rily about the temper--all that I wanted was some
+peaches.
+
+You will not wonder, sisters, that I hankered after this delicious
+fruit, which is about the only good thing that grows which we do not
+have in the old Vermont State. Only think of them--round, plump, juicy;
+with the redness of a warm sunset burning on one side, and pale-gold
+glowing on the other; cool, delicious, melting away in the mouth with a
+flavor that just makes you want to kiss some smiling baby while it is
+on your lips! Think of them! then imagine my feelings when I was hurried
+into a hack, and rattled off to the steamboat with the promise of a hot
+dinner in its internal regions. We saw peaches on every hand as we drove
+along--in stores, on street tables, in baskets carried by Irish women,
+who looked up at the carriage-window pleadingly as we drove along.
+
+"Wait one minute," says I, as a woman came up with her long basket
+brimming over with the luscious fruit; "I must have some peaches."
+
+"Not a second," says E. E.; "don't you see Dempster beckoning from the
+deck? The last bell is ringing. Come, come!"
+
+The Irish woman lifted up her basket, and stood there enticing me. E. E.
+rushed up the plank, calling out: "Make haste, make haste!"
+
+Cecilia sung out: "Come along, Phoemie!"
+
+Two men had hold of the plank bridge. I had to cross then, or be left
+behind. I cast one yearning look towards the basket, rushed up the
+plank, and stood panting, by the side of Dempster.
+
+"Oh dear, it is too bad!" says I.
+
+"What is it, Phoemie?" says Dempster.
+
+"Peaches!" says I. "Those delicious peaches--see how they glow in the
+sunshine!"
+
+"Oh, nonsense! There is plenty on board," says he; "I'll go and get
+some."
+
+"Not yet," says E. E.; "the deck is so crowded."
+
+Dempster got seats for us and a stool for himself. The crowd was packed
+so close that one could hardly breathe. I was thirsty, I was tired out,
+and just ready to cry. E. E. was tired also, and a little cross. Cecilia
+was just as she always is--a nuisance. I felt like thanking Dempster
+when he jumped up, and says he:
+
+"Now for the peaches!"
+
+Away he went, just as good-natured as could be, calling back for me to
+keep his seat for him. I laid my parasol on it, and kept my hand on
+that; but a minute after came a great heathen of a fellow and attempted
+to take the stool.
+
+"It is engaged," says I, pressing down my hand.
+
+"What of that?" says he, jerking the stool away, and throwing my parasol
+on to the floor. "Every one for himself, and no favors."
+
+I was blue as indigo before that. At another time this creature would
+have riled me into a tempest, but now I felt more like crying. But there
+he sat, plump on the stool, looking as self-contented as if butter would
+not melt in his mouth.
+
+Dempster came back. I looked up longingly. His hands were empty.
+
+"I am very sorry," says he, "but there isn't a peach on board."
+
+Well, there I sat, with the sun pouring down on me, while E. E. read the
+illustrated papers, and that child made herself generally numerous among
+the passengers. After awhile I got up to look over the side of the
+vessel, when that horrid wretch snatched up my seat and carried it off,
+looking back at me and laughing.
+
+I said nothing--what was the use?--but leaned against the cabin-door,
+holding my satchel, the most forlorn creature you ever saw. Just then
+some one spoke to me. I looked round. It was a roly-poly, oldish woman,
+who spread considerably over her chair, and held a travelling-basket on
+her lap. She had found an empty stool, and asked me to take it.
+
+I sat down while she smiled blandly upon me.
+
+"Never mind that fellow," says she. "Some men are born animals of one
+kind or another, so let them go."
+
+Her words were kind--her manner motherly. I liked the woman. She is not
+elegant, I thought, but who could be with all that breadth of chest and
+brevity of limb? I smiled and thanked her, wondering who she was.
+
+"Pretty scenery," says she, pointing to the bank on which some
+cottage-houses, and a wooden tavern with red maroon half-curtains at the
+window, seemed to set the whole neighborhood on fire. "Now I would give
+anything for a house like that. Snug, isn't it?"
+
+She might have been looking at the wooden tavern, or at a cottage close
+by with a beautiful drapery of vines running along the porch. "Of
+course," thought I, "she means that."
+
+"Yes," says I, "it looks delightfully quiet."
+
+She nodded, and opened her basket, a capacious affair, quite large
+enough to hold half a peck of peaches. My mouth began to water.
+Perhaps--
+
+"Take one," says she, handing over a cracker.
+
+I took the disappointment, and tried to eat, but with that hankering
+after peaches in my throat it seemed like refreshing one's self on
+sawdust. She noticed this, I think, and, with a little hesitation,
+looked into her basket again, then closed it, and, looking towards me,
+whispered--
+
+"That's dry eating. Come down to the cabin, and I'll give you something
+nice."
+
+"Something nice!" I felt my eyes brighten. "Something nice--peaches, of
+course. What else could she have but peaches?" I thanked her with
+enthusiasm; my eyes gloated on her basket. Peaches and plenty of
+them--delicious!
+
+The stranger arose, smoothed down her dress, and led the way downstairs.
+Her presence was imposing, her step firm as a rock. Assuredly my new
+acquaintance was no common person--a little stout, certainly, but so is
+the Queen of England.
+
+I followed her eagerly, thinking of the peaches, longing for them with
+inexpressible longing. We went through the cabin--on and on--back of
+some curtains that draped it at one end. Here she paused, set her basket
+on a marble table, and proceeded to open it.
+
+I did not wish to show the craving eagerness which possessed me, and
+delicately turned my eyes away. Then she spoke in a deep mellow voice,
+as though she had fed on peaches from the cradle up.
+
+"Look a-here," says she. "Isn't this something nice?"
+
+I looked! the basket was open. She held a tumbler in one hand and a
+bottle in the other, from which a stream of brandy gurgled. That rotund
+impostor came toward me, beaming.
+
+"There," says she, "take right hold. It's first-rate Cognac."
+
+All the Vermont blood in my veins riled suddenly. I drew myself up to
+the full queenly height that so many people have thought imposing.
+Disappointment sharpened virtue's indignation.
+
+"Madam," says I, "you have practised a hospitable fraud--in Christian
+charity I will call it hospitable--on a New England lady, who looks upon
+temperance as a cardinal virtue. Put up your bottle. Maple sap and sweet
+cider from straws are the strongest drinks I ever indulge in."
+
+"Maple sap," says she, with a rumbling, mellow laugh, which ended in a
+cough as the brandy went down her throat. "Sweet cider, through straws!
+Well, every one to her taste."
+
+Here she filled the glass again and held it out, smiling like a harvest
+moon.
+
+"What, you won't take the least nip, just to save it, you know?"
+
+I turned my back upon that rotund tempter, and walked with a stately
+step to the deck, followed by a rich gurgle from the second glass as it
+went down that perfidious creature's throat.
+
+"Goodness gracious! What a surprise!"
+
+This was my exclamation when I saw Mr. Burke coming towards me, across
+the deck, with a small basketful of the most delicious peaches in his
+hand.
+
+There he came, smiling so blandly, and held out the basket for me to
+help myself. He was going to Saratoga, he said. The hot season had
+driven him to seek mountainous air. O sisters!
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Phemie Frost's Experiences, by Ann S. Stephens
+
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Phemie Frost's Experiences, by Ann S. Stephens
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Phemie Frost's Experiences
+
+Author: Ann S. Stephens
+
+Release Date: October 13, 2009 [EBook #30245]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHEMIE FROST'S EXPERIENCES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roberta Staehlin and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<div class="block2">
+<h4>Transcriber's Note:</h4>
+
+<p>Unexpected and alternative spelling, hyphenation, capitalisation
+punctuation, possible typographer's errors and omitted words, and
+incorrectly numbered chapters and page numbers have been retained as
+they appear in the original publication.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h1 class="title"><big>PHEMIE FROST'S EXPERIENCES.</big><br />
+<br />
+<small>BY</small>
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Mrs. ANN S. STEPHENS.</span></h1>
+
+<p class="center">AUTHOR OF "FASHION AND FAMINE," "REJECTED WIFE," "OLD<br />
+HOMESTEAD," ETC.,
+ETC., ETC.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 70px;">
+<img src="images/logo.jpg" width="70" height="52" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h4>NEW YORK:<br />
+
+<big><i>G. W. Carleton &amp; Co., Publishers.</i></big><br />
+
+<small>LONDON: S. LOW, SON &amp; CO.</small>
+
+<small>M.DCCC.LXXIV.</small>
+</h4>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<h5>Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by<br />
+<span class="pub">G. W. CARLETON &amp; CO.,</span><br />
+In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.</h5>
+
+<hr class="white" />
+
+<h5><span class="pub2">Maclauchlan,</span><br />
+Stereotyper and Printer, 56, 58 and 60 Park Street, New York.</h5>
+
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<div class="block2">
+<p class="center">To<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Frank Leslie, Esq.</span>,<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">One of the Best-tried and Most Valued Friends I Have,</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>THIS VOLUME</i>,<br />
+<br />
+THE LIGHT AMUSEMENT OF MY LEISURE HOURS,<br />
+<br />
+IS<br />
+<br />
+Respectfully Dedicated.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><big>ANN S. STEPHENS.</big></p>
+
+<div class="address">
+<span class="smcap">St. Cloud Hotel</span>, <span class="right2">}</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">New York</span>, <i>March</i>, 1874. <span class="right2">}</span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2>PREFACE.</h2>
+
+<div class="block2">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Thistle</span> down, thistle down, cast to the wind<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">So lightly and wildly, you scarcely can find<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A glimpse of it here, or a gleam of it there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As it trembles, a silvery mist, on the air.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Like the wide thorny leaves whence the mother root threw<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Up its crown of rich purple, bejewelled with dew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These feathery nothings, barbed, sparsely, with seeds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Must struggle for life with the brambles and weeds.<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>9<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+<a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+
+<table summary="Table of contents">
+
+<tr>
+<th class="thr2"><small>CHAPTER</small></th>
+<th class="thr" colspan="2"><small>PAGE</small></th>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">I.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Leaving Home.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#I">11</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">II.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Ph&oelig;mie's First Visit.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#II">  25</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">III.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;About Girls.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#III">      28</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">IV.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;More About Girls.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#IV">       33</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">V.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Poor Children.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#V">      39</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">VI.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;He Has Come.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#VI">       41</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">VII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;The French Dress-maker.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#VII">       45</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">VIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;The Genuine Madame.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#VIII">    48</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">IX.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Ready to Land.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#IX">     51</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">X.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Down the Bay.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#X">       54</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XI.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;The Grand Duke.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XI">    57</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Tickets for the Ball.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XII">   60</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;The Grand Duke's Ball.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XIII">       63</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XIV.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;The Natural History Philanthropist.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XIV"> 67</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XV.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Christmas in New York.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XV">   74</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XVI.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;The Night Before Christmas.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XVI">    78</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XVII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Early Service.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XVII">   81</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XVIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;High Church.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XVIII">    84</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XIX.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Christmas Morning.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XIX">      88</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XX.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;About Lions.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XX">       90</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXI.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Dining in the Dark.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXI">     95</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;New Year's Day.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXII">        99</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;The New Year's Reception.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXIII">    102</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXIV.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Mignon: A Night at the Grand Opera.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXIV"> 108</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXV.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;The Black Crook.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXV">        114</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXVI.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Living Apart.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXVI">    120</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXVII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;More About Fisk.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXVII">      124</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXVIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;She Would Go.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXVIII">        128</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXIX.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Mr. Greeley's Birthday Party.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXIX">     132</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXX.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Leap Year.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXX">       135</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXI.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;A Man that Wouldn't Take Money.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXXI">    140</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;A Democratic Lunch.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXXII">   144</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Dempster Proposes a Trip.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXXIII">  149</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXIV.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;In Washington.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXXIV">        152</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXV.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Getting Information.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXXV">  157</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXVI.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;The Liederkranz Ball.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXXVI">       161</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXVII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;How Did the Papers Know?</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXXVII">  165</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXVIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Reception of the Japanese.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXXVIII">    168</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXIX.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;The Japanese.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXXIX">        171</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XL.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;That Diplomatic Stag Party.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XL">  174</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XLI.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;The Dinner.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XLI">    179</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XLII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;In the Basement of the Capitol.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XLII"> 182</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XLIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Ph&oelig;mie Dines with a Senator.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XLIII">186</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XLIV.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Marble Halls.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XLIV">     191</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XLV.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Randolph Rogers' Bronze Doors.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XLV">    194</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XLVI.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Was it a Meeting-house?</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XLVI">      197</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XLVII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Easter.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XLVII">    201</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>10<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+XLVIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;A Church Higher Yet.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XLVIII">    204</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XLIX.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Easter Sunday.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XLIX">     206</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">L.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;That Man with the Lantern.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#L">  211</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LI.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Mrs. Grant's Reception.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LI">     215</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Representative Women.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LII">      220</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;A Literary Party.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LIII">    223</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LIV.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Dressing for a Party.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LIV">       227</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LV.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Foreign Ministers.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LV">    230</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LVI.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Good Clothes.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LVI">   237</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LVII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;The Party of the Season.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LVII">   241</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LVIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Down the Potomac.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LVIII">     245</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LIX.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Mount Vernon.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LIX">      250</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LX.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Mr. Greeley's Nomination.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LX">       253</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXI.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Women and Things.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXI">       258</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;A Trip to Annapolis.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXII">   263</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Among the Cadets.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXIII">     267</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXIV.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;American Authors.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXIV">     271</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXV.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;The Statue of Shakespeare.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXV">    275</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXVI.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Racing Dresses.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXVI">       279</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXVII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;The First Horse-race.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXVII">   282</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXVIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Off Again.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXVIII">     288</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXIX.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;The Steeple-chase.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXIX">      293</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXX.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Preparing for Sea.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXX">       296</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXXI.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Yacht-racing.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXXI">   300</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXXII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Music that is Music.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXXII">      304</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXXIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Hubbishness.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXXIII">        306</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXXIV.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Thunders of Music.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXXIV">   308</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXXV.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Saratoga Trunks.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXXV">      312</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXXVI.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;The Dolly Varden.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXXVI">    314</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXXVII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Starting for Long Branch.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXXVII">  320</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXXVIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;That Hair-trunk.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXXVIII">    323</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXXIX.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;At the Branch.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXXIX">        326</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXXX.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;The Race-course.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXXX">       328</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXXXI.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Climbing Sea Cliff.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXXXI">   332</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXXXII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Fighting for the Body.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXXXII">     335</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXXXIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Lions and Lambs.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXXXIII">   337</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXXXIV.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Experiences.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXXXIV">   240</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXXXV.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;The Second Day.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXXXV">       342</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXXXVI.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;The Blacksmith's Conversion.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXXXVI">     347</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXXXVII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;That Ovation of Fire.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXXXVII">      352</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXXXVIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Let Him Go.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXXXVIII">  359</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">LXXXIX.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Done Up in a Hurry.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#LXXXIX">  362</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XC.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;The Yellow Flag.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XC">   367</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XCI.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;The Man that Saved Me.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XCI">       370</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XCII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Pleasure Bay.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XCII">   375</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XCIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Netting Crabs.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XCIII">       379</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XCIV.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Extra Politeness.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XCIV">     384</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XCV.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;The Clam-bake.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XCV">       387</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XCVI.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;That Clam-bake.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XCVI">      390</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XCVII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;One Hour of Heaven.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XCVII">       392</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XCVIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;C. O. D.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XCVIII">   309</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XCIX.</td>
+<td class="tdl">&mdash;Taken In.</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XCIX">     404</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2 class="first"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>11<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+PH&OElig;MIE FROST'S EXPERIENCES.</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I.<br />
+<br />
+<small>LEAVING HOME.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 80px;">
+<img src="images/i.jpg" width="60" height="60" alt="I" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">I</span> HAVE made up my mind. Having put my hand to the plough, it isn't in me
+to back out of a duty when duty and one's own wishes sail amicably in
+the same canoe. I am going to give myself up to the good of mankind and
+the dissemination of great moral ideas.</p>
+
+<p>Selected by the Society of Infinite Progress as its travelling
+missionary, with power to spread the most transcendental of New England
+ideas throughout the world, I shall take up my cross and go forth.</p>
+
+<p>The evening after the Society had crowned me with this honor, I asked
+Aunt Kesiah and Uncle Ben Frost, who have been working the farm on
+shares ever since my father died, if they could not make out to do
+without me for some months, or weeks, or years, just as duty or my own
+feelings took a notion to stay.</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Kesiah sat right down in the rocking-chair, and looked straight in
+my face for a whole minute without speaking.</p>
+
+<p>"What," says she at last, "going away from home at your age&mdash;a female
+woman all alone in the world! You and the Society just take my breath
+away, Ph&oelig;mie. Where on arth are you a going to?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," says I, "it seems to be my duty to seek a field where there is
+the most sin and iniquity a going on, where dishonesty rides
+rampagnatious as a roaring lion, and fashion flaunts herself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>12<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> like a
+peacock with moons in every tail feather. First of all, the field of my
+duty lies in York, that Babylon of cities."</p>
+
+<p>"But whose a going to bear the expenses?" says Uncle Ben, who always was
+'cute as a miser about money matters. "Duty is sumtimes rayther
+expensive."</p>
+
+<p>"The Society," answers I. "The members are a picking up produce now, I
+shan't go empty-handed on my mission. All the members are wide awake
+about that. Crops have been first-rate."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says Uncle Ben, "I give in there."</p>
+
+<p>"And hens never laid better since chickens were hatched," continued I.</p>
+
+<p>"Jes' so," says Aunt Kesiah, "if the pesky creturs wouldn't run off and
+hide their nests."</p>
+
+<p>"Hams are plenty, smoked beef ditto, to say nothing of dried apples. I
+mean to sell everything at a profit and settle accounts with the
+Society."</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon you'll get cut short; up to this time there has bin lots of
+talking in that Society. When it comes to giving&mdash;but never mind&mdash;we
+shall see!"</p>
+
+<p>"There, there, Benjamin, don't you go to pouring cold water on our
+Ph&oelig;mie's missionary work. She is sot on going, so let her go."</p>
+
+<p>"Is she sot?" says Uncle Ben, looking at me sort of anxious.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says I, "my face is turned to the mark of the prize of the high
+calling."</p>
+
+<p>"Jes' so," says Uncle Ben, "got your hand on the prow with a hard grip?
+That being the fact, old woman, the best thing is for you to lend a
+helping hand and send her off comfortably. She can try anyhow, though I
+have a notion that the world has got to be so wicked since the war, that
+one female woman&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Girl!" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, girl&mdash;may fall short of regenerating the hull of it all to once.
+Still there is no knowing what any one can do till they try."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>13<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"When do you lay out to start?" says Aunt Kesiah, all in a flutter.</p>
+
+<p>"Right off," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"By land or water?"</p>
+
+<p>"Both," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear! what if you should get shipwrecked, and all the produce and
+garden sass with you!" says she.</p>
+
+<p>"There now, don't skeer the girl, Kesiah," says Uncle Ben. "The Sound
+don't rage to any great extent, neither are the engines alles a busting
+as a general thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, if she's sot on going, I'll do my best to help get her
+off," says Aunt Kesiah, and she goes right to putting lard in a kettle,
+and while it was a heating, rolled out a lot of doughnuts, which article
+of food she excels in. For two whole days that good soul devoted herself
+to making crullers, doughnuts, and turnover pies, as if she thought I
+should not find anything to eat till I got home again.</p>
+
+<p>Well, by and by the day came for me to start. That tea-party and a
+prayer-meeting at Deacon Pettibone's house was a season that none of us
+will ever forget. Mrs. Pettibone, our president, is a wonderfully gifted
+woman, and that night she seized right hold of the horns of the altar
+and fairly beat herself. Oh, sisters, it was a touching time when I
+drove with Uncle Ben through Sprucehill a bowing from one window to
+another, for every member of the Society seemed to rush heart and soul
+to the windows; and when I found your executive committee on that
+platform, the tears that had been standing in my eyes just burst out and
+overflowed my soul.</p>
+
+<p>There I sat on my trunk in your midst, with a bandbox at my feet, and a
+new satchel, large, plump, and shiny, in my hand, ready to start, but
+feeling the responsibility of my trust, and the danger of a young girl
+going forth into the world all alone. No wonder some of you thought I
+should give up and take my hand from the plough. It was a trying
+situation. I felt it; I suffered; but, knowing that the eyes of all
+Sprucehill were upon me, I was firm. Yes, even when Aunt Kesiah placed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>14<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+that satchel in my lap, and told me with tears in her eyes to take
+special care of it, for she did not know what I should do if it got
+lost.</p>
+
+<p>She said this so loud, and with such deep sobs, that a tall gentleman
+who stood on the platform with a satchel in his hand, seemed to be
+greatly affected by the touching scene, and kept close to us till the
+train come lumbering and snorting in.</p>
+
+<p>Then, sisters, you remember how we fell upon each other's neck, and wept
+and kissed each other, then tore apart. How I went weeping into the cars
+leaving the satchel behind, and how Uncle Ben pushed it through the
+window, telling me to be awful careful of its precious contents so loud
+that everybody heard, and I have no doubt wondered how many thousand
+dollars it held. Well, the contents of that bag were miscellaneously
+precious. I had seen Aunt Kesiah pack it, with a feeling that made me
+homesick before I left the old farm. Doughnuts, crullers, turn-over
+pies, with luscious peach juice breaking through the curves. A great
+hunk of maple sugar, another of dried beef, some cheese, and a pint
+bottle of cider. It nearly broke Aunt Kesiah's heart because she
+couldn't top things off with a pot of preserves, but I wasn't sorry,
+thinking they might be unhandy to carry.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I took the satchel, set it upon my lap, and looked out of the
+window at you all, as well as I could for crying, till the train gave a
+jerk that made my teeth rattle, and moved on.</p>
+
+<p>When I lost sight of you, sisters, I felt awfully lonesome and almost
+'fraid to trust myself among so many masculine men as filled the cars.
+Being an unprotected female, with a certain amount of promiscuous
+property in my charge, I felt a commercial and moral responsibility that
+weighed down my shoulders till I felt like a camel with an enormous load
+to carry.</p>
+
+<p>Had I been travelling with nothing but my own self to take care of, the
+sense of responsibility would have been less; but I could not help
+thinking that the dignity of our Society was in my keeping, and the
+anxieties of all Sprucehill followed me swifter than the cars could run
+or the snorting engine draw.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>15<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> So I pulled my dust-colored veil tight
+over my face, and, with my feet planted firm on the floor, sat
+bolt-upright, holding the satchel on my lap with both hands, kind of
+shivering for fear some man might attempt to sit down by me. I couldn't
+think of this without feeling as if I should sink right through the red
+velvet cushions that I sat on.</p>
+
+<p>I was so anxious that my heart jumped right into my mouth when that man
+I had seen on the platform come my way. While he was looking around, the
+breath stood still on my lips, and I gave my satchel a grip which would
+have hurt it if such things have any feeling. I have no doubt that the
+austerity of my countenance scared all the rest of them off, for most of
+'em passed on, after giving me a regretful glance; but when he come in
+swinging his new satchel, so independent, I moved a little; for I knew
+he was a gentleman by the way he wore his hat&mdash;clear back on his
+head&mdash;by the great seal, with a red stone in it, on his finger, and by
+the heavy gold chain swinging across his breast.</p>
+
+<p>When I saw this man's eyes fixed on my seat so beseeching, I kind of
+moved a little more and then let my eyes droop downward, determined not
+to help his presumptuous design to sit by me a single bit.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," says he, sitting down close to me, and chucking his satchel
+under the seat. "If there is a superior person in the car, I'm certain
+to have the luck and the honor to sit beside her. Some people prefer to
+look out of the window, but I would rather gaze on a sweet, pretty face,
+by a long shot&mdash;especially if it does not belong to a girl with airs."</p>
+
+<p>I felt myself blushing all over at this delicate compliment, and
+observed, with becoming diffidence and great originality, that "beauty
+was only skin-deep at the best, and not by any manner of means to be
+compared with Christian piety and high intellect."</p>
+
+<p>The man&mdash;he was a stalwart, handsome man; not pursey like Deacon
+Pettibone, nor slim to bean-poleishness like the circuit preachers that
+live about, and only pick up a little roundness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>16<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> at camp-meetings; but
+tall, and what young ladies call imposing. Well, the man gave me another
+long look at this, and says he:</p>
+
+<p>"But when all these things jibe in together so beautifully, who is to
+say which it is that captivates a man's fancy? Not I. It is my weakness
+to take lovely woman into the core of my heart as a whole; but, if there
+is one quality that I prize more than another, it is piety."</p>
+
+<p>I blushed with thrilling consciousness of the grace that has been in me
+so long that it has become a part of my being; but his praise did not
+satisfy me. One hates to take sweet things in driblets, with a spoon,
+when the soup-ladle is handy.</p>
+
+<p>"Piety is a thing to be had for praying, fasting, and unlimited
+devotion. Anybody can have it who grapples the horn of the altar in
+deadly earnest. In short, if there is anything that everybody on earth
+has a right to, it's religion. The only aristocracy there is about it,
+comes when one reaches the high point of perfect sanctification&mdash;a state
+that some people do reach, though it is sometimes so difficult to point
+out the particular person."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, indeed!" said he. "But I have penetration, madam, great
+penetration. Do not torture your sensitive modesty by an attempt to
+conceal extraordinary perfection from one who can so fully appreciate
+it, and who grieves to say how uncommon it is."</p>
+
+<p>I said nothing, but dropped my eyes, and sat up straighter than ever.</p>
+
+<p>"Permit me," says my polite fellow-traveller, gently laying his hand on
+my satchel; "this is too heavy for the lap of a delicate female.
+Supposing we place it side by side with mine under the seat?"</p>
+
+<p>I held on to the satchel, afraid that he might mash one of the turn-over
+pies.</p>
+
+<p>"Do allow me. I really tremble to see a person so formed by nature borne
+down by such a weight," says my fellow-traveller, with great
+impressiveness. "It isn't to be thought of."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>17<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but I don't feel the weight so very much," says I, loosening my
+grip a trifle.</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear madam, remember that the life and health of a person like
+you is of consequence to the whole universe. Remember the siotic nerve."</p>
+
+<p>"The what nerve?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Siotic," says he. "That nerve which is so tender in very pious people.
+They say that the Pope has been suffering agonies with it."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me," says I, "is it anything mixed up with a heart disease?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all; it is a strain upon the great sensitive nerve that runs
+like a whip-cord from I don't know where down the back of the le&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Oh! sisters, he almost had that terrible word out, but I gave such a
+start and blushed so that he turned it right round on his tongue, and
+says he with great emphasis, "limb."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" says I, with a gasp of relief, "now you speak so that a modest New
+England woman can understand. So there is a nerve!"</p>
+
+<p>"Peculiarly susceptible in religious and intellectual persons," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"Running down the limb!" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Both limbs," says he, "which a weight carried on the lap is sure to
+exasperate if it does not end in kinking up the siotic and crippling the
+l&mdash;limbs."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you a doctor?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"A sort of one," says he, and, without more words, he took my satchel
+and sat it down by his, under the seat, as sociable as could be.</p>
+
+<p>After that, he took hold of my hand, as if he was a-going to feel my
+pulse, looking sweetly anxious.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there a siotic there?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>He gave my hand a hard squeeze, and seemed to ruminate.</p>
+
+<p>"It takes a little time to discover," says he, half closing his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>18<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> eyes.
+"Be tranquil; there is no danger now. The arm has been in one position
+rather too long; change was necessary. But this is a change."</p>
+
+<p>Then he gave my hand another squeeze, and, leaning back, shut his eyes
+entirely.</p>
+
+<p>That minute the engine gave out a sharp yell that nearly scared me to
+death. The cars heaved a jerk and a jolt, the man on the platform sung
+out something, and before I could say Jack Robinson, my fellow-passenger
+made a dive under the seat, dragged out his satchel, and made for the
+door, bowing as he went, and hustling out something about its being his
+station.</p>
+
+<p>While I was a-staring after him with all the eyes in my head, the cars
+gave another jerk, and, splash-bang, away we went, so fast that the man
+scooting along that platform, waving his hand backwards, seemed to be
+swimming in fog.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, I must say that a feeling of lonesomeness fell upon me after he
+went; his conversation had been so scientific and interesting that I
+felt the loss.</p>
+
+<p>Besides that, I felt a little hungry, and thought I'd take a bite of
+something to eat. So I stooped down, lifted the satchel to my lap, and
+tried to open it.</p>
+
+<p>The lock, it seemed to me, had got a stubborn twist, and wouldn't open;
+just then the conductor came along, and I gave him a pitiful look.</p>
+
+<p>"Please, sir, help me a little," says I; "it won't open all I can do."</p>
+
+<p>The conductor came forward, snatched hold of the satchel, and wrenched
+it open.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," says I, lifting my eyes to his gaze, and diving my hand
+down into the satchel, for I meant to give him a doughnut for his
+politeness; but instead of that luscious cake, my hands sank into a half
+peck of sawdust packed close in the satchel my fellow-passenger had left
+behind.</p>
+
+<p>"Look there," says I; "isn't it dreadful, and I an unprotected female?"</p>
+
+<p>"Was your money in the bag?" asks the conductor.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>19<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No," says I, putting one hand up to my bosom, to make sure it was safe.
+"I always keep my money where&mdash;no matter, the&mdash;the handsome upstart will
+have a splendid feast of turnovers and doughnuts, besides a lively drink
+of cider; but as for money, that is in a safe place."</p>
+
+<p>"And your ticket?"</p>
+
+<p>"That," says I, "not being private property, like money, is kept
+handier."</p>
+
+<p>With that, I took the ticket from inside of my glove and handed it to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," says he, "the scamp hasn't made so much of a haul as he
+expected."</p>
+
+<p>"But he'll have a sumptuous meal," says I, a little down in the mouth;
+for I was growing hungry, and not a bite left. Just then a boy came into
+the cars with a basketful of popped corn on his arm. It looked awfully
+tempting, for every kernel was turned wrong side out, white as snow. I
+bought a popped corn of the boy, and pacified myself with that till the
+cars stopped ten minutes, where there was a mean chance to get something
+more substantial to eat. I went in with the crowd, helter skelter;
+wrestled my way to a long counter, got a cup of tea which I swallowed
+scalding hot, and, after a hard struggle for it, carried a wedge of
+custard pie off with the palm of my hand for a plate, and skivered back
+to the cars, nibbling it as I ran; for the bell was ringing and the
+conductor yelling "all aboard!" so loud that half the passengers went
+back coughing and choking, and muttering some kind of wickedness as they
+went.</p>
+
+<p>Well, all the rest of my car ride was just like this, only once in a
+while a little more so, till I got onto the Sound. There a great large
+steamboat, a quarter of a mile long, took a part of us in, and carried
+us right out to sea.</p>
+
+<hr class="white2" />
+
+<h3>HELL GATE.</h3>
+
+<p>I was just a little disappointed in that roaring element. The air that
+came above it was salty and light, and the waves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>20<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> sparkled beautifully,
+but they did not rage worth a cent. Still the shores away off on both
+sides looked dreamy, and we cut through the water so swift that it made
+me dizzy.</p>
+
+<p>Two or three stylish sort of men seemed as if they were hankering to
+speak to me as I sat there all alone on deck; but I didn't seem to see
+it, and they contented themselves with looking at me as if I was the
+most cruel creature on earth; which I meant to be. The loss of one
+satchel full of doughnuts and things is as much as I can afford on one
+trip.</p>
+
+<p>By and by that part of the ocean we travelled on kept growing narrower
+and narrower, till you could see houses on both shores, and
+splendiferous houses they were, with great meadows a-sloping down to the
+water; tall trees shading them, and bushes growing together in clumps.
+Some were of stone, some of wood, with pointed roofs and cupolas, and
+great wide stoops, in which you could see people sitting and moving
+about. Some with spy-glasses in their hands, a-watching us sweep by them
+like a house afire.</p>
+
+<p>I felt lonesome and almost homesick, but for all that the sight was
+exhilarating&mdash;very.</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't we got almost to New York," says I to the captain; "it seems to
+me as if the sea was shutting in."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, we are almost there," says he, "close on to Hell Gate now."</p>
+
+<p>"To what?" says I, almost hopping from the stool I sat on.</p>
+
+<p>"Hell Gate," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, mercy! you don't tell me it is so bad as that? I knew York was an
+awful wicked place, but I didn't think an innocent missionary would have
+to go in it through that gate!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is a little dangerous for sail crafts," says he, smiling, I suppose,
+to comfort me; "but you are safe. We shall go through with a rush."</p>
+
+<p>I caught my breath.</p>
+
+<p>"But supposing <i>He</i> were on the watch?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>21<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"<i>He!</i> Who?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't ask me; I'd rather not mention his name, being a female who
+abhors profanity."</p>
+
+<p>All at once the captain's eyes began to sparkle as if he were just
+longing for a tussle with the evil one.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be afraid," says he, "I reckon we shall make the gate without
+much trouble. The blasting won't stop us yet awhile."</p>
+
+<p>"Blasting?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; they'll have the all-firedest upheave there, before long, that
+ever tore a hole in the bottom of the sea."</p>
+
+<p>"Blasting! with fire and brimstone?"</p>
+
+<p>"And nitro-glycerine," says he, as calm as skim milk.</p>
+
+<p>"And you mean to take this big steamboat right through it with me on
+board?"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed right there in my frightened and pale face.</p>
+
+<p>"I really don't know any other way to reach New York," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me ashore," says I, a starting up, "me and my hair-trunk; I don't
+care for the produce; it may serve to cool their tongues down there. But
+put me and my hair trunk on any land. It is all I ask."</p>
+
+<p>"It's impossible," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"But I won't go through that in&mdash;that awful gate," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, we are in it now; don't you see the whirl of the waters?"</p>
+
+<p>"In it now. Oh, mercy!"</p>
+
+<p>I fell down upon my seat, and buried my face in my shawl, shaking from
+head to foot.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, that cruel man laughed. O, how hardened he must have got, going
+through that sulphurious gate.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, madam, there is no danger, we are almost through now."</p>
+
+<p>"Is <i>he</i> there? Have you seen anything of his blasting hosts?" says I
+under my breath. "Do they mean to fire up just yet?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>22<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No, no, we are all safe. Quite through&mdash;New York is in sight."</p>
+
+<p>I let my shawl drop a little, and peeped out. There was no sign of a
+gale; the water was a little bubbly and rough, as if it had been rushing
+through a race-way, but that was all. That captain of ours must have
+been on good terms with the old serpent that keeps the gate, or he never
+could have got through so easy. Now that it was over, I almost wished I
+had found grit enough to see how it was done. As it was, my eyes were
+hid, and I did not even see the awful old gate.</p>
+
+<p>Well, at last I rose up slowly and looked forward. There was New York
+City, right before me; just one pile of roofs and walls with cupolas,
+pointed fronts, and steeples; looking through the smoky haze acres and
+acres of houses, miles and miles&mdash;a whole island laid down with stone.
+All around it, just as far as I could see, the water was thick with
+ships, steamboats, and small boats, all flying up and down and across,
+like living things, each with an errand of its own. There, along the
+edges of the city, was what seemed to me like a forest of dead trees,
+without a leaf or a sign of greenness upon them.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," says the captain, "you see that we have run the gate. Never been
+here before, I reckon?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, never," says I, "and hope I never shall be again."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought things seemed a little green," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"From the Green Mountains," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly," says he. "Well, how do you like the looks of the city?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hazy," says I; "dry as tinder. All stone walls, and too many dead trees
+about for my notion."</p>
+
+<p>"Dead trees? I have never seen any," says he, a-looking around.</p>
+
+<p>"Must be awful short-sighted," says I. "Just look down there; it is like
+a burnt faller."</p>
+
+<p>He looked ahead where my finger was pointing, and laughed right out.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that is the shipping," says he.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>23<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Shipping," says I. "Don't tell me that! I wasn't brought up in the
+woods not to know tree trunks when I see them, dead or alive."</p>
+
+<p>"But I assure you those are the masts of vessels. You can see the hulls
+now."</p>
+
+<p>I did see the hulls, and felt dreadfully; what would the captain think
+of me! At once I looked up.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says I. "There is no question about it. Those are the hulls of
+ships, and the others are masts; but I was right."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed: "But you said they were dead trees."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so. Isn't a mast made out of a tree?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"And isn't the tree dead before it can be made into a mast?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes," says he, and now it was his turn to be down in the mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, isn't the edge of the water there chuck full of dead
+trees?"</p>
+
+<p>At first the captain sort of choked a little; but the next minute he
+burst out a laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want to know my opinion?" says he.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, rather," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's this: Green Mountain or not, if anybody buys a certain lady
+I know of for a fool, he'll get awfully taken in."</p>
+
+<p>"Shouldn't wonder," says I.</p>
+
+<p>With that, I picked up my umbrella, tied my bonnet a little tighter,
+took my bandbox in one hand, and followed the crowd across a plank
+bridge, and got into about the dirtiest road that my foot ever trod on.</p>
+
+<p>"Want a carriage? Want a carriage?" I never saw men more polite than the
+drivers with whips were. It seemed as if they couldn't do enough for me.
+It really was a strife which should take me in his carriage. Their
+attentions really were flattering. It was like a welcome in this strange
+place.</p>
+
+<p>It was like being in a little room all cushioned seats and windows when
+I got into the great double carriage so kindly offered me.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>24<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>The cushions were soft as down, and gave so, when I seated myself, that
+I couldn't help catching my breath. "Where to," says the driver,
+a-leaning through the window.</p>
+
+<p>"First," says I, "if it won't be too much trouble, I will go somewhere
+and buy a new satchel; I really don't feel at home without one. Then you
+may take me to a boarding-house in Bleecker Street. You'll know where it
+is by inquiring about a little. The name is Smith, and they come from
+Vermont. Their daughter married and settled on Sprucehill. Smith. You
+can't help but find them."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you got a number?" says the man.</p>
+
+<p>"No," answers I, "only one family."</p>
+
+<p>"But the house."</p>
+
+<p>"No," says I again. "I haven't got any house, but the old homestead on
+Sprucehill."</p>
+
+<p>"But Bleecker is a long street."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"And I must have a number."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, isn't one street of a name enough?" says I, getting out of
+patience. "What on earth do you want?"</p>
+
+<p>"I want the name of the people."</p>
+
+<p>"Smith."</p>
+
+<p>"And the number of the house they live in."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, then, houses go by numbers, not names, here in York, do they? Stop
+a minute!"</p>
+
+<p>Here I took a slip of paper from my pocket-book which Smith's daughter
+had written, and gave it to him.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," says he, hopping up the wheel, and going to his seat. Then
+away we rolled, genteel as could be.</p>
+
+<p>I bought the satchel at a store we drove by, and then we went on and on
+and on, till at last he stopped before a brick house with a good deal of
+iron about it.</p>
+
+<p>The driver jumped down, ran up the steps, pulled a rusty knob fastened
+to the door stone, and faced round towards his horses.</p>
+
+<p>A girl I should consider as hired help opened the door.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>25<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Is Mrs. Smith at home?" says I, a-putting my head out of the window.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says she.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll get out," says I.</p>
+
+<p>The driver unfolded a lot of steps that had been hid away under the
+windows. I went down them with a genteel trip. The man had been so
+polite, I stopped to thank him.</p>
+
+<p>"Three dollars," says he, a holding out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Three dollars? What for?" says I, all in a flutter.</p>
+
+<p>"For bringing you here," says he. "Stopping on the way, and so on."</p>
+
+<p>"But you invited me."</p>
+
+<p>The fellow grinned, and held out his hand harder than ever. The help on
+top of the steps giggled.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, look sharp, I can't wait all day," says he, as pert as a fox.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," says I; "being an unprotected female in a strange place, I can't
+help myself, I guess; but they do sell politeness awful dear in York. It
+must be scarce."</p>
+
+<p>I gave him three dollars without another word, feeling like a robbed
+princess as I did it. Then I took the bandbox and new satchel in my
+hand, and walked into Smith's boarding-house, about the homesickest
+creature that ever bore a cross.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II.<br />
+<br />
+<small>PH&OElig;MIE'S FIRST VISIT.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 80px;">
+<img src="images/s.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="S" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">S</span>ISTERS:&mdash;Some of you must remember my cousin Emily Elizabeth Frost,
+that married a Dempster ten years ago when most of us were little mites
+of things sewing our over-and-over seams. She was a smart creature
+enough, and as her mother was a proper, nice woman, it was reasonable to
+hope that she could be depended on to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>26<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> bring up her children; for her
+father was a deacon in the church, and her mother just the salt of the
+earth. Well, as soon as I got settled in my boarding-house, I took it
+into my head to go and see Cousin Elizabeth. She hadn't been to Vermont
+lately, and I'd rather lost track of her; so I gave one morning to
+hunting her up.</p>
+
+<p>Some useful things can be found in a great city like this. Now, I tell
+you, amongst them is a great, fat dictionary, crowded full of names,
+where everybody that keeps a decent house sets down the number, which is
+a convenience for strangers like me.</p>
+
+<p>I found the name of Cousin Elizabeth's husband, who keeps a bank
+somewhere down town, the book said, and got into the first street car
+that went towards the Central Park. After a while I got out and hunted
+up the number, feeling awfully anxious, for the houses about there were
+what the papers call palatial&mdash;a word we have not much use for in our
+parts. I just stopped on the other side of the street and took a general
+survey before I attempted to go in, feeling more and more fidgety every
+minute, for that house just took me down with its sumptuousness. Such
+great windows, with one monstrous pane in a sash, and lace and silk and
+tassels shining through! The front was four stories high and ended off
+with the steepest roof you ever saw, just sloping back a trifle, and
+flattening off at the top, with windows in it, and all sorts of colors
+in the shingles, which they call "tiles" here. Then the stone steps
+wound up to a platform with a heavy stone railing on each side, and a
+great shiny door, sunk deep into the wall, was wide open, and beyond it
+was one of glass, frosted over like our windows on a snapping cold
+morning, and under my feet was a checkered marble floor. I found the
+knob of a bell sunk into the door jamb, and pulled it a little, feeling
+half-scared to death. Then I just stepped in and waited in front of the
+glass door.</p>
+
+<p>A colored person of remarkably genteel appearance opened the door, and
+gave me a look from head to foot that riled the old Adam in my bosom;
+then he muttered something about the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>27<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> basement; but I put him down with
+just that one lift of my finger.</p>
+
+<p>"Is my cousin, Mrs. Dempster, at home?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I'll inquire," says he, as meek as Moses; "walk in."</p>
+
+<p>Walk in I did.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you a card?" says he.</p>
+
+<p>"No," says I; "as a general thing cards ain't desirable among relations,
+nor moral under any circumstances with religious friends. Say that Miss
+Frost is here&mdash;Miss Ph&oelig;mie Frost, from the State of Vermont. No
+cards!"</p>
+
+<p>The fellow opened a door on one side of the hall, and I went through.
+Don't expect me to describe that room. It isn't in me to give the least
+idea of it. Great chunks of glass like the hub of a wheel, with crooked
+spokes of glass starting every way from it, and what seemed like
+hundreds of icicles falling from them, dropped down from the ceiling.
+When the negro opened the blinds and let in a drift of sunshine, they
+turned into a snarl of rainbows that fairly blinded me. Then there was a
+carpet soft as spring grass in a meadow, and bright as a flower-garden;
+chairs shining with gold and silk; marble women, white as milk, with not
+a thing on worth speaking of, and looking-glasses half as large as our
+spring ponds.</p>
+
+<p>I turned my looks away from the women without clothes, while that
+colored person was by; but gave them a skimpy peep or two the minute he
+was gone. Really, it was dreadful. I would not have believed such things
+of Cousin Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p>Oh mercy on me! while I was looking, in came a gentleman, who bowed, and
+took a chair, and sat smiling on those creatures just as if he was used
+to it. Talk of blushing&mdash;my face was one blaze of fire.</p>
+
+<p>While I was wondering what I should do, a girl, or what ought to have
+been a little girl, came sidling into the room, gave me a look as if I'd
+been a dog in the wrong place, and went up to the gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>"Mamma will be down directly, and has sent me to entertain you," says
+she, shaking out her short skirts, and almost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>28<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> sitting down on the
+crimpy hair that half covered them behind. "Ah! I see you are admiring
+our crouching Venus. Lovely, isn't it? The curving lines are so perfect.
+The limbs&mdash;have you observed the foreshortening of that limb?"</p>
+
+<p>The foreshortening of that limb? Mercy on me, I couldn't stand it.
+Another minute and I should have boxed her ears, for all the blood that
+burned in my face went tingling down to my fingers. That was too much;
+so I up and said I would call again, and marched right out of the house.
+Girls indeed!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III.<br />
+<br />
+<small>ABOUT GIRLS.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;You ask a puzzling and painful question&mdash;What kind of
+girls do the children I write about make?</p>
+
+<p>My dear friends, girls&mdash;modest, rosy, bright-eyed school-girls, such as
+you are a-thinking of&mdash;are scarce as hen's teeth in this great city, and
+not to be found in profuseness anywhere. They went out with pink calico
+sun-bonnets, and ain't likely to come in again yet awhile, I tell you!
+Republican institutions can be carried to a great extent; and our young
+ones have found it out, and trample down all the good, wholesome old
+fashions before their little feet quite get out of baby shoes. At this
+moment I can't find a girl of twelve years old that don't know a
+thousand times more than her mother, and wouldn't attempt to teach law
+to her father if he was a judge in the Supreme Court. Yet, it's a
+shocking truth, the little upstarts don't know how to read like
+Christians, or spell half their words. The tip-top fashionable
+school-marms here are quite above teaching such common things as reading
+and spelling,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>29<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> and turn up their noses at any study that hasn't some
+"ology" or "phy" at the end of it.</p>
+
+<p>I should just like to have a string of the girls that walk in squads up
+and down the Fifth Avenue, with short dresses and hair streaming loose
+down their backs, in a district school-house, with no books but
+Webster's Spelling-book and the Columbian Reader. Wouldn't I astonish
+them with science? I guess they would understand the meaning of a
+spelling-class by the time I got through with 'em!</p>
+
+<p>As for arithmetic, they don't know what it is in these high-falutin
+seminaries; mathematics is the word; A B roots and squaring circles, as
+if circles ever would be square. Of course they can't, having been tried
+and kept round as an O all the time. But these A's and B's, and roots
+and such like, are considered as arithmetic for girls here; so the end
+of it is, they can, maybe, tell you how many square feet there are in a
+building lot, but couldn't add up ten shillings to save their lives; of
+course they forget how to estimate the square feet for want of having
+unlimited building lots to work on, while the washing bill and girl's
+wages and such things, come up every day all through their lives.</p>
+
+<p>What <i>do</i> girls learn at the schools?</p>
+
+<p>Oh, a mighty deal that some good women pass half through a lifetime
+without knowing, and are just as likely as not all the better for it.
+Some of the lessons are paid for, and some are given free gratis for
+nothing by the scholars to each other, and what some of them don't know
+in the way of flirting, drooping the eyes, and things you never dreamed
+of, ain't worth keeping secret.</p>
+
+<p>"A little leaven leavens the whole lump." That passage has always
+relieved my feelings about the old patriarchs; for it's a proof that
+they and their families had raised bread in those old Bible times; and
+light bread, even if saleratus has to be used, is a blessing on the
+domestic hearth. For that reason, I'm astonished that bread-making is
+left to men-bakers here in York. But this passage sometimes puts you in
+mind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>30<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> of something beside turnpike emptins. I should like to promulgate
+some genuine old-fashioned ideas into these tip-top schools, where one
+bold, forward girl with unwholesome ideas in her head, would set them
+working like leaven in every innocent young soul in the seminary.
+Somehow, more or less, girls always do manage to give a good deal of
+knowledge that isn't set down in the bill, though that is generally long
+enough, goodness knows.</p>
+
+<p>I wish you could see one of these bills with the extras. Now in our
+district schools, there isn't much chance for the scholars to get over
+intimate. They don't sleep and eat and work together, like canary birds
+crowded in one cage and huddled together on one roost; the weak don't
+catch the faults of the strong, and if they did, the free breezes of our
+hills would sweep them away before the poison struck in. Flirtations do
+not become a science with them before they can spell "baker," and they
+don't often learn such things from their New England mothers, anyhow.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I would give a good deal to see a genuine girl who did not think
+herself a marvel of superior knowledge at twelve, or had not plunged
+into a heart disease at the sight of some hotel lounger at fourteen. I
+tell you, sisters, these young creatures have too much liberty; they
+have no wholesome growth either of body or mind. They know too much at
+fifteen, and will know a great deal too little at forty.</p>
+
+<p>The girl of twelve&mdash;which is about the age you are thinking of&mdash;has a
+great deal more assurance than some of our church members at fifty. Baby
+boys and girls haven't gone quite out of fashion, but they are getting
+scarcer every year, people tell me; and regular-built, wholesome
+children are as hard to find here as green gooseberries in October. I've
+seen plenty of little men and women, that couldn't speak plain to save
+their lives, dressed out like soldiers on a training day, with short
+frocks or tunics, and legs as bare as bare could be; but such boys and
+girls as we remember are not to be found anywhere nowadays, I tell you.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>31<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>What does all this mean? Just this: Mothers don't trust their young ones
+out of fashion long enough to grow. Besides, there isn't, only now and
+then, one who gets acquainted with her own child well enough to know
+what is good for it. Why, these city women would go crazy to see a
+little girl, six years old, swing upon a gate or riding horseback on a
+rusty old farm-horse, gripping the mane with both hands, and sending up
+shouts of fun if she happened to tumble off. Children, in the natural
+state, love water, like ducks and goslings. It used to be a sight to
+watch them, knee-deep in the brooks, with their tenty-tointy feet
+shining through the ripples, as they hunted for water-cresses and sweet
+flag-root; but catch one of your new-fangled young ones at anything with
+so much human nature in it. All the water they see is in the bottom of a
+bath-tub, rubbed on their skimpy limbs by an Irish girl's hands. Not the
+mother's. Oh, no! Care of one's own children is too much for a healthy
+young woman nowadays. Being a professor and member of a church, I want
+to speak accordingly, and just drop the mothers here. Christian language
+isn't up to the occasion.</p>
+
+<p>Well, as I was saying, the meanness of these mothers in hiving up their
+young ones and cheating 'em out of the very best years of life, is
+enough to make a saint mad. The rough-and-tumble season, which gives a
+child sound lungs, strong limbs, and a brain that thinks of nothing but
+high play, is just knocked out of their lives. It's an awful swindle on
+the poor little things, and I'm not afraid to say it openly and
+above-board here in my very first report.</p>
+
+<p>If I haven't a right to speak on this subject, I should like to know who
+has. That's all. I never had a child of my own, which is, perhaps,
+natural to a state of single blessedness, and so had plenty of time to
+make other people's children a speciality. Besides, haven't I kept
+district school, and boarded round enough to get an inside view of a
+good many family circles? Haven't I seen droves of young ones, in loose
+calico slips or cosey-fitting jackets and trousers, coming miles to
+school, only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>32<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> setting their dinner baskets down now and then to stone a
+squirrel, or climb up among the burrs of some great chestnut limb which
+offered to give them a ride to Boston or a trip to Canterbury.</p>
+
+<p>Dear me, I think I see them now running "like split," as they said, to
+catch up time, with such a lively color rushing through the tan on their
+faces, hats off, and sun-bonnets flying out by the strings.</p>
+
+<p>There, that's what I call childhood. You and I, sister, know something
+about it; now don't we? Do you remember that little red school-house
+where we learned our letters, and the old broken-limbed apple-tree
+behind it? No wonder the limbs got scraggly; they couldn't stand horse
+for a whole school, year after year, without some wear and tear, could
+they?</p>
+
+<p>Well, may be you and I owe to that old patriarch more than we know of.
+The apples were so sour the pigs wouldn't eat 'em, but they never hurt
+us. Then the limbs stretching out every which way&mdash;weren't they splendid
+to swing on, and in a hot day the shade was like a tent.</p>
+
+<p>You and I have been tough and hearty all our lives, just as like as not
+on account of that old tree and the long road home, and the pine woods
+it ran through, with the good wholesome samp and milk when we got there.
+There was generally a little red light in the sky from the sunset when
+we went to bed, and just a streak of rosy yellow when we got up, with
+dew enough on the grass to wash our faces in before breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>That's what I call life for a child; all out-doors for a playground,
+good, sound sleep, plenty of wholesome food, three times a day, and
+always hungry at that. Why, the few years after you begin to toddle, and
+before you learn to read, if you're properly let alone, are choke-full
+of happiness that ripples like a brook through your whole life. I say,
+once more, it's a sin and a shame to cheat a child out of that which is
+just God's portion of a human life.</p>
+
+<p>Now I ask you, isn't it probable, between you and I, that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>33<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> the Saviour
+picked out just such bright, happy little creatures as these, when He
+took 'em in His arms and blessed 'em, and said of such is the kingdom of
+heaven. If the apostles wanted to hunt up one of the kind now, they'd
+have to catch it in the cradle. Just think of bringing forward one of
+the little things we meet in the avenues here, to be held up as a
+monument&mdash;all flutings and lace, kid gaiters, pink and blue sashes, long
+white feathers, and parasols. Yes, believe it or not, I say parasols
+about the size of a poppy. Oh, don't mention it! The whole thing makes
+me sick. The children you meet here in York look like little barefooted
+scarecrows, or else like motto papers afloat.</p>
+
+<p>But are all the little folks you see painted like a dahlia, and pink as
+hollyhocks. You are asking this question in the Society. I know it.
+Well, I should rather think not. These whipper-snappers go tipping down
+the avenues, and ride with their mothers' lap-dogs in the Park,
+a-looking like their own French dolls, and are about as likely to make
+men and women.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>MORE ABOUT GIRLS.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/s.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="S" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">S</span>ISTERS:&mdash;My cousin's little girl has just upset me. Remember she is my
+own flesh and blood; and genuine honest blood in Vermont is as pure as
+the sap in our maple-trees, and ought to keep sweet as the sugar we make
+from it, wherever it is found. Being my second cousin in her own right,
+I expected to find her a model of what the rising generation ought to
+be, and went to that house, exalting myself accordingly. I shall find,
+thought I, a genteel, modest, seemly little lady, polite, and cordially
+glad to see a relative that wants to love her and exalt her into a
+pattern and a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>34<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> monument of female promise. But instead of that, just
+read my last report, though it must fall short of giving you any idea
+how heavy my heart was, and how my brain burned with disappointment.</p>
+
+<p><i>Has</i> female modesty died out since you and I came into the world? or
+was it burnt over during the war, like the great prairies, where the hot
+flames parch up all the sweet green grass and the bright flowers,
+killing them root and blossom, snakes likewise? One thing is certain, my
+dear sisters in the cause, honesty among men and modesty among women go
+hand in hand all over the earth. When women degenerate, it is because
+the moral atmosphere which they breathe is tainted and unwholesome.
+Something has gone awfully wrong both with the men and women of America
+in these latter years. The fraud and demoralization of the thing they
+call "shoddy" has settled down upon our social life everywhere. I
+shudder to think of it! With a constitution made strong with fresh air
+from the Green Mountains, and morals consolidated in the oldest
+congregation of the State, I feel afraid of myself and almost weary of
+well-doing. It has become so miserably unfashionable to be honest, that
+people seem to think me crazy when I speak my mind.</p>
+
+<p>Do not start and say that Ph&oelig;mie Frost is ready to give up her
+mission; because she isn't of that sort. Her hand is on the plough&mdash;they
+spell it <i>plow</i> here, which takes away half the strength of that
+agricultural word&mdash;on the plough, is she, a female, to turn back because
+rocks and roots choke up the furrow? Not if Miss Frost knows anything of
+herself!</p>
+
+<p>Speaking of female modesty, between my little cousin and that marble
+girl, the poor naked creature seemed to have the most of it. She did
+scrouch down and try to hide herself behind herself, as if she was
+ashamed that the man who made her had forgot to cover her up a little.
+But the live girl did not seem to feel for her a mite; in fact, I think
+she enjoyed seeing her scrouch, because of the foreshortenings, you
+know.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>35<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>It's of no use denying it, I did feel down in the mouth about this girl;
+and seeing my duty clear, determined to do it or perish in the attempt.</p>
+
+<p>Once more I stood in front of that "palatial residence," and, with a
+hand made firm by a powerful sense of duty, pulled the silver knob in
+the jamb of the door. The same finified youngster came and asked me with
+his saucy eyes what I wanted there. This time I had written out a square
+piece of paper, on which he had the pleasure of reading: "Miss Ph&oelig;mie
+Frost, Home Missionary and Special Plenipotentiary from the Society of
+Infinite Progress, Sprucehill, Vermont." "Think," says I, when I handed
+him the paper, "if this don't fetch them all down a notch or two,
+nothing will."</p>
+
+<p>And it did!</p>
+
+<p>Yes, I have the pleasure of saying pretension and pomposity do have a
+wonderful effect here in New York. I don't know whether it was the
+missionary or the plenipotentiary that brought my cousin to her oats,
+but rather think it was the latter&mdash;having a foreign twang to it, of
+course, it impressed her aristocratically.</p>
+
+<p>The waiter-man took me into the drawing-room, as he called it, but why,
+no human being could have told; for there wasn't a sign of drawing
+paper, pencil, nor painting things in sight. In fact, it was the
+self-same room that I went into the last time I was there. A little
+darker and more sunsetty, because the red curtains swept close, and
+blinds were rolled down under the lace. There was that marble girl, too,
+a-looking at me as if half-scared to death; but in that light she seemed
+dressed in a veil of pink gauze, and looked just lovely. There being no
+man by I really could have kissed her, she seemed so sweet, and so
+awfully ashamed of herself huddled down as if she longed to creep out of
+sight.</p>
+
+<p>The door opened, and that fellow came in simpering like a chessy cat,
+and asked if I would be so good as to walk up to the boudor.</p>
+
+<p>"To the what?" says I.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>36<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"To the ladies' boudor," says he, a turning his head, and trying to
+choke off a laugh. "This way!"</p>
+
+<p>I took my satchel from a table all framed in gold, and checkered with
+precious stones, where I had laid it down. Then, bowing my head and
+lifting my forefinger, told that servile creature to proceed, with an
+air of command that quenched his saucy smile in no time.</p>
+
+<p>Up the stairs he went, and I followed after; treading a carpet that gave
+to the feet like a meadow in its first spring grass. Through an open
+door I saw my cousin lifting herself up from a sofa, covered with blue
+silk and open-worked lace. Then she dawdled towards me with one hand
+out, and the laziest smile you ever saw about her mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin Emily," says I, "how do you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Miss Frost," says she, "I'm happy to make your acquaintance."</p>
+
+<p>Happy to make my acquaintance, and I her first cousin. Did you ever?</p>
+
+<p>At first I <i>was</i> taken aback, and felt as if I should choke. Hadn't I
+learned that great white creature her letters? Hadn't I spent dollars on
+her for slates and pencils, besides taking her to the maple camps when
+she was a little girl, and giving her no end of sweet sap to drink. Who
+was it but me that turned down her first over-and-over seam, and gave
+her a tentie-tointy silver thimble to take the stitches with. I wonder
+what she did with it? Now she was happy to make my acquaintance, and
+dragged a double winrow of worked flounces, topped off with a muslin
+skirt and scarlet training jacket, across the room to tell me so. Our
+mothers were sisters; pray remember that!</p>
+
+<p>"Take that seat," says she, a-dropping down to the sofa as a great white
+hen turkey settles onto its nest. "How long have you been in the city?
+Do you make anything of a visit? So thoughtful and kind of you to give
+me an early call."</p>
+
+<p>There I sat, straight as a sign-post, with my satchel in my lap, and
+both hands on that, riling up like an Irish girl's coffee, and feeling
+the wrath within me grow stronger and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>37<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> stronger while she settled back
+and half-shut her eyes, and seemed to be quite satisfied that she had
+done her best. I could see that her half-shut eyes were turned on my
+alpaca dress, which was a trifle dusty, and on my cotton gloves, that
+were clean and whole, at any rate. While she examined them, I took an
+observation of her. Mercy, how she has changed! Five times the hair she
+ever had before hung in great, heavy braided loops down her back. There
+must be some way of making the hair grow, 'specially here in York, that
+we never heard of. And her figure, which was slim and graceful as the
+droop of a willow when she married, has swelled out fearfully behind,
+which makes her seem to stoop, and gives one the most humpy idea of a
+camel in motion of anything I know, which, being Scriptural, is, I dare
+say, the only religious idea she has kept firm to.</p>
+
+<p>"You called the other day," says she. "I was so sorry not to have seen
+you; but I was dressing to go out. Still, you saw my little girl?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says I, "I saw your little girl; and, to tell you the honest
+truth, that is what brings me here now. I haven't had a minute's rest
+since I was here. Why, Cousin Emily, I expected to see a child. Instead
+of that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She roused up at this, opened her eyes wide, and interrupted me.</p>
+
+<p>"Instead of that," says she, turning a great gold bracelet on her arm,
+and smiling as if what she was saying swelled her out with
+pride&mdash;"instead of that, you found a finished young lady. No wonder you
+were surprised."</p>
+
+<p>"A finished young lady!" says I, riling into strength. "That is what no
+child ever can be; and let me tell you, the attempt to force one into
+such an unnatural creature is abominable. You can polish every bit of
+the modesty and innocence of childhood out of a little girl; but all
+that you can get for it is affectation and self-sufficient impertinence,
+becoming neither to the child nor the woman. Why, cousin, the little
+creature I saw in your parlor&mdash;sent there, as she said, to <i>entertain a
+gentleman</i>&mdash;was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>38<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> just an absurdity to him, and to me something dreadful.
+I asked myself what a child like that would become at forty years of
+age. Why, cousin, when she is at her meridian she will feel herself at
+least a hundred and fifty. You have cut off all the bloom and richness
+of a young life; you have made a dainty little monster of her&mdash;swept
+away all companionship with children, and made it presumption and
+impertinence when she attempts to force herself among her elders. I
+could not be so cruel to a dog as you have been to that child."</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Emily woke up now with a vengeance. Her sleepy eyes flashed
+lightning. "Cruel!" says she. "I cruel to my only daughter? Why, there
+is not a child in America who has had such care&mdash;such abundant chances
+for improvement. She has been to the most expensive schools."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"She has had masters at home&mdash;music, dancing, the languages&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Things that I never thought of learning she has mastered."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"She had a French nurse before she could speak. No expense has been
+spared by her father. I never had such chances; and we are determined to
+give her a splendid education. In fact, she might come out this season,
+so far as that is concerned; but I have resolved to be rigid&mdash;not a day
+before she is seventeen. Then her education will be complete."</p>
+
+<p>"Her education complete at seventeen! Why, Cousin Emily, a woman's
+education is <i>never</i> complete. At the best schools we get but a dreamy
+sort of idea of the things we must bring all the faculties of a
+well-regulated mind to understand in after years. A well-educated woman
+is one who studies and learns something every day of her life&mdash;who
+thinks about what she sees, and acts upon what she knows."</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Emily lifted up both hands, all covered with shining rings, as if
+to choke me off. I stopped. Far be it from Ph&oelig;mie Frost to force the
+opinions of our Society upon unwilling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>39<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> ears; but I lifted my forefinger
+in solemn admonishment, and says I:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Cousin Emily, Cousin Emily, has it got so that you hold up both
+hands against common-sense!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not against common-sense," says she, "but against your uncommonly long
+sentences. Why, Miss Frost, it is like our old-fashioned country
+preaching."</p>
+
+<p>"Which has died out of your heart, I dare say. Oh, Emily, Emily, what
+would your sainted mother, my aunt, say?"</p>
+
+<p>This brought the misguided woman to her tears. She sat up on that
+lace-silk sofa, straight and listening, as I have seen her many a time
+on the a b c bench at school, when her little feet couldn't touch the
+floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin Ph&oelig;mie," says she, "I am trying to do what is right."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so," says I, with tears of thankfulness in my eyes, for the
+"Cousin Ph&oelig;mie" went straight to my heart. "But my mind isn't quite
+equal to more of this conversation this morning. The next time I come
+this way we shall both be more like our natural selves."</p>
+
+<p>With that I tightened my cotton gloves, took up my satchel, and left
+that house, feeling that I had paved the way to a good work hereafter.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V.<br />
+<br />
+<small>POOR CHILDREN.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/a.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="A" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">A</span>RE there no genuine children among the poor of New York?</p>
+
+<p>Beloved sisters, your question wrings the heart in my bosom. I asked it
+of myself this very morning, and resolved to investigate.</p>
+
+<p>I hadn't found a child that could be called a child outside a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>40<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+perambulator, which means a little carriage pushed by an Irish girl,
+with a cap on, along the avenues. So I took my mission down among the
+tenement-houses. There I found young ones on the sidewalks, the
+doorsteps, and in the gutters, thick as grasshoppers in a dry pasture
+lot, all hard at work, trying to play. But the play seemed more like
+fighting than fun. Two girls stopped me on the sidewalk, swinging the
+dirty end of a rope, while another tried to jump it, but only tripped
+up, and went at it again. Shaking her loose hair, and&mdash;yes, I say it
+with tears in my eyes&mdash;swearing at the other two.</p>
+
+<p>I laid my hand on her head, and gently expostulated. She was a little
+mite of a girl, with a sharp, knowing face. The first word she spoke
+made my nerves creep. Why, that little thing had the wickedness of an
+old sinner on her baby mouth, and couldn't speak it out plain yet.</p>
+
+<p>Oh! my dear sister, and you, my friend, in the great course of infinite
+progress and general perfection, had you been with me, almost
+broken-hearted among that rabble of children, who will never, never know
+what childhood is, the last pound of butter and dozen of eggs in our
+village would be freely given to support my mission here. Barefooted,
+bareheaded, barelegged, and, it seemed to be, bare of soul, these little
+wretches swarmed around me when I kindly asked the baby girls not to
+swear, all making faces at me. The boys, that sat with their feet in the
+gutters, flung away the oyster-shells and lobster claws they had just
+raked from an ash-barrel, and began to hoot at me. One little
+wretch&mdash;forgive me for calling names&mdash;not more than five years old, had
+a cigar in his mouth half as long as his own arm. When I stooped down to
+take it from him, he gave a great puff right into my eyes, and scampered
+off, with his dirty fingers twirling about his face like the handle of a
+coffee-mill.</p>
+
+<p>As a New England woman, whose duty, I take it, is to set everybody
+right, I wasn't to be put down by a boy like that, but caught him by the
+collar of his jacket, snatched the cigar from his lips, and flung it
+into the gutter, where it sizzled itself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>41<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> out. Then I lifted my
+forefinger as I do in Sunday-class, and began to admonish him. But
+instead of listening, he got the skirt of my alpaca dress between his
+teeth and ground a great hole in it, swearing like a trooper
+betweenwhiles.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, sister! that was a trying season! In less than three minutes the
+sidewalk was swarming with dirty-faced children. I might as well have
+been in a wasps' nest. The spiteful imps buzzed around me so&mdash;little
+girls, with lank hair falling over their eyes; lazy boys, swaggering
+like drunken men, and swearing like troopers; and a woman&mdash;the boy who
+smoked called her mother&mdash;who stood on a doorstep, with a hand on each
+hip, scolding like fury. I kept my finger up. They would not hear a word
+I said, but I felt it my duty to do that much, when a very gentlemanly
+man in blue regimentals touched my arm, and observed in the kindest way
+that things were getting so mixed and unpleasant perhaps I would permit
+him to escort me round the corner. You know, sister, I always had a
+power in the lift of my finger. It was wonderfully manifest just as this
+gentleman crossed the street, and must have astonished him, for the
+children hushed up at once, and huddled back to the doorstep like a
+flock of lambs, which was an evidence of moral suasion I take pride in
+reporting to the Society.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>HE HAS COME.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/s.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="S" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">S</span>ISTERS:&mdash;As a representative of your august body, I ought now to have
+been in an atmosphere of royalty&mdash;Imperial royalty, which counts at A
+No. 1, as kings are put down. The young potentate of all the Russias,
+with all his ships and things, ought to have been on hand a week ago;
+but he still lingers on the "rolling sea and briny deep,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>42<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> a prey, it is
+dreadfully to be feared, to sea-sickness&mdash;which, they tell me, is
+heart-rending&mdash;and storms which are liable to aggravate the
+sea-sickness.</p>
+
+<p>I sympathize with that young man in all the depths of my feminine
+nature&mdash;which are getting bottomless from the great need of compassion
+which human life exhibits to the thinking mind. He ought to have been
+here when our enthusiasm was at its hottest point. Then he would have
+had the stormiest sort of a welcome. The soldiers were ready to file out
+any minute; the mouths of ever so many cannon were burning to let off
+fire; all the ships would have burst into a storm of flags at the first
+gun. People couldn't but just keep from shouting every time they met
+each other. But the young man didn't come. He hasn't come yet, and all
+the enthusiasm is burning down to cinders and ashes. When he does come,
+I'm afraid it'll be like putting a mess of apples into an oven after the
+pan of baked pork and beans has been drawn out&mdash;half roasted, and hard
+at the core when you cut 'em.</p>
+
+<p>This is a great country, my friends&mdash;in fact, very extensive&mdash;but you
+can't wake it up to an earthquake of enthusiasm about the same person
+more than once. That prince had better have struck when the iron was
+red-hot. He didn't, and so I can't tell you anything about him, except
+that he isn't more at sea than the rest of us. When he does come, depend
+upon it, there will be an uprising among the females of this great city;
+and foremost of her sex will be your representative, faithful to her
+trust, and ready, with a modest helping hand, to lead this young person
+into the paths of propriety.</p>
+
+<p>He has come at last, but the bitter-sweet of hope and fear has been
+given us as daily food for two weeks past, and the wormwood of ceaseless
+apprehension took the place of the yellow berries, and nightshade
+darkness settled down upon us. Lovely young girls cried over their
+ball-dresses of illusion, and wondered if <i>their</i> hopes would thin off
+into the same slimpsy nothingness. Middle-aged ladies, whose hair needs
+no powder, and whose teeth never ache, began to falter in the dancing
+steps<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>43<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> practised in the private recesses of their own palatial homes,
+and wondered if their joints were to be twisted and racked into new-born
+graces, only to settle down into rusty stiffness again without having
+fascinated the Russian soul out of that princely bosom.</p>
+
+<p>Of course it is right and proper that an opportunity to study the
+antiquities of a nation should be offered to every potentate and prince
+that honors our Republican shores by setting his high-born foot upon
+them, and it is highly proper that first-class specimens should be in
+readiness the moment he enters a ball-room. That is what people tell me
+has always been the custom at balls given to princes, and it isn't
+likely that new rules are to be laid down for the benefit of a lot of
+girls, anyhow. Governors and mayors are not often so young as they have
+been. As a general thing, their wives are not troubled with an epidemic
+of youth and beauty. It is an awful omission in the laws, but these
+dignified chaps can't get up young and dashing wives for the occasion,
+when a great high potentate from over seas shines down upon us in the
+dancing way. I haven't a doubt they would like to sacrifice themselves
+and astonish the world by so doing, but common people would be apt to
+call it bigamy. So they have to do the very best they can with such
+wives as they have got, and furbish them up with diamonds, laces,
+flounces, and a dancing-master, till they answer to begin with.</p>
+
+<p>I don't mean to be hard or sarcastical on this subject, but in these
+times, when it is so easy for a man to put away his wife, couldn't this
+official potentate get a temporary divorce just for the occasion,
+especially if the kingly visitor happens to be young and very fond of
+dancing. It would give us young girls a chance.</p>
+
+<p>Don't think that I am putting on airs, or that I don't feel reverential
+when age is mentioned, but Emperors' sons don't come to our free land of
+liberty every day, and girls are so plenty that old folks ought to stand
+back. Far be it from Ph&oelig;mie Frost, on her own humble merits, to build
+upon opening<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>44<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> that ball with the Imperial Duke of all the Russias; but a
+Society like ours has its social, moral, and scientific claims. As for
+literature, since my reports have been honored by publication, I must
+maintain the dignity of the position. If dignity and age is to lead in
+this grand ceremonial, I have kept school, and&mdash;well, yes&mdash;no, one could
+say that I&mdash;in fact, as to years, am I not competent to open the ball
+with any prince that can come across the ocean, be he boy or patriarch?
+There, that sentence is off my mind, and I can go on without a hitch of
+the pen.</p>
+
+<p>In other respects I have been silently but surely preparing myself. The
+Society has been liberal, and most of my savings were in the bank,
+rolling up interest beautifully, when I came from my childhood's home.
+Then there was a handsome profit on the donation of eggs and butter and
+maple-sugar which came in the freight train before I started. I attended
+to the sale myself at the market, and had nothing to do with that Mr.
+Middleman people talk so awfully about as a cheat and a general grabber.
+Well, I dickered the things off at a good price, as I was a-saying, and
+have got the money safe in my bosom&mdash;a hiding-place sacred to myself
+alone.</p>
+
+<p>Thus lifted above all mercenary anxieties, I gave my attention entirely
+to the self-improvement necessary to my appearance before his highness
+as a representative character on whom the eyes of all Sprucehill were
+fixed. I would say the world&mdash;only for the modest consciousness that
+comes over me when I think of myself as a genius.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>45<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE FRENCH DRESS-MAKER.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/a.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="A" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">A</span>LPACA does make a first-class dress for our social gatherings and
+literary circles in Sprucehill, and when puffed out behind, and trimmed
+promiscuously with flutings, it sometimes has a sumptuous appearance
+elsewhere; but for a ball, in which one aims to dance with a great grand
+Archduke of all the Russias&mdash;excuse me for saying it, but alpaca is not
+quite the thing. Doubtful of my own imperfect judgment, I asked a
+fashionable dress-maker in the Third Avenue, who had "Madame" spelt with
+an E on her tin sign at the door, and she said: "It wasn't the thing for
+a lady entirely, by no manner of means," and her tongue had a rich roll
+to it, which satisfied me that Ireland had sympathized with France in
+her troubles, to the extent of getting the language a little mixed.</p>
+
+<p>"No," says she, a leaning both elbows on her counter, and a looking at
+me from head to foot. "Madame should have a <i>robe de</i> silk, very
+complete, with flowers in her hair entirely, and an overskirt to the
+fore, garnitured with Limerick point."</p>
+
+<p>"An overskirt before," says I, lifting both hands, satchel and all.
+"Why, every skirt that I've seen in the street, or anywhere else, was
+puckered and bunched up behind," says I. "Excuse me, but I really
+couldn't think of wearing 'em in any other way."</p>
+
+<p>The French dress-maker&mdash;I know she was French by the letter E after
+Madam, and because the sign said she was from Paris. Well, she colored
+up, and looked every which way at first, but then she gave a skimping
+laugh, and said that I didn't understand French. I&mdash;I didn't understand
+French! I who had studied "French without a Master" as a speciality,
+with the most intelligent member of our circle, and conversed in the
+language as directed by that excellent book so fluently that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>46<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+pronunciation sounded almost like English nipped off a little! This was
+too much.</p>
+
+<p>The clear grit, which lies at the bottom of every New England woman's
+heart, riled up in mine when that cherished accomplishment was cast into
+disrepute.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame," says I, putting a keen emphasis on that E, "I came here to
+inquire about the most fashionable way of making a dress, not to give or
+take a lesson in the languages. Permit me to say I never could submit to
+wear an overskirt in the way you speak of&mdash;wrong side before&mdash;why, it
+would look dreadfully."</p>
+
+<p>"But Madame does not understand; I speak English so much in this country
+that my own language gets knocked into smithereens. I beg pardon&mdash;into
+confusion. Madame must be very perfect herself to detect it."</p>
+
+<p>I felt a smile creeping over my lips. Really, sisters, I had been too
+hard on the poor woman. It was not her fault if my ear was so very
+correct that nothing but the purest accent could satisfy me. She saw
+this look dawning upon my face, and I knew that she felt relieved by the
+way her elbows settled down on the counter again.</p>
+
+<p>"If madame will take a chair&mdash;that is, repose herself. Madame&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me," says I, benignly, for I didn't want to hurt her feelings
+again. "<i>Mademoiselle</i>, if you please."</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me," says she, humbly.</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," says I, benignly. "Now supposing we go on about this
+ball-dress. How much silk will it take?"</p>
+
+<p>The woman sat and thought to herself ever so long. Then she counted her
+fingers over once or twice. Then she said she didn't exactly know how
+much, which is the way with dress-makers all over the world, I do
+believe.</p>
+
+<p>"But one won't buy a dress without knowing how much to ask for," says I.
+"Say twelve yards now?"</p>
+
+<p>The woman lifted herself right off from the counter, and sat staring at
+me.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>47<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Twelve!" says she, "eighteen at the least."</p>
+
+<p>I felt as if some one had struck me. Eighteen yards for a dress, and
+gored all to pieces at that!</p>
+
+<p>"Some of your dress-makers in Broadway would want more than that!" says
+she, "and send for more and more after that."</p>
+
+<p>I made no answer, but took up my satchel and walked straight out of the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>Eighteen yards of silk for a dress! The thought of it kept me awake all
+night.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning I went right up to the palatial residence of my cousin,
+Emily Elizabeth Dempster, feeling that she would expect me to enter on
+that subject about bringing up children, which was my duty; but I was so
+down in the mouth about that dress, that everything like a moral idea
+had just swamped itself in those eighteen yards of silk; and instead of
+giving advice, I went into that house to beg for it, feeling all the
+time as if somebody had dumped me down from a mighty high horse onto
+that stone doorstep, and left me to travel home afoot. In fact, I felt
+as if coming to that house to ask about ball-dresses, instead of giving
+instruction, was a mean sort of business. But the ambition of a great,
+worldly idea was burning in my bosom, and I resolved to press forward to
+the mark of the prize of the high calling.</p>
+
+<p>Mercy on me! it is a ball-dress, not a class-meeting, that I am writing
+about. Oh, my sisters! is it true that black angels and white angels
+ever do get to fighting in a human soul, just as they do down South? If
+so, they had a tussle in my bosom that morning, and the black fellow
+came out best, with a gorgeous silk dress a-floating and a-rustling out
+from his triumphant right hand, and the splendid shadow of a great Grand
+Duke following after.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Emily Elizabeth was just coming downstairs, flounced and puffed
+and tucked up about the waist, till she was all over in a flutter of
+silk, and lace, and black beads, with a dashing bonnet on her head high
+enough for a trooper's training-cap, all shivery with lace and bows,
+with one long feather curling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>48<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> half way round it, and a white tuft
+sticking up straight on the top, looking so 'cute and saucy.</p>
+
+<p>Emily Elizabeth looked a little scared when she saw me coming in with my
+satchel; but when I told her what I wanted, her eyes brightened up, and
+she laughed as easy as a blackbird sings. "Oh, is that all!" says she.
+"I thought it was about the children. I'll give you a note to my
+dress-maker. Styles all French, and <i>so recherch&eacute;</i>." Look in the
+dictionary, sisters, and you will discover that this means something
+first-class.</p>
+
+<p>She took out a pencil and a square piece of paper with her name printed
+on it, and wrote something French, with the number of a house, which I
+won't give, not wanting any of my friends to be talked out of a year's
+growth, as I was.</p>
+
+<p>"There," says she. "The cream-on-cream all go to her. She'll fit you out
+splendidly. Leave it all to her. Good-morning, cousin; I must go; but my
+daughter is in the drawing-room&mdash;she will entertain you."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," says I, putting the card in my satchel, and making swift
+tracks for the out-door; "but I haven't time to be entertained."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE GENUINE MADAME.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/w.jpg" width="60" height="60" alt="W" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">W</span>ELL, I went straight down to that dress-maker's house, and handed the
+square paper cousin had written on to a lady who was fluttering round
+among a lot of girls, all hard at work sewing, like bumble-bees in a
+rose-bush.</p>
+
+<p>She looked at the paper; then she gave my alpaca dress an overhauling
+with her scornful eyes. Then she began to talk; but, my goodness, her
+French was awful. I couldn't understand a word of it. Once in a while
+she would chuck an English word in, and rush on again like a mill-dam.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>49<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>When I tried to put in a word of genuine French or pure English, she
+lifted her hands, hitched up her shoulders, and seemed as if she was
+swearing at me one minute and wanted to kiss me the next. I couldn't
+stand that.</p>
+
+<p>"How much will you ask&mdash;how many yards will it take. <i>La pre la pre?</i>"
+says I, bursting into French.</p>
+
+<p>The woman looked around on her girls, spread her hands as if praying for
+help, and then, all red in the face, she burst into English. Then I knew
+she did not understand her own native tongue, and gave her a sarcastic
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I find everything. How many yards? Oh, that depends on the idea, the
+invention. I have it here growing in my brain. The price? Ah, I cannot
+tell. When the work is complete then we know. There will be cr&ecirc;pe and
+point&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't want points," says I. "Talk in English if you don't
+understand your own language. The price, the price!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, very well, it shall be to your own satisfaction&mdash;perfect," says
+she, and then the creature shook out her hands as if she was shewing
+chickens from a corn-crib, and before I could say another word she
+shewed me on to the steps and shut the door.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I went back to my boarding-house, beat out and worried almost to
+death. Figures are satisfactory to the New England mind; but when you
+have only a whirlpool of broken words, ending with satisfaction, with a
+woman's hands spread out on her bosom, and nothing more, it is
+tantalizing. But I reckon the figures will come by and by, only I
+<i>should</i> like to have an idea of what they will count up to.</p>
+
+<p>As I was saying in the beginning of my report, ten thousand anxious
+female bosoms thrilled with expectations every night, and existence
+dragged wofully in literary and fashionable circles until that
+auspicious moment arrived when the son of an Imperial Emperor cast
+refulgence on our Western Hemisphere. But the waiting of us young girls
+was lonesome, very.</p>
+
+<p>I had done my best. For the first time in my life I had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>50<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> twisted my
+front hair into little wire tongs they call crimping-pins; maybe it was
+their tightness that held my eyes so wide open last night. I was trying
+with all my strength to shut them, when the sound of a cannon, ever so
+far off, brought me up in the bed, with my hand clasped and the heart in
+my bosom trembling like a frightened chicken.</p>
+
+<p>"He has come," says I to myself. "Alexis has come. To-morrow we shall
+see him&mdash;handsome, young, filled with Imperial royalty from the crown of
+his noble head to the soles of his patent-leather boots. But will he
+wear his crown in the procession, or only keep it for the grand ball.
+What if he should rest that crown on the head of some distinguished
+American, selecting a literary lady?" This thought impressed me; both
+hands went up to my lofty brow. Alas! they only sent the crimping-pins
+ploughing across my head with a thorny sharpness that filled my throat
+with screeches.</p>
+
+<p>My dress has come home&mdash;I am stunned:</p>
+
+
+<table summary="Price per yard of fabric">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl2">Thirty yards of silk, $10 per yard</td>
+<td class="tdr3">$300.00</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl2">One piece French crape</td>
+<td class="tdr3">                    25.00</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl2">Ten yards Brussels point</td>
+<td class="tdr3">                 100.00</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl2">Linings</td>
+<td class="tdr3">                                   10.00</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl2">Making</td>
+<td class="tdr3">                                    50.00</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl2">Materials</td>
+<td class="tdr3">                                 35.00</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl2">Silk buttons</td>
+<td class="tdr3">                              12.00</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl2">Passementerie, etc.</td>
+<td class="tdr3">                       15.50</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr4" colspan="2">            $547.50</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<p>I have just recovered from a long fainting fit. They have taken the
+crimping-pins out of my hair and deluged it with crystal water. I am
+lying on my couch faint and exhausted. Oh, my sisters, the paths of
+royalty are beautiful, but full of thorns. That bill has been enough to
+destroy all my pleasure in the visit of the Grand Duke Alexis.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>51<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX.<br />
+<br />
+<small>READY TO LAND.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/t.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="T" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">T</span>HE great Grand Duke of all the Russias has been thrown upon our shore
+by an upheaving of the mighty deep, and is now rocking at his ease in
+the iron-clad cradle of a great nation. Oh, he had a terrible time.
+Winds tossed him, storms pitched that noble vessel end foremost into the
+very bowels of the sea, then hove it up on great mountain waves, where
+it rocked and tottered and trembled, while the rain washed its
+decks&mdash;rendering mops useless&mdash;and the lightning got so tangled in the
+spars and rigging that you couldn't tell which was rope and which was
+fire.</p>
+
+<p>Out of all this danger the great Grand Duke was blown upon our shore,
+with a good deal less fuss than Jonah had when he took to his life-boat
+with fins and tail, and discharged cargo on a desert shore, without the
+first chance of an imperial reception, and nothing but an upstart guard
+to offer him the hospitalities of the country.</p>
+
+<p>Before daylight, Sunday morning, the vessel which bore that noble youth,
+all weather-beaten as a rusty potash kettle, but grand and majestic
+after its tussle with the storms, shot out her anchor in the lower
+bay&mdash;for New York has two bays, and two fine old rivers empty into them.
+The squadron&mdash;which means three or four other ships from Russia&mdash;had
+been waiting there till their great iron hearts nearly burst with fear
+that the imperial vessel had foundered; and when they saw it careering
+in amongst 'em, they set up a shout that made the very fishes in the bay
+rest on their fins and wonder what it could mean, for they had never
+heard Russians before, and it seemed as if the alphabet had been shaken
+ten thousand times over from as many pepper-boxes, and rained down on
+the water in one great shout.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody has told me yet how his imperial dukeship took this,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>52<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> and I
+haven't liked to inquire too closely. Supposing him asleep in the sweet
+privacy of his own upper berth, it wouldn't be quite proper, you know,
+but it must have been soul-stirring to hear those native syllables
+raining down blessings like tacks and brad-awls on his noble head.</p>
+
+<p>How our imperial guest spent the Sabbath-day is a mystery that Russia
+and the Russians only can solve. But I am credibly informed that ten
+thousand upper-crust females betook themselves to secret devotions in
+their own rooms, in crimping-pins and curl papers, the moment we got
+news that he was here.</p>
+
+<p>As for myself, I confess&mdash;no, our Society is not a confessional, and the
+secrets of a lady's get-up don't belong to a report for the public eye.
+So I say nothing on that point.</p>
+
+<p>Sunday night I couldn't sleep a wink; my heart was full of noble
+aspirations, and it seemed as if some wild Indian of the forest had got
+his grip in my hair and might scalp me any minute, everything was
+twisted so tight in that direction. In fact, to say nothing of sleeping,
+I couldn't have winked to save my life. But I bore it with Christian
+fortitude, determined to press forward to the mark of the prize. Oh,
+dear! will I ever remember that this report isn't a class-meeting
+confession? Well, the morning came, and oh, my sisters, it was pouring
+cats and dogs. When I heard this, I rose up in bed, covered my face with
+both hands, and just boo-hooed out a crying. I knew well enough that ten
+thousand other young girls were weeping like the skies; but that only
+made me feel worse and worse, for mine has always been a sympathetic
+heart, and I felt for them&mdash;I did indeed.</p>
+
+<p>I did not know what on earth to do. Cousin Emily Elizabeth Dempster had
+promised to come and take me down to the <i>Mary Powell</i>, a steamboat
+which the committee had engaged to take itself and all its wives and
+their friends, down to welcome the great Grand Duke, and bring him up to
+the city.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Emily Elizabeth's husband was a head cockalorum in this
+committee, which being the <i>cr&ecirc;me on cr&ecirc;me</i>&mdash;excuse French,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>53<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> it will
+break in somehow in spite of me&mdash;well, which being the <i>cr&ecirc;me on cr&ecirc;me</i>
+that had skimmed itself off from all the common milk of New York
+society, puffed Cousin E. E. up like&mdash;like a ripe button-ball.</p>
+
+<p>Since my reports have appeared in what the newspapers call the world of
+letters&mdash;I say it modestly, but truth is truth&mdash;Cousin E. E. has been
+sweet as maple-sugar to me, I can tell you. She had her eye teeth cut in
+Vermont, and understood that Queen Victoria knew there was one notch
+above the crown when she took to writing books. I say nothing; but there
+is an aristocracy that cuts its own way through all social flummery,
+like an eagle among chippen birds. That is real live genius; and if New
+England hasn't got her share of that, I don't know where its
+head-quarters are.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I and the clouds shed tears together for a good while; then I
+started up. "What if it does pour?" says I to myself; "the Grand Duke
+has been in storms before this; he ain't sugar nor salt, to melt at
+anything less than the glance of a loving eye. What's the good of being
+down in the mouth about a little rain? I'll get up&mdash;I'll unskewer my
+hair&mdash;I'll put on <i>that dress</i>, if I die for it." I started out of bed;
+I stood before the looking-glass; I began to untwist, to unroll; I did
+the corkscrew movement; I jerked&mdash;I shook my hair out&mdash;ripple, ripple,
+ripple, it fell over my shoulders. Then I rested awhile, and winked my
+eyes with exquisite satisfaction&mdash;for freedom is sweet both to the head
+and heart.</p>
+
+<p>I felt like a new creature&mdash;a delicious looseness settled on my
+temples&mdash;a feeling of feminine triumph swelled my soul. Could he resist
+the fleecy softness of that hair&mdash;the thousand ripples breaking up the
+sunshine&mdash;only there wasn't any sunshine to break. Not a silver thread
+was visible; if there had been several the night before, it was nobody's
+business but my own. My arms were tired with continual undoing; but,
+sisters, am I one to faint by the way? No, no, a thousand times no.</p>
+
+<p>I began to roll, to braid, to puff; I planted hair-pins in my head as
+thick as bean-poles in a garden. Heavy braids&mdash;expensive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>54<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> but
+lovely&mdash;fell down the back of my head; fluff on fluff shaded my lofty
+forehead. I say nothing; but my literary success, great as it is, has
+not been more satisfactory than this.</p>
+
+<p>I put on that dress in a great hurry, for Cousin E. E. was at the door
+in her carriage. How it glistened in the glass! How it swept out on the
+carpet, a peacock's tail is a trifle compared to it! I tucked it up; I
+turned the lining inside out, pinned it, puckered it round the waist,
+and then put on my new bonnet, which looked like a black beehive with a
+bird perched on the top. Then, with a burning heart, that fairly turned
+against it, I put on my waterproof cloak and pulled the hood over my
+poor bonnet.</p>
+
+<p>I opened my cotton umbrella, and went down. Cousin E. E. was waiting,
+and a tall fellow in half regimentals held the door open. I jumped in as
+spry as a cricket, and away we went.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X.<br />
+<br />
+<small>DOWN THE BAY.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/t.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="T" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">T</span>HE <i>Mary Powell</i> lay huddled up close to the wharf, with a great white
+flag crossed with blue stripes at one end, and the glorious old
+star-spangled banner at the other. In fact, she was all dressed out in
+flags. They were soaked through and through till their slimpsiness was
+distressing. In fact, the steamboat looked like a draggled rooster with
+no fence or cart to hide under.</p>
+
+<p>The committee were all there, with a whole swarm of ladies in waterproof
+cloaks, huddled together like chickens in a coop. There were generals,
+too, with gold epaulets on their shoulders: one that I'd heard of in the
+war, General McDowell, and some others, that lighted up the deck a
+little with their gold lace and sword-handles.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>55<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>She moved&mdash;I mean the <i>Mary Powell</i>. The sea was gray, the sky was
+black. Now and then I saw a flag fluttering by on some vessel, like a
+poor frightened bird searching for shelter, and pitied it. Then all at
+once bang went a gun. I hopped right up, and screamed out:</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?"</p>
+
+<p>"The salute," says a gentleman close by me. "A salute for the Grand
+Duke."</p>
+
+<p>I sat down astonished.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," says I, "I can't believe it. I&mdash;I've been saluted myself before
+this, and I know what it is. No human lips could have made that noise."</p>
+
+<p>The man looked at me, and puckered up his lips a trifle, as if he were
+trying to choke back a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm speaking of guns," says he, "not the sweet little salutes in your
+mind."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," says I, "that makes a difference, though I never heard firing off
+guns by that name before."</p>
+
+<p>"The Grand Duke will have twenty-two of 'em," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, I'm glad it's only the guns," says I, and a great big sigh
+of relief came up from my jealous bosom.</p>
+
+<p>Then we all went on again, till I heard some one call out that we'd got
+to heave-to. This scared me dreadfully. I looked around. Which two of
+all these females did they mean to heave into the vasty deep? Not me for
+one. If Russia is barbarous enough to want that sort of cannibal
+hospitality, I'm counted out.</p>
+
+<p>Shivering with fear, I drew back into the crowd, but watched things like
+a cat. Drifting through the fog, I saw a little vessel coming close to
+us, as if she had something to do with this heathen ceremony. The ladies
+in their waterproofs crowded to the side of the steamboat, as if they
+rather panted for the glory of being drowned then and there for the
+pleasure of the great Grand Duke.</p>
+
+<p>I heard a splash, but could not see if any one had been flung over, and
+when I got up to look, there was a magnificent old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>56<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> fellow, with ribbons
+in his coat and brooches set thick with shining stones on his bosom,
+a-coming up the side of the boat. He looks so proud and puffy, that I
+should have took him for the great Grand Duke, only that he wasn't near
+young enough.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is it?" says I to the old gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>"Catacazy," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"Cat&mdash;what?" says I, categorically.</p>
+
+<p>"Catacazy, the Russian Minister," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"Minister," says I; "do they mean to get up a prayer-meeting on board?"</p>
+
+<p>The old gentleman simmered down the laugh that was on his lips into a
+smile, and said he thought not.</p>
+
+<p>This pacified me, and I sat still while we went down through the upper
+bay, which seemed wrapped in waterproofs too, and into the lower bay,
+which heaved and rolled as if it was half-choked up with sweltering wet
+blankets. Then we came in sight of the ships, and saw the flags
+a-battling with the storm; but no one on board seemed to care a
+continental cent whether New York sent out her <i>cr&ecirc;me on cr&ecirc;me</i> or not.
+This silence made my heart sink.</p>
+
+<p>Then the minister went to the side of the vessel, leaned over, and swung
+his hat. By and by a boat came from the great Grand Duke's vessel, in
+which an imperial-looking man stood upright, like a high-born monarch,
+and lifted his cap as if it had been a crown.</p>
+
+<p>"It is&mdash;it is&mdash;oh, yes, it is the Duke!"</p>
+
+<p>This was on every lip but mine. I could not speak; exquisite emotion
+forbade it.</p>
+
+<p>No one came on board; but the minister with that catish name got into
+the boat, and then some of the committee, which skimmed itself again,
+and thickened up its cream considerably.</p>
+
+<p>There we waited and waited.</p>
+
+<p>They came back at last. That young gentleman was not the great Grand
+Duke. He wasn't coming till next day.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, how we wilted! Some of us almost burst out a-crying. I did not
+speak; I could not. Ever since we reached the lower<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>57<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> bay, I had felt
+dreadfully discouraged; now a strange sinking of the heart seized upon
+me&mdash;a faint dizziness, an agony of disappointment seemed raging in my
+stomach. Oh, my sisters! these exquisite sensibilities are a proof of
+greatness, I know, but the sufferings they bring, no human being but the
+creature of genius can tell.</p>
+
+<p>I am better. The glorious sight which followed that stormy day has
+relieved me. I have seen ten thousand flags blazing along Broadway&mdash;I
+have seen three times ten thousand republican worshippers waving their
+hats and handkerchiefs in acclamations for the son of an imperial
+despot. I have heard the glorious music of an imperial serenade&mdash;I have
+seen <span class="smcap">HIM</span>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE GRAND DUKE.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/s.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="S" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">S</span>ISTERS:&mdash;I have seen him. This hand has been pressed&mdash;significantly
+pressed&mdash;by the soft, rosy palm of imperial royalty. If a tablet to my
+memory should ever be sunk in the walls of our meeting-house, I charge
+you, dear sisters in the cause, to have this honor cut in Roman capitals
+deep into the marble; for what is an exaltation to me is glory to the
+Society, and, in fact, to all Vermont.</p>
+
+<p>I have been on the same steamboat with the great Grand Duke; his
+splendid blue eyes have looked into mine, and in that glance we grappled
+each other, soul to soul. He has smiled upon me through the yellow glory
+of that silky mustache, under which his plump, red lips shone like
+cherries, ripe enough to swallow, stones and all. He speaks English;
+reveres genius, and knows that it can never grow old.</p>
+
+<p>I saw him in Broadway, when all the New York militia turned out, which
+was a training day worth looking at. A<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>58<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> snow-storm of handkerchiefs
+burst out of the windows; ten thousand female hands waved him forward.
+Shouts rose from the multitude; little children were crowded back into
+the gutters; women were jammed together on doorsteps and curbstones. In
+fact, the skim milk of society was compelled to flow in awful narrow
+channels, while the <i>cr&ecirc;me on cr&ecirc;me</i>&mdash;excuse French once more&mdash;rolled
+smoothly through the city in carriages, with royalty leading the way, a
+regiment of trainers leading him, and a band of music leading the whole.</p>
+
+<p>I saw the whole glorious procession. From block to block I flitted, like
+some aspiring bird on the crest of a wave. My heart was full, my eyes
+fixed on one object&mdash;that tall, noble figure, with a blue watered silk
+scarf across his royal bosom, and a half-moon hat, with dipping points,
+gracefully lifted from his head. He must have been dazzled; he must have
+been impressed by this proof that republics scorn monarchies and trample
+them under foot.</p>
+
+<p>I flitted onward through the crowd, waving my handkerchief from a
+doorstep now and then. That handkerchief the idol of this august
+occasion seemed to follow eagerly with his eyes, as a sort of beacon
+light which kindred sympathy impelled him to recognize, for wherever I
+went he lifted that half-moon hat from his royal brow and smiled. I felt
+this compliment to the depths of my soul&mdash;it thrilled me.</p>
+
+<p>When I lifted myself out of the skim milk, and flowed in with the cream
+of cream on that stand in Union Square with my cousin and the <i>&eacute;lite</i> of
+society, he saw me again and recognized me once more, which irritated my
+cousin's jealousy a little, for she insisted that he lifted his black
+half-moon to the whole of us. But I know!</p>
+
+<p>I watched the carriage that bore him with a blushing cheek and a beating
+heart. There was General Dix, a real nice-looking old gentleman, sitting
+in front of him; there was Catacazy, the ambassador of all Russia, also
+a nice gentleman as you want to see, with <i>his</i> hat off, a-bowing and
+a-bowing. We flung up our handkerchiefs&mdash;we clapped our hands.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>59<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Clarendon Hotel stands near one corner of the Union Square; it has a
+skimpy piazza in front made of iron, and I've seen bigger hotels anyhow.
+But it is considered tip-top, and is always brimming over with the cream
+of cream. That is why Mr. Catacazy took my Grand Duke there. There was
+such a crowd of folks and trainers that I lost sight of him. By and by
+out he came into the piazza, and stood right before our aristocratic
+stand, which was fringed round with red cloth, and over which the
+star-spangled banner waved itself meekly to the nest of black eagles
+that streamed out over that noble scion of all the Russias.</p>
+
+<p>I could not see <i>him</i> plainly, as my heart panted to, so I borrowed my
+cousin's glass&mdash;a little spy-glass, understand&mdash;not specs, which I
+haven't come to by a long way. Well, I unscrewed the eye-glass, wound it
+up to the right notch, and brought him almost to my face; and there I
+stood, choke-full of heavenly satisfaction, all the while <i>he</i> looked
+down on the general training of soldiers that marched stream on stream
+between him and me.</p>
+
+<p>While my soul was going out luminously through these eyes, Cousin Emma
+Elizabeth Dempster touched my elbow, and says she:</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Frost, if you've got through with my glass, I should like to try
+it a little."</p>
+
+<p>I gave it up. Not being long-sighted, the whole pageant was a blank to
+me after that cruel deprivation, for I could no longer see that imperial
+figure on the piazza.</p>
+
+<p>My reports are making a tremendous sensation, and I&mdash;well, being modest
+by nature, I say nothing, but a committee, skimmed daintily off from the
+cream of cream, called at my boarding-house, and wanted me, as a rising
+star in the literary hemisphere of writers, to invite the great Grand
+Duke to a private reception, or entertainment, or something, where some
+that hadn't been on the steamboat could shake hands with him, and others
+might just touch the extremity of his coat,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>60<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> which they gave me their
+honor they wouldn't pull&mdash;as some high-bred ladies did when he was going
+from the boat.</p>
+
+<p>I received this committee with dignity, and promised to take their
+request into mature consideration, as soon as I could learn personally
+from the great Grand Duke whether he should prefer to have this homage
+paid by my own sex to the extremities of his coat, or not. I felt for
+these young ladies. I had experienced the yearning desire that possessed
+them, and knew how truly irrepressible it was. Had it not inspired the
+whole committee of reception, their wives, and their children to the
+third generation? Had it not disturbed fashionable life to its very
+dregs, and given spice to our weekly literature? Yes, I felt for these
+young persons, and in a little speech, remarkable for its graceful
+elocution, gave them encouragement.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>TICKETS FOR THE BALL.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/t.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="T" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">T</span>ICKETS for the ball! Sent, no doubt, at the Grand Duke's request.
+Cousin Emily Elizabeth has got tickets too. We shall go together in the
+same carriage, and leaning on her husband's arm. Dempster is a handsome
+man, and really <i>distingu&eacute;</i> looking. Excuse French; an educated person
+will break into it now and then.</p>
+
+<p>The day has come. Cousin Emily has just sent me a bundle of things, with
+her compliments&mdash;a little box with a cake of lovely white chalk in it;
+another, smaller yet, filled with a pink powder that looks like ground
+rose-leaves, and a bottle with something liquid and dark in it, which
+does not seem as if it was good to drink. What on earth does Cousin E.
+E. expect me to do with these things?</p>
+
+<p>Ah! pinned to the bundle, I find a letter, beginning "Dear<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>61<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> Cousin
+Ph&oelig;mie," and asking me to excuse her, but she sends the things,
+thinking that I may want to rejuvenate, and perhaps dye, before I go to
+the ball.</p>
+
+<p>Rejuvenate! Does she mean to say that I'm not young enough? and if I
+wasn't, how are these things a-going to help me? I know that girls in
+school sometimes eat chalk and chew gum, but never heard that they got
+the younger for it. Then the pink powder&mdash;well, it's no use calculating
+about it, especially as she wants me to die after it. I wish Cousin E.
+E. would ever learn to spell. When a woman dies she does not do it with
+a "y" as a general thing.</p>
+
+<p>Now what <i>does</i> all this mean?</p>
+
+<p>I was doing my hair at the looking-glass, when Cousin E. E. came in,
+looking like a queen; her blue silk dress was all spotted with gold
+flowers, and it streamed out half across my bedroom. Over that she wore
+a long white cloak, with tassels to it, and her hair was looped in with
+pink roses that were not redder than her cheeks, which would have
+satisfied me that her health was first-rate, if it hadn't been for the
+shadows that lay around her eyes, which had grown awfully dark since I
+saw her at home.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" says she, "I am just in time. Came early, thinking you might want
+help. Sit down; that will do. Now where is the you-know-what&mdash;those
+boxes&mdash;you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>Here E. E. flung off her cloak and came to the glass. I declare to you
+the creature's neck was white as any snow-drift but uncovered to an
+extent that frightened me out of a week's growth. Her arms, too, were
+the same, and bare as her neck. She had a narrow pink shoulder-strap,
+and some lace between them, and that was all; only a string of white
+stones, that shone like a rainbow now and then, was around her neck and
+one arm; two or three of the same kind of stones hung down from her
+ears, and shot out light from her hair.</p>
+
+<p>The whiteness of that neck astonished me, and made me look every which
+way.</p>
+
+<p>E. E. didn't seem to mind that, but took off her long white<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>62<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> gloves and
+laid them on the table; then she snatched up one of the boxes, and began
+to rub a handkerchief that lay on the bureau in it.</p>
+
+<p>"There now; hold back your head a little," says she; "shut your eyes."</p>
+
+<p>Here she began to rub my face and neck and arms with the handkerchief
+till they looked white as her own. Then she changed boxes, and I could
+feel her making soft dabs at my cheeks, which tickled a little.</p>
+
+<p>"Now open your eyes," says she.</p>
+
+<p>I opened them wide, she astonished me so; and, as true as you live, she
+began to tickle them with a tenty-tointy brush. After that she titivated
+my hair a little, washed her hands with some Cologne water, and
+snatching up my pink silk dress, which lay across the bed, just buried
+me in it. I declare it was scrumptious to feel the silk a-rustling round
+me, and a-settling down on the floor, wave on wave. Well, the bill was a
+damper, but I couldn't help enjoying it for all that.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," says E. E., a-drawing on her long, white gloves, "just take a
+look, and let us be off&mdash;Dempster is waiting."</p>
+
+<p>I did take a look, right straight in the glass, and couldn't help doing
+it again and again, the lady I saw there seemed so much like a
+magnificent stranger to me&mdash;so white, so blooming&mdash;so&mdash;. Forgive me,
+sisters&mdash;I forgot that modesty is a tender blossom that should be
+encouraged&mdash;and I will say no more, only this, Cousin Dempster's neck
+had a good deal more of it than mine, and that French dress-maker had
+given me a little chance of sleeves, while her's left them out
+altogether.</p>
+
+<p>When she spread out my skirt, it half covered the room. All at once she
+saw just one little spot of rain on it, and held up both her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you haven't worn this before? Good gracious! no lady in our set
+ever wears the same dress twice. The idea!"</p>
+
+<p>I felt myself wilting, for she was sarcastic in her speech. Then I up
+and spoke for myself.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I wore it once," says I; "but it was tucked up under<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>63<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> my
+waterproof cloak, with the lining turned inside out, and nobody saw
+it&mdash;especially the great Grand Duke, who didn't come out of his own
+vessel."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," says she, "then it won't be an absolute disgrace to the family if
+you wear it. I began to be afraid to go with you. There, now, don't look
+pins and needles at me, but just put something round you, and let us be
+off, or <i>he</i> will be there before us."</p>
+
+<p>That was enough. I huddled up that pink silk in my arms, and in less
+than two minutes Cousin Dempster's carriage was so choke full of his
+wife and me, that he took a seat with the driver.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE GRAND DUKE'S BALL.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/o.jpg" width="60" height="58" alt="O" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">O</span>H, my! wasn't that ball-room a sight to see? Seats piled on seats, all
+cushioned with red velvet, and one end curving round like a great red
+horseshoe, with flags and flowers and shields running below the
+bottommost tier; a great swinging balloon of sparkling glass poured its
+light, like July sunshine, down on a crowd of people, that looked more
+like born angels than human creatures. It fairly made me dizzy to look
+at 'em from Cousin Dempster's box-seat, which was right in the end of
+the circle.</p>
+
+<p>After a while I got my senses back, and looked out for <i>him</i>. He wasn't
+there yet, and that gave me a chance to see things. Four more heaps of
+glass, that seemed as if they had caught fire, hung in the other end of
+the room, and beyond them was a fountain of water, a-sparkling and
+a-flashing and a-tinkling in a make-believe garden by moonlight, with
+live fish swimming in it, and live flowers blooming in piles and heaps
+around it, and make-believe trees. Half running round the room was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>64<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+lot of marble posts, with white flower-pots running over with sweetness,
+and linked together with running vines, that made you feel yourself
+almost out of doors.</p>
+
+<p>All this was splendid; but there was one spot that everybody looked
+towards, and I most of all. Three boxes, cushioned with red velvet, were
+just chained together with great wreaths of flowers such as I never saw
+in a garden; but I knew they were genuine because of the scent, which
+was delicious. Banners set full of stars and stripes of red and white
+silk, all tangled in with flowers, hung over these boxes, and right in
+the centre streamed a white silk banner, on which our old bald eagle and
+the black eagles of all the Russias flocked together as sociable as
+robins in a nest.</p>
+
+<p>"There he is! There he is!"</p>
+
+<p>I started. I caught my breath, for back of the white flag <i>he</i> stood
+with the light a-shining on his beautiful yellow hair, and a smile on
+his lips. Oh, how grand, how tall, how gorgeous! Everybody was a-looking
+at him. The girls around me&mdash;always forward, and <i>so</i> silly&mdash;began
+twittering together, and looking that way as if he would ever think of
+dancing with them. They swarmed around me, as a representative person.
+They forgot their own trivialities, and rendered me such homage as
+genius commands from commonplace minds.</p>
+
+<p>"You are an author," said they. "You belong to the great aristocracy of
+the world. Speak for us. He cannot dance with all of us, but he can look
+this way through his opera-glass, and give us all a chance of being put
+in the papers as the beautiful young lady he admired so much. We appoint
+you a committee of one. Address him in our behalf. Get some memento of
+him that we may leave to future generations."</p>
+
+<p>The entreaties of these young creatures went to my heart. I raised my
+forefinger, which was like an oath to them, and says I:</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks for this honor. Like a Roman matron I will do my duty. Wait."</p>
+
+<p>I arose from my seat, and swept, with a dignity and grace<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>65<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> that must
+have done the Society I represent great honor, around the gallery, and
+found my way into the private retiring-room of our illustrious guest. It
+was small but beautifully furnished. My pink silk, as it trailed in,
+seemed to fill the whole room. In the looking-glass I saw a figure,
+tall, commanding; I may say queenly&mdash;but enough of that.</p>
+
+<p>A person stood near the door and looked in. I lifted my finger; he
+approached.</p>
+
+<p>"Go," says I, "to the great Grand Duke of all the Russias, and tell him
+that Miss Ph&oelig;mie Frost, a committee lady, awaits his presence here."</p>
+
+<p>He started&mdash;he smiled&mdash;he went.</p>
+
+<p>I drew back and stood against the wall opposite the door. <i>He</i> entered,
+looking a little puzzled. I advanced one foot, then the other, three
+long paces, as queens do when they act on the stage. Then I sunk down in
+a profound curtsey, wound myself up again into a royal position, and
+held out my right hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Great Grand Duke Alexis," says I, "son of an illustrious father and an
+imperial mother, whom all women love to honor, welcome to our
+shores&mdash;welcome to the fashion, genius, and beauty embodied in the
+females of America."</p>
+
+<p>Before I could finish the address to which duty and ever-burning genius
+inspired me, the great Grand Duke quenched my ardor by a heavenly smile
+that danced in his blue eyes, and almost broke into a laugh on his red
+lips. His voice was like over-ripe strawberries when he spoke and said:
+"The ladies did him great honor; he had not English to express his
+pleasure, and no power to repay their kindness." This was my time.</p>
+
+<p>"Being the head of a committee of so many young ladies that it is
+impossible for your Imperial Majesty to dance with the whole, I&mdash;that
+is, these ladies&mdash;wish to be represented in the festive cotillon by a
+person worthy of the occasion. Not the wife of an American potentate,
+who may or may not have any claims of her own, but a potentate in
+herself. Not crowned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>66<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> with the shadow of a man's laurels, but wearing
+her own bay leaves as Tasso did."</p>
+
+<p>Here I felt my eyes a-drooping, and my tall figure bent like a weeping
+willow. The great Grand Duke saw my confusion, and his smile deepened
+audibly.</p>
+
+<p>"Say to the lovely committee of ladies," says he&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>But I interrupted him, and putting one hand on my heart, observed, with
+a gentle bow:</p>
+
+<p>"Embodied in me."</p>
+
+<p>Then he smiled out loud again, and says he:</p>
+
+<p>"If the Committee of Arrangement permit, I shall have much pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>With that he bowed and prepared to go out. I drew back toward the wall
+till the pink silk skirt began to tangle up my feet, and kept my eyes
+lifted to his face, which was still bathed in blushing smiles. Another
+step, a low curtsey, and I lifted myself up with dignity while he passed
+through the door.</p>
+
+<p>I was alone, with nothing but the looking-glass to gaze on my delight.
+The young ladies had begged of me for a memento of royalty. I looked
+around. An ivory-handled hair-brush lay on a marble shelf under the
+glass. I seized upon it, knowing that it had touched his head. I
+examined it. Imagine my joy&mdash;six bright yellow-brown hairs clung to the
+bristles! Carefully, daintily I picked them out, and, laying them in the
+palm of my white glove, formed a tiny tress of them&mdash;tiny, but oh! how
+exquisitely precious!</p>
+
+<p>With this treasure in my hand I went back to my constituency. They
+crowded round me; sparkling eyes gazed upon the glorious prize I had
+secured; cherry lips kissed it with gushing fervor, and pleaded with me
+for just a morsel. I secured one lovely hair for myself, and, cutting
+the rest into tiny bits, distributed them generously. Oh, sisters! this
+act endowed me with wonderful popularity among my young companions. We
+girls should be generous to each other. I was generous, and an orchard
+full of spring robins could not have chirped more happily than they did
+while flocking around me. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>67<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> the dancing began. I stood ready, with my
+long pink silk skirt gathered half way from the floor. But all at once
+it dropped from my hand&mdash;<i>he</i> was on the floor, and another lady clung
+to his arm. The jealousy of that committee of gentlemen had prevailed.
+He danced with the Governor's wife.</p>
+
+<p>Did I stand ready to play second fiddle to her? No, no! a thousand times
+no! Was I not a New England lady? Did I not feel that the literature of
+the country had its eyes upon me? <i>He</i> couldn't help it; the deploring
+glance that he cast upon me was enough to satisfy me of that. Indeed,
+his feelings were so hurt that he really could not go through the
+figures of the cotillon, but kept dancing every which way, like a man
+torn with distractions. My heart ached for him. I could not bear to see
+his distress, and retired with dignity to my seat upstairs and looked
+on, while my proud New England heart burned with indignation. If I live,
+that committee of gentlemen shall hear from me again.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>XIV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE NATURAL HISTORY PHILANTHROPIST.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/s.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="S" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">S</span>ISTERS:&mdash;He has gone! The luminous star that has shone upon us with
+such refulgence for the last few weeks, has gone to our beloved "Hub of
+the Universe," where poets, governors, and other distinguished men of
+New England are now revolving around him like the spokes of a cart
+wheel. Mr. Holmes has written him some sweet verses; Mr. Longfellow has
+greeted him with welcomes. They have given him balls, dinners, and a
+cold in his face. In short, New England has been true to itself and its
+climate. When the hub turns on its axle, the spokes whirl and the tires
+revolve, giving a swift throb to the whole universe. As a New England<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>68<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+woman&mdash;I beg pardon&mdash;young lady, I am proud of Boston, proud of the
+honor they are doing to <i>Him</i>. But after all, the Hub must imitate. We
+took the crown off.</p>
+
+<p>Before he left, a new and exquisite idea came into my head&mdash;some people
+may think it a little flighty, but you will understand all the poetry it
+contains. I have a canary bird&mdash;for I love birds with all the inborn
+intensity of genius&mdash;so old that his feathers are nothing more than a
+creamy white. In that particular he&mdash;I should say she&mdash;being a female,
+that never sings beyond a chirp, has the gift of silence peculiar to the
+sex. I got her cheaper on that account. Well, she is almost dove-like in
+color and in sweetness of disposition. No more lovely messenger from
+heart to heart could be found in the whole world.</p>
+
+<p>Well, sisters, I took this bird from its cage with my own hands, and I
+smothered it with kisses from my own lips, which quivered with intensity
+of emotion. Then I tied a blue ribbon about its neck, and attached to
+that a tenty-tointy note which contained these lines:</p>
+
+<div class="block2">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Farewell, noble prince, my fond heart is gushing<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With thoughts that no language can ever reveal;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the sweetest affection this warm cheek is blushing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And hopes to my maidenly bosom will steal,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of a time when our souls, with united expression,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Shall mingle with harmony more than divine;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the priest&mdash;be he Greek, or of any profession&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Shall bless this poor hand as it clings unto thine.<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>The paper was of an exquisite rose-color on which I indited this gem. I
+flatter myself that genius can sometimes write beautifully. It is not
+just the thing to particularize here, but if that Grand Duke <i>can</i> read
+English he must have admired the sweet morsel which that lovely songster
+bore to him on the wings&mdash;well, of a canary.</p>
+
+<p>I would not send my bird in a cage, because handsome cages are
+expensive, and do not carry an idea of freedom with them, which our
+spread eagle might have led the great Grand Duke<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>69<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> to expect. Neither
+would I trust her with a street boy whose hands might be dirty and
+unsafe. No, I put on my bonnet, locked the bird with his blue ribbon in
+a box covered with gilt paper, and walked straight down to the Clarendon
+Tavern, and asked for one of the committee-men.</p>
+
+<p>A tall, grave-looking gentleman came into the room, where I sat waiting,
+and said he was Mr. Bergh, one of the committee-men, and then stood a
+minute, as if he was waiting to know what I wanted.</p>
+
+<p>I had heard a great deal about the gentleman's goodness to the poor dumb
+beasts that are so abused and trampled on, and my heart rose right into
+my mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Bergh," says I, reaching out my hand, "in the name of New England,
+permit me to shake hands, and thank you for the good you are a-doing to
+so many of God's own creatures."</p>
+
+<p>The gentleman smiled, and reached out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad to hear," says I, "that some old bachelor has left a lot of
+money to your society. It is just what I would do myself if I hadn't a
+hope&mdash;that is, it may be possible that all the money I have will be
+needed for a special occasion&mdash;as no free-born New England woman would
+be beholden to a foreign nation for her setting out."</p>
+
+<p>Here Mr. Bergh smiled. You have no idea how much younger he looked when
+he did smile; the benevolence that made him a Natural History
+Philanthropist just shone out from his eyes, and beamed all over his
+face, till I longed to be&mdash;well, say a duck, or something of that
+sort&mdash;that he might save me from oppression.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," says he; "most men want some object in life. You ladies
+have done so much for humanity that we are content to leave it in your
+hands, but the poor animals have up to this time escaped compassion."</p>
+
+<p>"Not compassion, but assistance," says I. "Cruelty to animals is mostly
+confined to men."</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly," says he. "I have sometimes seen kittens<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>70<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> and pet dogs
+treated more unmercifully than omnibus-horses, and by innocent children
+too."</p>
+
+<p>I did not answer. How could I? The remembrance of a trout-brook, with
+birch-trees hanging over it, and great red-seeded brake-leaves growing
+thick on the bank, made me shudder. Hadn't I held ever so many kittens
+under water in that very spot, and shouted and laughed to the other
+girls&mdash;some of you, my sisters, among them&mdash;while the poor little things
+kicked and struggled for life, that was just as dear to them as it is to
+me? Hadn't I hunted up birds' nests, and driven the pretty creatures
+distracted by handling their eggs, till at last the nests were broken
+up? Then didn't I string the cold eggs into a chain, and hang them in
+triumph over the looking-glass in our keeping-room?</p>
+
+<p>You will tell me, out of the kindness of your hearts, that these were
+sins of ignorance. Just so; and it is this ignorance, which is sometimes
+cruel as the grave, that Mr. Bergh is trying his best to enlighten. No
+child would do a cruel thing if it were made to understand the pain it
+is giving. Yet, sticking pins through flies, and spearing wasps to the
+wall, are about the first thing a smart baby learns to do.</p>
+
+<p>Did you ever see a lot of boys going home from school, when a
+garter-snake, or any other harmless serpent, crosses their path? They
+know well enough that the poor things do no harm, and are as afraid as
+death of them; but see the great stones they heave upon the miserable
+reptile; the shouts they send up, as it writhes, and coils, and fills
+the air with feeble hisses, trying, poor thing, to save its bruised and
+broken life to the last.</p>
+
+<p>Does anybody tell the boys that this is brutal cruelty? No, even the
+Christian mother, who would not do an unkind thing to save her life,
+forgets that God makes snakes as well as ringdoves, and that pain is
+just as bitter to the snake as to the cooing bird.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, we are all wrong in leaving these things to men only. If we did
+our duty, and taught little children that even thoughtless<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>71<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> cruelty is a
+sin, and that the fun which comes out of pain to any of God's creatures
+is a crime, there would not be much for Mr. Bergh and his noble society
+to do. The cruel instincts of a child become ferocious in the man. With
+such, men can best deal. I thank God that one brave spirit is found
+ready and able to protect the dumb creatures that are given us for
+blessings, not for victims.</p>
+
+<p>While I am writing this, picture after picture comes up from my own past
+girlhood, and my heart stands still as I remember how ferocious a thirst
+for fun and ignorance can be in a child. How many sleepy-looking toads I
+have seen, with their backs all jewels, and their throats yellow gold,
+that asked nothing but a burdock leaf for shelter, and a few flies for
+food, crushed to death by boys who thought no harm, and only liked the
+sport of killing something.</p>
+
+<p>Since then, I have learned that these little creatures are a great help
+to gardeners, and that wise men foster them with kindness and care.</p>
+
+<p>Once, down by the trout-brook we know of, I saw a lot of children, busy
+as bees, doing something on the bank, where two or three boys were
+kneeling, and the rest looking on. Of course I went down to the brook,
+and, being a little mite of a creature, looked on, half frightened, half
+wondering.</p>
+
+<p>The boys had caught a great frog, green as grass. He was, I have no
+doubt, one of those hoarse old croakers, that make one timid about going
+by ponds and marshy ground in the night, up in our State. Well, they had
+him down in the grass, and one held him while the other ran a pin
+through both jaws and twisted it there. There was no fun in this. A lot
+of doctors cutting off an arm couldn't have been more gravely in
+earnest. Some of the boys were eight and ten years old; but not one of
+them seemed to feel that they were doing a hideous thing. I remember
+feeling very sorry for the poor frog, but it was not till years and
+years after that I understood the horrible, lingering death these
+ignorant boys had tortured him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>72<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> with. Since then I have never thought of
+that sparkling trout stream, without a pain at my heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Childish ignorance," I hear you say&mdash;for some of these boys were your
+own brothers, and meant no harm. But what right had they to be ignorant?
+They knew well enough that it was against the law to kill one another.
+Why were they not taught that the life that God gives to His meanest
+creature is as sacred as a good man's prayers; unless necessity calls
+for it, and then it must be taken with as little suffering as death can
+give?</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, I am in earnest; the missionary spirit is strong upon me. I
+wish our Society to take up this subject with interest. What Mr. Bergh
+has been doing among men, we must do among the children of this
+generation. When ignorance is an excuse for cruelty, you and I and every
+woman of the land are wretches if we allow a child to sin because it
+knows no better. There is no great study necessary to work out a reform
+here. The mother who knows what is right knows how to impress it on her
+children; and if they play at death and destruction, she is the person
+most to blame.</p>
+
+<p>Don't say that I am writing out one of my popular addresses before the
+Society&mdash;I never thought of such a thing; but when I saw the great
+Natural History Philanthropist, my heart and mind went right back to you
+and my duties as a missionary of universal progress, and I sat there in
+silence thinking over these things till I forgot that he was there.</p>
+
+<p>At last he spoke, and said, kindly enough, "Is there anything I can help
+you in?"</p>
+
+<p>I started and reached out my hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Bergh," says I, enthusiastically, "I can help you! All the world
+over we women work best in the primary department. You have begun a
+grand and a noble work among men. We will begin at the other end, and in
+that way cut your work down to nothing. I see a clear path before us.
+Henceforth I will belong to your Society, and you shall belong to mine.
+Is it agreed?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>73<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>He sat down by me; his eyes grew bright; his earnestness of purpose
+inspired me to press forward to the mark of the prize&mdash;I beg pardon, the
+old prayer-meeting spirit will manifest itself in spite of me when my
+soul is full of a great purpose.</p>
+
+<p>After we had talked on the great subject satisfactorily, he said, all at
+once, "But you came for some purpose in which I may have the pleasure of
+serving you."</p>
+
+<p>Then I remembered my bird and its imperial object. Revealing my
+gold-paper box, I opened it carefully, fearing a sudden flight. Nothing
+moved. Trembling with dread, I put in my hand; it touched a soft fluff
+of feathers that did not stir.</p>
+
+<p>My heart sank like a lead weight in my bosom. I looked in; the poor
+little thing lay in the bottom of the box, with its wings spread out,
+and its head lying sideways. I touched it with my hand; it was limp and
+dead. While I had been talking with so much feeling about cruelty to
+animals, my own little songster&mdash;no, being a female she was not
+that&mdash;but my poor pet had been smothered to death in that gorgeous
+little receptacle.</p>
+
+<p>With my heart swelling like a puff-ball, I turned my shoulder on that
+good man, and closed my satchel solemnly, as if it had been a tomb.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," says I, in a voice full of touching penitence, "I feel myself
+just at this minute wholly unworthy of the mark of the high calling to
+which I have offered myself. A young lady who puts herself forward to
+teach thoughtful kindness to the young, should be above reproach in that
+respect herself."</p>
+
+<p>The good gentleman looked awfully puzzled, for how would he guess at the
+crime I had locked up in that box?</p>
+
+<p>"Good-morning," says I, walking away; "the time may come when I shall
+feel a new exaltation, but just now&mdash;well, good-morning."</p>
+
+<p>I went away meek and humble as a pussy cat. When I looked down at the
+box in my hand it seemed as if I was carrying a coffin.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I buried my poor little pet in that identical box, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>74<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> the blue
+ribbon about its neck; but the poem I forwarded to <i>him</i> in Boston. I
+may be meek and humbly conscious of my own shortcomings, but the Grand
+Duke of all the Russias shall never go home with the idea that Vermont
+hasn't got poets as well as Boston, and that young ladies cannot put as
+much vim and likewise maple-sugar into their poetry as that smart
+fellow, Dr. Holmes, simmered down in his.</p>
+
+<p>Just read mine and his, that's all!</p>
+
+<p>I do think that nothing can equal the forwardness of some New York
+girls. Would you believe it, one stuck-up thing has just stolen my
+beautiful idea, and sent her card to the great Grand Duke tied round a
+bird's neck; but it was like stealing a fiddle and forgetting the
+fiddlestick. A card isn't poetry. There is no accounting for the vanity
+of some people; but the best proof of genius is imitation.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>XV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>CHRISTMAS IN NEW YORK.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;Thanksgiving is the great Yankee jubilee of New England.
+Then every living thing makes itself happy, except the turkeys, and
+geese, and chickens. They, poor martyrs, have been scared into the
+middle of next week by the yells, and shrieks, and awful cackling of the
+whole army of winged creatures that sit in ten thousand ovens, with
+their legs tied, their wings twisted, and the gravy a-dripping down
+their sides and bosoms, like rain from the eaves of a house. Of course,
+for that day, every barn-yard in New England goes into mourning. The
+poor hen is afraid to cackle when she lays an egg, for fear of having a
+gun cracked at her. Even the fat hogs look melancholy in their pens, for
+a smell of roasting spare-ribs comes over them, and they seem to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>75<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+ruminate mournfully on some means of saving their own bacon.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, there must be some unhappiness even on a New England
+Thanksgiving, or earth would forget itself and turn into heaven all at
+once. Besides, who thinks of the scared gobblers, when he has a plump
+turkey roasted brown as a berry, scenting the whole house with richness?
+I for one could not bring myself to the foul contemplation&mdash;excuse the
+wit&mdash;spontaneity is perhaps my fault.</p>
+
+<p>Well, what Thanksgiving is to New England, Christmas-day is to New York.
+Everybody goes to meeting in the morning, and everybody takes dinner
+with everybody else after that. For days before it comes the streets are
+full of covered wagons, and men and boys, loaded down with bundles,
+crowd against each other on every doorstep. In fact, half New York just
+throws itself away in presents on the other half, which pitches just as
+many back. Thus every street and house is a hubbub of gifts and a blaze
+of light, from Christmas Eve till after Christmas dinner.</p>
+
+<p>Christmas Eve, dear sisters, belongs to the children. What there is of
+'em in these parts, and the jubilation they have, rich and poor, black
+and white, is enough to warm the heart in one's bosom. There is a
+gorgeous old Dutch ghost that they think comes prowling over roofs and
+down chimneys in the night, to bring them presents. This comical old
+fellow sets up Christmas trees for the rich, and fills woollen stockings
+for the poor, and makes himself a magnificent old humbug that every
+child in the city worships and will believe in, though the little
+misguided souls know at the bottom of their hearts that, somehow or
+another, this Santa Claus and their own parents have a mysterious
+understanding and private moneyed transactions, that mix things
+terribly. Still, they really do believe in the old fellow, just as you
+and I believe in dreams. It is the last thing a little girl gives up,
+unless it is her dolls.</p>
+
+<p>Speaking of dolls, I wish you could see the scrumptious little ladies
+that have been sold here this week. You and I were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>76<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> awful proud if we
+could get a rag-baby, with drops of ink for eyes, and its cheeks
+reddened with a little pokeberry juice; but the dolls they sell here are
+such beauties!&mdash;yellow hair, frizzed around the face like thistle-down;
+rosy cheeks, and eyes that shut with such sweet laziness if you lay the
+little things down. I declare, it's enough to make one long to be a
+child again, to take one of these dainty creatures in your arms.</p>
+
+<p>The Saturday before Christmas I went out with Cousin E. E. Dempster, to
+buy presents. She came in her carriage, with the driver and another chap
+in regimentals on the front seat, outside, and a great white bear-skin
+inside that just swallowed us up to the waist, as if we had settled down
+in a snow-bank of fur. Under that was a muff for your feet, and some
+contrivance that must have been a foot-stove hid away, for it was as
+warm as toast.</p>
+
+<p>Well, sisters, such things may be extravagant, I know; but they are
+nice, if it wasn't for one's conscience.</p>
+
+<p>The carriage turned down Broadway, which is the street where the most
+splendid stores are found. It really was worth while to see how that
+driver&mdash;with his fur gloves that made his hands look like a bear's
+claw&mdash;guided them horses in and out, among the omnibus-stages, the
+carriages, and carts, that just turned the street into Bedlam. It fairly
+made me catch my breath to see how near the wheel would come to some
+other wheel, and then just miss it. Every stage that went lumbering by
+made me give a little scream, it came so near to running us down. But
+Cousin E. E. sat there buried in the white fur, as cosey as a goose on
+her nest. It aggravated me, and I asked her if she wasn't afraid nor
+nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no," says she, a-leaning back and half shutting her eyes; "it is the
+coachman's business. I should discharge him if anything happened."</p>
+
+<p>"But you couldn't discharge him after you were mashed to death under
+them great omnibus wheels," says I.</p>
+
+<p>E. E. smiled. What a calm, lazy smile she has!</p>
+
+<p>"No," says she; "but there would be a fuss, and my name<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>77<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> would get into
+the paper. Everything has its compensation, Cousin Frost."</p>
+
+<p>Before I could answer, the carriage stopped in front of a large, high
+store, with great, tall windows, all one shiny sheet of glass on each
+side of the door, through which you could see lots on lots of silver and
+gold and precious stones, all in confusion, but, oh, how gorgeous!</p>
+
+<p>"This is Ball, Black &amp; Co.'s," says she, a-going up to the door, which
+seemed to open of itself, and in we went.</p>
+
+<p>You have read the "Arabian Nights' Entertainment." I remember the time
+well, because we all got "kept in" after school for being caught at it.
+Well, that cave wasn't to be compared to what I saw in Messrs. Ball &amp;
+Black's store. From floor to roof, all was one dazzle. Gold clocks, with
+silver horses tramping over 'em; colored men and women&mdash;reconstructed
+figures, I reckon; white stone women, a-standing, sitting down,
+scrouching themselves together, or riding lions a-horseback, bold as
+brass, filled one long room, like a regiment of military trainers. Then
+there were chandeliers of glass, in which no end of rainbows seemed to
+be tangled; dishes of sparkling glass, set in a frostwork of silver or
+gold, and&mdash;I may as well stop; no genius could give you an idea of the
+gorgeous things it was my privilege to see in those long rooms.</p>
+
+<p>When we had wandered upstairs and downstairs again, Cousin E. E. stopped
+at one of the counters, and wanted to look at some rings. As for me I
+wanted to look at everything. What was one ring compared to whole stars,
+and bands, and clusters of shiny, white stones, that seemed to have been
+dug out of a rainbow&mdash;all mixed up with other stones, red as blood,
+green as spring grass, blue as the sky, and white as snow-crust. Why,
+sisters, that counter was just one bed of burning sunshine. It dazzled
+my eyes so that I can hardly remember anything distinct enough to
+describe it to you.</p>
+
+<p>Well, Cousin E. E. bought her ring, which had a green stone set in it. I
+saw her hand a lot of money over the counter to pay for it, which riled
+my conscience a little; but I said nothing,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>78<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> the money being hers, not
+mine; still, how much good it might have done some missionary society.</p>
+
+<p>Well, out of this store of gorgeousness we went, and got into the
+carriage again.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. said she had bought so many things that this was about the
+last place she had to go to, and, as it was getting pretty near dark, I
+must go home with her and help fill up the Christmas tree. Cecilia would
+be dreadfully disappointed if it was not splendid, and they all thought
+so much of my taste.</p>
+
+<p>I made no objections; why should I? Christmas Day in a boarding-house
+isn't full of ravishing promises, so I just snuggled down into the white
+fur again, and let the fellow with bear-skin claws drive me where he had
+a mind to.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>XVI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/o.jpg" width="60" height="58" alt="O" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">O</span>H, sisters! there is something touching and splendid in a Christmas
+tree. Just fancy one of our mountain spruces, towering almost to the
+ceiling of a room, green as when it was cut from the woods. Think of
+this tree, hung all over with little wax candles, bunches of pale-green
+and purple grapes, teinty red apples, golden horns and baskets chuck
+full of sugar things. Stuffed humming-birds, looking chipper as life.
+Butterflies, that seem to be flying through the green of the trees, and
+a whole camp-meeting of dolls sitting around the roots, and then tell me
+if the Christmas time of a New York child isn't like living among the
+people of a fairy book.</p>
+
+<p>This was the sort of tree set up at Cousin Dempster's, Sunday night
+before this last Christmas day. Of course, we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>79<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> couldn't think of
+breaking the Sabbath, but the minute it was sundown, at it we went. Of
+course, we didn't want the little girl to know what we were a-doing; but
+the first we knew, in she hopped, as chipper as a humming-bird, and
+would keep interfering and changing things, in spite of all we could do.</p>
+
+<p>At last, her mother got her dander up and told her to march right off to
+bed, just as a woman born in Vermont ought to order her own child; but
+the tantalizing thing just hitched up her shoulder, and said, "She
+wouldn't go, nor touch to the tree was for her own self. The house was
+her par's, and she'd do just as she'd a mind to in it."</p>
+
+<p>With that, Cousin E. E. blazed into a passion, and took her child by the
+arm, with a jerk that sent her flying into the hall. Then I heard a
+screeching and a scrambling up the stairs, and it seemed to me a slap or
+two&mdash;I hope I wasn't mistaken about that&mdash;then a door slammed, and
+Cousin E. E. came downstairs like a house o' fire, with both eyes
+blazing, and one cheek red as flame. Could it be that the slap I heard
+was from the other side, or had it been a free fight?</p>
+
+<p>"That girl will be the death of me," says she, walking about like a lion
+in its cage. "I never knew a worse child."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I never did," says I, with more than my usual spontaneity, for
+I felt it.</p>
+
+<p>"You never made a greater mistake," says E. E., fierce as a hen hawk.
+"It is because she has so much more brains&mdash;spirit&mdash;genius than any
+other children. A more splendid character never lived than my daughter
+Cecilia."</p>
+
+<p>I said nothing; maybe it would have been just as well if I had held my
+tongue before.</p>
+
+<p>"She is a favorite everywhere," E. E. went on, cooling down like a brick
+oven after the coals are hauled out.</p>
+
+<p>I said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"Ahead of girls twice her age," E. E. went on. "She speaks French like a
+native."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there anything more to put on?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says she, "we will have the presents ready for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>80<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> morning. I
+meant to have some of Cecelia's friends here to-morrow night, but she
+wanted the tree to herself."</p>
+
+<p>With this, E. E. brought an armful of boxes and things from the next
+room. The first thing she set up against the stem of the tree was a
+doll, dressed in a splendid silk ball-dress, with a long, sweeping
+train, and teinty rose-buds in her yellow curls. The blue eyes were
+natural as life, and her face was just lovely. Then she brought out a
+Saratoga trunk about as big as a foot-stool, which was crowded full of
+dolls' dresses, just such as a live young lady would be proud to wear.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it beautiful?" says E. E.</p>
+
+<p>"I should think so," says I; "how much did it cost?"</p>
+
+<p>"A hundred and twenty-five dollars," says she. "I sent to Paris for it."</p>
+
+<p>"A hundred and twenty-five dollars?" says I, lifting up both hands;
+"that would keep a poor family how long?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," says she, short as pie-crust, "but a poor family
+wouldn't amuse my Cecilia, and these will."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," says I; "what is this for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that is her father's present&mdash;pink coral&mdash;hang it across one of the
+limbs," says she.</p>
+
+<p>I hung the beads among the spruce leaves, and enjoyed the sight; they
+seemed like a string of rose-buds twisted in with the green.</p>
+
+<p>"There now, we will finish in the morning," says E. E. "I wish Cecilia
+had invited her little friends; it will seem rather lonesome."</p>
+
+<p>With this, Cousin E. E. gave a little sigh, and we went off to bed,
+telling me that I must be sure to get up in time for early service,
+which she wouldn't miss for anything.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>81<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>XVII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>EARLY SERVICE.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;Before daylight on Christmas morning, I went to early
+service at the highest church in New York city, which, after all, isn't
+anything to brag of in the way of steeple.</p>
+
+<p>There is a brick meeting-house on Murray Hill that beats it all to
+nothing, for that has just the longest and pointedest steeple that I
+ever set eyes on. Still, everybody allows that the little Episcopal
+church I went to, Christmas morning, is the very highest in all America;
+and, though in my heart I don't believe it, having eyes in my
+head&mdash;there is no chance for me to take a measurement, and what can I
+say against the word of everybody else? Still, to you in confidence, for
+I don't want to get into a schismatic controversy, I dare take an oath
+that the brick church on Murray Hill is twice as high, to say nothing of
+the sharp-pointedness of the steeple and the hilly ground.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. Dempster says she is high church from the crown of her head
+to the sole of her foot, which I didn't dispute, for she always had high
+notions. She gave me strict charge, when I went to bed, Christmas Eve
+night, not to sleep late, and be sure to be ready for an early start.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I went to bed feeling as if I had got to start by some swift
+railway train every hour of the night, and must be ready for them all.
+It was Sunday night, you know, and I woke up twice with a start, before
+it was next week; got up, felt for the matches I had laid handy, and
+went to bed again, and dreamed that I was trying to get into a steamboat
+with two steeples, which put off, and left me freezing on the dock.</p>
+
+<p>Like one of the wise virgins, I had brought a candle upstairs, and some
+matches, which was an improvement on their old lamps, I dare say; but I
+wasn't much afraid of the dark, and didn't keep it burning, only left
+everything ready.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>82<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>After that dream, I started up, struck a match, and found that I had
+been just fifteen minutes in getting that steam church under way. So I
+went on dreaming, starting up, and lighting matches all night, till at
+last I hadn't but one left, and with that I lighted the candle, and a
+gas-burner by the bureau, and began to dress myself.</p>
+
+<p>Before I got through, Cousin E. E. was at the door, with her beehive
+bonnet on, and wrapped up in fur.</p>
+
+<p>"Almost ready? I am so glad, for the day is just beginning to break, and
+I wouldn't have it broad light when we get there, for anything," says
+she. "Wrap up warm, for it has blown up awful cold in the night."</p>
+
+<p>I did wrap up warm; put on a veil, and tied my mink-skin victorine, with
+three tails on each tab, close around my neck.</p>
+
+<p>We went downstairs carefully, for only one burner was twinkling in the
+hall, and the whole house was dark and shivery.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in here," says Cousin E. E., opening the dining-room door.</p>
+
+<p>Under the glass globe, in which two or three chilly lights seemed
+longing to go out, the ghost of a table was spread, with a great deal of
+silver, and very little to eat.</p>
+
+<p>"Just a cup of coffee and a mouthful of toast before we start," says E.
+E., sitting down behind a great silver urn in her furs and her beehive;
+"for my own part, I could do without that."</p>
+
+<p>She poured me out a cup of coffee&mdash;it was half cold and awfully
+riley&mdash;and asked me to help myself to a piece of toast, which had black
+bars across it, as if it had been striped on a gridiron.</p>
+
+<p>"Things are getting cold," says E. E., "they have been standing so long.
+The cook has been out an hour; but she knows I consider this my
+penance."</p>
+
+<p>"Out where?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, to early service."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>83<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"An hour?" says I; "why I thought we were going to early service. It
+isn't daylight yet."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," says Cousin E. E., with a sigh, "but her church is a little
+higher than ours."</p>
+
+<p>"Higher," says I; "then there is some meeting-house a notch above
+yours?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, cousin," says she, mournfully, "but we are creeping up. Every year
+brings us a step nearer."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," says I, wondering what she meant.</p>
+
+<p>"By and by we shall have confession," says she.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," says I, "there isn't a meeting-house on Sprucehill that would take
+in a member till she had made a confession of religion."</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. shook her head, and observed that I didn't understand,
+which riled me a little, having been a member&mdash;well, no matter how long.</p>
+
+<p>"Even now we have humiliation and penance."</p>
+
+<p>I was trying to swallow a mouthful of the bitter toast and riley coffee,
+and couldn't in my heart contradict her.</p>
+
+<p>"To that end we get up early, cast aside sleep, and, in all weather, go
+on foot to the altar. Each year the church is opened, and the candles
+lighted earlier and earlier, as souls more clearly see their way to the
+true faith."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," says I; "by and by they will be good enough to light up, and
+open the day before, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>The clock on the mantel-shelf struck. Cousin E. E. started up, and put
+both hands in her muff. I followed her out of the door, and into the
+street.</p>
+
+<p>Well, sisters, if there is a desolate spot on earth, it can be found in
+the streets of a great city after the lights have been put out, and
+while the sky is gray. To pass by houses in which thousands and
+thousands are sleeping, is like wandering through the lonesomeness of a
+graveyard. The morning was awful cold; before we got to Lexington Avenue
+the veil was stiff on my face. I felt the tears a-freezing on my cheeks,
+and my teeth chattered so that I couldn't speak. When we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>84<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> reached St.
+Albans&mdash;that is the name of Cousin E. E.'s church&mdash;two such shivery
+mortals you never saw. I say, sisters, there wouldn't have been much use
+in warming us against a good fire in any place just then. I don't mean
+to be satirical or irreverent, but when you go to early service at the
+break of day, and in the depths of winter, I think ice-water and
+snow-drifts might make a solemn impression on the sinful heart.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>XVIII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>HIGH CHURCH.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/s.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="S" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">S</span>T. ALBANS may be a High Church, though I couldn't see it; but it
+certainly isn't very sizeable; and as for coldness, the very curls on my
+head shivered as if they grew there.</p>
+
+<p>Cold, yes; I should think that church was cold; but you never saw
+anything more beautiful than the picture it made when we went in. Right
+before us was a white altar&mdash;not a communion table like ours at home,
+but a little platform with steps to it, set thick with candles, and
+loaded down with wreaths of white flowers. I tell you, sisters, it
+seemed to me as if the angels must have been down overnight, and moulded
+those flowers out of the drifted snow, and breathed life into them, they
+looked so pure.</p>
+
+<p>On each side of this altar was a great, large candle, five feet high,
+and thick as a young tree, burning with a slow, steady fire, and some of
+the smaller candles twinkled like stars among the flowers.</p>
+
+<p>All overhead and down the walls of this little meeting-house were great
+wreaths of ground pine, ivy and hemlock, crowded with lights and
+sprinkled with flowers, and these flung shadows on the walls more lovely
+than the wreaths themselves.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>85<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>I was chilled through and through, but I don't think it was that which
+brought all these solemn feelings into my mind, for the tears that had
+frozen on my cheeks ran freely now, and my eyes kept filling again. I'm
+sure I can't tell the reason, only that everything was so still and
+beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>The pews in St. Albans have no cushions, and everybody can sit in them,
+only there is a placard on each, inviting the poor to sit down for
+nothing, but telling those that have money to give it, to support the
+church; which is just what our meeting-houses do, though they only chuck
+the plate at you, without a written warning.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. and I sat down in one of the pews, and slid our knees to a
+board running along in front, to kneel on, and covered up our faces a
+minute or two; then we looked up, and there, close by the altar, stood
+the minister; but, oh, goodness! how he was dressed out. He had on,
+first, a black silk gown, with great bishop-sleeves, then a white linen
+dress, that I should think was a night-gown, only it was on a man, and
+it isn't many women who would like to lend such things to be used in
+meeting-time. Over that he wore a white satin cape.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. pronounces it cope, but she does finefy her words so since
+she came to York.</p>
+
+<p>On that was worked a cross, in gold and silk, like a Free Mason's apron
+in some respects. He held a book open in his hand. I could see that he
+was shaking with chilliness, and the words rattled like icicles from his
+lips. Close by him stood a boy, dressed in a red frock, with a white one
+over it.</p>
+
+<p>I whispered and asked Cousin E. E. what his name was; she answered
+back&mdash;"Acolyte," which was a name I never heard before.</p>
+
+<p>After a while the congregation began to move out of the pews, a few at a
+time, and crowd up to the minister. Then they knelt down before him, and
+he gave them bread and wine close to the altar, instead of having it
+handed about as they do in our Presbyterian meeting-houses. Cousin E. E.
+went up with the rest, and wanted me to go with her, but I could not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>86<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+bring myself to partake of the Lord's Supper from a man in his
+shirt-sleeves, and with a silk cape on; so I shook my head and sat
+still, watching the altar.</p>
+
+<p>After they had done coming up to him, the minister knelt down and prayed
+awhile; then he got up, and the boy in red shirt and white frock handed
+him a black hat, with four corners, which he put on his head; then he
+took something from the altar and walked through a side door, still
+wearing his double-cocked hat. The boy followed him out, and then a man
+came round among the pews with a plate, in which Cousin E. E. dropped a
+gold piece with a ringing noise that made people look round. I followed
+up with five cents, and was astonished to see how little ring it had
+after the gold; nobody looked round at me.</p>
+
+<p>It was broad daylight when we came out of that little meeting-house, and
+not quite so cold as it had been; but still I was glad to keep my muff
+up to my face, and we walked toward home like a house afire.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, how did you like the service?" says Cousin E. E., as we shivered
+along&mdash;"impressive, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very," says I; "only do tell me what it was all about. This getting up
+and sitting down and bowing at nothing is more than I can understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," says she, "I ought to remember you came from a Congregational part
+of the country."</p>
+
+<p>"And Methodist&mdash;to say nothing of Baptists and Quakers," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I mean all that," says she; "but the church, as a church, is but
+little understood among you."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, as you came from the same place, you ought to know," says I,
+rebuking her city airs in my most austere manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, yes," says she; "but one doesn't hear much of the true church so
+far in the mountains. Even you seemed puzzled by a good many things this
+morning."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>87<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, yes," says I&mdash;"the four-cornered cocked hat, for instance."</p>
+
+<p>"The four-cornered cocked hat!" says she, stopping short on the
+sidewalk. "What do you mean? That was the barette."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," says I, "that is what they call it! Well, then, the four-cornered
+cocked barette&mdash;what does the minister wear that for? It isn't generally
+considered good manners for men to wear hats in meeting."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, there is a clerical reason I can't quite explain, but it is a part
+of the ceremony."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," says I&mdash;"and the night-gown."</p>
+
+<p>"Surplice, you mean," says E. E.; "oh, that is worn everywhere, in High
+and Low Church alike."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," says I, "there may be a reason for such things, but a
+respectable black coat is what I've been used to."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know," says she; "but some people prefer the surplice and cope."</p>
+
+<p>"Now tell me," says I, "what on earth has a minister to do with a
+woman's satin <i>cape</i>, all crimlicued off with gold and silk work?" I put
+an emphasis on the word cape, to rebuke her finefied way of pronouncing
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a part of the clerical paraphernalia, and gives richness to the
+vestments," says she. "But the altar&mdash;I felt sure that you would be
+pleased with that."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says I; "the white flowers, the candles, and the evergreens were
+beautiful. But the red and white boy was too much for me; then his
+name&mdash;Acolyte&mdash;I never heard anything like it."</p>
+
+<p>Just then we reached home, and shivered into the house to warm
+ourselves. Cousin Dempster was not up yet, and that child was sound
+asleep. It seemed to me as if we had been downstairs a week; but there
+was the Christmas tree, just loaded with presents; and there was the
+marble man and woman, looking cold as we were. And there we stood,
+hungry and shivering, for the help had all gone out to "early service,"
+and forgot to heap coal on the furnace; and the end was, we just got<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>88<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+into our cold beds again, and shivered ourselves to sleep. I dreamed
+that a man, all in black and white, with a four-cornered hat on&mdash;one
+tassel hanging over his eyes, and another down his back&mdash;with something
+like a flash of fire about his neck, was burying me ten thousand feet
+deep in a snow-drift, and pounding me down with a candle as big round as
+my waist. Then it seemed to me that I got out, somehow, and was trying
+to warm my hands by the red frock of that boy, Acolyte, who faded into
+nothing before my eyes, and left me sound asleep as if I had never been
+to early service in my life.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a>XIX.<br />
+<br />
+<small>CHRISTMAS MORNING.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/w.jpg" width="60" height="60" alt="W" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">W</span>E had a good long sleep after early service, and were all up bright as
+larks the next morning, wishing each other a merry Christmas, and
+waiting for that child to come down and see what Santa Claus had brought
+her. By and by we heard her coming. Mr. Dempster looked at his wife and
+smiled, as much as to say, "Won't our presents surprise her!" Cousin E.
+E. went to the door and opened it, looking pleased, and so like her old
+self that I could have kissed her.</p>
+
+<p>At last Cecilia came in, sour as vinegar, with her hair half combed, and
+her sash trailing.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, this is what I saw last night," says she, crossly.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at the foot of the tree!" says E. E., eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>Cecilia looked, and saw the doll and the open trunk. Her lips drooped at
+the corners, her right shoulder lifted itself.</p>
+
+<p>"A doll for me! The idea!" says she.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. turned away, I think, to hide the tears that swelled to her
+eyes. Mr. Dempster saw it, and says he:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>89<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Cecilia, your mother spent a great deal of money for the doll&mdash;don't be
+ungrateful."</p>
+
+<p>"Just as if I wanted her to do it. Baby things!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," says Cousin E. E., trying to brighten up her face, "there is
+your father's present."</p>
+
+<p>Cecilia untwisted the string of coral, and looked at it.</p>
+
+<p>"Coral is for babies! That is worse yet! I just wish there hadn't been
+any Christmas at all," says she, a-flinging the beads in a lovely pink
+heap on the floor. "There now&mdash;I'll just go up-stairs and stay there!"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a minute, my darling," says E. E.; "mother has got something
+else."</p>
+
+<p>Cecilia turned back a step, but scorned to let her sullen face brighten,
+though her eyes grew eager when Cousin E. E. took a little paper box
+from one of the baskets, and opened it.</p>
+
+<p>"See here!"</p>
+
+<p>Cecilia edged up to her mother, saw the emerald ring, and snatched at
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"I bought it for Cousin Ph&oelig;mie," says E. E., a-looking sort of
+pleadingly at me; "but as you are so disappointed, I'm sure she won't
+care."</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin Ph&oelig;mie! The idea!" Cecilia muttered to herself, as she tried
+the ring, first on one finger, then on another. "Of course she don't
+want it&mdash;old as the hills!"</p>
+
+<p>I did not say one word while that creature carried off the first
+Christmas present I ever had in my life; but it seemed as if I should
+choke. Isn't it hard that a spoiled child like that should have the
+power to destroy the happiness of three grown people? But she did it.</p>
+
+<p>The Christmas dinner was enough to make your mouths water, from this
+distance&mdash;the noblest sort of a turkey, stuffed with oysters, and
+everything to match&mdash;but none of us had much appetite for it. You can
+judge what my feelings amounted to, when I have lived one whole month in
+a boarding-house and couldn't get up an appetite&mdash;no, not even for the
+whitest meat of the breast! Old as the hills, indeed!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>90<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XX" id="XX"></a>XX.<br />
+<br />
+<small>ABOUT LIONS.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;Cousin E. E. had invited a lot of her friends to a
+stupendous dinner-party on Christmas Day, and she wanted me there for a
+lion, she said, though what on earth a great roaring lion had to do at a
+dinner-table I couldn't begin to think. The idea made me fidgety; but I
+didn't think it consistent with the dignity of our Society to ask
+questions, or let any one know that I didn't understand everything just
+as well as folks that have lived in York all their lives. Still I
+couldn't help trying to circumvent Cousin E. E. into telling me what I
+wanted to know in a way that some people might call femininely
+surreptitious.</p>
+
+<p>"A lion!" says I. "Are such animals invited to a city dinner as a
+general thing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! not at all," says she; "the most difficult thing in the world to
+get hold of is a real, genuine lion; that is, one the whole world knows
+about, and wants to see."</p>
+
+<p>"Why," says I, "if folks are so anxious about it, why don't they go up
+to the Rink and see Mr. Barnum's great monster animal. It don't cost
+much; besides, there are camels and monkeys, and lots and lots of
+things, thrown in."</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Emily Elizabeth laughed till tears come into her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Cousin Ph&oelig;mie," says she, "you are so delightfully satirical."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think so?" says I, awfully puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says she, "I do; but to me the eccentricities of genius are
+always interesting. To be an attractive lion one must say bright things,
+no matter how hard they cut."</p>
+
+<p>"I wasn't aware," says I, "that lions were given to much talking."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" says she, "that depends. There is your talkative lion, your
+learned lion, your silent lion&mdash;"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>91<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That is the sort that I've always seen," says I; "now and then a growl,
+but nothing beyond that."</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. began to laugh again, till she had to hold one hand to her
+side.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! cousin, paws, paws," says she; "you just kill me with laughing."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says I, "I don't deny that lions have paws, but it was speech we
+were talking about, and that I do deny."</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. just shrieked out laughing, though for the life of me I
+couldn't tell what it was all about.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, don't you understand me&mdash;honest now&mdash;don't you?" says she.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course I do; only nothing could be more ridiculous than the
+idea of a great, big, magnificent wild beast, with a swinging walk, and
+a tuft on the end of his tail, being showed off at a dinner-table. I for
+one shouldn't have a mite of appetite with such a creature prowling
+round."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, dear cousin, I'm speaking of human lions."</p>
+
+<p>"Human lions! I always thought the creatures were awfully inhuman," says
+I; "nothing but a jackal can be worse."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean great people&mdash;celebrated for something&mdash;bravery, literature, the
+arts, sciences," says she.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what of them?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"In society we sometimes call them lions."</p>
+
+<p>"O&mdash;oh!" says I, drawing the word out to give myself time. "So you
+really thought I didn't understand. Why, of course. Dear me! cousin, how
+easy it is to cheat you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" says she, "one must get up early to match you women of genius, I'm
+aware of that. What dry humor you have, now, looking so innocent and
+earnest, too!"</p>
+
+<p>I smiled benignly upon Cousin E. E.; if she could find any humor in what
+we'd been a-talking about, it was more than I could. Lions! Where does
+the joke come in, when human beings are called such names as that? Wild
+beasts, indeed!</p>
+
+<p>"How really modest you are!" says Cousin E. E. "Anybody<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>92<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> else, who could
+write as you do, would have known that she was meant when I mentioned
+lions."</p>
+
+<p>I dropped my eyes, and folded both hands.</p>
+
+<p>"It will be the great feature of our party," says she. "Our friends will
+know that you are a blood relation, and that pleases Dempster; besides,
+you converse so beautifully, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Do I?" says I, folding one hand over the other, and back again.</p>
+
+<p>"And look so&mdash;so distinguished."</p>
+
+<p>I drew my figure upright, and looked into the glass opposite. My cousin
+had chosen her words well; there was something imposing in the bend of
+that head. I say nothing; but she was right. Indeed, so far as I am
+concerned, she generally is.</p>
+
+<p>Early in the morning I sent down for my pink silk dress. Cousin E. E.
+looked as if she was going to say something against it, at first; but,
+after a little, her face cleared up, and I heard her muttering:</p>
+
+<p>"This is the third time. Nothing on earth but a woman of genius could
+stand that; but she has got enough to carry it off."</p>
+
+<p>I said nothing, but thought of that bill, and just made a calculation of
+how much it would cost a woman to rig herself out if she went to many
+parties, and only wore a dress that cost five hundred dollars once.</p>
+
+<p>Well, sisters, Christmas Day came, and we were up by daylight, for
+Cousin Emily Elizabeth is, as I have told you, a High Church woman and
+an Episcopalian. We haven't got any meeting-house of that denomination
+in our neighborhood, and I don't exactly know what high and low church
+means, without it is that one set hold to meeting-houses with a belfry,
+and the others stand up for a high steeple&mdash;a thing that I told Cousin
+E. E. we common people didn't aspire to; at which she laughed again, as
+if I had said something awfully witty.</p>
+
+<p>Well, in another report I have given you an account of this daybreak
+meeting in the High Church, but just now I am taken up with the
+Christmas dinner.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>93<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Now don't calculate, because we eat dinner punctually at noon in
+Vermont, that people here do the same thing, because it is nothing of
+the sort. Poor working people do that in this city, and nobody else. The
+more genteel and the richer you are, the later you eat your meals. Most
+of the well-to-do merchants eat dinner at six. Men that have got above
+earning their own living dine later yet, and some have got so
+disgustingly genteel and rich, that I don't suppose they dine till next
+day.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Dempster attends to business yet, so he settled down on eight
+o'clock for his dinner, and a splendid affair it was.</p>
+
+<p>When Cousin E. E. and I came rustling downstairs with a cataract of silk
+rolling after us, I just screamed right out. The sight of that table was
+so exhilarating, glass a-shining&mdash;silver dishes and things
+a-sparkling&mdash;flowers heaped up in flower-pots and twisted in wreaths
+around the glass globe overhead, which flashed, and sparkled, and
+glittered as if it had been frozen up with ten thousand icicles that
+flung back all the light without melting a drop. The silk curtains were
+all let down. The carpet looked like a flower-bed, and the whole room
+was a sight to behold.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. shut the glass doors that looked as if a sharp frost had
+crept over 'em, and we sat down on the round sofa in the front room,
+ready for company, with nothing but those two marble folks to hear what
+we said.</p>
+
+<p>But peace and quietness will never come to a house that has a fast child
+like Miss Dempster, as the creature calls herself, in it. We had hardly
+sat down and got our trains spread, when in she came, all in a fluff of
+white muslin, and a flutteration of red ribbons, with her hair a flowing
+down her back, crinkle, crinkle, and her&mdash;well&mdash;limbs just strained into
+silk stockings and kid boots laced down ever so far below her frock, and
+looking so impudent. Down she sat on the round sofa, and begun to swing
+her heels against the silk cushions.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, daughter," says Cousin E. E., "what is the meaning of this?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>94<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>The child laughed and flung back her head.</p>
+
+<p>"It means," says she, "that I'm not to be cheated into staying upstairs
+when a Christmas dinner is on hand. I'm ready for it, and I wish the
+company would come."</p>
+
+<p>"But, my child, you are too young."</p>
+
+<p>"If I'm too young, where do you find your old folks?" says the saucy
+thing, shaking out her ribbons.</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin E. E., I would not permit it," says I, for I couldn't help
+speaking to save my life. "She isn't of an age to go into company."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you are old enough, and a good deal to spare," says the impudent
+thing. "No mistake about that!"</p>
+
+<p>I drew up the train of my pink silk dress, and walked across the room in
+a way that spoke my indignation, without words. When I turned to go back
+that creature was right behind me, with her head up, measuring off the
+carpet, step by step, with me.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, I confess it, the strangling of that child would have done me a
+world of good; my fingers quivered to begin. But she just burst out
+a-laughing, and, would you believe it? her mother laughed too, but
+turned red as fire when I caught her at it.</p>
+
+<p>Before anything more could be said, Cousin Dempster came in, and the
+door-bell kept up such a ringing, that we were in a flutteration till,
+one after another, the company came in; ladies and gentlemen dressed up
+as if it had been a ball they were invited to.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>95<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a>XXI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>DINING IN THE DARK.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/s.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="S" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">S</span>ISTERS, I'm afraid you would be taken aback by such dresses as filled
+Cousin Dempster's parlors that night. Such necks, such arms, no sleeves
+to speak of, nothing but a skimpy band across the shoulders; heads
+loaded down with braids and puffs, and great, long curls, which fell on
+those bare necks and covered them up into a little decency. Then the
+figures&mdash;mercy, how the dresses stood out behind; every lady seemed to
+be humpbacked below the waist. It takes time to get used to genteel
+society, I can tell you, and any amount of blushing has to be gone
+through.</p>
+
+<p>Well, when we had all got together, Cousin Dempster came up to me and
+crooked his elbow. I put my hand on his arm. The glass doors opened as
+if of themselves, and into the dining-room we went. The other ladies and
+gentlemen all locked arms, and followed us in good order. Cousin
+Dempster whispered to me as I went in,</p>
+
+<p>"The dinner is <i>given</i> to you, remember."</p>
+
+<p>I said yes, I would remember. I hadn't even thought of paying for it,
+but I suppose he wanted to set my mind at rest on that point, which was
+kind, but unnecessary, as we never charge for meals in Vermont, except
+at taverns.</p>
+
+<p>"They were all invited to meet you," says he, at which I just turned
+round and made a low curtsey to the whole lot of 'em, before I took my
+seat, which was at Cousin Dempster's right hand.</p>
+
+<p>On the other side was a proper, pretty girl, with a neck like
+water-lilies, and cheeks like ever-blooming roses. She was a girl that
+laughed very low, when she did laugh, and looked at gentlemen sideways
+from under her eyelashes. One of those girls that speak as if ice cream
+would not melt in their mouths. An awful handsome young fellow came with
+her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>96<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Well, we all stood up waiting for Cousin E. E. to sit down, which she
+did. Then the rest of us rustled into our places, and half a dozen
+waiters went circumventing round us with little oysters, shells and all,
+on plates, which they set down before each of us, with a teinty silver
+pitchfork to eat 'em with. Then they brought plates with a few spoonfuls
+of soup in them, which they cleared away the minute we laid down our
+spoons. After that, came plate after plate, and the waiters kept filling
+the glasses that stood before us&mdash;pink, green, yellow, and white&mdash;with
+cider that bubbled and sparkled, and made the blood come faster and
+warmer into my face every time I tasted it.</p>
+
+<p>At first there hadn't been much talking; but now the ladies grew
+chipper, as so many canary birds, and the men followed suit.</p>
+
+<p>Such soft, low laughing, and such sweet voices I never heard at one
+table in my life.</p>
+
+<p>But while we were all enjoying ourselves so much, the lights in the
+glass balloon above us began to flash up and down, as if a high wind was
+rushing over them. Then all at once they quivered&mdash;winked furiously, as
+if they were joking with us&mdash;and went out, leaving us all in stone
+darkness.</p>
+
+<p>Then the ladies shrieked faintly, or laughed; some of them jumped up, I
+among the rest, wondering if the Day of Judgment had come.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Dempster called out for the waiters to go and see what ailed the
+gas, and all was rustle and bustle and confusion.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps I moved from my seat and dropped into some other without knowing
+it. I can't be certain about that or anything else; but all at once I
+felt an arm around my waist, and while I was holding my breath, with
+astonishment, some one kissed me.</p>
+
+<p>I gave a little scream, and pushed away that impudent arm with all my
+might.</p>
+
+<p>The arm wore a coat-sleeve&mdash;I can take my oath to that&mdash;and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>97<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> if I was
+used to such things I should say that there was a beard about the lips
+that touched my face.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, it seemed to me for a minute as if Cousin E. E. really had got
+a roaring lion in her dining-room.</p>
+
+<p>While I sat there breathless and wondering if he would have the
+impudence to repeat that audacious conduct, a soft hand took hold of
+mine, and a sweet voice whispered in my ear:</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me, dearest, I did not mean to be rude."</p>
+
+<p>I did not speak, but his penitence touched me with compassion. Softly I
+pressed the hand, in token of a relenting heart. How could I be hard on
+a man who meant no real harm, considering the temptation.</p>
+
+<p>He whispered something more, but I could not hear distinctly; for just
+then a waiter came in with a candle in his hand. Says he, "The gas works
+are blown up, and all Murray Hill, and more too, is in total darkness."</p>
+
+<p>Then there was a burst of voices; everybody laughed and everybody had
+something to say, which no one listened to.</p>
+
+<p>"Bring candles," Cousin Dempster sung out.</p>
+
+<p>"But the candlesticks&mdash;we have not got one in the house," says his wife.</p>
+
+<p>Then everybody laughed, and Cousin Dempster laughed loudest of all.</p>
+
+<p>"Find something," says he, "for we must have light."</p>
+
+<p>The waiter, says he, "Yes, sir, we'll do our best," and out he went.</p>
+
+<p>By and by he comes back, and all the rest of the waiters with him. Every
+one had a stone beer bottle in each hand, from which a tall white candle
+rose like a steeple to a church. There was not a smile on their faces.</p>
+
+<p>City waiters are never expected to smile, but each man set his two
+bottles down on the table, and drew back.</p>
+
+<p>Dempster burst out laughing; the rest burst out too; some giggled, some
+choked, some pealed out the fun that was in them like wedding bells.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody laughed except me and an elegant young gentleman,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>98<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> with blue
+eyes and a soft beard, that sat next me. He stared in my face, and I
+would have stared in his, only I couldn't bring myself to look in his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, sisters, it was dreadful! I had got into that young girl's place and
+she was in mine, and a teinty bit of court-plaster that I had put on the
+corner of my mouth, where the skin had been a trifle rubbed, was
+sticking right on the plumpest part of his under lip.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, sisters! I thought that I should have died with shame.</p>
+
+<p>He looked from me to the young lady, and she looked at him. I looked
+first at one, then at the other, from under my drooping lashes.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled, she touched her lip with one finger; he touched his, the
+mite of court-plaster stuck on his finger. Then she began to laugh, and
+so did he; the chairs shook under them. They made no noise, and the
+redness of their faces was lost in the shadow cast by the beer-bottles
+to every one but me.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Dempster was busy trying to crowd an extra candle into one of the
+wine-bottles that had just been emptied, while he sat before the chair I
+ought to have been sitting in.</p>
+
+<p>"We must have a little more elegance at this end of the table," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"Wax candles and champagne bottles for this lady."</p>
+
+<p>He stooped down, expecting me to answer him; when he saw <i>her</i> face all
+glowing with blushes.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" says he, laughing, "we have got a little mixed here, Cousin Frost.
+It will never answer to come between man and wife in this fashion,
+especially when they have been only three weeks married. Supposing we
+change round again?"</p>
+
+<p>I arose&mdash;she arose&mdash;we exchanged glances, then exchanged seats.</p>
+
+<p>The lights from these beer bottles were numerous, but not brilliant.
+Under the shadows we concealed the emotions which disturbed us.</p>
+
+<p>He looked funnily penitent, whenever his eyes caught mine,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>99<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> which was
+often, for somehow I could not keep looking on my plate all the time.</p>
+
+<p>As for that young creature, she seemed to be brimming over with fun.</p>
+
+<p>After a little, I began to feel myself smiling. It really was droll, but
+not so <i>very</i> unpleasant.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a>XXII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>NEW YEAR'S DAY.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;After all, this city of New York is a wonderful
+institution. Vermont has its specialties, such as maple-sugar, pine
+shingles, and education; but in such things as style, fashion, and
+general gentilities, I must say this great Empire City isn't to be
+sneezed at, even by a Green Mountainer. Of course we are ahead in
+religion, morality, decorum, and a kind of politics that consolidates
+all these things into great moral ideas&mdash;as rusticoats, greenings and
+Spitzenbergen apples are ground down into one barrel of such sweet cider
+as we used to steal through the bunghole with a straw. You will
+recollect the straws&mdash;a Down-east invention, which these degenerated
+Yorkers have stolen, and are now using unblushingly for mint-juleps,
+sherry-cobblers, and such awful drinks as New England has put her foot
+down against with a stamp that makes inebriating individuals shake in
+their boots. But New York won't put her foot down, and the encroachment
+upon our patent-right for straws is just winked at.</p>
+
+<p>Dear me, how one thing does lead a person's mind into another! I took up
+my pen to write about New Year's Day in New York, and here I am, back in
+that old cider-mill behind our orchard, with heaps of red and yellow
+apples piled up in the grass, and the old blind horse moving round and
+round in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>100<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> the mill-ring, dragging along that great wooden wheel, under
+which we could hear the soft-gushing squelch of the apples, while all
+the air smelt rich and fruity with them.</p>
+
+<p>Do you remember the luscious juice dropping from the press, and the full
+barrels lying about, with the sweetness beginning to yeast through the
+bungholes? Then it was we pounced down upon them with our straws, and it
+was these straws that brought New Year's Day in New York and the old
+cider-mill at home into my mind at once. Thus it is, my sisters, with us
+children of genius; thought is born of thought, feeling springs out of
+feeling, till creation and re-creation become spontaneosities.</p>
+
+<p>Some people have said of Ph&oelig;mie Frost that she lacks philosophy and
+that transcendental essence which becomes the highest female type in New
+England. If any such caviler should reach our Society, have the moral
+courage to point out that last paragraph, and see if the wretches have
+forgotten to blush for themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Christmas Day isn't anything very particular outside of the Episcopal
+Church, in our parts. Somehow the Pilgrim Fathers took a notion against
+it when they cut away from the old country, and built square
+meeting-houses all over New England. But they set up the same thing
+under a new-fangled name. Thanksgiving was just the same to them, and
+showed their independence; so they roasted and baked and stewed, and
+made pumpkin-pies a specialty&mdash;because the cavaliers in England couldn't
+get pumkins to compete with them&mdash;and went into their meeting-houses to
+thank God that they had good crops, instead of going down on their
+knees&mdash;which they didn't, because of standing up to pray&mdash;in solemn
+gratitude that the blessed Lord was born upon earth.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, as a New England female, it would be against nature to say that
+the Pilgrim Fathers wasn't right in sinking Christmas in Thanksgiving,
+and thanking God for full crops, because the corn and potatoes were
+things they all could understand and accept with universal thankfulness;
+but about the birth of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>101<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> Christ, and its merciful object, no two sects
+that I ever heard of could agree, much less the Old Church and the New
+Covenanters.</p>
+
+<p>There it is again; my pen is getting demoralized. Christmas has come and
+gone. What more have I got to say about it? Why, just nothing. Wise
+people accept the past and look forward.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Dempster insisted upon it, that I should come up and spend New
+Year's Day with them. Cousin E. E. was going to receive calls, and
+wanted some distinguished friend to help her entertain.</p>
+
+<p>I went.</p>
+
+<p>Early in the morning the empty carriage came down to my boarding-house,
+with those two regimental chaps on the out seat.</p>
+
+<p>I was all ready, with my pink silk dress on, and my front hair all in
+one lovely friz; but I just let the carriage wait that the boarders and
+people, with their faces against the window opposite, might have a good
+chance to look at it. Then I walked down the stairs with queenly
+slowness; the long skirt of my dress came a-rustling after, with a rich
+sound that must have penetrated to the boarding-house parlor, for the
+door was just a trifle open as I went by, and three faces, I could swear
+to, were peeping out as if they had never seen a long-trailed, pink silk
+dress before. Then I heard a scuttling toward the window, and, while I
+stood on the upper step, gathering up the back cataract of my dress,
+those same faces flattened themselves plump against the glass.</p>
+
+<p>Of course I did not hurry myself on that account, but took an
+observation up and down the street while I tightened the buttons of my
+glove, though one of the regimental chaps was a-standing there and
+holding the door wide open.</p>
+
+<p>"Why shouldn't I give the poor things just this one glimpse of the
+fashionable life to which genius has lifted me," says I to myself.</p>
+
+<p>Influenced by this idea, I paused, perhaps, half a minute,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>102<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> with my foot
+on the iron step, and asked the regimental chap, with the air of a queen
+giving directions, if it was very cold? and if Mrs. Dempster was quite
+well, that morning?</p>
+
+<p>He bowed when he answered both these questions, with the greatest
+respect; which was satisfactory, as the people on both sides must have
+seen him do it.</p>
+
+<p>Then I stepped gracefully into the carriage and sat down, buried to my
+knees in billows of pink silk. Over that I drew the robe of white fur,
+and waved my hand, as much as to say: I am seated; you can close the
+door. Which he did.</p>
+
+<p>One thing is curious about the streets of New York on New Year's Day.
+Not a woman or girl is to be seen on the sidewalks.</p>
+
+<p>The garden of Eden, before Adam went into the spare-rib business,
+wouldn't have been more completely given up to the desolation of
+manhood, unrefined by sweet female influence.</p>
+
+<p>But every man that I saw, going up or down, looked bright and smiling,
+as if he expected to find an Eve of his own before the day was over, and
+I shouldn't wonder if a good many of them did.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXIII" id="XXIII"></a>XXIII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE NEW YEAR'S RECEPTION.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/c.jpg" width="60" height="61" alt="C" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">C</span>OUSIN E. E. DEMPSTER was all ready, and standing as large as life in
+one end of her long parlor, when I went in. The first sight of that room
+made me start back and scream right out. I had left daylight outside,
+but found night there. The blinds were shut close to every window. Over
+them fell a snow-storm of white lace, and over that a cataract of silk
+that seemed to have been dyed in wine, its redness was so rich and
+wavy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>103<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>The two great glass balloons were just running over with brightness that
+scattered itself everywhere&mdash;on the chairs, the cushions, the carpet,
+and a great round sofa which stood, like a giant cheese, in the middle
+of the room, all covered with silk, and with a tall flower-pot standing
+up from the centre, running over with flowers, and vines, and things.</p>
+
+<p>This queer sofa, that seemed to have burst out into blossom for the
+occasion, was a New Year's present, Cousin E. E. said, and quite a
+surprise. "Then there is another," says she, a-pointing towards a marble
+man, dressed in a grape leaf, that seemed to have been firing something
+at the stone girl, and was watching to see if it had hit. "Of course you
+have seen the Apollo before?"</p>
+
+<p>I looked at the stone fellow sideways, then dropped my eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I don't know," says I; "maybe I should know him better if he had his
+clothes on."</p>
+
+<p>"Look again. You must have seen him," says she.</p>
+
+<p>"No," says I, a-turning my head away; "I&mdash;I'd rather not till he goes
+out and fixes himself up a little."</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. laughed till her face was red. While she was tittering like
+a chirping bird, that little creature Cecilia came tripping into the
+room, with a blue silk dress, ruffled over with white lace, just
+reaching to her knees, her yellow hair a-rippling over that, clear down
+behind, and a wreath of pink roses on her head. She looked at me from
+top to toe, gave her head a toss, and went up to her mother with the air
+of an injured princess.</p>
+
+<p>"That old pink silk again! What did you let her wear it for? New Year's
+Day, too. The idea!"</p>
+
+<p>I heard every word of it, for the stuck-up thing didn't trouble herself
+to speak low. My face had been hot enough before, but it burned like
+fire now, and my bosom heaved till it stormed against my dress and
+almost burst it.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" said Cousin E. E., looking scared; "she will hear."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>104<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, let her. As if I cared! The idea!"</p>
+
+<p>I stepped forward, with my finger lifted, and my dress sweeping. It must
+have been an imposing sight, for E. E. raised both hands, imploringly,
+and says she, "Cecilia, come and see your father's present."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, isn't it gorgeous?" sang out the child, clasping her hands, and
+turning her back square on me while she went up to the stone fellow.
+"Such a splendid mate for Venus!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I should think so," says I sarcastically; "only Miss Venus does
+seem ashamed of herself; but the fellow is bold as brass."</p>
+
+<p>The girl's lip curled like an opening rose-bud; she gave a nipping
+laugh, and I just heard "old fogy" break through it so saucily that my
+blood riled.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you apply that to me?" says I, a-lifting my finger.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, nothing of the kind," says Cousin E. E., catching her breath.
+"You quite misunderstand Cecilia. Dear me, that is a carriage; people
+are beginning to call. Cecilia, my love, do try and make yourself
+agreeable."</p>
+
+<p>"Just as much as to say that I could be anything else," says the
+aggravating creature, a-hitching up her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>Sure enough, some one was coming, and no three canary birds in a cage
+ever fluttered into their places quicker than we did. Cousin E. E.
+seated herself in a great cosey chair, all cushions, spread out her
+dress on the floor, and leaned a little sideways as if she was sitting
+to Brady for a picture. I gave my pink silk a wide swoop, and let it
+settle down on the carpet in ridges; then I leaned my elbow on the silk
+cushions of the great round sofa, and drooped my head a little as if
+breathing the scent of so many flowers had made me a trifle faint. That
+child ran to the glass, shook out her lace ruffles, and stepped back
+again to admire&mdash;well, her limbs&mdash;just as if she had been a stone girl,
+and was in love with herself. I swan to man she made me sick and faint,
+if the flowers didn't.</p>
+
+<p>There was a noise in the hall-way, and I caught a peep at a handsome
+young fellow prinking himself in the great looking-glass<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>105<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> set in the
+hat-stand. Then he came in, tripping along with his hand held out to
+Cousin E. E., who went forward with her train following after, took his
+lilac glove in her hand, smiled up in his face, and said how glad she
+was to see him.</p>
+
+<p>Before he could answer, that forward child came up and held out <i>her</i>
+hand. She, too, was delighted; wondered he hadn't been there lately.
+Indeed, she began to think he was never coming again.</p>
+
+<p>The young fellow did seem to be taken aback a minute, for the forward
+creature had just cut her mother out; but he soon began to talk and
+laugh with her as chipper as could be, and only stopped to give me a nip
+of a bow when Cousin E. E. introduced him.</p>
+
+<p>Well, my opinion is I gave him as good as he sent; but short measure at
+that; for I just lifted my head as if taking a sniff at the flowers, and
+that was all. If that young man thought I was brought up in the woods to
+be scared by owls, he found out his mistake. He was standing with his
+back towards me when I heard E. E. say, in one of those whispers that
+cut to the ear keener than a scream:</p>
+
+<p>"It is Miss Ph&oelig;mie Frost, the celebrated writer."</p>
+
+<p>"What," says he, "Miss Frost, the person on whom the Grand Duke levelled
+his eye-glass at the opera three times, and who was prevented opening
+the ball with him by the machinations of the committee?"</p>
+
+<p>"The same," says Cousin E. E.</p>
+
+<p>Before she could put in another word, that young gentleman had wheeled
+round in his patent leather boots, and was making me a bow that went so
+near the floor that his lilac gloves fell below his knees. Then he rose
+slowly, like a jack-knife that opens hard, and stood there a-smiling in
+my face as if I had just treated him to a quart of maple molasses fresh
+from the kettle.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Frost," says he, "I'm happy to make your acquaintance; your
+writings have been my delight&mdash;in fact, a household word in our
+family&mdash;for years."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>106<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Years?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"That is, ever since you began to honor the world with the emanations of
+your genius," says he, with an open wave of both hands.</p>
+
+<p>I bowed. I half rose from that round sofa. I knew by the soft, quivering
+sensation that smiles were creeping to my lips, and giving them a lovely
+redness.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," says I, "you are complimentary. I am but a young beginner in the
+paths of literature&mdash;a timid worker in the great harvest field of
+thought."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled; he moved the billowy folds of my dress with infinite
+reverence, and seated himself timidly beside me. Then he talked books to
+me&mdash;broken and fragmentary, but exquisite. He could understand why the
+Grand Duke was so anxious to get back to New York. That poetry of mine
+must have lifted him right off from his feet. What a lovely talent
+poetry was!</p>
+
+<p>I sat upright, but looked downward, hiding the pleasure in my eyes by my
+drooping lashes. Faithful, heart and soul, to one noble being, I refused
+to look into the admiring eyes of another. His insidious praises of my
+genius made no impression. The image of a man six feet two, with a
+sky-blue scarf across his princely bosom, stood at the portal of my
+heart, and the young gentleman with curled hair and that light-colored
+mustache sighed, and sighed in vain.</p>
+
+<p>That forward little creature, Cecilia, saved me from temptation. Up she
+came, with her frock and her hair all in a flutter.</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't seen our new statue," says she, a-pulling at his hand.</p>
+
+<p>The young gentleman arose from my side with a look that went to my
+heart. As he stood before that pre-Adamite stone man, I got one good,
+long look at his face. As true as I live, he had found out some of
+Cousin E. E.'s ways of making herself beautiful! for his eyes had
+shadows under them, and his cheeks were like roses. Now, sisters, did
+you ever? Only think of a Green Mountain fellow doing that!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>107<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>But now another lot of men came in, dressed up to kill. Some had yellow
+kid gloves on, some lilac, and some gray. Their patent-leather boots
+shone like looking-glasses, and some of 'em tipped along as if they were
+treading over eggs and didn't mean to break 'em. Cousin E. E. introduced
+them all, and I had to rise, and bow, and make long, sweeping curtsies
+till my back ached, and my poor mouth felt dry with trying to look
+unconscious when so many of 'em told me I was a household word in their
+families.</p>
+
+<p>When the first lot of 'em were going out, Cousin E. E. just put back the
+red curtains at one end of the room, and behind 'em was a table all set
+off with silver, and glass, and flowers, and great, tall dishes crowded
+full of fruit and mottoes, all standing under the hot sunshine of one of
+those glass balloons, a-glittering and a-flashing like a house afire.</p>
+
+<p>I couldn't help giving a little scream, it was all so rich and
+beautiful&mdash;with two colored waiters in white gloves, ready to help
+everybody.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. stood at one end of the table&mdash;for it was a stand-up
+meal&mdash;and asked her visitors to take birds, and oysters, and terrapin.
+What the dickens is terrapin? Have you any idea, sisters? I ate some,
+and it had a stewy sort of taste, as if it had been kind of burnt in
+cooking.</p>
+
+<p>Well, one took one thing, and one another. Then each fellow wiped his
+mustaches, and the waiters came round with cider bottles, loaded over
+and chained up with silver, and the cider hissed and bubbled and
+sparkled as they poured it out into the glasses, that started narrow at
+the bottom, but spread out into dishes at the top, giving a chance for
+little whirlpools to the cider&mdash;which <i>was</i> cider, I can tell you; it
+had vim enough in it to make your eyes snap.</p>
+
+<p>When the glasses were full we all took them up. The gentlemen muttered
+"Compliments of the season," and we answered "Compliments of the season"
+Cecilia and all&mdash;who just had the impudence to stand on tip-toe, and
+knock her glass against that of the fellow with lilac gloves and curly
+hair. Then we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>108<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> all drank and sipped, and, as that party went off,
+another came in&mdash;stream after stream&mdash;till night. It was the same thing
+over and over again, till ten o'clock at night, when Mr. Dempster came
+home, looking awfully tired out; then we just gave up. Sisters, this has
+been the hardest and most confusing day that I have known in New York.
+It seems as if my joints never would get limber again. But then I had a
+real good time, though the cider did begin to get into my head towards
+night. It couldn't have been made out of Vermont apples, I feel
+certain&mdash;they haven't got so much dizziness in 'em.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXIV" id="XXIV"></a>XXIV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>MIGNON: A NIGHT AT THE GRAND OPERA.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/s.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="S" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">S</span>ISTERS, we went to the opera&mdash;that is, dear sisters in the cause, the
+Grand Duke and I were there; both of us seated on red cushions, and so
+near that we could exchange glances through our eye-glasses, which draw
+a beloved object close to you. They are a great invention which has not
+yet reached that portion of the country where prayer-meetings take the
+place of operas.</p>
+
+<p>I felt in my bones that he would meet me there; and when Cousin Emily
+Elizabeth sent me word that she had got a loge&mdash;which means a little
+square pen in the gallery, cushioned off like a first-class pew&mdash;and
+wanted me to go with her to hear the great primer-donner, I just got
+that dress out again, and set the frizzing-pins to work, and did myself
+up so scrumptiously that I don't believe that a creature on Sprucehill
+would have known me. Don't say this is extravagant, and flying in the
+face of Providence. If He don't want silk dresses worn by the elect,
+what on earth does He make silk-worms and mulberry-leaves for? That is a
+question that we'll have debated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>109<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> over in the Society some day. Until
+then, oblige me by not saying, openly, that I'm a free-thinker, because
+I'm nothing of the sort. Not that my taste, since coming to the opera,
+has not got a notch above Greenbank or Old Hundred, in the way of music;
+I am free to own that it has.</p>
+
+<p>Well, Cousin Emily Elizabeth had sent word that I mustn't wear a bonnet,
+or think of such a thing; and she sent me down a fur mantle, made of
+white kitten-skins, I reckon, with little black tails dropping all over
+it&mdash;just the tips, which needn't have hurt the black kittens much, if it
+<i>was</i> all day to the white ones. So, when I come down, holding up my
+long skirts with one hand, and folding this fur across my innocent
+bosom, she just screamed out from the carriage that I looked gorgeous
+enough to turn the great Grand Duke's head, which I felt to be true&mdash;for
+women are not given to praising each other for nothing, anyhow.</p>
+
+<p>The opera-house in New York would take in our biggest meeting-house, and
+leave room for a wide strip of carpeting all round it. It has got three
+galleries, and ever so many places, that look like pulpits and deacon's
+seats, all cushioned and curtained off beautifully.</p>
+
+<p>We went up to the first gallery, and got into Cousin Dempster's
+loge-pew, which was just big enough for four people. This was fortunate,
+for our skirts and fur mantles took up every mite of room that Cousin D.
+did not want; but he put up with it beautifully, and just scrouched down
+behind us, with his head rising above our shoulders, which would have
+been rather uncovered if it had not been for the fur, which tickled mine
+a little; but I bore it with fortitude. You who know me will understand
+that.</p>
+
+<p>The opera-house was crowded full; every pew was crammed, and the benches
+down below couldn't be seen, the people were so thick. The pew loges
+were running over with handsome girls, and old ladies that tried their
+best to look like girls, and couldn't, not having the country freshness
+that some people bring with them from the mountains.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>110<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>But the three pulpits on the second gallery were empty yet&mdash;all empty,
+and gorgeously red, waiting for <i>him</i>.</p>
+
+<p>At last, a great green curtain that hung just beyond this sacred place
+rolled up. The lights in a great glittering balloon, all hung with ropes
+of shiny glass beads which fell down from the centre of the roof, blazed
+up, and when I dropped my head from looking at it, all the other end of
+the room was crowded with a gang of the queerest-looking people&mdash;men,
+women, children, and dogs&mdash;that ever you did see. That was the opera,
+Cousin E. E. said; though how an opera could have a house and a cart in
+it, beat me.</p>
+
+<p>Well, sisters, I give up. Roll every singing-school in Vermont into one
+crowd, and they couldn't begin to burst out like that; men, women, and
+girls, just went in for a splendid time, and they had it. First, a pew
+full of fiddlers, drummers, tromboners, and bas-violers, let themselves
+out in a storm of music that made the ten millions of beads on the glass
+balloons tremble like hailstones. Then the whole gang lifted up their
+voices, and the music rolled out just as I reckon the water does at
+Niagara Falls. Such a general training of music was enough to wake the
+dead out of a New England grave, where they sleep sound, I guess, if
+they do anywhere.</p>
+
+<p>By and by they rose up, and began to wander about, making their funny
+little white dogs play, and some of the girls began to dance about. It
+was a travelling-show, you see, and some of the upper-crust people came
+out of the house I spoke of, and listened. One was a lady, dressed out
+to kill in a striped skirt, black velvet, and yellow silk; another
+yellow skirt bunched over that, and then a blue dress puffed above both,
+and her hair just splendid. I tell you she was a dasher!</p>
+
+<p>But the people were all busy unloading the cart; they took out bundles
+and baskets and things. Finally a girl, that had been lying asleep on
+the load, jumped down, with her shoulders hitched up, and looking cross
+as fire at everybody that came near her. She was barefooted and
+bareheaded, and had nothing but an under night-gown and petticoat on,
+which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>111<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> seemed to aggravate her, for she looked scowling enough at the
+handsome young lady, and would not double-shuffle worth a cent, though
+all the men and women were trying to make her.</p>
+
+<p>The moment she jumped off from the cart, the folks in the seats just ran
+crazy, and began clapping their hands and stamping their feet like a
+house afire; I never saw people act so in my life. It was enough to
+frighten the poor thing half to death. Instead of that, it seemed to
+tickle her mightily, for she came forward, with her bare feet, and made
+a little mincing bow, and almost laughed.</p>
+
+<p>Then the strangest thing happened. First one, and then another, of the
+show-people, instead of reasoning with the wilful creature, just went to
+waving their arms and singing at her. I declare it was enough to have
+made a minister laugh when she turned, and began to sing back at them,
+sometimes spiteful, and then, again, with tears melting through her
+voice. An old man in gray clothes, that looked crazy as a coot, sung at
+her, sort of hoarse, and mournfully. Then a young fellow, in a green
+coat and high boots, dropped into the affair, and he sung at her. Then
+the handsome lady in blue and yellow burst out and sang at her too,
+filling the whole opera-house with music. By watching and listening, I
+found out this much. This girl was an orphan, picked up by the band of
+players, that made her dance and sing for her keeping. The fellow with
+the green coat and boots felt sorry for her, and bought her up, short
+gown and all, from the tribe of players. Then she put on the dress of a
+pretty boy, and waited on the handsome woman in yellow, who was one of
+them actress-women, and dead in love with the young fellow in boots. He
+was awfully in love with the actress woman too, which just aggravated
+that girl-boy out of her seven senses, poor thing! When she happened to
+watch them together, you should have seen her fling down her cap, and
+kick it about. There was some human nature in that, but singing love out
+before folks beats me. I couldn't bring myself to anything of the
+kind&mdash;not if the Grand Duke were standing before me with his arms out,
+shouting Old Hundred.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>112<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Goodness gracious! that girl-boy had taken up my thoughts, so that I
+didn't know when the Grand Duke came into his pulpit loge. But there he
+was, standing up, and looking right toward me, so pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>I threw back my fur mantle a trifle, and taking Cousin E. E.'s fan,
+waved it gracefully, hoping thus to cool off the blushes that bathed my
+cheeks with a rosiness that I feared might not harmonize with the tints
+already there.</p>
+
+<p>Still he looked my way earnestly, and with the fire of admiration in his
+blue eyes. A young thing sitting in the loge-pew behind me began to turn
+away her head and hide behind her fan, as if she had anything to do with
+it. The conceit of some people is astonishing!</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E.'s little spy-glass lay in her lap. I took it up; I held it
+to my eyes, and devoured him with one burning glance. His heart seemed
+leaping to mine through the glass. I knew it. I felt it. Indeed he won't
+be the first of his noble race that has lost heart and soul to a country
+girl.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince sat down, and when there was a lull in the music, clapped his
+hands with joy. Oh, my sisters! it is something to have given such
+supreme pleasure to the Grand Ducal soul.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at the play; I looked too. Souls in sympathy have but one
+thought. I pitied that poor girl-boy with all my heart&mdash;my own happiness
+made me compassionate. How she suffered when that woman with the yellow
+skirts and the young fellow in boots were singing love to each other!
+Once she got wild, and dressed herself in a pink silk, and&mdash;well, she
+made one of those toilets that Cousin E. E. understands so well. I was
+sorry to see her exposing one or two little things that should be a
+secret with the sex. But she did, and the yellow lady caught her at it,
+and sung awfully provoking things at her.</p>
+
+<p>Well, she just tore off the dress, scattered the lace trimmings about,
+put on her old duds, and ran away.</p>
+
+<p>Then the house got on fire: the whole swarm of people come<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>113<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> out
+helter-skelter, singing to the flames that didn't mind the music more
+than if it had been buckets full of water. Firemen came running with
+ladders that nobody climbed, and pails of water, that the firemen
+carried round and round, in and out, like crazy creatures. I am sure I
+saw one fellow, with a white pail, pitch through the same window into
+the red-hot flames fifty times. The poor girl-boy, being desperate, just
+pitched in, determined to burn herself, while the woman in yellow and
+the man in boots looked on.</p>
+
+<p>This went right to the cruel man's heart; he jumped in after her,
+carried her away from the devouring flames, and fell in love with her
+like a man. Of course, being a decent kind of a fellow, he couldn't keep
+on singing out his love to both girls at once with enthusiasm, and began
+to neglect the yellow girl in a way that brought tears into her voice
+whenever she came pleading to him under the window&mdash;which she did, not
+having the pride of all the Frost family in her veins.</p>
+
+<p>Of course this did no good; men never come back to women that whine. The
+girl&mdash;for she had given up boys' clothes&mdash;had got him safe; he didn't
+care a chestnut-burr for all the other's singing, but took to the little
+vagabondess with all his heart and soul.</p>
+
+<p>Now something else happened. The old man in gray got his mind again and
+turned out to be Mignon's father (have I told you that was her name?).
+He was a rich old fellow, with a house furnished with gilt chairs, and
+everything sumptuous&mdash;so, of course, the fellow in boots stuck to her
+more than ever.</p>
+
+<p>I don't know what became of the woman in yellow, but as for this other
+girl, she came out first best in every respect; especially at the end,
+when ever so many flowers and baskets and things were just poured down
+upon her. For my part, I thought the yellow girl ought to have had full
+half of these things, for I liked her quite as well, if not better than
+the vagabondess.</p>
+
+<p>Well, the green curtain went down for good, and the whole congregation
+got up to go out.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>114<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"How do you like Nilsson?" says Cousin E. E., as she was fastening her
+fur mantle.</p>
+
+<p>"Nilsson!" says I, "I haven't seen her yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes you have&mdash;she just came out."</p>
+
+<p>"What!&mdash;that girl-boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mignon."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't say so," says I. "Who then was the girl in yellow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! she is Duval."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I like her at any rate, poor thing; it was a shame to treat her
+so."</p>
+
+<p>That moment I felt that the great Grand Duke was gone. Not one more
+glance. It was hard!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXV" id="XXV"></a>XXV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE BLACK CROOK.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/s.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="S" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">S</span>ISTERS:&mdash;Since my intimacy with Imperial Royalty, Cousin Emily
+Elizabeth Dempster has been as proud as a peacock of our relationship,
+and speaks about the Court of all the Russias as if she expected to have
+an ice-palace built on the Neva for her, every winter, for the rest of
+her life. This may be natural&mdash;I dare say it is; but I'm afraid that
+Russia&mdash;being an awful despotism&mdash;wouldn't stand too many of one's
+relations crowding into the Imperial corn-crib, that being a free-born
+institution peculiar to high moral ideas which my great Grand Duke did
+not stay in Boston long enough to imbibe.</p>
+
+<p>Still, being a relation and born under the star-spangled banner, why
+shouldn't she have her own little hopes? I ask myself this and resolve
+to do my best for her. Being a first cousin she has her rights.</p>
+
+<p>This morning E. E. sent down a little straw-colored letter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>115<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> with a
+picture on the envelop just where it seals, and asked me to go with her
+and Dempster to see "The Black Crook," which she wrote was a spectacle
+worth looking at. They had got seats at Niblo's to see it after ever so
+much trouble, and were sure that I would be delighted.</p>
+
+<p>Delighted! What about! I never hankered much for eye-glass or
+spectacles. I wish cousin E. E. would be a little more particular about
+her spelling&mdash;that sometimes makes goose-pimples creep all over me&mdash;but
+a spectacle, singular, spelt with an "a," gives one just a tantalizing
+sense of growing old, more provoking than saying the thing right out. I
+can't see any more sense in one spectacle than in half a pair of
+scissors, but maybe she can. At any rate I don't mean to go gadding down
+to Mr. Niblo's theatre just to see that.</p>
+
+<p>But the "Black Crook," I'm beat to know what that has to do with
+spectacles or eye-glasses. I have read what our minister calls pastoral
+poetry, and almost always find it divided off into hill-side lots, where
+some stuck-up young creature in the farming line, is tending sheep, with
+a long crook-necked stick in her hand, with which she</p>
+
+<div class="block3">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Just trains the little bleating lambs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">"With fleece as white as snow,"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And points out with her crooked stick<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Just where they ought to go.<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>Excuse poetry, but, like a pent-up spring, it will break forth; nor must
+you suspect me of plagiarism. Remark&mdash;the second line has honest
+quotation-marks, which is doing full justice to Mary who owned the
+particular lamb which has become immortal from its whiteness and
+exceptional training.</p>
+
+<p>But all this does not bring us any nearer to what this Black Crook
+means. I have been studying this matter over. Of course a crook is a
+crook. Put the neck of a winter squash on the end of a bean pole, and
+you have it.</p>
+
+<p>But the Black Crook. Black? Ah, why didn't I think of that before? From
+the name, I suppose it is some reconstruction<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>116<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> instrument for hooking-up
+taxes and bonds, left behind here in New York by some run-away Southern
+governor.</p>
+
+<p>Well, now, I <i>should</i> like to see that&mdash;anything left behind by one of
+those fellows must be a curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, I made up my mind to accept Cousin E. E. D.'s invitation. The
+theatre would be something new anyhow, and it is the duty of my mission
+to see all things and hold fast to that which is good.</p>
+
+<p>Well, just before dark, I got out that pink silk dress and the two long
+braids, and shut myself in with the looking-glass over my bureau, which
+is always reflecting, but says nothing, or one might be afraid to trust
+it on some occasions.</p>
+
+<p>I was almost ready, when Cousin Emily E. come in so suddenly that I
+hopped up from my chair, and gave a scary scream. The face in the glass
+turned all sorts of colors, and seemed to scream too, and looked
+half-frightened to death. Cousin E. E. laughed, and shut the door.
+Holding up both hands, says she:</p>
+
+<p>"What, in that dress! My dear cousin, it is to a theatre we are going."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I reckon your letter told me that," says I, a-spreading out the
+skirt of my dress along the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"But we do not dress like that for a theatre," says she, a-looking down
+at her black silk dress, which was all fluttered over with narrow
+ruffles. "No trains, dear Cousin Frost, no lace&mdash;a plain walking-dress
+and bonnet&mdash;nothing more?"</p>
+
+<p>I looked at the shiny waves of pink silk lying around my feet, and at
+that face in the glass, and was just ready to burst out a-crying. It was
+too bad.</p>
+
+<p>"You thought this just the thing when we went to hear that Miss Nilsson
+sing," says I, looking mournfully at that face in the glass, which was
+almost crying.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but that was the opera&mdash;this only a theatre. You see the
+difference," says she.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you will," says she. "It's the fashion. You, who write about
+fashionable life so beautifully, ought to know that."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>117<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Just as if I didn't," says I; and the fire flashed into my eyes while I
+took off my pink dress; and put on my alpaca, which has got a new
+overskirt trimmed with flutings.</p>
+
+<p>"There," says I, flinging the pink silk down on the bed, "will that
+suit?"</p>
+
+<p>"Beautifully," says she. "Now get your shawl and bonnet."</p>
+
+<p>Which I did.</p>
+
+<p>The carriage held four of us this time, for Cousin E. E. had brought
+that little girl of hers, who sat huddled up in the back seat. When her
+mother told her to change places, "The idea," says she, giving her head
+a fling, and eying me like an angry poodle-dog; then she flounced down
+in the front seat, so huffish and sulky, that her father said, in a
+milk-and-waterish way:</p>
+
+<p>"My darling, don't be naughty."</p>
+
+<p>And his wife told him not to interfere between her and her child. She
+knew how to bring up a young lady, and he mustn't attempt to break her
+spirit; at which the heap of sulks in the corner muttered that it wasn't
+in him to do it.</p>
+
+<p>There isn't so very much difference between the Opera House and Mr.
+Niblo's theatre; only, one is piled up sky-high with cushioned
+galleries; and the theatre is considerably out-of-doors, especially in
+the lower story. We sat right in front, for Cousin E. E. said that the
+"Crook" could be seen best from there. I said nothing, but waited. Some
+people love to ask questions, but I would rather find out things for
+myself&mdash;it's a saving to one's feelings in the long run.</p>
+
+<p>Well, the theatre was jammed full of people, mostly with shawls, and
+cloaks, and bonnets on. Cousin E. E. was right. What is genteel in one
+place is vulgar in another&mdash;that is fashion.</p>
+
+<p>That child insisted on trying all the seats, to see which she liked
+best; but we got settled at last, and just then up went the
+picture-curtain with a rush. I screamed right out, for the very first
+sight took away my breath. Oh! sisters, I wish you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>118<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> could have seen it.
+Such trees, such loads of flowers, such clusters and streams of light!
+Oh my! if Eve ever had a paradise like that, she was just the greatest
+goose that ever lived to be turned out of it for the sake of one little
+knotty apple. I've no patience with her!</p>
+
+<p>While I was looking at this beautiful world, another scream burst from
+my lips, for, all in a moment, it was alive with women, so lovely, so
+graceful, so full of life, that they almost took away one's breath. At
+first, they all came whirling in, as figures do in a dream; but, after a
+minute, I just felt like sinking through the floor. Why, sisters, they
+might just as well have been dressed in flowers! In short, dress a
+full-grown girl in a double poppy, with fringed edges, and you have an
+idea of what I couldn't look at. I felt my cheeks glow with fire; my
+fingers tingled with shame. It seemed to me that every man in the house
+was looking straight into my eyes, to see how I bore it. I lifted my
+eyes, and cast one frightened look around me, ready to jump up and run
+from the first face turned to mine. Then I just covered my face with my
+open fan.</p>
+
+<p>There wasn't a face turned my way. Every soul&mdash;men, women, and
+children&mdash;were looking at those girls, who whirled, and moved, and
+tangled themselves up in some sort of a wild, wicked dance, that must
+have been the work of Old Nick himself, for nothing less could have made
+me look on. My whole heart rose right up against those beautiful
+creatures, but somehow they seemed to hold me to my seat. Really,
+sisters, you have no idea how very enticing a woman can be who puffs a
+lot of gauze around her waist, throws a wreath of flowers over her
+shoulders, and dances like a whirlwind.</p>
+
+<p>At first, I just covered my face with my fan, for I could not bring
+myself up to a straightforward look. Then, somehow, my fingers would get
+apart, and I found myself peeping through the slats just as shamed as
+could be, but yet I could not help peeping.</p>
+
+<p>Mercy on me, what a whirl and rush of light! What a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>119<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> flashing of gold;
+what a crowd of women dressed in nothing, and a little gauze thrown
+in&mdash;it made my head whirl like a top.</p>
+
+<p>I can't tell you just when my hand dropped into my lap, but before I
+knew it my eyes were fixed on that great whirling picture, and my sense
+of shame was lost in a storm of music. All these glittering women were
+standing in rows, regular as the pickets on a door-yard fence, while one
+girl, with a wreath of green leaves and red berries on her head, was
+whirling on one toe round and round, till she seemed to be a dozen girls
+whizzing round in a cloud of white muslin.</p>
+
+<p>By and by all the crowd of girls joined in and began dodging about among
+the trees and flowers, like&mdash;well I must say it,&mdash;like runaway angels
+determined to have a good time of it. Then a man, covered to his knees
+with silver scales like a fish, came in, and he had a dance with the
+girl in leaves and red berries. Such a dance&mdash;they backed, they
+advanced, they snapped their fingers at each other, they flung up their
+heels, they locked arms backwards, then broke apart, and began the most
+lively double-shuffle at each other that ever I dreamed of. It fairly
+took away my breath to see them.</p>
+
+<p>"That is a splendid can-can," says that child, taking the little
+spy-glass from her mother's lap, and levelling it at the dancers. "Don't
+you think so, Miss Ph&oelig;mie?"</p>
+
+<p>I gave her a look; it was all I could spare just then, for some new
+people had come into the picture. A great tall fellow, with body
+supporters like bean poles, had come in with a lovely creature, who was
+considered a queen among the girls. Just as I was looking, he seemed to
+stretch himself out like a piece of india-rubber, and lifting one foot,
+swung it over her head without touching a curl.</p>
+
+<p>So this was the "Black Crook," not that I saw anything like a crook, but
+the burning pictures more than made up for that, and the dancing was,
+well&mdash;stupendous.</p>
+
+<p>Every once in a while a curtain would fall and shut out the pictures.
+Every time it was drawn up something more splendid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>120<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> than anything that
+had gone before came out. One picture was all in a veil of fog, through
+which the men and women roved like beautiful ghosts. In another, some of
+the cunningest little dogs you ever saw danced, and begged, and acted a
+play for themselves, just like human creatures. At last came a great
+fiery picture, all gold and glare, and flowers planted in fire, with
+trees that seemed to be dropping golden fruit, in which all the crowd of
+beautiful girls were lying on banks and under trees, and perched like
+splendid birds up in the air. Then the curtain came down with a thud,
+smothering up the fire, and hiding everything. The storm of music broke
+off with a crash, and the crowd began to shout and yell, and stamp their
+feet till the whole building shook.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, this is all I can tell you about the "Black Crook." It is
+splendid, and wonderfully enticing; but you might as well expect me to
+give you a clear idea of a burning city. It is just one picture of
+gorgeous confusion and confused gorgeousness.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXVI" id="XXVI"></a>XXVI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>LIVING APART.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;There has been great tumult and trouble in New York since
+I wrote my last report. Something that relates to the honor of Vermont
+has thrilled the public mind to a fearful extent. A smart, genial,
+warm-hearted, dashing person, by the name of Fisk&mdash;Mr. James Fisk&mdash;born
+and brought up in our State, has been shot in the largest tavern in the
+city, where he died, I greatly fear, without a realizing sense that he
+was so soon to be called before his Maker.</p>
+
+<p>Many of you, my sisters, can remember this man&mdash;a great, handsome,
+good-natured-looking fellow, with sunshiny eyes,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>121<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> and a mustache that
+curled up like a pair of horns on each side of a mouth that always
+seemed ready to laugh at something. There wasn't a man that ever came to
+Sprucehill that everybody was so sure to remember. His great wagon,
+painted off like a circus, with four horses a-drawing it through the
+village, with a splash-dash noise of whips and wheels and hoofs, was
+enough to make the money spring right out of one's pocket. Mercy on me!
+Didn't he make the dry-goods fly! Everybody bought something of him, and
+I must say that everybody liked him. In the peddling line he was a sort
+of P. T. Barnum, only he didn't know how to stick to his trade as Barnum
+has. He drove his four horses; he made money like everything; he outgrew
+Brattleborough, which was his native place, and soon got above peddling,
+his native business.</p>
+
+<p>The next step towards his exaltation and ruin was that he left Vermont,
+a man who will do that of his own accord is sure to run wild. Well, he
+left his native State, and set up at the Hub of the Universe, which
+every one knows is Boston, where he began his education as a financier
+and a millionaire.</p>
+
+<p>Boston is a great city. I should like to hear any one dare to deny that;
+but, then, people here say that, in the way of financing, the Hub knows
+how to save, and skimp, and deposit, and get twice her share of offices
+out of the President of the United States; but, outside of that, she is
+nowhere, compared to New York. She has no idea of turning a sharp stock
+corner, couldn't get up a Black Friday to save her life; in fact, is
+only good at an old-fashioned tea-party. This is what Cousin Dempster
+says about Boston, and he ought to know, being a first-class broker in
+Wall Street, and New England born.</p>
+
+<p>Well, of course, it wasn't long before Mr. Fisk outgrew the Hub, which
+hadn't room for all the spokes which he wanted to carry to his wheel,
+and off he comes to New York, gets into the Erie Railroad, and, goodness
+knows how he did it! but before people knew who he was, he went smashing
+and crashing up that road, prowled through Wall Street like a roaring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>122<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+lion, or bear, or some other such animals as gore and claw each other in
+that neighborhood.</p>
+
+<p>Well, after he had sent a good many brokers sky-high with his horns, and
+knocked others down with his paws, for he tackled in with both, he goes
+kiting off to sea by way of the Sound.</p>
+
+<p>While people were wondering what he would do next, he had gone to work
+and fitted up great palatial steamboats, and invited the President to
+travel in them, which the President did, not dreaming that he was
+expected to build up a cattle-pen or a bear-garden in exchange for a
+little hospitality.</p>
+
+<p>Well, it's hard satisfying a Vermonter when he once breaks loose from
+his native mountains. After gobbling up railroads and putting steamboats
+afloat, Mr. Fisk just swung back into Wall Street one day, and upset
+things generally in less time than any man ever did before. No shootist
+ever brought down more birds at a shot, than he left men in that street
+rich in the morning, and ruined at night. Cousin Dempster says it was
+awful.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fisk didn't care, but wheeled out of the street just as he used to
+drive his pedler's wagon, with hoofs a-rattling and whips a-cracking,
+riding over ruined men everywhere in his track.</p>
+
+<p>Besides all this, Mr. Fisk had a great, grand, overpowering Opera House,
+and carried on a theatre, in which women danced, like Black-crookers,
+and sang like&mdash;well, I can't tell what they did sing like, not having a
+comparison handy&mdash;but it was awfully interesting, Cousin Dempster said;
+and I believe him, for E. E. says he used to go to that Opera House
+alone so often, that she began to be afraid that he was getting into
+some business with Mr. Fisk that must be transacted in the evening&mdash;a
+thing she didn't like, the man being considered so overpoweringly
+fascinating.</p>
+
+<p>I don't know whether Mr. Fisk belonged to the Woman's Righters or not,
+but there was a good deal of talk about him, such as would have
+compelled any religious society in Vermont<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>123<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> to get up an investigation
+and some extra prayer-meetings, which he wouldn't have liked, being
+mostly given contrary-wise. But the one thing he hadn't done was to join
+a church, and, you see, nobody in particular had a right to call him to
+account but his wife, and she didn't.</p>
+
+<p>Some people were mean enough to hint that his system of married life
+wasn't just the thing for a couple brought up in the purifying
+atmosphere of a Vermont village, and went so far as to turn up their
+noses because he lived about the Opera House and she in Boston, close to
+the very heart of the Hub, as if any woman could get further away from
+original sin than that.</p>
+
+<p>But these slanderers knew as well as could be, that Mr. Fisk had a free
+pass on the telegraph and steam communication with his wife every day.
+Besides, didn't the newspapers give his most private actions to an
+admiring public, every few hours, and couldn't she read how blameless
+and self-sacrificing his life was.</p>
+
+<p>Besides being a great financier and seafaring man, our Vermont pedler
+took up social life as a specialty, and distinguished himself among the
+high fashionables. The moral ideas that he had brought from Down East,
+were just as dashing as his Wall-street corners. He still kept the
+telegraph wires quivering with conjugal messages, and when he took
+domestic ease and the fresh salt air on the Jersey sea-coast, at Long
+Branch, in a high-swung carriage, with four seats, and stable help in
+trainer's clothes, wasn't his wife at another watering-place, called
+Newport, with a high-swinging carriage of her own, all cushioned off
+with silk, and with her gold-mounted harness rattling over six horses,
+just as black and shiny as his?</p>
+
+<p>If that isn't conjugal sympathy, such as goes down among the upper crust
+of New York, I don't know what is.</p>
+
+<p>Just the same number of horses, just the same swing in her carriage,
+just the same people&mdash;no, I am a little out there. She had relations in
+the seats, and he hadn't always.</p>
+
+<p>But then, what is all that compared to a great many fashionable,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>124<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+married folks in New York&mdash;so extravagantly fond of each other, that
+they make the Atlantic Ocean for a connecting link, year after year, and
+correspond tenderly in bills of exchange.</p>
+
+<p>Our poor, dead pedler from Vermont wasn't the only man in New York who
+lived and loved by steam and telegraph.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXVII" id="XXVII"></a>XXVII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>MORE ABOUT FISK.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/w.jpg" width="60" height="60" alt="W" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">W</span>HEN the New England mind, which is a little apt to be troubled about
+the marriage relations of its emigrants, asks you about my report, you
+can say that this New England couple were only following the upper-crust
+fashion with married people in our great cities, where men and their
+wives find the Atlantic Ocean more convenient than a divorce court.
+Being imbued with morality from the Hub, they only set an example of
+easy distances.</p>
+
+<p>It takes a good, solid foundation of religion for even a born Vermonter
+to stand against a sudden rush of money. This man seemed to start fair.
+He began his life with <i>us</i>. Next he went to Boston, the very spring and
+fountain of high moral ideas, where every law has a higher law to
+nullify it. He left his better half in the salubrious atmosphere, where
+she performed her domestic duties alone, while he was toiling down Erie
+railroad stock, and promulgating sweet sounds from the Grand Opera
+House. Bound together in conjugal sympathy, by ever-vibrating telegraph
+wires, what could have been more satisfactory and highly fashionable
+than these hymeneal relations?</p>
+
+<p>This is what Cousin Dempster has been saying to me with a queer smile on
+his lips, and something that seems almost sarcastic in his voice.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>125<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Says he, "If this way of life is persisted in, and is held respectable
+in social circles, who has a right to find fault when sin and sorrow
+spring out of it? Who among the thousands who abandon honorable homes
+for personal pleasures shall dare to condemn him?</p>
+
+<p>"Look over the list of outgoing steamers any month in the year, and see
+how large a proportion of husbands and wives travel together. Society,
+so slanderous in other things, is wickedly tolerant here, and makes a
+thousand excuses for the separation of married people.</p>
+
+<p>"Children must be educated. Just as if a free-born American boy or girl
+can't learn all he or she is capable of knowing in his own native land!
+Just as if any woman, who loves her husband and means to be a good
+mother, would listen for a moment to the idea of taking her family into
+foreign parts while her husband is tied down to business at home.</p>
+
+<p>"Married people, who love each other, live together&mdash;temptations are
+serpent-like, but they seldom creep upon a hearthstone kept warm by
+domestic affection.</p>
+
+<p>"Parents who are willing to live apart for the sake of their children,
+and call it a sacrifice to duty, may not know that they are hypocrites,
+but other people know it. Scandal thrives upon such things, and where
+scandal thrives domestic happiness perishes.</p>
+
+<p>"The marriage relations are the soul of our social life; relax them,
+take away one grain of their holiness, and you blast the blossom from
+which wholesome fruit can spring. When love and truth dies out of
+marriage, its vitality is gone. God forgive the men and the women who
+dare to hold the most beautiful tie that links soul to soul, as a wisp
+of flax, to be rent or burned at the will of our most evil passions.</p>
+
+<p>"Can any human being make laws for himself and trample under foot those
+which have been for ages laid down by society, without meeting, sooner
+or later, with rebuke, and perhaps, ruin? Evil passions arouse evil
+passions. The profligacy and power of gold is sometimes most dangerous
+in a generous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>126<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> nature. In the hot sunshine of overwhelming good fortune,
+fiery passions are sure to thrive and tend to a poisonous growth. War is
+the mother of licentiousness. How much that men should avoid, and women
+shudder at, has sprung out of the civil war, which ebbs and flows even
+yet on the borders of our land! In that war men learned to be daring in
+other things than brave deeds, and women learned to be shameless, and
+glory in free speech, free actions, and free laws of their own devising.</p>
+
+<p>"These thoughts are forced from me by the violent death of a man who had
+the brain and the heart to be an honor to our State, whose capacity and
+cordial good-nature might have gained him the love of better men than he
+ever knew in his brief and fiery career, and who had the brain to
+accomplish great things in the future."</p>
+
+<p>I listened with breathless attention to what Cousin Dempster said. He
+spoke with feeling. I didn't think there was so much in the man. He got
+up from his chair and began to walk the room.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot dwell upon this man's wildly brilliant career," says he,
+"without a feeling of melancholy. Here existed the capacities of a great
+man, perfect health, wonderful energy, struggling aspirations toward the
+right&mdash;which he might hereafter have reached&mdash;generous impulses running
+wild, strong affections, and overweaning ambition, all turbulent
+ostentations almost barbaric, and all hurled into nothingness by the
+blow of one bitter enemy.</p>
+
+<p>"As he had lived, so they carried him to his grave, arrayed gorgeously
+in his coffin, lying in high state, not by the sacred altar of a church,
+but in the Grand Opera House, which had so long been the centre of his
+magnificence. Buried in flowers snow-white, as if gathered for the tomb
+of a vestal, glittering with gold, with clouds of perfume floating over
+him&mdash;in all the pomp of a monarch he was taken from New York, and
+carried for a last resting-place to Vermont.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish it had been otherwise. Living as he did, dying as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>127<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> he did, with
+the ruin of so many lives involved in his fate, that last journey should
+have been taken in simplicity and quietness. The lesson his death
+conveys is too solemn for display, too mournful for anything but
+stillness. The elements of a great man left Vermont only a few years
+ago; New York has sent back the ruins. Let them rest in peace."</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, I did not think it possible that Cousin Dempster could get so
+fearfully earnest; his conversation has filled me with thoughts too
+solemn for careless utterance. In this man's death I hear a cry for
+merciful consideration&mdash;a solemn warning&mdash;a protest against the headlong
+speed with which this generation is trampling respectability under foot.
+This man's death is a subject of gossip now, when it should be a subject
+of mournful regret.</p>
+
+<p>I do not speak here of the man who killed him, or the cause of his
+death. One is a subject that no lady would care to discuss. The other is
+in the hands of the law, which should be a sanctuary for the accused.
+The evidence has been heard thoroughly, and a jury has decided on it,
+merciful or not, its verdict is final.</p>
+
+<p>But for Cousin Dempster, I should not have made this death the subject
+of a report, but some things that he has said startled me. Is it true
+that the alienation and separation of married people has become so easy
+and so fashionable? Can a husband and wife live apart months, years, and
+still keep up a pretence or the reality of affection, and be honored as
+respectable? I, for one, have no patience with such things. To me,
+marriage is a beautiful institution.</p>
+
+<p>Do not smile, sisters; I am not thinking of the great Grand Duke now. In
+fact I am not thinking of myself at all. Cousin Dempster's earnestness
+has impressed me with apprehension and melancholy; he places this
+subject before me in a new light.</p>
+
+<p>The man who is dead was in the full vigor of his life. The poor wept for
+him; he was good to them, and they believed that he had a kind heart.
+Sometimes that heart went back to the prayers of his mother. Had time
+been given him, something<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>128<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> tender and good might have found a noble
+growth in his nature. We do not yet know, and never shall know, what he
+might have been.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXVIII" id="XXVIII"></a>XXVIII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>SHE WOULD GO.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;I have had a glorious and a refreshing season. I have
+felt, in the depths of my soul, that the eyes, of all Vermont were on me
+in a reflective way. As the moon is sometimes permitted to shine before
+the sun goes down, I have added the light of my little feminine luminary
+to the flood of public homage that surrounds the greatest and best man
+that our State ever gave to the world.</p>
+
+<p>Saturday night, February third, was Horace Greeley's birthday. A
+gentleman up-town, who thinks the world of that smartest of good men,
+just made a house-warming on the occasion, and invited so many artists
+and poets, and editors and statesmen, and people that Providence had
+labelled as something particular, that it is a wonder the roof wasn't
+blown off with the yeasting of so much genius.</p>
+
+<p>Of course the beauty and talent of old Vermont, wherever it could be
+found, was hunted up, and invited with unusual enthusiasm. Where beauty
+and talent could be found united in one person&mdash;modesty forbids me to
+point out an instance&mdash;of course an especial compliment was paid. My
+invitation had a picture of the man, whose birthday we went to
+celebrate, in the middle of the writing&mdash;a real good likeness, that I
+mean to put in a locket and wear round my neck in honor of this
+self-made man and of my own native State, which may have double cause to
+glorify herself when the sixty-first birthday of another person just
+standing in front of the Temple of Fame,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>129<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> with her foot on the
+threshold, shall come round. I say nothing, but in the female line
+Vermont has laid up oceans of future glory for herself.</p>
+
+<p>Well, the day came. Once more I drew forth my pink silk dress, and
+ironed out the flounces; one of them got a little scorched, but I looped
+up the spot with a bow and a bunch of roses, and found the scorch an
+artistic improvement. I twisted my hair in corkscrews over night, and
+slept with my eyes wide open, contented as a kitten, though the pull was
+tremendous. I frizzed up the other woman's hair, for which I had paid
+ten dollars in the Sixth Avenue, and made ready for the occasion over
+night in a general way.</p>
+
+<p>Of course Cousin Dempster and his wife were invited, being <i>my</i> cousins,
+and so saturated with the family genius, that people are constantly
+expecting it to break out, which it hasn't yet, except in a general way.
+But Cousin D. made lots of money in the war, and money is thought almost
+as much of as talent by some people. Still, between ourselves, I don't
+think they would have been invited if they hadn't come from Sprucehill;
+which is taking a literary position next to the Hub since our Society
+has begun to publish my humble reports.</p>
+
+<p>Well, just at nine o'clock, if you had been in front of my
+boarding-house you might have seen a splendid carriage standing at the
+door, and that coachman, in his fur collar and cuffs, sitting high up on
+the driver's seat, and scrouching his head down while a storm of sleet
+and snow beat over him.</p>
+
+<p>If you had looked toward the house, three or four eager and curious
+faces might have been seen flat against every front window as a certain
+dignified and queenly person came slowly down the steps, with a white
+opera-cloak folded over her magnificent person, and a pink silk long
+train bunched up under it, lining-side out.</p>
+
+<p>The moment that carriage-door shut with an aristocratic bang you might
+have seen those faces turn from the window and look at each other&mdash;then
+noses turned up at sympathizing noses, giving out audible sniffs of that
+envy which the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>130<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> wonderful endowments of some persons are apt to engender
+in the inferior female mind.</p>
+
+<p>But if you had looked into that carriage you would have seen it packed
+comfortably as a robin's nest in blossom time. There was my pink dress
+floating round me in rosy billows; there was Cousin E. E.'s corn-colored
+moir&eacute; antique swelling like a balloon on her side; and there was Cousin
+Dempster rising like a black exclamation point up from one corner, and
+<i>that child</i> drumming her blue kid-boots against the seat in another
+corner, and snarling because a gust of sleet came in with me before the
+fellow outside could shut the door.</p>
+
+<p>When I saw her, my blood riled in a minute.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Cousin Dempster," says I, "children were not invited."</p>
+
+<p>"Children, indeed!" says the child, giving her head a fling: "I suppose
+Cousin Frost thinks that nothing but old maids can be young ladies&mdash;the
+idea!"</p>
+
+<p>"Daughter!" almost shrieked Cousin Emily E., a-catching her breath, and
+giving a frightened look over my way.</p>
+
+<p>"My child, how can you be so rude?" says Cousin Dempster, stamping down
+among the fur robes, and mashing my foot under the sole of his boot.</p>
+
+<p>I said nothing, but sat in dignified silence, wishing those two persons
+to feel that it was impossible the creature could mean me, but I
+trembled all over with righteous indignation, and wondered why that
+Bible benefactor, King Herod, had limited himself to boys, when he had
+such a glorious chance to sweep creatures like that out of existence in
+the female line. Oh! if I had been a Bible potentate!</p>
+
+<p>"She was so anxious to go, being born in Vermont," says Cousin Emily
+Elizabeth; "it seems as if she knew Mr. Greeley."</p>
+
+<p>"Reads the <i>Tribune</i> every day," chimes in Cousin Dempster, giving me a
+pleading look.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll thank you to take the heel of your boot off my foot,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>131<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> if you have
+held it there long enough," says I, with the firmness of a martyr and
+the dignity of an empress.</p>
+
+<p>This wilted the whole party into silence, and we drove on, with the hail
+pelting against the windows, and lowering clouds inside.</p>
+
+<p>All at once we got into a long line of carriages, and moved on as if we
+were going to a funeral instead of a birthday. Then the carriage
+stopped, the door was flung open, and we stepped under a long tent that
+stretched from the front door down a flight of stone steps and across
+the sidewalk. A carpet ran down the steps to the carriage, and we walked
+up that into the house; then through a hall, and upstairs, where we took
+off our cloaks and titivated up a little in a room half full of ladies,
+and blocked up with cloaks and things. I let down Cousin E. E.'s dress,
+and she let down mine; then we shook each other out, took an observation
+of each other from head to foot, tightened the buttons of our gloves,
+and went into the hall.</p>
+
+<p>There stood Cousin Dempster, with his white gloves on, and a white
+cravat with lace edges around his neck, looking <i>so</i> gentlemanly. We
+went downstairs Indian file, for a stream of people were going down on
+one side all crimlicued off most gorgeously; and another stream was
+going up, with cloaks and hoods on, so there was no locking arms till we
+got into the lower hall. Then we just tackled in. I took one arm, E. E.
+took the other, and <i>that creature</i> followed after, looking like an
+infantile Black Crook in her short muslin skirts and bunched-up sash.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>132<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXIX" id="XXIX"></a>XXIX.<br />
+<br />
+<small>MR. GREELEY'S BIRTHDAY PARTY.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/t.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="T" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">T</span>HE parlors were large and light, and crowded full. Just beyond the door
+I saw a man standing, with both hands at work, shaking out welcomes to
+his friends, as a chestnut bough rattles down nuts after a rousing
+frost.</p>
+
+<p>There he stood&mdash;the honored son of our dear old State&mdash;looking benign as
+Mr. Benjamin Franklin, and sweet-tempered as if he had fed on native
+maple-sugar all his life. I looked eagerly for his "old white coat," but
+he had on a bran-new black one; his hair, long and snow-white, fell down
+almost to his shoulders, that were rather broad than otherwise, which is
+needful considering the burdens that have been piled on them. I really
+think any stranger, going in there, would have known that this man owned
+a birthday by his face, it was so radiant with good-nature.</p>
+
+<p>By and by we hustled our way to the door. A man that stood there
+whispered something to Cousin Dempster, who whispered back. Then the man
+sung out&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. and Mrs. Dempster&mdash;Miss Ph&oelig;mie Frost!"</p>
+
+<p>Mercy on me, wasn't there a fluttering when that name rang through the
+crowd, as if blown by the trumpet of Fame. I felt myself blushing from
+head to foot, my heart rose into my mouth. I clung with feminine
+reliance on my cousin's arm, and, thus supported, prepared to endure the
+hundreds of admiring eyes bent upon me.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Greeley came forward. The moment he heard that name he seized the
+two whitely gloved hands that I held out to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Frost, of Vermont," says he.</p>
+
+<p>I pressed his hands. I could not speak. A little address, full of
+poetry, that I had been thinking over in my mind,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>133<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> melted into chaos. I
+could only murmur something about birthdays and long lives. Then some
+new people crowded me away, and I felt myself alone long enough to take
+a look at the rooms. They were gorgeous with pictures and flowers;
+radiant with gas, which fell like August sunshine through a thicket of
+vines, and flowers woven in among the burners in the chandelier, and
+dropping down half way to the floor.</p>
+
+<p>The marble slabs under the looking-glass at each end of the rooms were
+matted over with flowers, and from the top streamed down long feathery
+vines which ended in little bunches of red roses that swung loose before
+the glass, and left another vine there. Over the doors and windows these
+vines and flowers trailed themselves everywhere. Some beautiful pictures
+were on the walls. The centre one was of Greeley himself&mdash;just like
+him&mdash;bland and serene, smiling down upon the crowd as if he longed to
+shake hands over again.</p>
+
+<p>This picture was just crowned with a mat of white flowers, in which the
+year our Greeley was born, and the present year, were woven with bright
+red flowers. Down each side the feathery vines trailed and quivered. I
+tell you, sisters, it was beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>Before I could take in a full view, people had found out where I stood,
+and came crowding round me so close that I had to take in a reef of my
+pink silk dress, and they kept Cousin Dempster busy as a bee introducing
+them. So many people had read my writings, so many people had been dying
+to see me, it was enough to bring blushes to my cheeks and tears to my
+eyes. This, said I, is fame&mdash;and all Vermont shall hear of it, not for
+my sake, but in behalf of the Society.</p>
+
+<p>The rooms had been full of music all the time, but now the toot horns
+and fiddles stopped, and I heard the tones of a pianoforte from the
+further end of the room, then a voice struck in&mdash;loud, clear, ringing.
+We pressed forward, people made way for us, and we got into the ring.</p>
+
+<p>A young lady was standing by the pianoforte, singing "Auld Lang Syne."
+Greeley stood by her, holding her bouquet in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>134<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> hand. How smiling, how
+satisfied he looked as the heart-stirring old song rang over him! Close
+by stood his only sister, Mrs. Cleveland, a fair and real handsome
+woman, dressed in blue silk, with a white lace shawl a-shimmering over
+it. She looked happy as a blue jay on an apple-tree bough, and made
+everybody welcome over again when Mr. Greeley had done it once&mdash;just as
+a kind, warm-hearted woman ought to stand by a brother she is proud of,
+and looks like.</p>
+
+<p>Near by were her two daughters, just the nicest girls you ever saw. One
+of 'em in a pink satin dress with lace over it, and the other in blue
+satin with lace&mdash;just lovely!</p>
+
+<p>When the lady who did "Auld Lang Syne" went away from the pianoforte,
+every lady in the room began to clap hands, they seemed to be so glad
+that Mr. Greeley had found time to have a birthday. Then Miss Cleveland,
+in the blue dress, sat down, looking sweet and modest as a white dove;
+and she sang, too, real sweet; and then the people began to clap hands
+again. It seemed as if music just set them off into tantrums of delight
+because our great white-headed Vermonter had ever been born.</p>
+
+<p>I joined in with a vim; for if there is anybody I like and am proud of,
+it is the man who was standing there smiling among his friends, with
+that great, lovely bunch of flowers in his hands, and a little one in
+the button-hole of his coat.</p>
+
+<p>The wife and two daughters of our statesman and friend were over in
+England, so that his family connections didn't spread as if he had been
+President of the United States. But then he had a great many honest
+friends, and that made up for it considerably. There stood Mr. and Mrs.
+A. J. Johnson, who had carpeted their stone steps, set up a tent over
+their hospitable door, and turned their parlors into a blooming garden,
+just to show the respect they had for him; and they did it beautifully,
+making his friends theirs. At any rate, I can answer for one; for any
+person who does honor to a Vermont man who has glorified his State, can
+count on the faithful friendship of Ph&oelig;mie Frost during his natural
+life.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>135<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>At eleven o'clock, exactly, we all crowded around Mr. Greeley, and shook
+hands with him over again. Then we shook hands with Mrs. Johnson, who
+looked sweet, and was nice as nice could be; and with Mr. Johnson, and
+so on. After that, we all flocked out, with cloaks and hoods on, feeling
+that an evening like that was a refreshing season which will not be
+forgotten by some of us, so long as we live.</p>
+
+<p>One thing I forgot to mention&mdash;and I do it now, with tears in my eyes.
+In the front parlor, on a line with Mr. Greeley's picture, was one that
+made the heart ache in my bosom, and which will bring tears into your
+eyes, one and all, I know. It was the picture of Alice Cary. You have
+read her poetry; you know how good she was from that poetry; but I have
+learned some things about her here, that, as a Society, you should hear
+about. But I respect her memory so much that it must be in a report by
+itself. She was a great friend of Mr. Greeley's, and her shadow seemed
+to smile on him as it hung upon the wall.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXX" id="XXX"></a>XXX.<br />
+<br />
+<small>LEAP YEAR.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>O you know that this is Leap Year? Do you begin to feel the glorious
+flood of liberty which it lets in upon the female women of this country?
+As a society and as individuals, let us press forward to the mark of the
+prize&mdash;I beg pardon.</p>
+
+<p>This is not exactly a religious subject, though it does relate to the
+hymeneal altar, at which we have never yet been permitted to worship&mdash;a
+lasting and burning shame, which I, for one, begin to feel more deeply
+every day of my life.</p>
+
+<p>True, my own prospects are brightening and glorifying, but circumstances
+have brought them, for the present, to a dead<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>136<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> halt. But for the burst
+of golden sunshine let into my sad destiny by this opening Leap Year, I
+should be growing pale with suspense&mdash;for you know the great Grand Duke,
+though courteous and devotional, did not speak out in a perfectly
+satisfactory manner. I knew he meant it; for no robin's nest in laying
+time was ever so full of warm and brooding love as those blue eyes of
+his. But a cruel fate took him hence before the thrilling word was
+spoken, and left me trembling with doubt, pining in loneliness.</p>
+
+<p>I know the reason of this now; there is not a doubt that he has been
+anxious, like myself, but imperial royalty has its impediments. My
+Prince must bow to the exactions of a lofty station. I took up a paper
+the other day, and read something that made the heart leap in my bosom
+as a trout jumps after a fly. The Emperor has heard of the great Grand
+Duke's admiration. All Russia has heard of it and me. It is even
+reported that he has married a lovely and talented female, without
+waiting for the Emperor to say yes or no. The description answers, you
+will perceive. I felt myself blush, like a rose in the sunset, when I
+read it. "Lovely and talented." Sisters, there can be no doubt about it!</p>
+
+<p>I felt my cheeks burn and my heart broaden with a sense of coming
+exaltation. Why should the Emperor refuse? Are we not all queens in this
+country, and is not a woman of genius an empress among queens?</p>
+
+<p>I'm afraid the Emperor of all the Russias does not yet comprehend the
+great social system of our country, where the fact of being a woman has
+infinite nobility in itself&mdash;to which peculiar privileges are attached;
+for instance, the privilege of carrying pistols and shooting down men in
+hallways and street cars in a promiscuous fashion.</p>
+
+<p>As I have said&mdash;to be a woman in America is to be everything. That is
+why I think it unreasonable that Imperial nobility should be forbidden
+to match itself here. Once we had aristocracy of money, but since the
+war, when people became rich in no time by selling shoddy and things,
+that has levelled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>137<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> down like a sand heap. But one aristocracy is left
+now, and that is the aristocracy of mind. Genius is the nobility of the
+mind. Now as long as the Prince unites himself with that, what has any
+one, even his august father, to say against it?</p>
+
+<p>But there is no doubt I have given the Imperial heart some anxiety.
+<i>His</i> manner was so impressive; his spy-glass was levelled at my
+countenance so often, that it is not to be wondered at if the violence
+of his passionate admiration did get about and fly on the wings of the
+wind to his Imperial home. There it was sure to make an excitement.
+American ladies have married lords and marquises in England, counts and
+princes in other countries, and make first-rate lordesses and
+marchionesses and princesses too. In fact, just as good as the born
+nobility, and better too; but up to this time it is left to a lovely
+woman of genius to exalt America into the region of imperial highness.
+Money&mdash;for your lords, etc., etc., etc., generally want that with
+American beauty and grace&mdash;money has done its utmost. Now genius comes
+in, and modesty crowns itself.</p>
+
+<p>I am satisfied that the great Grand Duke is only waiting, from a feeling
+of doubt and modesty. My heart compassionates him. Up to the first of
+January, I could do no more. Female propriety forbade it, but now&mdash;now
+all is changed. Modesty is disenthralled.</p>
+
+<p>It is Leap Year. St. Valentine's Day approaches. The windows of every
+book-store are a-blazing with valentines, burning with love, eloquent of
+the tender passions, pictorial and poetical.</p>
+
+<p>The Queen of England offered herself to Prince Albert. It must have been
+a touching scene. How modestly she suggested the flame that was kindled
+in her youthful heart, and still lies smouldering in the ashes of that
+good man's grave. I don't think she waited for Leap Year&mdash;but I will. No
+one shall say that Ph&oelig;mie Frost has forgotten what is due to her sex.</p>
+
+<p>St. Valentine's Day emancipates the womanly heart. I have bought a
+valentine, white satin, surrounded by a frost work<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>138<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> of silver lace,
+sprinkled with gold stars. On the satin is a little boy with wings,
+hiding behind a rose-bush, firing arrows through it from a bow which he
+lifts up roguishly. These arrows are aimed at an Imperial figure mounted
+on a wild horse, and running down a buffalo&mdash;a unique and beautifully
+suggestive idea. This was the poem which gushed with spontaneosity from
+my disenthralled mind:</p>
+
+<div class="block4">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Come back, come back, from the buffalo raid!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Here is fairer game for you;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At thy feet the lovingest heart is laid<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">That ever a Grand Duke knew.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A lady rich in womanly pride,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Whose soul clings unto thine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is ready to be an Imperial bride&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Kneel with thee at Hymen's shrine.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Come back, come back, or thy haughty sire<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Will command, and all is lost;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But he cannot extinguish this holy fire<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In the bosom of&mdash;&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>Sisters, I ask you now, isn't this a gem? It isn't just the thing to put
+your name to a valentine, they tell me, but this is something deeper and
+more poetic than such things usually are. It means mischief, as Cousin
+Dempster says. It is a proposal, buried in roses and veiled in sweet and
+modest verse, such as a lady might almost send at any time with a few
+blushes. It will reach him out in that vast wilderness of dead grass,
+where he has been deluded off by Mr. Sheridan, and has risked his
+precious life in a terrific manner, shooting great, monstrous buffaloes,
+which are animals, they tell me, something like an overgrown ox, only
+the hair is longer, and they are kind of hunched-up about the upper end
+of the back, just as if the last city fashions among ladies had got to
+be the rage out there.</p>
+
+<p>Imagine my feelings, sisters, when I heard that the Grand Duke was off
+with that fellow and a squad of wild Indians, all in war-paint and
+tomahawks, hunting these terrific creatures. It almost made me feel like
+a widow. There he was, brought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>139<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> up so tenderly, eating broiled buffalo
+hump, and drinking champagne and things out in the open lots, as big as
+all out-doors, and sleeping in a tent. Think of it! With his own right
+hand he shot down twenty-five of these humpbacked monsters, and means to
+carry their skins home with him to Russia. I suppose Mr. Philip Sheridan
+will be for studying the military tactics of Russia from St. Petersburg
+to Siberia as soon as the great Grand Duke gets back, for he isn't the
+sort of fellow, folks tell me, to give up a chance like that. Governor
+Palmer, of Illinois, has, at any rate, given him leave of absence from
+the Chicago fires, and there isn't anything much to keep him from
+hunting in Siberia if he wants to.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I got my valentine all ready; directed it to the Grand Duke in a
+delicate, ladylike way, and took it with my own hands down to the
+post-office.</p>
+
+<p>"Be very careful of this," says I to a young man who stood at the
+post-office window, "and see that it goes straight to his Royal
+Highness; I want it to reach him the first thing in the morning on
+Valentine's Day."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at the address, and muttered to himself:</p>
+
+<p>"For His Royal Highness the Grand Duke of all the Russias: care of
+Philip Sheridan and a wild Indian whose name a refined lady could not
+bring herself to pronounce; Buffalo Plains, America."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear madame," says he, all at once, "this is no address at all; it
+would never reach the Grand Duke."</p>
+
+<p>I caught my breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Not reach him?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"No," says he; "the Grand Duke has gone beyond the reach of the mails."</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness gracious!" says I; "but no matter about that, if he hasn't got
+out of the reach of the females."</p>
+
+<p>"But he has."</p>
+
+<p>My heart sank in my bosom like a soggy apple-dumpling.</p>
+
+<p>"What&mdash;all females?" says I. "Won't that reach him, anyway? it is
+important&mdash;very. Great destinies depend upon it."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>140<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I can put it in," says he; "but ten chances to one it will get into the
+dead-letter office."</p>
+
+<p>My heart grew heavier and heavier, but what could I do?</p>
+
+<p>"Put it in," says I; "live or die, it must go!"</p>
+
+<p>He took my valentine and pitched it off into a heap of letters, just as
+if it had been a dead leaf. It fairly made me faint to see it handled
+so; but the fellow turned his back on me, and I went away heart-sick.</p>
+
+<p>One comfort I had in all this&mdash;if my valentine could not reach him, that
+of no other female could; and my offer is sure to be first, though I
+shouldn't wonder if that girl who sent him her card tied round a canary
+bird's neck might try. She's forward enough, anyway.</p>
+
+<p>Then, there is another comfort&mdash;Valentine's Day don't cover the whole
+Leap Year, and there are other men than the great Grand Duke in the
+world. We females have a whole twelvemonths to try our luck in. Of
+course any of us would aim high the first months; but after that, the
+game will grow smaller and wilder, as a general thing, and our chances
+less.</p>
+
+<p>For my part, I mean to be up and doing. One disappointment isn't going
+to break my heart; I've had too many for that; but if human energy and
+human genius can avail anything against an adverse destiny, my signature
+will be changed before this year closes.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXXI" id="XXXI"></a>XXXI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>A MAN THAT WOULDN'T TAKE MONEY.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/c.jpg" width="60" height="61" alt="C" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">C</span>OUSIN DEMPSTER is real good to me; no mistake about that. A day or two
+ago, he says to his wife, says he:</p>
+
+<p>"Supposing we take Cousin Ph&oelig;mie down to an oyster lunch at Fulton
+Market. That is one of the lions of the city."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>141<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>I fairly hopped up from my chair when he said this, just as cool and
+easy as if he had been talking of rabbits lapping milk. What on earth
+had I to do with city lions, and such animals? Wild beasts like these
+are in no part of my mission, now are they?</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. saw the scare in my eyes, and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"I know it seems strange to people from outside," says she; "and it
+really is a dirty place; but somehow ladies and gentlemen have made it
+the rage."</p>
+
+<p>"Do the creatures rage fiercely?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. looked puzzled a minute, then she answered:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," says she, "fashion takes queer twists sometimes; in this case it
+really is unaccountable. The people crowding into those wooden dens&mdash;and
+the eating done there is wonderful."</p>
+
+<p>"Eating!" says I, feeling my eyes grow big as saucers. "Eating! Do they
+feed before folks, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; every lady goes; you never saw anything like it. Such
+Rockaways and other bivalves are to be found nowhere else."</p>
+
+<p>"Rockaways and bivalves!" thinks I to myself; "what kind of animals are
+they? Never heard of bivalves before in my whole life, but the other
+puts me in mind of old Grandma Frost's splint-bottomed rocking-chair. No
+need of saying rock-away to her, for she was always on the teater. But
+she's dead now, and the last time I ever saw her Boston rocker it was
+away back of the chimney, at the old homestead, scrouged in between the
+stones and the clapboards, with one rocker torn off and an arm broken. I
+couldn't help asking Cousin E. E. if she remembered that chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes," says she; "somebody hustled it off into the garret the moment
+she'd done with it. I saw it there a year after the funeral, with the
+patchwork cushion of red and blue cloth moth-eaten and gray with dust."</p>
+
+<p>Now, my father owned the old homestead while he lived, and I took this
+as a slur on our branch of the Frost family. This riled me internally,
+but I couldn't contradict her, and felt myself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>142<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> blushing hotly, rather
+ashamed of the Frost family. But the truth is, as a race, we are none of
+us given to much antiquity. No female of our family was ever known to
+get over forty-nine in her own person, though many of them have lived to
+a wonderful old age. This was curious, but a fact. Such unaccountable
+things do sometimes run in families. But these are facts that I
+sometimes choke down&mdash;I did it now.</p>
+
+<p>"We were talking of something else, and got on to chairs," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"No uncommon thing," says Cousin Dempster, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>I laughed too, but that child turned up her sniffy nose, and, looking at
+her father, said:</p>
+
+<p>"The idea!" which wilted him down at once.</p>
+
+<p>"But these bivalves and Rockaways&mdash;what do they do with them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, eat them, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Eat them? How?"</p>
+
+<p>"Raw."</p>
+
+<p>"Mercy on me! Raw?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Cousin E. E., it shan't be said that you are related to a coward.
+I'll go down to see these city lions; but when?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, to-day," says Cousin Dempster. "Just come down to the office
+about noon, and I'll go with you."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," says I, feeling a little shivery.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you like to go, darling?" says he speaking to his little girl, as
+if half afraid.</p>
+
+<p>"Me, papa, down to that horrid place all meat and butter, and fish and
+things? The idea!"</p>
+
+<p>I was so grateful to the stuck-up thing, that I'm afraid Cousin E. E.
+saw it in my eyes, for she sort of clouded over and said:</p>
+
+<p>"That, after all, she didn't think she cared to go, but that needn't
+keep Cousin Ph&oelig;mie at home. Mr. Dempster would take her."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, just as you please," says he, a-taking his hat, "I'm at your
+service&mdash;singly or in groups. Good-morning."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>143<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Well, in the afternoon, I asked Cousin E. E., in a kind of natural way,
+if she meant to go to that feed. But that child called out:</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, mamma, don't go; I won't be left alone."</p>
+
+<p>So Cousin E. E. said she had a bad headache, and thought she wouldn't
+go, but that needn't keep me.</p>
+
+<p>Now, sisters, I wasn't brought up in the woods to be scared by owls, as
+we say in our parts&mdash;and if that little upstart thought she would keep
+me at home by domineering over her mother, she soon found out her
+mistake, for in less than two minutes a young lady, of about my size,
+came downstairs, with her beehive bonnet on, a satchel in one hand and
+an umbrella in the other.</p>
+
+<p>"You will find the way easy enough," says Cousin E. E. "The cars take
+you close to the office, and you will get splendid oysters at the
+market."</p>
+
+<p>Oysters! the very word made my mouth water, for if there is a thing on
+earth that I deliciously adore, it is oysters&mdash;such as you get here in
+York.</p>
+
+<p>"Oysters!" says I, "why didn't you tell me that before?"</p>
+
+<p>"We did," says she; "of course we did!"</p>
+
+<p>I was too polite to contradict her; but I'll take my Bible oath that not
+one word about shell-fish of any kind had been mentioned that
+morning&mdash;nothing but a great city lion, Rockaways, bivalves, and animals
+like them. Still I said nothing, but went out encouraged by the idea
+that I was to have something to eat as well as the lion.</p>
+
+<p>It was afternoon, and the street-car wasn't overfull, so I took a seat
+in one corner and began to think over a piece of poetry that I have got
+into my mind, which shortened the way to Dempster's office wonderfully.
+In less than no time I seemed to get there, but he had just stepped out.
+One of the clerks said that he thought he had gone to the market for
+lunch.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, mercy! I felt as if my oysters were all out to sea again. I was too
+late.</p>
+
+<p>"Which is the way to the market?" says I.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>144<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I will show you," says he&mdash;which he did&mdash;walking by my side till I got
+in sight of a long, low, broad-spreading building that seemed all roof,
+and stone floors opening everywhere right into the street.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," says the young gentleman, "you won't help finding your way, for
+there is Mr. Dempster himself."</p>
+
+<p>He lifted his hat and bowed so politely that I felt impressed with a
+desire to reward him. Taking out my pocket-book, I handed him a ten-cent
+stamp, with a grateful and most benevolent smile on my countenance. I am
+sure of that from the glow I felt. He blushed&mdash;he seemed to choke&mdash;he
+stepped back and put on his hat with a jerk, but he didn't reach out his
+hand with the grateful spontaneosity I expected. His modesty touched me.</p>
+
+<p>"Take it," says I, "it is no more than you deserve."</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me," says he; and his face was as red as a fireman's jacket.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-afternoon;" and as true as you live he went off without taking the
+money. I never saw anything like it.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXXII" id="XXXII"></a>XXXII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>A DEMOCRATIC LUNCH.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/a.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="A" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">A</span>S soon as I could recover from the surprise any New England woman would
+feel at a thing like this, I saw Cousin Dempster coming toward me.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, hurry up," says he. "You were so late, I thought perhaps you had
+misunderstood, and come directly here. This way; be careful where you
+step; Fulton market is not the neatest place on earth."</p>
+
+<p>I was careful, and lifting the skirt of my alpaca dress between my thumb
+and finger, gave a nipping jump, and cleared<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>145<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> a gutter that ran between
+Cousin D. and myself. Then we walked into the market, with a whole crowd
+of other people, and trained along between baskets and square wooden
+pens heaped up with oranges, and things called bananas&mdash;gold-colored,
+and bunched-up like sausages, but awful good to eat. Potatoes, apples,
+books, peanuts, chestnuts, pies, cakes, and no end of things, were
+heaped on high benches on each side of us wherever we turned, till at
+last we passed through an encampment of empty meat-stands, and from that
+into a wooden lane with open rooms on one hand, and piles on piles of
+oysters on each side the door.</p>
+
+<p>Every one of these rooms had a great rousing fire burning and roaring
+before it, and a lot of men diving in amongst the oysters, with sharp
+knives in their hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go in here," says Cousin Dempster, turning toward one of the
+rooms that looked cheerful and neat as a pin. The floor was sprinkled
+with white sand, and the tables had marble tops, white as tombstones,
+but more cheerful by half. As we went in, a man by the door called out,
+"Tuw stews!" Then again, "One roast&mdash;one raw on half-shell!"</p>
+
+<p>Another man began firing pots and pans at the heap of blazing coals
+before him the moment this fellow stopped for breath. All this made me
+so hungry that I really felt as if I couldn't wait; but I kind of
+started back when I saw ever so many gentlemen and ladies in the room,
+sitting by the tables and feeding deliciously. Some of the men had their
+hats on, which did not strike me as over-genteel. But, after this one
+halt, I entered with dignity, placed my satchel in a corner, and took an
+upright position on one of the wooden chairs. Cousin Dempster sat down,
+too. He took his hat off, which I felt as complimentary, and a touch of
+the aristocratic.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, what shall we have?" says he.</p>
+
+<p>"A stew," says I, with a feeling of thanksgiving in my mouth.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin D. said something in a low voice to the young man, who went to
+the door, and called out:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>146<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"One roast! one stew&mdash;Saddlerock!"</p>
+
+<p>I started up and caught that young man by the arm, a-feeling as if I had
+got hold of a cannibal. Saddlerocks, indeed!</p>
+
+<p>"Young man," says I, "you have mistaken your party; we didn't ask for
+stewed grindstones&mdash;only oysters."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me, at first, wild as a night-hawk, and seemed as if he
+wanted to run away.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be scared," says I; "no harm is intended; it is an oyster stew
+that we want&mdash;nothing more. I'm not fond of hard meat. If you don't know
+how to cook them&mdash;which is natural, being a man&mdash;I can tell you. Now be
+particular&mdash;put in half milk, a considerable chunk of butter, not too
+much pepper, and just let them come to a boil&mdash;no more. I do hate
+oysters stewed to death. You understand?" says I, counting over the
+ingredients on my fingers&mdash;"now go and do your duty."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes'm," says he, and goes right to the door, and sings out: "One
+stew!&mdash;one roast!" so loud that it made me jump. Then he came back into
+the room, while I retired, with dignity, to my seat by the table.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to me that Cousin Dempster didn't quite like what I had done,
+for his face was red as fire when I sat down again, and I heard him
+mutter something about the eccentricities of genius. Indeed, I'm afraid
+a profane word came with it, though I pretended not to hear.</p>
+
+<p>By and by, in came the waiter-man, with two plates of cabbage cut fine,
+and chucked a vinegar cruet down before me; then he clapped salt and
+pepper before Cousin D., with a plate of little crackers. Then he went
+away again, and came back with two plates full of great, pussy oysters,
+steaming hot, and so appetizing, that a hungry person might have made a
+luscious meal on the steam.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, Sisters! you never will know what good eating is till you've been
+down to the Fulton Market, and feasted on oysters there; you can't get
+'em first-rate in any other place. Try it, and you'll find 'em weak as
+weakness compared to these. Hot, plump, delicious! The very memory of
+them is enough to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>147<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> keep a reasonable person from being hungry a week.
+Talk of Delmonico's! I never was there; but if it beats this room in the
+Fulton Market in the way of shell-fish, I'll give up all my chances this
+Leap Year.</p>
+
+<p>Well, when we'd done eating, two pewter mugs were set on the table, and
+Cousin Dempster handed one to me. I've heard of these mugs as belonging
+to bar-rooms and over intimate with ale and beer&mdash;things that I wouldn't
+touch for anything on earth, maple-sap being my native drink&mdash;so I
+pushed the cup away, really ashamed of Cousin D.; but he pushed it back
+a-kind of laughing, and says he:</p>
+
+<p>"Just taste it."</p>
+
+<p>"Beer?" says I. "Never."</p>
+
+<p>Cousin D. lifted his mug to his lip, and drank as if it tasted good. I
+was awful thirsty, and this was tantalizing.</p>
+
+<p>"Try it," says he, fixing his bright eyes on me. "How do you know it is
+beer till you've tasted it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," says I; "I didn't think of that?"</p>
+
+<p>I took up the mug, and sipped a cautious sip. Beer, indeed! That pewter
+cup was brimming over with champagne-cider, that flashed and sparkled up
+to my lips like kisses let loose. Then I bent my head to Cousin
+Dempster, and just nodded.</p>
+
+<p>Never think you have drank champagne-cider till you've taken it flashing
+from a pewter mug, after oysters, in Fulton Market; till then, Sisters,
+you will never know how thoroughly good-natured and full of fun a lone
+female can become. Some people might think champagne-cider like
+maple-sap with a sparkle in it, for the color is just the same; but it
+is considerably livelier, and a good deal more so, especially when one
+drinks it out of a pewter cup, and hasn't any way of measuring.</p>
+
+<p>Bold! I should think I was, after that. Bold as brass.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," says I, taking up my satchel, "I'm ready to see that city lion,
+the Rockaways, and the bivalves fed. They have no terrors for me now.
+I've got over that. Where is their dens, or cages, and how often do they
+feed?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>148<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Cousin Dempster set down his pewter mug, and just stared at me with all
+his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it? What do you mean?" says he.</p>
+
+<p>"What! the lion, to be sure! Didn't you say that I would see one of the
+city lions when I came to Fulton Market?"</p>
+
+<p>That man must have been possessed. He leaned back in his chair, he
+stooped forward, his face turned red, and, oh! my how he did laugh!</p>
+
+<p>"What possesses you, Cousin D.," says I, riling up.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nothing," says he, wiping the tears from his eyes, and trying to
+stop laughing, though he couldn't; "only&mdash;only this isn't a menagerie,
+but a market. Did you really think there were wild beasts on exhibition?
+It was the market we meant."</p>
+
+<p>Then I remembered that E. E. had called me a lion once. Now it was the
+market, and there wasn't a sign of the wild beast in either case. There
+<i>he</i> sat laughing till he cried, because I couldn't understand that
+ladies and markets were not wild animals. Says I to myself, "I'll make
+you laugh out of the other side of your mouth,"&mdash;so I turned to him as
+cool as a cucumber:</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth are you te-he-ing about? I only want to walk around the
+market and see what's going on. Isn't that what we came for?"</p>
+
+<p>Cousin D. stopped laughing, and began to look sheepish enough.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that it?" says he.</p>
+
+<p>"What else?" says I. "You didn't think I expected this great, big,
+low-roofed market to have paws and growl, did you," says I. "I would
+growl if the city were to set me down in the mud of this pestiferous
+place. So you thought I really meant it. Well, the easy way in which
+some men are taken in is astonishing. They never can understand
+metaphor," says I. "But the bivalves and Rockaways. What of them?" says
+I.</p>
+
+<p>"Swallowed them," says he. Sisters, the dizziness in my stomach was
+awful.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>149<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXXIII" id="XXXIII"></a>XXXIII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>DEMPSTER PROPOSES A TRIP.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;I have been in Washington. The great city of a great
+nation. I have seen the Capitol in all its splendid magnificence, its
+pictures, its marbled floor, its fruit tables, and its underground
+eating-rooms. I have seen the White House, and have had a bird's-eye
+view of the President of these United States.</p>
+
+<p>I will tell you how it happened. I was getting anxious and down in the
+mouth; my valentine had been given to the winds of heaven&mdash;no, <i>they</i>
+would have carried it safely through ten thousand herds of buffalo
+cattle&mdash;but it had been given to the mails, and they are <i>so</i> uncertain,
+spell the word which way you will. Day after day I waited and watched,
+and sent down to the post-office to be sure there was no mistake in that
+department; but nothing came of it; no answer reached me. I became
+peaked and down-hearted, so much so, dear sisters, that Cousin Dempster
+got anxious about me, and one day asked me, in the kindest manner, if I
+would like to run on to Washington with him.</p>
+
+<p>"Run on to Washington," says I; "how far is it, cousin?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," says he, "about two hundred and thirty miles, I should say."</p>
+
+<p>"Two hundred and thirty miles," says I, almost screaming. "Why, Cousin
+D., I couldn't do it to save my life."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" says he, "it isn't a very tedious ride."</p>
+
+<p>"Ride," says I. "Why, didn't you ask me just now to run on with you? How
+can I do both?"</p>
+
+<p>Cousin D. laughed, and began to rock up and down till he almost bent
+double; though what it was about I couldn't begin to tell.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," says he, "just get your trunk or carpet-bag packed, and I'll
+call for you in the morning. Emily Elizabeth can't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>150<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> leave home just now,
+and it will be a great pleasure to me if I can have you along."</p>
+
+<p>"If you'd just as lief," says I, "I'll speak to Cousin E. E. about it;
+under present circumstances, a young girl like me can't be too
+particular. I'm told that a good many married men have got a habit of
+travelling toward Washington in what seems like a single state, and it's
+wonderful how many of them have unprotected females put under their
+charge&mdash;sometimes, both ways. If E. E. has no objection, I'll be on hand
+bright and early."</p>
+
+<p>Dempster kept on laughing, and I went upstairs wondering what had set
+him off so, but when I asked Cousin E. E. if she had any objection to my
+travelling to Washington with her husband, she began to laugh too, as if
+it was the best sort of a joke that a York lady should be expected to
+care about her husband's travelling off with other feminine women.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," says she, a-wiping the fun and tears from her eyes with a lace
+handkerchief, "what do you think I care! We don't keep our husbands shut
+up in band-boxes here in the great metropolis."</p>
+
+<p>"No," says I to myself, "nor do you get much chance to shut 'em up at
+home, according to my thinking."</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," says she, with comicality in her eyes, looking at me from
+head to foot: "I should never think of being jealous of you, Cousin
+Ph&oelig;mie."</p>
+
+<p>Here, that child looked up from a novel she was a-reading.</p>
+
+<p>"The idea," says she, which was exasperating; especially as Cousin E. E.
+kept laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"That is as much as to say you don't think I'm good-looking enough to be
+afraid of," says I, feeling as if a cold frost was creeping over my
+face. "Thank you."</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. started up from her lounge, which is a cushioned bench
+rounded off at one end, and a high-backed easy-chair at the other; and
+says she:</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't mean that, cousin; there is no one for whom I have so much
+respect. It was on account of your high religious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>151<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> principle and
+beautiful morality that I was so willing to trust you with my husband."</p>
+
+<p>"With papa. The idea!" chimed in that child, giving her head a toss.
+"They'll think it's his mother."</p>
+
+<p>"My daughter!" shrieked E. E., holding up both her hands, and falling
+back into the scoop of her couch.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, let her speak!" says I, feeling the goose pimples a-creeping up my
+arms. "I'm used to forward children. In our parts they slap them with a
+slipper, if nothing else is handy."</p>
+
+<p>"A slipper; the idea!" snapped that child.</p>
+
+<p>I didn't seem to mind her, but went on talking to her mother.</p>
+
+<p>"But here, in York, the most careful mothers wear button boots, and keep
+special help to put them on and off, so the poor little wretches have no
+check on their impudence."</p>
+
+<p>"Mamma," snapped the creature, "I won't stand this; I won't stay in the
+same room with that hateful old maid. I hope she will go to Washington
+and be smashed up in ten thousand railroads. That's the idea!"</p>
+
+<p>With this the spiteful thing walked out of the room with her head thrown
+back, and her nose in the air.</p>
+
+<p>"Let her go," says E. E., sinking back on her couch as red as fire. "The
+child has got her share of the old Frost temper. Now let us talk about
+Washington. Do you mean to go <i>incog.</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Incog! Oh, no," says I, beginning to cool down. "We mean to go in the
+railroad cars."</p>
+
+<p>Another glow of fun came into Cousin E. E.'s eyes&mdash;she really is a
+good-natured creature; some people might have got mad about what I said
+to that child, but she didn't seem to care, for the laugh all came back
+to her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," says she, "but do you mean to go in your own character?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," says I, "don't people take their characters with them when they
+go to Washington?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>152<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"They sometimes leave them there," says she, laughing, "but this is what
+I mean; if I were you I'd take this trip quietly, and look about a
+little without letting people know how great a genius they had among
+them. By and by we will all go and take the city by storm."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," says I, delighted with the plan, which has a touch of
+diplomacy in it&mdash;and I am anxious to study diplomacy under the
+circumstances, you know; "creep before you walk&mdash;that is what you mean."</p>
+
+<p>"Just pass as Miss Frost&mdash;nothing more&mdash;and make your own observations,"
+says E. E.</p>
+
+<p>"I will," says I. "It's a good idea. I don't think the people in
+Washington were over polite to my great Grand Duke, and I mean to pay
+them off, some day."</p>
+
+<p>"That's settled," says E. E. "Now you have no more than time to get
+ready."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXXIV" id="XXXIV"></a>XXXIV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>IN WASHINGTON.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/i.jpg" width="60" height="60" alt="I" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">I</span> HURRIED back to my boarding-house, packed up that pink silk dress and
+things, put on my alpaca dress, tied a thick brown veil over my beehive,
+and packed my satchel till it rounded out like an apple dumpling.</p>
+
+<p>We started that night. Cousin D. wanted me to go into a long car where
+people slept, he said; but I saw a good many men with carpet-bags going
+in there, which looked strange, and though I have great faith in the
+integrity of Cousin Dempster, a young lady in my peculiar circumstances
+cannot be too particular; I declined to go into that curtained, long
+car, and sat up in a high-backed chair all night, wide awake as a
+whip-poor-will, for Cousin Dempster was on the next seat sleeping like a
+mole, and his head more than once came down so close to my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>153<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> shoulder
+that it made me shudder for fear that people might not know that he was
+my cousin's husband, and snap up my character before I got to
+Washington.</p>
+
+<p>Well, at last we got out of that train, I stood with both feet in the
+heart of the nation, and a great, flat, straggling heart it is.</p>
+
+<p>"There it is&mdash;there is the Capitol," says Cousin Dempster. "Look how
+beautifully the sunshine bathes the dome and the white marble walls."</p>
+
+<p>I looked upward&mdash;there, rising up over a lot of tall trees and long,
+green embankments, rose a great building, white as snow, and large as
+all out-doors. The sun was just up, and had set all its windows on fire,
+and a great, stout woman perched on the top of a thing they call the
+dome&mdash;which is like a mammoth wash-bowl turned wrong side up&mdash;looked as
+if she was tired out with carrying so much on her head, and longed to
+jump down and have a good time with the other bronze-colored girls that
+show themselves off, just like white folks inside the building.</p>
+
+<p>Well, later that day, I went right up to that heap of marble, which in
+its length and breadth and depth filled my soul with pride and patriotic
+glory. I really don't believe there is another building like it on the
+face of the earth. Freedom, honesty, and greatness <i>ought</i> to preside
+there.</p>
+
+<p>Why, sisters, there are whole rooms here of clouded marble, ceiling,
+floor, walls&mdash;everything polished like the agate stone in your brooch,
+and I do think that the hottest sun can hardly force a beam of warmth
+through.</p>
+
+<p>Down in the great wandering cellars you come upon staircases of
+beautiful marble, fenced in with railings of iron and gold and brass all
+melted together and called bronze, up which deer, as big as young lambs,
+are jumping, and branches of trees are twisted. There are ever so many
+of these staircases, and they cost one hundred thousand dollars apiece.
+Think of that! and mostly where it is so dark that you can't but just
+see them.</p>
+
+<p>"I hadn't only one day and night to look about in, so I went<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>154<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> up there
+before Congress got to work, as I wanted to see things without having
+people know that I was there. But by and by a lot of men came swarming
+in, and I felt like making myself scarce.</p>
+
+<p>I went back to the hotel and got a little sleep.</p>
+
+<p>It was dinner time, and near candle-light when I woke up; and when we
+got through dinner, Cousin D. told me to hurry up, and we would take a
+look at the White House.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I get out my pink silk?" says I. "Does the President expect me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no," says he; "no one is aware that we are here. We will drive to
+the White House, see all that is to be seen, and start home bright and
+early to-morrow morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Then the alpaca will do," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," says he; "anything."</p>
+
+<p>I wasn't sorry. This travelling all night is apt to take the ambition
+out of the most energetic character. The difference between pink silk
+and alpaca was nothing to me now.</p>
+
+<p>Well, in an hour after, the carriage we rode in stopped under a great
+square roof, set on marble pillars, which spreads out from the steps of
+the White House to keep people sheltered from the storm and sun when
+they get out of the carriages. It was dark now, and two great
+street-lamps were in brilliant combustion each side of the steps.</p>
+
+<p>Between us, sisters, that White House that we hear so much about is no
+great shakes of a building. Compared to the Capitol, it is just nowhere.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin D. rang the knob, which was silver, and a man opened the door.</p>
+
+<p>"We should like to see the House," says Cousin D.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," says the man. "Walk in."</p>
+
+<p>We did walk into a large room, with a few chairs and two or three
+pictures in it; nothing particular, I can tell you.</p>
+
+<p>"This way," says the man.</p>
+
+<p>We went that way, into a great room, long and wide as a meeting-house,
+choke full of long windows, and with three<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>155<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> awful large glass balloons,
+blazing with lights, a-hanging from the roof.</p>
+
+<p>The carpet was thick and soft as a sandy shore, and had its colors all
+trampled in together, as if some one had stamped down the leaves of a
+maple camp into the grass as they fell last year.</p>
+
+<p>"The chairs and sofas and looking-glasses were bought when General
+Washington was President," says the man.</p>
+
+<p>"Mercy on me! you don't say so," says I. "They look rather skimpy for
+these times, don't they?" says I; but then his way of buying things and
+spending money was a little skimpy compared to the way Presidents spend
+money now; but, of course, we grow more deserving as we grow older.
+"Now, those red silk curtains that almost hide the lace ones, did they
+belong to Washington?"</p>
+
+<p>"Them? Oh, no; we change them every four years."</p>
+
+<p>"Then they go out with the President," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"We don't think that he will go out yet awhile," says the man, looking a
+little wrathy.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I hope he won't, for great men are scarce in these times," says
+I, wanting to mollify him. He said nothing, and I followed him through a
+door into a smaller room, so full of green that it seemed like stepping
+out of a blazing sun into a fern hollow. The walls were green; the
+carpet was green as meadow grass; the sofas and chairs were cushioned
+with green satin. The glass balloon seemed to have a sea-green tinge in
+it, though it was blazing like a bonfire.</p>
+
+<p>Not a soul was in the room, and we went on to the next which was long,
+rounded off at the ends like a lemon, and blue as the sky. Down the tall
+windows came curtains of blue silk, sweeping over white lace. The chairs
+seemed framed in solid gold; their cushions were blue silk.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the celebrated blue room," says the man.</p>
+
+<p>"I've heard about it," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"And this," says he, "is the red room. The President has given a
+dinner-party to General Sickles this evening, and they are now at the
+table. Would you like to look in?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>156<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Before I could answer, we were standing in the red room, and looking
+through at a table crowded round with gentlemen and ladies, dressed like
+queens and princes, some of them looking handsome as angels.</p>
+
+<p>"That is General Sickles," says he, "a-sitting by Mr. Grant."</p>
+
+<p>I looked in, but could only see a face, not over young, turned towards a
+lady who was listening to him, as if every word he dropped was a ripe
+cherry. She had a good, honest face, and I liked her.</p>
+
+<p>"That is Mrs. Sickles, sitting by the President," says the man.</p>
+
+<p>"What, that girl! you don't say so. Why, he might be her father."</p>
+
+<p>It was the truth&mdash;a young, black-eyed thing, rather pretty and childish,
+sat there by General Grant&mdash;I knew it was Grant by his features&mdash;talking
+to him as if he had been her brother. Her dress was high up in the neck,
+but most of the ladies there wore them so low that I felt like turning
+my eyes away; but Cousin D. says that low-necked dresses always rage as
+a chronic epidemic in Washington, so I mustn't be surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"That is General Sheridan," says the man.</p>
+
+<p>"That little cast-iron image, General Sheridan!" says I, a-starting
+back. "The fellow that cured a whole tribe of Indian women of small-pox
+with bayonets and bullets! I don't want to see anything more! Just let
+us go away, cousin; I haven't been vaccinated, and he might break out
+again."</p>
+
+<p>"Hush! hush! he isn't dangerous," says Cousin D.</p>
+
+<p>"Dangerous!" says I, "just ask the Governor of Illinois. Wasn't it
+General Sheridan who dragged off the Grand Duke among the Indians and
+buffaloes? I tell you again I won't stay another minute in the house
+with that man!"</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, I kept my word. We departed at once.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>157<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXXV" id="XXXV"></a>XXXV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>GETTING INFORMATION.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/m.jpg" width="60" height="61" alt="M" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">M</span>Y DEAR SISTERS:&mdash;I made what people here call a flying visit to
+Washington, which means, I suppose, that the railroad cars go about as
+swift as a bird flies, which they do, if one is allowed to choose the
+bird&mdash;a white bantam, for instance, with clipped wings. Well, I really
+don't know much about the speed, only I was awful tired when we got out
+of the cars at Jersey City, and we had the lonesomest drive home just
+before daylight that two tired mortals ever undertook. The whole city
+was still as a graveyard, and put one in mind of those cities over the
+sea, dug out of the ashes in which they have been buried hundreds on
+hundreds of years.</p>
+
+<p>To me, sisters, nothing is more dreary than a great city shut up and
+full of sleeping people. Only think of it! half a million of human
+beings all lying in darkness, unconscious of both happiness or misery,
+just as if sleeping in their tombs, only that the first glow of sunshine
+brings them to life again. Did you ever think of it?</p>
+
+<p>Now, in the country the stillness is not so mournful&mdash;there is a sense
+of out-door freedom there. The leaves stir with life on the trees. The
+brooks murmur and gurgle and laugh by night as they do by day. The birds
+flutter now and then, and the winds whistle and whisper, filling the
+night with a stir of life. But here&mdash;here in a great city, a ghost-like
+policeman, or a poor straggling wretch who has no home but the street,
+is all that you see. Indeed, coming home before daybreak isn't a thing I
+hanker to do over again.</p>
+
+<p>Well, after pulling at the bell-knob till I'm afraid Cousin Dempster
+swore internally, we got into the house, and had a good long sleep
+before breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so glad you've come," says Cousin E. E., "for the Liederkranz comes
+off to-night, and I was afraid we should lose it. Of course you'll go,
+Cousin Frost?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>158<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well," says I, "perhaps I can tell better when I know what the thing
+is. It's a crabbled sort of a word, that might belong to an aligator or
+kangaroo; and I don't care overmuch for wild-beast shows, any way."
+Cousin E. E. laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," says she, "in some sense you are right. There will be a show of
+wild animals such as never roamed in field or forest, but none of them
+are dangerous; at any rate, in that form."</p>
+
+<p>"Are they in a circus, and is there a clown with a chalky face and red
+patches?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"The circus!" says she, a-holding up both hands. "Why, it is to be in
+the Academy of Music, and the first people in the city are going."</p>
+
+<p>"To see them feed?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that may be a part of it, but the principal thing is the parade."</p>
+
+<p>"But where do they feed the animals&mdash;not in the boxes with red velvet
+cushions, I calculate?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how funny you are! Of course not; the supper is set out in Nilsson
+Hall, and is served <i>&agrave; la carte</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" says I; "do they bring in fodder by the cartload for the
+creatures? Now, really, Cousin E. E., there is nothing astonishing about
+that to a person born and bred in the country. You and I have ridden on
+a load of hay, piled up so high that we had to bend down our heads to
+keep from bumping them against the top of the barn door, when the hay
+went in to be put on the mow; so we need not see the same thing meached
+over here in York."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me!" said my cousin; "you are just the brightest and stupidest
+woman&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Young lady, if you please," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, young lady&mdash;that I ever set eyes on&mdash;can't you comprehend that it
+is a ball we are speaking of?"</p>
+
+<p>"A ball?" says I; "then what did you call it a Liederkranz for?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Liederkranz ball. It's a German word."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>159<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But I don't speak Dutch. How should I, not being an old settler of York
+Island," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, never mind that. The Liederkranz is a masked ball."</p>
+
+<p>"A masked ball! Now what do you mean? I've heard of masked batteries,
+but they went out with the war."</p>
+
+<p>"There it is again; you won't take time to understand," says Cousin E.
+E., a-lifting both her hands in the air. "This is a ball where people go
+in character."</p>
+
+<p>I arose at once, burning with indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin E. E.," says I, "do you mean to insult me? What have you seen in
+my conduct to lead you into supposing that I would go to any ball that
+was out of character?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do sit down," says she.</p>
+
+<p>"Not in this house," says I. "It isn't my own dignity alone that I have
+got to maintain, but the whole Society of Infinite Progress is
+represented in my humble person."</p>
+
+<p>"But you are mistaken. Was ever anything so absurd! Do speak to her, Mr.
+Dempster. You know how far it is from my mind to give offence to Cousin
+Ph&oelig;mie."</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Dempster, who had been rubbing his hands and enjoying himself
+mightily, now smoothed down his face, and spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"A masked ball, Cousin Ph&oelig;mie, is an entertainment, you understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"In which each person takes some character not his own."</p>
+
+<p>"All slanderers, are they?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no; they assume a character."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" says I, a-drawing out a long breath; "make believe have one?"</p>
+
+<p>"They dress the character, and act it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" says I, completely beat out.</p>
+
+<p>"Some dress themselves up as beasts and birds."</p>
+
+<p>"What?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>160<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And some as tame animals."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't say so!"</p>
+
+<p>"The ladies put masks on their faces."</p>
+
+<p>"Masks! now what are they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pieces of silk, or gold and silver cloth, with holes for the eyes, and
+a fringe over the mouth. Then over the dress they put on a great
+circular cloak, with a hood to it, and loose sleeves that hide the
+shape, so that a man don't know his own wife."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's a hide-and-seek ball; but ain't some of the ladies in danger
+of losing themselves," says I.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Dempster laughed, and his wife turned red as fire.</p>
+
+<p>"People who lose themselves at the Liederkranz, generally get found out
+in the end," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"But I must hurry down town. Will you go? Everybody will be there. It is
+the place to meet a prince in disguise."</p>
+
+<p>As Dempster uttered these words, my heart gave a great, wild bound, and
+my breath stopped. What if <i>he</i> were to be at the ball in disguise,
+seeking a safe and private interview.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, I will go," says I, "but I don't know either! The mask and
+cloak!"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind about them," says E. E.; "I have a couple ready, feeling
+sure that you would go."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it is settled," says Dempster, snatching up his hat. "I will be on
+hand. So good-morning!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>161<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXXVI" id="XXXVI"></a>XXXVI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE LIEDERKRANZ BALL.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;That night about ten o'clock, three of the
+funniest-looking people you ever set eyes on might have been seen
+creeping&mdash;like black, and pink, and yellow ghosts&mdash;down Cousin
+Dempster's front steps.</p>
+
+<p>I had on a long yellow cloak, trimmed with black velvet, that just swept
+down to my feet and covered them up. Then over my face was a black
+velvet mask, with gold fringe, that swept down to my bosom like an old
+man's beard, and over that my hood was pulled so close that not a lock
+of my hair could be seen.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. wore a pink cloak, trimmed with white swan's-down, and her
+mask shone like silver.</p>
+
+<p>Dear sisters, you wouldn't have known me from the Queen of Sheba.</p>
+
+<p>Dempster was black all over&mdash;mask, cloak, and boots. It seemed as if
+half a dozen funerals had been rolled into one, and hung on him.</p>
+
+<p>Well, we crowded into the carriage and drove off. It seemed as if we
+never should get untangled from the drove of carriages that swarmed
+around the Academy of Music, and when we got in, and found ourselves
+struggling with the crowd, we almost wished ourselves back again.</p>
+
+<p>I looked around everywhere, as I went, for that tall and princely form;
+but the crowd was so thick, and the dresses so queer, that it seemed
+next to impossible to find out anything or know anybody. The lights from
+the great glass balloons poured down rainbows on the crowd, that moved
+and chatted and laughed till the noise was confusing as the dresses.</p>
+
+<p>"Step back, step back!" says Cousin Dempster, all at once, "the
+procession is coming."</p>
+
+<p>We did step back, and tried our best to see the procession;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>162<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> but the
+floor was pretty much on a level, and, though I stood on tiptoe, all
+that I could see was, now and then, the head of an eagle, or a bear, or
+a giraffe, rising above the crowd, while the music rang out in thunders
+of sweet sounds, and the people swarmed in and out of the little square
+pews in the galleries, like bees hiving on a hot summer day.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, I knew well enough that all this moving circus was
+make-believe, and that every wild animal had a man in him, just as every
+man has the shadow of some animal in his nature. But I couldn't help
+stepping back and shuddering a little, when a great big lumbering
+elephant rolled by, with his trunk curled up in the air, and almost trod
+on me.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, mercy!" says I, with a little scream. "He's enough to frighten one
+out of a year's growth!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be terrified," says a voice behind me, and I felt an arm
+a-stealing around my waist; "I am here to protect you."</p>
+
+<p>I looked up. My heart stopped beating. The stranger was tall, majestic,
+and the eyes that shone through his mask were blue as robin's eggs. He
+had on a black cloak, and the mask covered his whole face; but how could
+I mistake the princely bend of that head, the breadth of those majestic
+shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>He drew me back from the crowd. I forgot Cousin Dempster, E. E., and
+everything else, in the ecstasy of that sweet surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"You have forgotten the roses," he whispered, with a look of loving
+reproach.</p>
+
+<p>I felt for the bouquet Cousin Dempster had given me&mdash;it was gone.</p>
+
+<p>"I must have dropped them as I got out of the carriage," says I. "But
+when did you come?" I added, in a whisper, tremulous with bliss.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I came an hour ago, and in the usual way," was his sweet answer;
+"but, not seeing the flowers, I doubted."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! how I prayed that you would grow weary of that miserable buffalo
+hunt, and return!" says I.</p>
+
+<p>He seemed just a little puzzled, but at last broke out:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>163<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's all a grotesque farce. Why should wise men turn themselves
+into wild animals, if it is only in sport? I never enjoy such parties
+for themselves."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad to hear you say that," says I; "and more glad that you have
+left off hunting with Phil Sheridan; he might have led you into some
+Indian camp filled with Modocs, who would have shot you for sport."</p>
+
+<p>"Sheridan," says he. "Oh, he doesn't stay in one place long enough to do
+much harm."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly," says I; "but he works quickly. Still, you are here, safe and
+sound; why should we waste time over him?"</p>
+
+<p>"True enough," says he; "so take my arm, and let us promenade."</p>
+
+<p>I took his arm, and clasping both hands over it after a fashion I have
+seen prevalent among young girls when they walk out with their lovers by
+moonlight, moved proudly through that throng&mdash;very proudly&mdash;for I knew
+that long cloak covered imperial greatness that would have astonished
+that assembly, had they known as much as I fondly suspected.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me," says I, in a soft whisper, "did you receive a valentine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did I receive a valentine?" says he. "Why do you ask?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" says I, "do not question me."</p>
+
+<p>"But I must. Tell me something about it."</p>
+
+<p>"It was original. It was poetry," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Poetry&mdash;and yours! How can you doubt its effect?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not doubt. Are you not by my side?" I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>He drew my hand under his loose sleeve, and pressed it tenderly&mdash;so
+tenderly, that I did not know when the handkerchief it held escaped from
+my grasp to his; but, directly after, I saw him thrust something white
+into his bosom. It was my very best handkerchief, embroidered with my
+name; but I said nothing&mdash;how could I?</p>
+
+<p>We walked on. The crowd swarmed and hummed like bees in a clover-field.
+Now and then a great gray eagle flapped by,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>164<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> or a bear prowled along;
+but, after all, it was a clumsy make-believe, and didn't scare anybody
+much.</p>
+
+<p>By and by a lady came along dressed just like me&mdash;yellow and black all
+over. She stared at me, and I stared at her&mdash;just my height&mdash;just my
+air&mdash;modest, but queenly. There was a trifling difference&mdash;she wore a
+bunch of red roses on her bosom.</p>
+
+<p>After staring at me awhile, she drew softly round to the other side, and
+it seemed as if she was saying something to <i>him</i>. I can't tell you what
+happened next; for just then four great big gilt candlesticks walked
+into the middle of the room, and began to dance, in a way that fairly
+took me off my feet. It really was too funny. The style in which they
+hopped up and down, crossed over, and stalked about, was enough to make
+a priest laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it awful queer!" says I, a-turning to the man who had come so far
+to tell me of his love.</p>
+
+<p>He was gone. I stood there alone in the crowd, my limbs shook, my heart
+sunk like lead. How had I lost him?</p>
+
+<p>Wild with a sense of widowhood, I wandered to and fro over that
+ball-room. Many people spoke to me; some gentlemen in disguise wanted to
+walk with me; but I evaded them all. Some I answered; to some I gave
+nothing but sighs. At last I felt tears stealing down under my mask, my
+strength gave way, I sat down on a cushioned bench in a fit of
+despondency. The cup of bliss had sparkled at my lips, and been dashed
+aside.</p>
+
+<p>What did I care for the men and women who were whirling, talking, and
+dancing around me!</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin, are you almost ready to go home?"</p>
+
+<p>It was Cousin Dempster who spoke; he had been searching for me high and
+low, and was shocked to find me sitting there alone. I said nothing,
+but, like that Spartan boy, gathered the yellow waves of my cloak over
+the vulture that knawed at my poor heart, and followed my cousin out of
+the crowd&mdash;still looking eagerly for that one noble figure, but looking
+in vain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>165<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXXVII" id="XXXVII"></a>XXXVII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>HOW DID THE PAPERS KNOW?</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;Would you believe it? Cousin Dempster had hardly got down
+to his business after the ball, when a telegram&mdash;I think that is the
+name of the thing that he said came flying over the wires&mdash;called him to
+Washington again. Cousin E. E. made up her mind to go with him this
+time, and nothing would satisfy her but that I must join in and cut a
+dash with them. After the strange way in which that majestic man in the
+black cloak had gone off with the yellowhammer of a female, I had felt
+so down in the mouth that nothing seemed to pacify me. If it really was
+the great Grand Duke, his conduct was just abominable. I wouldn't have
+believed it of him; taking off a lady's handkerchief in his bosom, and
+that the best one she had in the world, and not bringing it back again.
+Such conduct may be imperial, but it isn't polite, that I must say,
+though it wrings my heart to find fault with him. If he had brought it
+back the next day, of course it would have been different; but he
+didn't, and there I sat and sat, waiting like patience on a&mdash;on a stone
+wall, smiling, but wanting to cry all the time.</p>
+
+<p>"It'll do you good, and cheer you up," says Cousin E. E.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe it will," says I, drawing a heavy breath, "but I don't seem to
+expect much. February is gone, and no answer to&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I bit my tongue, and cut off what it was going to say about that
+valentine, for that was a secret breathed only to you, as a Society, in
+the strictest confidence.</p>
+
+<p>"This time," says Cousin E. E., "there shall be no secrecy. The whole
+world shall know that the rising genius of the age is with us. The day
+we start, all the morning papers will announce that Mr. and Mrs.
+Dempster, of &mdash;&mdash;, have gone to Washington, accompanied by that
+celebrated authoress, Miss<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>166<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> Ph&oelig;mie Frost, who cannot fail to meet
+with every attention from the statesmen and high fashion of the
+Capital."</p>
+
+<p>"But how are the papers going to know?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>E. E. laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Dempster will manage that; he's hand-and-glove with ever so many
+city editors," says she.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"There are some things that even genius itself don't know how to
+manage," says E. E., nodding her head, and smiling slyly; "but they can
+be done. As soon as we get to Washington, all the papers there will
+catch fire from New York, and the Senate will get up another committee,
+and vote you a seat in the diplomatic gallery by ballot. We'll break
+right into the Japanese furore, and carry off the palm," says she,
+kindling up like a heap of pine shavings when a match touches it.</p>
+
+<p>I began to feel the proud Frosty blood melting in my bosom.</p>
+
+<p>"The woman who writes is more than equal to the man who votes," says
+she.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no comparison," says I. "Women are women and men are
+men&mdash;nobody thinks of comparing rose-bushes and oak-trees&mdash;one makes
+timber and the other perfume; we shelter the roses, and let the oaks
+battle for themselves. So it ought to be with men and women&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. cut me short.</p>
+
+<p>"That is beautifully expressed," says she, "but save it for one of your
+reports or literary conversations; my head is full of Washington."</p>
+
+<p>"And my heart is full of sadness," says I, beginning to droop again.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, you will be happy as a bird when we once get a-going," says
+she.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. isn't a woman of great depth, but she knows a thing or two
+about fashionable life.</p>
+
+<p>The York papers <i>did</i> announce to the world that a distinguished party
+had gone on to the seat of government, and, singular enough, it was done
+exactly in E. E.'s own words&mdash;a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>167<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> circumstance that rather puzzled me.
+What was more&mdash;the very day we got to Washington all the papers there
+did the same thing, which set us at the top of the heap at once.</p>
+
+<p>I hadn't the least idea of interfering with the Japanese that came to us
+from California, and in that way seem to be turning the world the other
+side about from what it used to be; but when genius takes the bit
+between its teeth, it's apt to scatter things right and left. I suppose
+it was the newspapers did it, but I hadn't been a day at the hotel when
+a letter come to us from the President's mansion, which invited us to
+come to the White House and see the Japanese presentation&mdash;in full
+dress.</p>
+
+<p>I declare I felt myself blushing all over when I read that. Did any one
+suppose that we were a-coming to meet those outside potentates half
+dressed? Some of them, perhaps, unmarried men.</p>
+
+<p>"The idea!" as that child would say. I showed the card to Cousin E. E.,
+who seemed to think it all right, so I said nothing, though the whole
+thing had riled me so it seemed as if I never should stop blushing.</p>
+
+<p>"What does it mean," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"We must go, Dick or Lottie," says she.</p>
+
+<p>"Go&mdash;how?" says I. "Haven't they got horses and carriages in this great
+city, that we must go in an outlandish thing like that?"</p>
+
+<p>Here E. E. broke into one of her aggravating titters; but when I gave
+her a look she choked off, and says she:</p>
+
+<p>"It means low necks and short sleeves."</p>
+
+<p>"Low necks and short sleeves! Why didn't they say so, then? What has any
+Dick or Lottie got to do with it? But it's no use; I won't wear anything
+of the kind. Those who want to have a shoulder-strap for a sleeve, and
+their dresses too short at one end and too long at the other, can; I
+won't&mdash;there!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! you are privileged; genius always is," says E. E.</p>
+
+<p>"That is, genius is privileged to be decent in Washington. Well, I'm
+glad of that," says I. "Some young ladies may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>168<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> like to go about with
+bare arms and shoulders&mdash;let them. I won't!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXXVIII" id="XXXVIII"></a>XXXVIII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>RECEPTION OF THE JAPANESE.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/w.jpg" width="60" height="60" alt="W" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">W</span>ELL, SISTERS, that afternoon the distinguished party mentioned in the
+papers got out of a carriage, under that square roof in front of the
+White House steps, and walked with slow, stately steps into the
+ante-room that I told you of. One of them&mdash;a tall, imperial-looking
+person&mdash;was robed in a flowing pink silk, just a little open at the
+throat, where it was finished off with white lace with a snow-flake
+figure on it. A long curl fell down this lady's left shoulder, and there
+was a good deal of frizzing about the lofty forehead, and any amount of
+puffs back of that.</p>
+
+<p>The other lady&mdash;who naturally kept a little in the background&mdash;wore
+white satin, cut to order about the neck and shoulders, and a lot of
+white stones on her bosom and in her hair, that shone like fire in a
+dark night.</p>
+
+<p>The man at the door seemed to know us, for he said; "If it's Miss P.
+Frost and her friends, walk this way."</p>
+
+<p>We did walk that way, and drew up in that lemon-shaped room, which is so
+blue and white that you seem to think yourself in the clouds when you go
+in. Right in the centre of the room is a great big round ring of seats,
+cushioned all over with blue silk; and right up from the middle of it
+rose a splendid flower-pot, crowded full of flowers&mdash;white, pink, and
+all sorts of colors&mdash;with great long green leaves a-streaming over the
+edges, and broad, white lilies, that seemed cut out of ragged snow,
+a-spreading themselves among the green leaves.</p>
+
+<p>A hive of ladies, all in long-trained dresses, and necks according to
+order, were sitting or standing or moving across the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>169<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> room, looking as
+proud and grand as peacocks on a sunshiny day. Among them was the
+President's wife&mdash;a real nice, sociable lady&mdash;who looked just as she
+ought to in a black velvet, long-trained dress. In fact, of all the
+women in that room, I liked her the best, she is so sweet and kind in
+her manners. The minute we came in she turned round and gave us a warm,
+honest smile, which was about the only downright honest thing I've seen
+in Washington, as yet.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Frost," says she, "I'm delighted to see you and your relations. My
+friend Senator Edmunds has told me about you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," says I. "No one need want a better recommendation than he
+can give. We think the world of him in our State."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad to hear that," says she. "We think a great deal of him too; in
+fact, Vermont honors herself in the Senate. But you are looking at the
+flowers; they are all Japanese, in honor of the Embassy."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't say so," says I; "did the Japanese bring the flowers along
+with them from Japan?"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed a sweet, good-natured little laugh, and says she:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no; we raise them in the hot-houses."</p>
+
+<p>Just then there was a bustle in the ante-room, and I saw a slow line of
+queer-looking little folks filing along toward the east room. Mrs. Grant
+had turned to talk to Cousin E. E., and I just slid out into the
+green-room, and stood inside the door to see what all the fuss was
+about.</p>
+
+<p>Standing against the great window, nearly opposite to me, I saw the
+President of these United States, with a lot of men around him in black
+clothes, and farther on stood another lot with their coats all covered
+over with gold and stars of precious stones a-hanging one after another
+on their bosoms, and some wore swords, and some didn't; but I tell you
+there was such a blaze of colors and flash of gold that it seemed to
+light up the great long room like sunshine, which was convenient, for
+there wasn't enough in the sky that day to light a family to bed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>170<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>While I was wondering what all this magnificence and glory meant, Cousin
+Dempster happened to see me, and came up to the door.</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth does all that signify in a free country," says I. "It
+looks like a circus. Do they mean to ride in there? I don't see no
+horses; and it seems to me their hoofs will spoil the carpet when they
+come in. Are the Japanese people fond of horses?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about that; the President is," whispers Cousin Dempster.
+"But never you mind that; he keeps 'em in his stables, and they're not
+likely to come here."</p>
+
+<p>"Then these fellows in the gold coats will only do rough-and-tumble, I
+suppose," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" says Cousin D., looking round to be sure that no one heard me.
+"The rough-and-tumble has been pretty much done up in the Senate this
+winter."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"There will be a good deal of it in Philadelphia and Cincinnati, and all
+over the country, I'm afraid, for I don't think General Grant cares much
+about that sort of gymnastics."</p>
+
+<p>"Jim what?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Turning over and over from one side to the other!" says he.</p>
+
+<p>"I think he's right," says I. "A circus can't be much without horses and
+hoops, and that fellow with the painted face; but why don't the show
+begin, such as it is? What do they stand there for, looking lonesome as
+a cider-press in winter?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear cousin," says he, looking at me sort of pitiful, "do remember
+it is the ambassadors of all Europe, to say nothing of South America,
+that you are speaking of."</p>
+
+<p>"Ambassadors," says I; "so you call them by that name here, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"They represent governments, kings, and queens."</p>
+
+<p>"I've seen that done in the theatre beautifully. You remember when we
+went to see 'Julius C&aelig;sar,' who wanted to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>171<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> be King of Rome; but I didn't
+know as they ever did such high-mightiness off on horseback, or through
+a hoop," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Ph&oelig;mie, these men are genuine. For instance, that gentleman
+with so much red and gold about him represents Queen Victoria."</p>
+
+<p>"What, in such clothes&mdash;hat, coat, and all the rest? I don't believe
+it," says I. "You won't impose upon me to that extent."</p>
+
+<p>"Not her person," says he, a-getting out of patience, "but her
+Government."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXXIX" id="XXXIX"></a>XXXIX.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE JAPANESE.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/w.jpg" width="60" height="60" alt="W" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">W</span>ELL, SISTERS, that minute there was a commotion in the room. Those who
+had been leaning against the wall stood up, and the strange-looking men
+Cousin D. called ambassadors straightened up and fluttered a little, as
+peacocks spread their feathers when the sun breaks out.</p>
+
+<p>Before I could speak, in came the highest cockalorum among the Japanese,
+which wasn't very high after all.</p>
+
+<p>"Good gracious!" says I to Cousin D. "The man out there told me the
+ladies must all go into the blue room. Here I've been hiding behind the
+door, so as not to be seen, and the first Japanese stranger that comes
+in is a female woman! Goodness gracious! and so are all the rest!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," says Cousin D., "it's a man&mdash;they're all men."</p>
+
+<p>"With those Dolly Vardens on?" says I. "Do you think I was brought up in
+the woods, to take doves for night-hawks?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's the Japanese fashion," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"For men to dress in&mdash;well, skirts?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly. Don't you see that the lower skirt is formed into loose
+trousers that two or three of 'em wear?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>172<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>I did look, and saw that the black silk underskirt some of these heathen
+Japanese wore was puckered up a little around the ankles, just enough to
+show off two peaked shoes, that must have been lovely wearing for a foot
+that was all great toe, but awkward for one that wasn't. In fact, I
+began to be awfully puzzled about the dress of the first one that came
+along, for above the skirt of purple silk was a Dolly Varden, all but
+the puffing out, of black silk, spotted over with white needlework. To
+top off all, this Japanee wore the funniest sort of a thing on the head,
+like a shiny black wash-bowl, with a hole in it, from which a stumpy
+black ball stuck up in the air&mdash;about the pertest-looking thing you ever
+saw. Around the edge was a white binding, all curlicued off with queer
+black figures, and a lot of stiff black stuff streamed down from behind,
+like a crow's tail.</p>
+
+<p>This dress was tied round the waist with a silk scarf, and to that hung
+a long, black sword, sideways, with the point sticking out behind,
+furious as could be.</p>
+
+<p>Only two of the Japanese were dressed in these frocks, figured off with
+white, with purple&mdash;well&mdash;skirts, under. Three others had thin
+purple&mdash;well&mdash;skirts, puckered up into baggy trousers, which showed off
+their peaked, hawk-bill shoes beautifully. These five high Japanese came
+marching one after another&mdash;Indian file&mdash;looking as solemn as eight-day
+clocks. Then came five more with black Dolly's, bound with purple, and
+with purple figures worked on the backs, and the underskirts puckered up
+into trousers. Every one of them had swords, and they all marched
+straight up to the President with them dangling by their sides.</p>
+
+<p>"There, do you see that," whispered Cousin Dempster. "Are you satisfied
+now? Women do not, as a general thing, wear swords."</p>
+
+<p>"They may be strong-minded," says I.</p>
+
+<p>Before Cousin Dempster had time to speak, the little Japanee that they
+called Iwakura had got right before the President. There he made a low
+bow, and, as if jerked by the same<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>173<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> string, the whole row, one behind
+the other, bowed to each other's backs. Then Mr. Fish, a tall,
+fine-looking gentleman, they called Secretary of State, came forward and
+introduced the head Japanee to the President. Then came another bow, and
+another, and another, till the whole ten got into a row near the
+President. Then General Grant and Japanee Iwakura made beautiful
+speeches at each other. Then there came more bows&mdash;low, slow, and
+delightfully graceful&mdash;and then I gathered up the skirt of my pink silk
+and fled, like a bird, into the blue room, where the ladies were waiting
+like pigeons anxious for corn.</p>
+
+<p>After all, I think those Japanese must have been men. The ladies got
+into such a flutter as they came in, and took so much pains to make
+themselves agreeable, which it isn't likely they would have done if
+those scull caps and swords hadn't meant something masculine. Then there
+was more low bows, and we ladies swept back our trains, took steps and
+curtsied just as easy and graceful as they did, and Mrs. Grant talked a
+little with a Japanee. He told what she said to the others, and what she
+did say was just sweet and natural, which was a proof that she didn't
+consider the Japanese as strong-minded females in the least. So after we
+came out I told Cousin Dempster that I was satisfied that they were as
+great men as little fellows, five feet and under, could be, and I asked
+him, in confidence, if any of them were so unfortunate as to be
+unmarried?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>174<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XL" id="XL"></a>XL.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THAT DIPLOMATIC STAG PARTY.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/i.jpg" width="60" height="60" alt="I" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">I</span>T is wonderful, dear sisters, how one thing grows out of another in
+this world. When it got about that I had been invited to help the Mrs.
+President to entertain the Japanese dignitaries, every lady in
+Washington that was going to give a party sent me and my Cousin Dempster
+an invite, till we began to think no more of square letters, with
+monographs on them, than you care for chestnut burrs when the nuts have
+dropped out.</p>
+
+<p>But there was one of these documents that we rather jumped at, because
+it came from a man that was almost as good as born in Vermont. Maine is,
+after all, something of a New England State, and Mr. Brooks, member of
+Congress from New York, the man I spoke of, came from there, and had a
+seat in the Legislature of that State when he was only just of age. So
+we all rather took to him, as New England people will take to each other
+when they scatter off into other States, and do honor to the one they
+come from.</p>
+
+<p>The minute his square document came, Cousin Dempster said at once that
+he would accept, and I, who had done honors with Mrs. President, made up
+my mind there, right on the nail, to do just as much for the Brooks
+family.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I never took off my pink silk after we came from the White House,
+only bunched it up a little more behind when we went down to dinner, and
+after that screwed up my hair for a new friz, while I took a nap in the
+great puffy easy-chair that stood in my room; for this doing honors hour
+after hour is tiresome to the&mdash;well&mdash;ankles.</p>
+
+<p>Having my dress on, I took something of a nap, and seemed to be dragged
+out of my sleep by the hair, when E. E. came to call me, which was,
+maybe, owing to the tightness of the crimping wires that caught on the
+cushion when I jumped up,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>175<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> and gave me an awful jerk. But I soon got
+over that, and gave my hair an extra frizzle before I went out, which
+was improving to my general appearance, and very relieving to the head.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. had put on a span-new dress, observing, modestly, that a
+genius could appear in anything, but she hadn't the position which would
+stand wearing the same dress twice.</p>
+
+<p>"For the sake of New England," says she, "I mean to do my best," which
+she did, in silk, like a ripe cherry, with wave over wave of black lace
+over it, and a bunch of white stones on her bosom, burning like a
+furnace when the light struck them.</p>
+
+<p>Well, once again we packed ourselves into a carriage, and then, huddled
+up in waves of red silk, rolled off to Mr. Brooks's house, which isn't
+far from the President's homestead.</p>
+
+<p>"There don't seem to be many here yet," says I, as we got out of the
+carriage, and went up the high steps, holding our dresses with both
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>Before Cousin D. could answer, the door was opened, and the man inside
+waved his hand, which had a span-clean white glove on it, and told us to
+walk upstairs, which we did, dropping our dresses as we went, till they
+trailed half way down the steps in waves that the fellow with white
+gloves on must have thought sumptuous.</p>
+
+<p>Two or three young ladies were in the dressing-room, and that was all. I
+shook out my dress before the glass, gave my hair an extra fluff, and
+went into the hall, where Cousin Dempster was standing.</p>
+
+<p>"There don't seem to be many ladies here," says I; "in fact, none to
+speak of."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," says he, "they're not expected. You and my wife are exceptions."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a stag party," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"A what?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>176<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"A stag party, where ladies sometimes manage to see and listen. You will
+have a chance from the back windows, I dare say; only sit low and keep
+still, the flags will conceal you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! it's a stag party at the table, and crouching dears all around,"
+says I, "is it?"</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Dempster laughed till he nearly choked.</p>
+
+<p>"That's capital," says he. "You are getting too bright for anything."</p>
+
+<p>I couldn't quite make out what I'd said that set him off so, but I
+suppose he did, for he kept on laughing all the way downstairs, and the
+fun hadn't left his face when he introduced me to Mr. Brooks, who was in
+the room we entered, talking with some ladies that had come to look on
+and help his daughter to talk to the Japaneses, who don't understand a
+word of English.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, I really think we New England people ought to be proud of Mr.
+Brooks, for he's not only tall and large, and real handsome, but he's a
+self-made man, having worked out his own education by the hardest toil.
+He edited a daily paper before he was twenty years old; was a member of
+the Maine legislature when he was twenty-three; and travelled all over
+Europe on foot before he was twenty-five. He has been in Congress, off
+and on, twelve years, besides travelling all round the world between
+whiles, which brought him hand-and-glove with the Japanese, the heathen
+Chinee, and all the other outlandish people that we send missionaries
+to, and convert a dozen or so once in fifty years.</p>
+
+<p>Well, Mr. Brooks seemed real glad to see us, and was polite as could be;
+so was his daughter and all the other ladies, when they found out who it
+was they had among them. He'd been in Vermont, of course, before going
+round what was left of the world, and his praise of the Old Mountain
+State was something worth hearing. He asked about Sprucehill, and said
+that he had pleasant reminiscences of that place, having kept a school
+in one just like it in his vacations in college. Particularly he
+recollected a sugar camp where he used to drink maple sap, and eat sugar
+till it had been a sweet remembrance to him all his life.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>177<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>While we were talking in this satisfactory manner, the fellow in gloves
+sung out a name that got so tangled up in his mouth that it set my teeth
+on edge. Then came another, and another that I didn't listen to; for
+that minute I saw a pair of peaked shoes coming through the door, and
+above them Mr. Iwakura, with that glazed punch-bowl on his head, and his
+black and purple dress hanging limp around him. He bowed low and softly.
+Mr. Brooks bowed back; then this Japanee turned to bow again and again,
+till I began to tremble for his neck, but he went through it all like a
+man; and when the whole lot had been bowed to, Mr. Brooks introduced
+them to me and the other ladies.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Iwakura seemed to remember that he'd seen me a-doing honors at the
+White House, for he bowed clear down till I thought his glazed
+punch-bowl would fall off, and his black veil stuck right out straight;
+but he rose again as if his joints had been oiled, and said something
+that sounded soft as cream, and sweet as maple-sugar, but what it all
+meant goodness only knows.</p>
+
+<p>Then another heathen Japanee stepped forward, and says he:</p>
+
+<p>"The Embassador wishes to say he is delighted to see a lady author, who
+is an honor to her country."</p>
+
+<p>Here I laid one hand on my heart, and bent my head a little, not exactly
+knowing what else to do; and I said, with what I hope was becoming
+modesty:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! your Highness&mdash;is it Highness&mdash;Excellency, or High Cockolorum?" I
+whispered to the lady who stood next me.</p>
+
+<p>"Excellency," whispered she back again.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, your High Excellency," says I; for, being by nature a conservative,
+I took what seemed best out of each. "You are too complimentary."</p>
+
+<p>With that I made him a curtsey that over-matched his bow, for there was
+more of it a good deal, on account of his smallness, and my height, in
+which we were both a little peculiar.</p>
+
+<p>The Embassador looked as if he hadn't time to answer; for he was busy
+bowing to the other ladies, and the rest of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>178<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> Japanese all came up,
+and there was such a slow bending time among 'em that it was ten minutes
+before there was anything else done. Then we got a little mixed, and
+seemed to be ladies altogether, only those who were going in to dinner
+seemed to carry their own punch-bowls on their heads; as for dresses and
+so on, we were pretty much alike, and the master of the house in his
+black coat, and so forth, seemed the only man among us.</p>
+
+<p>By and by Mr. Iwakura came back to where I was standing, and the young
+man came with him to do up the talking.</p>
+
+<p>"I have never before seen a lady that wrote books," says he, in the
+sweetest manner; which the other repeated in English that wasn't half so
+musical.</p>
+
+<p>There was an inward struggle in my mind; the compliment was sweet, and I
+longed to keep it; but truth is truth. My foot is on the threshold; I
+have looked into the Temple of Fame, but am not yet what I hope to be;
+but the truth is, I haven't written any books, <i>as</i> books, yet. It
+wounded me to say so, but truth is a jewel that I have resolved shall
+shine, like a railroad man's diamond, in my bosom, forever.</p>
+
+<p>"Your High Excellency," says I, with brave self-control, "my humble
+efforts have not yet been bound in covers, but they will soon increase
+to that extent. Have you no female authors in that Japanee country of
+yours?"</p>
+
+<p>When the young man expounded these questions to Mr. Iwakura, the eyes of
+his High Excellency began to sparkle from one sharp corner to the other,
+and he smiled blandly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes! we have ladies who write in Japan; but not lines of wisdom,
+like yourself; they write poems."</p>
+
+<p>"Love poems?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Mostly," says he; and his little eyes lighted up from corner to
+corner&mdash;"love poems, home poems, and such things as ladies understand by
+heart."</p>
+
+<p>"The Japanese language is so sweet," says I, "the ladies cannot be very
+strong-minded that write it."</p>
+
+<p>"Strong-minded&mdash;what is that?" says he.</p>
+
+<p>"Manly, strong; sometimes fierce," says I.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>179<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"His Highness does not quite comprehend," says the young man.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I must illustrate," says I. "For instance, if an American woman
+were to dress as near like a man as&mdash;well, I beg pardon&mdash;as his High
+Excellency and his friends dress like women, we should call them
+high-minded."</p>
+
+<p>"But do they? Shall we see any ladies like that?"</p>
+
+<p>"You will no doubt see females like that," says I, with dignity.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XLI" id="XLI"></a>XLI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE DINNER.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/t.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="T" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">T</span>HERE was no more conversing just then, for the tall fellow in gloves
+was so busy, opening and shutting the out-doors, and gentlemen came
+pouring in so thick and fast that we all had to attend to them. I was
+sorry for this, as the conversation was taking a turn that would have
+been of interest to us as a Society. I was just going to ask about the
+marriage relations among the Japanese, and intended to enter into a
+delicate investigation regarding the present company. But a smart,
+handsome, bright-looking gentleman came in, dressed up to the nines; and
+before I could say another word to Mr. Iwakura, this gentleman was
+bowing to me, and I was making my best curtsey to him. I was just
+delighted, for he looks a soldier, every inch of him, standing up
+straight as an arrow, but bowing so graceful and easy.</p>
+
+<p>Then others came pouring in, and we ladies were busy as bees doing the
+honors.</p>
+
+<p>There was no end of generals that bowed to me that night. There was
+General Farnsworth, from Illinois State, about the tallest and most
+manly gentleman among them. The long, sweeping beard that fell over his
+bosom was something splendid.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>180<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> If that man wasn't born in New England,
+he ought to have been&mdash;that's all.</p>
+
+<p>But I haven't room nor time, in a short report, to give particulars
+about a hundred or so gentlemen. They were all men that you've heard of
+over and over again, for in his invitations Mr. Brooks had just skimmed
+the cream off from Congress, and it was something beautiful to see it
+pour itself through the parlors into the great dining-room, built on
+purpose for "that night only."</p>
+
+<p>It didn't take long for the parlors to empty themselves into that room
+when a whisper went round that dinner was ready. In less than five
+minutes after, another fellow in white gloves came sliding into the
+room, and spoke low to Mr. Brooks,&mdash;we ladies were left alone, looking
+at one another, like babes in the woods.</p>
+
+<p>A cat may look on a king, and ladies do sometimes look in upon stag
+parties. Well, I got a little restless, and began to wonder how the cat
+got a good look, and how I could get a peep at the feeding stags.</p>
+
+<p>While the rest were talking, I slid off to one of the back windows,
+which opened upon the great banqueting hall&mdash;you have seen that term in
+novels&mdash;and, hid under a cataract of stars and stripes, I saw and heard
+all that was going on, and a splendiferous sight it was.</p>
+
+<p>The great hall was hung every which way with flags. They rolled over the
+ceiling in waves, fell down the wall in festoons and curtains, striped,
+starred, mooned, crossed, tangled in gas lamps, looped up with flowers.</p>
+
+<p>Rings of gaslights dropped half way down from the roof, and from them
+baskets of flowers swung over the great, long tables that were just one
+glitter of silver and glass, flowers and fruit, at which a hundred or
+more gentlemen were seated.</p>
+
+<p>Great candlesticks, spreading out with branches of gold and snow-white
+candles, stood half way down each table, and rising up above them were
+tall pyramids of flowers, crowded in with pineapples, grapes, pears,
+oranges, and sugar things enough<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>181<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> to feed all the children in Washington
+for a month. Smaller flower-pots, crowded in with fruit, were scattered
+every once in a while along the tables.</p>
+
+<p>Back of Mr. Brooks's chair was a banner with a lot of lions rampaging
+over it, and a harp worked in one corner of it. Over that was another
+banner, with a full moon and a baby moon blazing away on it, and all
+around them was a whole hail-storm of stars that seemed to catch fire
+from the gas, and burn of themselves.</p>
+
+<p>The whole room was light as morning, and gorgeous as a sunset. Sisters,
+believe me, the way those men were enjoying themselves was enough to
+make a genuine woman grind her teeth. The popping of corks as they flew
+from the bottles was loud and swift as the guns fired on a Down East
+training day, and the gurgle of wine as it foamed into the glasses was
+mellow and constant as the flow of that brook through the hemlock back
+of our old school-house.</p>
+
+<p>Then the talking, the laughing, the hail-good-fellow way in which
+everything was done, just aggravated me out of a year's growth.</p>
+
+<p>By and by Mr. Brooks got up and made a speech, welcoming the Japanee
+guests and praising Japan beautifully. Then he asked General Farnsworth
+to do the same thing over again, which he did in the most splendid way.</p>
+
+<p>Then Mr. Iwakura got up and poured out a soft, slow flood of words, that
+seemed sweet as new cider, with which the whole company was charmed
+almost to death, though there wasn't a soul that knew what it was all
+about, any more than I did.</p>
+
+<p>Then Mr. Iwakura sat down and gathered his purple frock over his knees,
+satisfied that he had done his duty, whether the rest understood it or
+not.</p>
+
+<p>Then they all drank wine till there was no let up to that sound of
+militia firing and of running brooks, except when somebody was melting
+soft-solder over somebody else, which they tell me, here in Washington,
+is the high privilege of a stag party.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>182<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>My opinion is that they are ashamed to compliment each other so broadly
+when ladies are by, knowing that no crowd of females could be brought to
+the pitch of glorifying each other after that fashion, or would stand it
+to hear so much flattery wasted on a lot of men when they were by.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XLII" id="XLII"></a>XLII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>IN THE BASEMENT OF THE CAPITOL.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/w.jpg" width="60" height="60" alt="W" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">W</span>ELL, SISTERS, that chunky woman on the top of the great iron wash-bowl,
+that some giant seems to have turned upside down on the roof of the
+Capitol, has more to do than any other female I'm acquainted with, if
+she can keep the flock of men they call Congress in any kind of order.
+No wonder she has the look of the kitchen about her, and seem to be
+carrying a bundle of soiled clothes on her head for a wash in the
+clouds! for, of all the sloppy places I ever heard of, this great marble
+building seems to be the beatomest. Congressmen seem to be always
+getting out dirty clothes here, beside whitewashing every now and then,
+raking each other over the coals, and doing all sorts of kitchen and
+garden work.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Dempster told me all this before I went up to see exactly what
+Congress was, and it certainly upset me, you may just believe. That
+great building, which might be cut up into half a dozen palaces for
+kings to live in, turned into a wash-house and national laundry! The
+very thought made me creep all over.</p>
+
+<p>I always like to investigate matters from the foundation, so the first
+thing I did was to go into the basement story of the building, and see
+what the kitchen arrangements amounted to. Of course Cousin D. could be
+of no use to me, and Cousin E. E. declined the subterranean raid, as she
+nippingly called it,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>183<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> which ended in my going into the underground
+department alone.</p>
+
+<p>Well, the first thing that struck me was the duskiness of the place; it
+was like travelling through a sunset that had no color in it. The whole
+building seemed to have put on a gray mantle and gone to sleep. I went
+upstairs and downstairs, travelled over miles of stone floors, and
+through forests of great stone posts that looked strong enough to have a
+world built atop of them. Once in a while I caught sight of a man
+scooting along in the dusk before me like a black ghost; and once I
+heard noises like the rush of a steamboat down below me, and began to
+suspect that the wash-house and lime-slacking department was lower down
+yet. I opened two or three doors, and looked into a good many dark and
+deserted rooms piled up with books and crowded full of all sorts of
+things. Once or twice I saw the head of a man popping up between piles
+of books, but no sign of washing, as yet.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I wandered on and on, till at last I came to a great kitchen that
+looked lively enough. Lots of men were moving about, fires were burning,
+and there was a lovely scent of roast chickens and boiled garden-sass&mdash;I
+beg pardon, vegetables. I would have gone in and asked some questions
+about the wash-tubs, but not a female woman was to be seen&mdash;and I hope I
+know what is due to my sex too well for any attempt to draw the
+attention of men in the service of their country by the presence of
+attractions that&mdash;well, I was going to say that the charm of high female
+society might have seemed a little out of place so low down in that
+stone wilderness. So I took a new turn, and came out in a grand eating
+department, crowded full of tables, where ever so many gentlemen and
+ladies were eating, talking, laughing, and drinking bottled cider till
+their eyes sparkled.</p>
+
+<p>I went into the room with that quiet dignity which some people have said
+was the greatest charm of your missionary, and spreading out my skirts a
+little, sat down by one of the tables. A very genteel young man came up
+to me that minute,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>184<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> as hospitable as could be, and asked with a bow what
+I would please to have.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, almost anything that isn't too much trouble," says I.</p>
+
+<p>Says he, "There is everything on the cart."</p>
+
+<p>He pronounced "cart" with a drawl that riled me, for, if there is
+anything I hate, it is the stuck-up way some people have of twistifying
+common words: but I didn't want to rebuke the fellow too much, and
+answered in the bland and Christian way you have so often praised, my
+dear sisters, that I did not wish to stay long enough for them to unload
+a cart, but if he had just as lief as not, would take some baked pork
+and beans&mdash;that is, if there was any handy.</p>
+
+<p>The fellow shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"No pork and beans!" says I; "do you call this national house-keeping?"</p>
+
+<p>That brought the fellow up to a sense of duty in no time. He snatched up
+a little thin book that lay on the table, read it a minute, and then
+went off. By and by he came back with a dish in his hand, on which were
+a few beans, all brown and crisped to death, with a skimpy slice of pork
+lying across the top.</p>
+
+<p>I took the dish in my hands, and examined it up and down, right and
+left, with an air that must have cut that fellow to the soul, if he had
+one.</p>
+
+<p>"You call that pork and beans?" says I, a-lifting my forefinger, and
+almost shaking it at him. "Why, young man, it looks more like a handful
+of gravel-stones."</p>
+
+<p>The young man spread his hands a little, and looked so confused that I
+began to feel sorry for him.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind," says I; "no doubt you have had the awful misfortune of
+being born out of New England, and that is punishment enough. It is the
+fault of our Congressmen if the great New England mystery of baked beans
+has not been explained and elucidated in the national kitchen," says I,
+"most people do degenerate so when they once get out of the pure
+mountain air. But then our statesmen may consider this a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>185<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> woman's
+mission. Perhaps it is. There was a time when females understood such
+things, but we have got to hankering after offices and votes and
+rostrums, till such things have become nostrums&mdash;excuse the rhyme, if
+you don't happen to be a poetical young man," says I; "it isn't
+extraordinary that such things are neglected, and that the great New
+English dish introduced by the Pilgrim Fathers has degenerated into
+this."</p>
+
+<p>Here I pointed sarcastically at the pebble-stones, and, with killing
+irony, asked him to send me something to eat.</p>
+
+<p>He took up the dish, and seemed glad to go&mdash;no wonder, my words had cut
+him to the soul. By and by he came back, and handed me that thin book
+which hadn't half a dozen leaves in it, and, says he:</p>
+
+<p>"Will madam make her choice?"</p>
+
+<p>I opened the book, and tried to see what it was all about; but there was
+nothing to read. A lot of English words twisted out of all shape and
+meaning, with some figures cut up in short rows, were scattered over the
+pages as if they had been shook out of a pepper-box. The only thing I
+could make out that seemed to have a sensible meaning, was&mdash;beef. This I
+read out loud&mdash;glad to find one good wholesome word to light on.</p>
+
+<p>"Roast beef," says the fellow, and away he went.</p>
+
+<p>There was no use trying to get anything like reading out of that ghost
+of a book; so I sat still and looked on, wondering what brought so many
+ladies into the Capitol, as they are not considered Congressmen yet.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>186<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XLIII" id="XLIII"></a>XLIII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>PH&OElig;MIE DINES WITH A SENATOR.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS: I had moved my chair back a little, for it seemed rather
+lonesome sitting there with nothing but a table-cloth spread before me,
+and a castor on it, when a gentleman came in and sat down on the other
+side of the table, just as if I hadn't been there.</p>
+
+<p>He took up the skimpy book, and began to read, as if he understood every
+word of it&mdash;figures and all. By and by a young fellow came up to him.
+They whispered together a minute, and the gentleman kept pointing at the
+book.</p>
+
+<p>Just then, the young man that I had been so sociable with, came up with
+some dishes in his hand, which he set down on the table, then spread his
+hands a little, as much as to say, politely: "Set to, ma'am, and help
+yourself;" which I did.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, the national kitchens want renovating. There is female
+missionary work here enough to keep half our Society busy for a year.
+That beef was never roasted by a fire. I'll take my oath of that. It
+never swung on an iron skewer, inside of a tin oven before a
+hickory-wood fire, since it was a born calf. There's no cheating me in
+such things. Why, this beef had a taste of chickens, and oysters, and
+baked pork about it, so strong that you couldn't at first tell which it
+was, or if its birthplace was a barn-yard, a hen-coop, or the salt sea
+ocean.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, there <i>is</i> mission work in these subterranean kitchens. Still, if
+members of Congress know how to wash and whitewash so well, they might
+take the cooking in hand too. Perhaps they have, though.</p>
+
+<p>When men try a hand at woman's work, or women take up the business of
+men, it's apt to mix things up till you don't know which is which. I
+rather think the members have been down here, while the women were
+lecturing on politics upstairs. It looks like it, in both places.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>187<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Well, I didn't want to find too much fault. Human nature could not stand
+the pork and beans, but I tried my best to put up with the beef, and
+make believe it was delicious.</p>
+
+<p>Just as I took up my knife the other young fellow came to the table, and
+set some dishes down before the gentleman. Then he took a knife and
+hacked away at a long-necked bottle till he got the cork loose, and let
+the whole affair, foaming and sparkling, into a glass. The sight fairly
+made my eyes sparkle, for I was awful thirsty, and the rich gurgle made
+me more so.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," says I, a-holding out my glass to the young man, "if that's
+Vermont cider, and I seem to feel as if it is, I'll thank you for a
+glass."</p>
+
+<p>The gentleman looked up quickly; turned to the young man with a funny
+sort of a smile, and nodded his head, just as if it was anything to him.</p>
+
+<p>I'm not quite certain about it, but if that foaming stuff was cider, it
+must have been made from russet apples, for it brightened me up all over
+till every drop of blood in me seemed to sparkle.</p>
+
+<p>"It would be near about impossible to drink that through a straw, it
+bubbles so," says I, feeling it my duty to be sociable, and make the
+gentleman feel quite at home at the national table. "I think the cider
+is about the only thing that don't degenerate when it leaves New
+England."</p>
+
+<p>"The cider," says he, opening his eyes wide.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says I, holding out my glass again, "that keeps its own vim, and
+a little more so. Take another glass yourself, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>I thought as I was first at the table, and a lady, that he would expect
+a little extra attention, and gave it with my usual bland politeness.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled, and his eyes began to sparkle under the gold glasses he wore.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," says he, "you are very kind; from Vermont I think you
+said."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>188<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Just so," says I. "Sprucehill. Let me help you to a little of this
+roast beef, if I may call it so."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," says he, and that funny smile crinkled his lips again, "I
+am well served."</p>
+
+<p>It struck me as rather singular, that he, being a gentleman, didn't
+offer me any of the dishes on his side of the table; but he didn't, and,
+as a gentle rebuke, I said to the young man who stood behind him:</p>
+
+<p>"Please to pass some of those dishes this way!"</p>
+
+<p>The fellow blushed and hesitated, and looked at the gentleman in gold
+spectacles, who blushed a little, too, but said to the young fellow:</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly; why don't you pass them over to the lady?"</p>
+
+<p>There was something in a dish that looked a little like mashed potatoes.
+I helped myself with a spoon, and tasted it.</p>
+
+<p>"What is this?" says I. "Your potatoes taste awful cheesey."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not potatoes, but calf's brains au gratin," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"Calf's brains, a grating," says I; "calf's brains, and I eating them.
+Young man, I'll have you investigated for this! Calf's brains, indeed!
+do you think I'm a cannibal. Take the heathenish dish out of my sight."</p>
+
+<p>The gentleman laughed, and says he:</p>
+
+<p>"I will relieve you of it."</p>
+
+<p>Then he drew it over his way and began to eat.</p>
+
+<p>I declare, sisters, I couldn't bear to see that man finishing up the
+dish as if he liked it. He seemed to have brains enough of his own,
+without wanting to rob a spring calf of what little belongs to it. But
+he finished the dish and got up to go, making me a real polite bow as he
+went away from the table.</p>
+
+<p>When he was gone I beckoned to the young man.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that man from the Sandwich Islands, or where?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"That gentleman! Oh, he's a Senator from the West," says he. "The
+whitewashing committee hate him like poison. He gives them enough to do,
+I can tell you. Awful in that direction."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>189<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You don't say so," says I. "Is that the man who has raised the price of
+lime and whiting to such an extent?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's the very man."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me! and he eats brains&mdash;cheesey at that. I never saw anything like
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that is a very popular dish, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"With Congressmen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, ma'am, with Congressmen."</p>
+
+<p>"Especially?"</p>
+
+<p>"Especially."</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't wonder," says I.</p>
+
+<p>When I hitched my chair back, and took up my satchel, the man put a bit
+of stiff paper in my hands, with some figures on it. I thanked him and
+went out, feeling a little lighter than I had done, on account of the
+cider. The young man followed me a step or two, and seemed as if he
+wanted to say something; but that was a familiarity I had no idea of
+encouraging; so I passed on, determined to find the other kitchen
+departments, and set up a private investigation of my own. But at the
+foot of a flight of stairs, all made of spotted marble, I met Cousin
+Dempster, who was looking for me.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, here you are at last! Where on earth have you been?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the kitchen and dining-room, so far," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Kitchen&mdash;dining-room!" says he. "Oh! you have been into the
+restaurant&mdash;not alone, I hope."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes," says I; "there was plenty of company; but the cooking is
+enough to try a person."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, did you order refreshments?"</p>
+
+<p>"Refreshments were offered to me," says I, "and I accepted them, as a
+free-born American woman has a right to do at her country's table."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you talking about?" says Cousin Dempster, almost angry. "What
+is that in your hand?"</p>
+
+<p>"A bit of paper that the young man gave me as I came out," says I.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>190<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But you should have given this up," says he, turning red.</p>
+
+<p>"What for?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you pay nothing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pay! of course not. Who ever thinks of paying anything to the
+Government?"</p>
+
+<p>"You do not understand."</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"You have been into a restaurant," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"That's more than I know of, never having been in one in my born days."</p>
+
+<p>"And have come away with this!"</p>
+
+<p>"Look a-here, Cousin Dempster," says I; "does this great nation keep a
+boarding-house, or a tavern, in its Capitol? That's what I want to know.
+Do you think I mean to insult the country I was born in?"</p>
+
+<p>"It keeps a restaurant for the accommodation of members," says he, "and
+you've been in it. Just give me that check; the country don't feed its
+statesmen&mdash;at any rate, directly."</p>
+
+<p>I gave him the square bit of paper, and, when he left me alone, just sat
+down on those marble steps and waited.</p>
+
+<p>I don't wonder these investigating committees want to shirk their
+duties. I, being only a committee of one, and self-constituted, feel as
+if I'd had quite enough of exploring downstairs. But what on earth
+Cousin Dempster is making such a fuss about, I have no idea. One would
+think there was something dreadful on that square piece of paper by the
+way he acted; but he's like everybody else, I suppose, when he gets to
+Washington, and can't make himself more than half understood on any
+subject.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>191<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XLIV" id="XLIV"></a>XLIV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>MARBLE HALLS.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;In my last report I gave you a dim account of the
+underground department of Congress. In fact, it was so dim down there,
+that I couldn't see anything clearly. I hope this report will have a
+little more brightness in it; but of that I am not at all certain, for a
+downright honest look at anything here in Washington is like snatching
+at a handful of fog.</p>
+
+<p>After wandering over all that town of cellars and basements, in search
+of the whitewashing department and the washing-room, I came away without
+seeing a sign of them. It seems to me that the cooking and eating is all
+that one finds done openly here. About that, too, there is something
+that riles the New England blood in my veins. No wonder I couldn't make
+out half that those waiter chaps said to me.</p>
+
+<p>There, in the great kitchen of the first nation on the face of the
+earth, free-born American citizens sit down contentedly and eat French
+dishes, with bull-frogs in them, I dare say, and eat them, too, on the
+European plan. The European plan! as if the fine old fashion set by the
+Pilgrim Fathers was not good enough for their descendants! It's enough
+to curdle the blood in one's veins to see what our country is coming to,
+with a plan of broken-down old Europe in the very basement of our
+Capitol. Do our members of Congress remember the time when their fathers
+ate samp and milk on a table set against the wall, with one leaf spread?
+Sometimes the richest of them in our State got a little maple molasses
+with the samp, but oftener it was skim milk, and nothing else. But men
+were men in those days; I&mdash;that is, I have heard my mother say so&mdash;of
+course, I wasn't old enough to know exactly at what time samp and milk
+got out of fashion as a first-class domestic meal. I can't help but
+think, sisters, that the male<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>192<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> sex began to degenerate while we were
+children, or we should never have been left in our native village to
+form a society, which seems destined to enlighten this generation,
+without increasing it.</p>
+
+<p>Well, sisters, Cousin Dempster found me sitting on those hard, beautiful
+marble steps, thinking over these things in a saddening way. He insisted
+on it that I should leave off my subterraneous investigations, as he
+called my travels in the basement, and see Congress meet.</p>
+
+<p>I declare, it's a Sabbath day's journey from one end of that great long
+marble building to the other. The marble stairs I had been resting on
+came up near the Senate chamber. Cousin Dempster said, "But perhaps we
+had better go over to the House first."</p>
+
+<p>"Whose house?" says I, getting out of patience; "I thought we had come
+to see Congress."</p>
+
+<p>"So we have," says he; "it will assemble in a few minutes, so we must
+hurry and get into the House."</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't Congress assemble in this building?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it does, at the other end," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"Then what on earth do you want to take me into any other house for? I
+want to see Congress! As for the houses in Washington, they are no great
+shakes, after all. New York wouldn't take the best of 'em as a gift."</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin Ph&oelig;mie," says Dempster, sort of impatient, "you are the most
+extraordinary combination of a woman I ever saw."</p>
+
+<p>I stopped short and made him a curtsey to the ground&mdash;slow, graceful,
+and infinitely sarcastic. He seemed to feel it keenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Judges, a little more competent than you are, have said as much
+before," I observed, scathing him through and through with my eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean no offence," says he, "but really you are the brightest,
+and&mdash;and stupidest woman!"</p>
+
+<p>"Girl, if you please," says I.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>193<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, girl. In some things a child could teach you; in others, you
+fairly dazzle the brightest of us."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," says I; "just crown me with bitter-sweet, and have done
+with it. If there is anything that riles me more than another, it is a
+double and twisted compliment."</p>
+
+<p>"There, there! do be reasonable, and hurry along," says Dempster,
+a-trying to shuffle out of the whole thing; "don't you see the members
+crowding into the House?"</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't seen the house yet," says I, not half pacified.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not&mdash;how can you, till we get there?"</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Dempster walked on, and, of course, I had to follow.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait one minute," says I, "while I look at this great round picture
+overhead. What on earth is it all about? The women up there look mighty
+unsafe. Now, what room is this, with its roof in the sky, and its floor
+solid stone?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is the rotunda," says he; "the national pictures are all around you,
+but we haven't time to look at them now&mdash;some other day."</p>
+
+<p>I couldn't help looking back, for such a room I never saw in my born
+days. It was like a stone park roofed in so high up that the pictured
+women overhead seemed perched among the clouds. Over them the light came
+pouring like water down a cataract, filling the broad space below as if
+it had been all out of doors.</p>
+
+<p>But I had no time to see more, for Cousin Dempster led me through a
+hallway and into another round room, except at one end, where a gallery
+ran straight across and then curved around the whole room, hooping it in
+like a horseshoe. In front of the straight gallery ran a row of stone
+pillars&mdash;tall, large, and shiny as glass&mdash;spotted, too, like the
+leopards in a show, and towering up like the pillars in Solomon's
+Temple, which the Queen of Sheba travelled so far to examine. The idea
+that she took all that trouble to get acquainted with Solomon, is just
+ridiculous. Why, it would have taken the hymeneal monarch a whole
+lifetime to have introduced her to his family in a decorous way.
+Besides, if he provided for his own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>194<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> household out of the government,
+only think how busy he must have been in finding places for the
+relations of all his wives! No doubt he let the Queen of Sheba see his
+Temple, and left her to be entertained by two or three hundred of his
+wives. Not being a ladies' man, what more could he do?</p>
+
+<p>Well, as Cousin Dempster says, I do sometimes let my pen run away with
+me; but when it turns toward the Scriptural history of my sex, I let it
+run.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XLV" id="XLV"></a>XLV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>RANDOLPH ROGERS' BRONZE DOORS.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/w.jpg" width="60" height="60" alt="W" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">W</span>ELL," says I to Cousin D., "what room do you call this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, this is the old House," says he.</p>
+
+<p>The old house! Sisters, there are times when I think Dempster is beside
+himself. I did not deign to answer him, except with a look that would
+have stopped the sap running from a young maple in the brightest April
+day you ever saw. He didn't seem to mind it, though, but went on as if I
+hadn't pierced him with my eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"These doors," says he, swinging back the half of a door that seemed to
+be made of brass and gold and powdered green-stone pounded together, and
+cut into the most lovely pictures that you ever set eyes on&mdash;"these
+doors open to the new House. They are by Rogers, and cost thirty
+thousand dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"Thirty thousand dollars for these two doors, Cousin Dempster! I have
+just been a-wondering if you were crazy, and now I know you are."</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word," says he, "that is just what they cost."</p>
+
+<p>"What! thirty thousand dollars?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thirty thousand dollars."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>195<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>I bent forward, and looked at the door&mdash;close. It was sunk deep into
+squares, and each square had a picture of men and women that seemed to
+be busy at something.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it all about?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Every picture is taken from something connected with the history of our
+country," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't say so," says I. "Who did you say made them all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Rogers, a sculptor from Ohio. One of the great geniuses of the age,
+and one of the finest fellows that ever breathed."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know him?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says he. "I got acquainted with him in Florence, years ago, when
+Elizabeth and I went to Europe on our wedding trip. He was then a rising
+man, hard at work on the art that he has since done much to ennoble. I
+am glad to see his great genius embodied here, where it will live as
+long as the marble on the walls. The country has honored itself in this
+almost as much as it has disgraced itself in placing some of the vilest
+attempts that ever parodied art in conspicuous places here."</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Dempster's face turned red as he spoke&mdash;red with shame, I could
+see.</p>
+
+<p>"It is enough to make an American, who understands what real art is,
+ashamed of his country," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"But what do they do it for?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Because two-thirds of the members sent here do not know a picture from
+a handsaw! but impudence can persuade, and ignorance can vote. Why, I
+once heard a Member of Congress speak of the statues in the Vatican as
+coarse and clumsy compared with the attempts of a female woman who could
+not, out of her own talent, have moulded an apple-dumpling into
+roundness."</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Dempster had got into dead earnest now. He knew what he was
+talking about, and I couldn't help feeling for him.</p>
+
+<p>"Some day, Cousin Ph&oelig;mie," says he, "I will take you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>196<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> round and show
+you the abominations which have been set up in this building&mdash;a disgrace
+both to the taste and integrity of the nation. You will understand the
+impudent pretension for which our people have been taxed in order that
+the National Capitol may be made a laughing-stock for foreigners, and
+those Americans who are compelled to blush for what they cannot help."</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin Dempster," says I, "why don't the press take these things up and
+expose them?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is exactly what I want," says he. "It is for that very purpose I
+want you to go around among these distorted marbles and things. Your
+Reports may do some good."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't quite understand them myself," says I, blushing a little.</p>
+
+<p>"Trust genius to discover genius," says he. "You could not fail to see
+faults or merits where they existed. All the arts are kindred. Poetry,
+painting, sculpture, go hand-in-hand. You understood the beauty that
+lies in these doors at a glance."</p>
+
+<p>"One must be blind not to see that," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course; well, cousin, we will give a day to these things before we
+go home; but now, hurry forward, or we shall be too late to see the
+House open."</p>
+
+<p>"Just as if there was a house in all Washington that wouldn't open for
+us if we chose to knock or ring," I thought to myself, but said nothing,
+for Dempster was walking off like a steam-engine, and I followed down
+one long hall, and up another&mdash;all paved with bright-colored
+stones&mdash;till it seemed as if I were walking over a rock carpet.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>197<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XLVI" id="XLVI"></a>XLVI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>WAS IT A MEETING-HOUSE?</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;At last we came to some wide marble stairs, with a twist
+in the middle, and they led us into another long hall with a stone
+carpet, out of which some doors covered with cloth were opening and
+shutting all the time for folks to go through.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Dempster swung one open for me, and I went into what looked like
+a meeting-house gallery, with long seats a-running all around it,
+cushioned off with red velvet, or something. Right over what seemed to
+be the pulpit, was a square gallery by itself, which I took for the
+singers' seats, but it was full of men&mdash;not a female among them&mdash;and
+they all seemed busy as bees laying out their music for use.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. was sitting near this gallery. She beckoned to me, so I
+went in. I sat down by her and whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know we were coming to a meeting. Dempster never said a word
+about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" says she. "The chaplain is going to pray."</p>
+
+<p>I did hush, and saw the congregation come in and walk down the aisles
+and take their seats. Some brought books that seemed like Bibles under
+their arms; and all of them took off their hats, as was proper.</p>
+
+<p>One thing struck me as peculiar: no ladies came into any place but the
+galleries, and up there they whispered and laughed in a way that made my
+blood run cold.</p>
+
+<p>By and by a man came in, walked down the broad aisle, and went up into
+the pulpit.</p>
+
+<p>Two or three men were sitting in the deacons' seat,&mdash;which ran along
+below the pulpit, and they began to whisper together&mdash;a thing I didn't
+like in the deacons of a church.</p>
+
+<p>The minister put his hands together beautifully. The congregation stood
+up, as good Presbyterians ought to do, and I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>198<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> stood up too, with my arms
+folded, and bending my head a little, while a solemn prayerfulness crept
+over me; but the next minute I dropped both arms and opened both eyes
+wide.</p>
+
+<p>The minister was coming down the pulpit stairs. The congregation sat
+down. The deacons each took up a pen&mdash;so did the singers, who hadn't
+sung a note yet.</p>
+
+<p>"What <i>does</i> this mean?" I whispered to Cousin E. E.</p>
+
+<p>"The prayer is over," says she.</p>
+
+<p>"Over!" says I. "Why, the minister hadn't begun to tell the Lord what
+sinners we all are."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" says she, almost laughing out in meeting, "that would be too heavy
+work for one man. Only think how much of it there is to represent in
+this place."</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin," says I, "your levity in this sacred place shocks me."</p>
+
+<p>"Sacred place," says she. "Oh, Ph&oelig;mie, you will be the death of me."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you no regard for your own soul?" says I, in an austere whisper
+that ought to have riled up the depths of her conscience.</p>
+
+<p>"My soul, indeed!" says she, with her eyes and her lips all a-quivering
+with fun; "as if people ever thought of such things here."</p>
+
+<p>I dropped into my seat&mdash;her sinful levity took away my breath.</p>
+
+<p>The woman absolutely began to talk out loud, and didn't even stop when a
+man got up in the congregation and began to exhort. In the distress her
+conduct gave me I did not hear just what he said, but at last he held
+out a paper. A handsome little boy came up and carried it toward the
+pulpit and gave it to one of the deacons.</p>
+
+<p>Up to this time I had thought the congregation Presbyterians, but the
+boy puzzled me. I remembered the little fellow in red at that High
+Church service, and thought perhaps the good old New England stand-by
+meeting had got some of these new-fangled additions to their board of
+deacons. The thought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>199<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> troubled me, but not so much as the conduct of
+that congregation. The ladies in the gallery behaved shamefully&mdash;I must
+say it. They whispered, they laughed, they flirted their fans and
+flirted with their lips and eyes. Sometimes they turned their backs on
+the congregation downstairs. They kept moving about from one seat to
+another. In fact, I cannot describe the actions of these females. The
+idea of piety never entered one of their heads&mdash;I am sure of that.</p>
+
+<p>There must have been a good many notices and publishments to give out;
+more than I ever heard of in our meeting-house, for ever so many papers
+were sent up to the pulpit, where another minister sat now ready to
+begin his sermon.</p>
+
+<p>I must own it, there was some confusion among the congregation in the
+body of the church. The members moved about more than was decorous, and
+there was whispering a-going on there as well.</p>
+
+<p>In Vermont the minister would have rebuked his congregation&mdash;especially
+the flighty females around me.</p>
+
+<p>I was saying this to Cousin E. E. when that man in the pulpit took up a
+little wooden hammer that lay on the desk before him, and struck it down
+with a force that hushed the whole congregation into decency at once.</p>
+
+<p>I was glad of it, and in my innermost heart said "Amen!"</p>
+
+<p>By and by a man got up to exhort. He must have been brought up as a
+clerk in some thread-needle store, I should think, by the way he
+measured off his long, rolling sentences, that seemed to come through
+the bung-hole of an empty cider barrel; and his arms went spreading out
+with each sentence, as if he were measuring tape, and meant to give
+enough of it.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is that?" says I, whispering to Cousin E. E.</p>
+
+<p>"That," says she, "is a gentleman from &mdash;&mdash;."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt he's a member," says I; "how earnest he seeks for protection!"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he is a member or they wouldn't let him speak," whispers she.</p>
+
+<p>"I know that," says I. "The Presbyterians don't allow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>200<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> any but members
+to speak in their meeting, of course; but it seems to me they do a great
+deal more talking than praying here, or singing either."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't believe any one but the chaplain ever thinks of praying
+here, and he cuts it short as pie-crust."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be irreverent," says I.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. got up from her seat; so did Dempster.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," he said, "I am tired of hearing about salt."</p>
+
+<p>"Especially if the salt has lost its savor," says I, hoping to draw both
+their thoughts to the Scriptures, and get them in a proper frame of mind
+for the occasion.</p>
+
+<p>"The tax is what I want it to lose," says he, and I saw by his manner
+that thoughts of humility and prayer were far from him; so, rather than
+join in this mockery of holy things, I followed him out of that
+beautiful and sacred edifice, softened, and, I hope, made better by the
+service in which my soul had joined.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," says Cousin Dempster, when we stood once more on the stone
+carpet of the hall, "how did you like the House?"</p>
+
+<p>"What house?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"The House of Representatives, to be sure," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"When I have seen it, I can tell you better," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nonsense! you have seen it," says he, "in full session, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Look a-here, cousin," says I; "all this morning you've been talking
+about old houses and new houses, as if this heap of marble was a green,
+with buildings all round it. I've seen the place you call a
+rotunda&mdash;halls, with scrumptious stone carpets on them, and as fine a
+meeting-house as Solomon need have wanted. Now, if you want to show me
+that house where the Representatives meet, do it, and no more
+parsonizing about it."</p>
+
+<p>"But, cousin, I do assure you, we have just come from it. You have heard
+the members speaking."</p>
+
+<p>"I have seen a meeting-house, and worshipped in it," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you really in earnest?" says he.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>201<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Would I, the member of a church, trifle on a sacred subject?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" says Cousin Dempster, a-leaning his back against the marble
+wall&mdash;"oh! hold me, or I shall laugh myself to death."</p>
+
+<p>I wish he had. There!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XLVII" id="XLVII"></a>XLVII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>EASTER.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/m.jpg" width="60" height="61" alt="M" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">M</span>Y DEAR SISTERS:&mdash;Christmas isn't a New England institution, and High
+Churches are not indigenous to the Down East soil. The Pilgrim Fathers
+took a notion against that species of holidays, and their descendants
+were forbidden by law to make mince-pies and such like, in celebration
+of that particular day. In fact, Christmas was turned out of meeting,
+and Thanksgiving adopted in its place. As for High Churches, in the good
+old times there wasn't a steeple to be seen. The meeting-houses were
+spread out on the ground, roofed in like barns, and quartered off inside
+into square pews, like a cake of gingerbread. The only thing that looked
+like a steeple in those days was the minister, when he stood up to pray.
+Sometimes he leaned a trifle backward to let the congregation see that
+there was no chance that he would ever bow down to that old English
+Church, against which the dust from his feet had been shaken.</p>
+
+<p>The deacons ranged in that long seat under the pulpit, with iron-clad
+faces and hearts, that had grown rocky in their uprightness, were such
+men as you don't meet often nowadays. They not only shook the dust from
+their feet against the Church of England, but scattered a good deal on
+the Quakers and other sects that crept in from the Old World, with an
+idea that they might have a sneaking notion of their own where trees
+were so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>202<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> thick and men so upright; but you and I know they found out
+their mistake.</p>
+
+<p>Our blessed old forefathers sought Christian toleration for themselves
+when they came into the wilderness, not for anybody else. They knew
+exactly which was the shortest way to Heaven, and meant that other
+people should follow it straight up.</p>
+
+<p>Having cast off the old Church of England, and sang Thanksgiving hymns
+on Plymouth Rock&mdash;which after all, sisters, wasn't much of a rock to
+brag of as to size&mdash;of course our forefathers weren't likely to drag any
+of the worn-out institutions along with them, so, as I have said, they
+dropped Christmas, set their faces against steeples, turned their altars
+into cherry-wood communion tables, clad their souls in iron, and New
+England was purified from the dross of the Old World.</p>
+
+<p>This is why Christmas amounts to nothing among us.</p>
+
+<p>New England has always been an independent part of the United States.
+The footprints of the Puritans are not quite worn out yet, and in
+turning our back on saints and such, we have nigh about forgotten that
+our part of the country had anything to be thankful for, except a fine
+grain harvest and abounding hay crop.</p>
+
+<p>Well, not knowing much about Christmas, sisters, you will be glad to
+hear something about Easter, which comes at the end of Lent, and is a
+time of rejoicing in this city, I can tell you. Let me explain:</p>
+
+<p>Lent is a wonderful still time among the church people who are given to
+fish and eggs, and morning service for weeks and weeks while it lasts.
+But the last three days are what I want to tell you about; for during
+the time when hard-boiled eggs are so much the fashion, Cousin E. E. and
+myself were in Washington, where people rest a little from parties, and
+eat a good many oysters in a serious way, but could no more get up a
+regular Easter jubilee than they could tell where the money goes to that
+ought to build up the Washington monument, but don't.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>203<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>No; Cousin E. E., who keeps getting higher and higher in her church
+notions, was determined to spend her Easter at home.</p>
+
+<p>"Easter! what does that mean?" I seem to hear you say. "Is it a woman,
+or was it named after one? Is it&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Stop, sisters, that question is too much for me; I don't know. Wasn't
+there a handsome woman of the Jewish persuasion who put on her good
+clothes and came round the king, her husband, when her relations were
+all kept out of office, or something of that kind? Perhaps this Easter
+is named after her; but then it seems to me as if the names weren't just
+the same. Anyway, the three days they call Easter mean a solemn thing
+that we haven't thought enough of in our parts, up to this time.</p>
+
+<p>It means those three days when our Lord lay in the tomb. The first day,
+sisters, is held in remembrance of a death that was meant to make men
+holy. That was suffered for you and me. It is called Good Friday, and a
+great many people in these parts hold it as the most solemn day of all
+the year. I think it is. My own heart bows itself in dumb reverence as
+the thought of all it means settles down upon me. I wonder that so many
+years of my life have gone by without giving the day a thought. Surely,
+sisters, Christ did not die for the Catholics and Episcopalians alone.</p>
+
+<p>Well, sisters, I did not mean to preach or exhort out of season, but my
+heart has been touched, and out of its fulness I have spoken.</p>
+
+<p>"Are we a-going to your High Church?" says I to Cousin E. E. when she
+came to my room Friday morning, and asked if I was ready.</p>
+
+<p>"No," says she; "even that does not reach my ideas of what is due to the
+occasion. We will go still higher&mdash;to St. Stephen's."</p>
+
+<p>"Catholic, isn't it?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says she, with a sigh, "the Mother Church. You will, at least, be
+interested."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>204<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I never was in a Catholic meeting-house," says I, "but to-day I feel
+like worshipping anywhere, cold as it is."</p>
+
+<p>"Not so cold as our Lord's tomb," says she, shivering a little.</p>
+
+<p>I, too, felt cold chills a-creeping over me.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," she says, "it is time."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XLVIII" id="XLVIII"></a>XLVIII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>A CHURCH HIGHER YET.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/s.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="S" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">S</span>ISTERS, we never spoke a word all the way to St. Stephen's Church,
+which is not a mite higher, and not near so handsome as a good many
+other meeting-houses we had to pass. A crowd of people were going in,
+and we followed into the darkness; for the whole space was full of
+gloom, like a foggy sunset. Here and there lights shone out like stars
+in a cloud, just enough to make the gloom strike home. The church was
+shaped like a cross, and had more than one altar in it. That which stood
+at the head of the broad aisle had just lights enough around it to make
+its whiteness ghostly, and to tremble over a great picture back of it,
+where figures in some harrowing scene seemed to come and go in the foggy
+air.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, the air was foggy and thick, with sweet-smelling smoke, that came
+from some brass lamps a couple of little boys were a swinging back and
+forth by chains linked to them; and there, standing right in front of
+the altar, was a man all draped out in black robes, and a white
+overdress, praying. Sisters, it was awful solemn; I couldn't but just
+keep from sobbing right out.</p>
+
+<p>"Look!" says E. E.; "isn't the chapel of the Virgin beautiful?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>205<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>I did look; and there at my left stood an altar covered with flowers,
+and blazing with lights starting up like a crown of glory through the
+darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"Why is that altar so bright, while all the rest of the meeting-house is
+almost dark?" I whispers to E. E.</p>
+
+<p>"That is the chapel of the Virgin, and there lies the body of Christ."</p>
+
+<p>"The body of Christ!" says I, with a start.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says she, bowing her head. "You cannot see it, for the flowers
+cover it, as we strew them over the graves of those we love; but the
+holy body of our Lord is there, waiting for the resurrection."</p>
+
+<p>"Waiting for the resurrection!" says I. "How can you say that, E. E.,
+when our Lord was resurrected almost nineteen hundred years ago?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" says she, shaking her head and whispering, "that was so; but the
+body of Christ is there this minute, under the flowers."</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin E. E., are you crazy? Do you believe that in earnest?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do," says she a-folding her hands and dropping down her head.</p>
+
+<p>"But how&mdash;how can it be?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot explain, dear cousin; but it is so. It is, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"E. E., are you a Roman Catholic?&mdash;do they believe that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Every one of 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"And are you a Roman Catholic?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet," says she; "you know well enough that I belong to the
+Episcopal Church; but my pilgrimage is not ended."</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. bent her head and spoke low. I felt the old Pilgrim blood
+rile in me; but just as I was a-going to speak again, a low, mournful
+noise went a-rolling through the meetinging-house, that chilled me down
+like ice-water. It came from behind the great white altar, which looked
+to me like a big tombstone with night-fog floating over it. Through the
+fog I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>206<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> saw two rows of wooden seats, with high backs; and in them sat
+men, all in black and white clothes, singing dismally. No&mdash;it wasn't
+singing, and it wasn't reading; but a long, rolling drawl, in which a
+few tones of music seemed buried and were pleading to get out. With this
+dreary sound, came the sobs and mournful shivers of the cold wind
+outside, which made my blood creep.</p>
+
+<p>It was too much; I could not bear it. Tears came into my eyes like drops
+of ice; I felt preceding shivers creeping up my arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Do let's go home&mdash;I feel dreadfully," says I, catching hold of Cousin
+E. E.'s dress.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait," says she, "till they have done chanting the Psalms."</p>
+
+<p>I couldn't help it; but sunk down on my knees, covered my face with both
+hands, and let that awful music roll over me. It seemed like a call to
+the Day of Judgment.</p>
+
+<p>At last the sound died off; the wind outside took it up dolefully, and
+seemed to call us out into the cold air. We went, feeling like ghosts,
+and never spoke a word all the way home. How could we, with that awful
+feeling creeping over us?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XLIX" id="XLIX"></a>XLIX.<br />
+<br />
+<small>EASTER SUNDAY.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;It seemed to me as if I never could go into that Catholic
+meeting-house again; but when Sunday came, E. E. got up so cherk and
+bright, that I couldn't say "No" when she wanted me to start with her to
+St. Stephen's meeting-house.</p>
+
+<p>"You will hear no more crying and sobbing," says she, "everything will
+be bright and beautiful; no more penitential psalms; no more darkness.
+Christ has risen!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>207<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>My heart rose and swelled, like a frozen apple thrown into hot water,
+when I got into the meeting. It was raining like fury out of doors, but
+inside everything blazed with glory. The great white altar flashed and
+flamed with snow-white candles, bunched like stars in tall candlesticks,
+branched off with gold. Two great candles, as thick as your waist,
+burned like pillars of snow afire inside, on each side of the steps. Up
+amongst the golden candlesticks were two square Maltese crosses&mdash;like
+the cross we are used to, only one end is cut off short to match the
+others&mdash;all of white flowers, with just a little red at the tips, as if
+a few drops of innocent blood had stained them. Then there were
+beautiful half-moons made of milk-white flowers lying on beds of purple
+flowers, but there was no other color on that altar.</p>
+
+<p>On an altar which I had not seen in the darkness, when I was there
+before, a lamb&mdash;as large as life, made out of flowers so white that it
+seemed as if they must have grown in heaven itself&mdash;stood among the
+lights that shone, like crowded stars, out from behind it. Across its
+shoulders this lamb carried a cross so blood-red, that it chilled me
+through and through.</p>
+
+<p>Above this altar hung a great cross six feet high, which seemed to float
+in the air. It was made of gas-drops that quivered into each other, and
+struck out colors that the fire seemed to have drank up from the
+flowers, and turned into light that was glorious.</p>
+
+<p>Over this cross floated a crown of fire, that seemed to tremble and
+shake with every gust of air, as if it had just floated down from
+heaven, and, meeting the cross, hovered over it.</p>
+
+<p>I had but just time enough to see all this, when from the other side of
+the great altar, came a lot of boys, walking two and two, with white
+shoes on their feet, and white dresses&mdash;I should have called them frocks
+if it had been girls that wore them&mdash;all fastened with crimson buttons,
+and crimson silk scarfs were thrown across their shoulders. Then came a
+lot more, dressed in scarlet frocks and white shoes; and after them
+another class in white, with purple scarfs across their shoulders.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>208<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>These boys&mdash;they were real handsome little fellows&mdash;stood themselves
+around the altar. Then came two men, all in black and white, and after
+them four others, dressed like kings and princes, all in scarlet and
+gold, and lace and precious stones.</p>
+
+<p>These men knelt down on the steps of the altar. Then everybody in the
+meeting-house knelt too. After a few minutes they got up, and out from
+somewhere in the meeting-house, a low roar of music burst over us, and
+with it came a rush of voices singing out, "Lord, have mercy on us!
+Lord, have mercy on us."</p>
+
+<p>Then there was a lull, and after that a whole torrent of gushing music,
+with an undertone of rolling sounds, and out of the noise came these
+words that seemed to catch up one's heart and fly away with it:</p>
+
+<p>"Glory to God on high, peace and good-will to men!"</p>
+
+<p>Oh, how this rush of sound rose and swelled, and glorified itself! It
+seemed as if you could see Christ rising from the sepulchre, and all the
+angels of heaven rejoicing over it.</p>
+
+<p>Then came more music. I cannot tell you what it was like, only it made
+my heart stir and throb, as if it wanted to break loose and mount
+upwards, singing as it went.</p>
+
+<p>At last a low voice sung, all alone, clear and high as a bird in the
+air. After that, deep, deep silence settled on the whole congregation,
+and everybody dropped down on their knees. Then one of the men in
+scarlet and gold went a step higher on the altar, and took from it a
+gold cup, which he held high up in one hand. Out of this cup he lifted a
+round thing that looked more like a cracker than anything else, and held
+it up between his thumb and finger. I was going to ask E. E. what it was
+all about, but she was bending forward, with her face almost on the
+floor, and everybody around us was taking an extra kneel, which I did
+not understand. Everything kept still, the congregation bent close to
+the floor, and everybody seemed to be thinking to themselves for as much
+as ten minutes. Then the whole congregation lifted its head. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>209<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> boys
+in red and white frocks swung the brass lamps, which sent clouds of
+sweet, white smoke up amongst the flowers, and out came another burst of
+music, louder, sweeter, and more triumphant than anything I had heard
+yet. It just carried me right off from my feet.</p>
+
+<p>After this, one of the crimson and gold men on the altar turned round,
+and spread out his arms. Two others caught hold of his dress, and held
+it out on each side, and dropped it again. The boys in white and scarlet
+and purple made themselves into double lines, and walked out of the door
+they came in by. The leading scarlet and gold man took the gold cup in
+his hands, and followed after, and the other men in their sparkling
+dresses&mdash;with those two in black and white&mdash;walked beside and behind him
+while he carried it out.</p>
+
+<p>There was a little stir in the congregation after this, but by and by
+the man who had stood on the steps of the altar and carried out the cup,
+came back in another dress, and went up into a little cubby-house of a
+pulpit, where he preached a beautiful sermon, which I didn't understand
+a word of, and then Easter was over in that church.</p>
+
+<p>When we got out of church I felt like a bird with its wings spread out
+wide. It was raining like Jehu, but I didn't care for that; the music,
+the flowers, the bursts of light had made me feel like another creature.
+Even the stormy sky looked splendid. But when we got home, I began to
+think over what I had seen and heard, and as soon as Cousin E. E. seemed
+to feel like talking, I put a few questions to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin," says I, "who were the men that came out there, all glistening
+with gold and things, and stood on the steps of the altar?"</p>
+
+<p>"Them? Why, they were the priests."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! And the one who held that cup in his hand&mdash;wasn't he something a
+little more particular than the rest?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was the arch-priest."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't say so! But what was that round thing he lifted out of the
+cup?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>210<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That? Why, Ph&oelig;mie, that was the Host!"</p>
+
+<p>"There was a host of people on the floor, of course; but I mean the
+little thing he held up between his thumb and finger?"</p>
+
+<p>"That?" says Cousin E. E., a-lifting up both hands, as if I'd done
+something dreadful. "That is the holy wafer."</p>
+
+<p>"The what, Cousin E. E.?"</p>
+
+<p>"The body of our Saviour."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, cousin, how can you?" says I, a-feeling myself grow cold all over.</p>
+
+<p>"It is so, Ph&oelig;mie. As yet you may not understand the mystery, but in
+time you will see it."</p>
+
+<p>I couldn't answer her, she was in such solemn earnest; but then and
+there I made up my mind that we should have to talk over that matter in
+earnest before long, for I felt the Pilgrim blood riling up in my bosom.</p>
+
+<p>"Do Episcopalians believe that?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Those that take a high stand do," says she.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," says I, "we won't talk that over just now. But whose boys were
+those that swung the lamps and stood round the altar?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, those were the acolytes."</p>
+
+<p>"Any relations to the boys we saw at morning service?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, they are all the same."</p>
+
+<p>"Mercy on me!" says I; "what a large family of boys&mdash;and so near of an
+age, too!"</p>
+
+<p>E. E. lifted her head and gave me the ghost of a smile&mdash;that was all. I
+believe she felt that talking was a sin just then, and I felt a little
+that way myself.</p>
+
+<p>"That music was splendid," says I, "and the flowers. I don't think I
+ever was in any meeting-house that seemed so close to heaven. But then I
+always had a hankering after such things. And why not? If God gives us
+music and flowers, light and sweet odors, can it be wrong to render them
+back to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>211<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> him? Cousin, I never knew what power there was in such things
+till now."</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&oelig;mie," says she&mdash;and a queer smile came over her face&mdash;"I
+shouldn't wonder if you go back, at last, a High Church woman. Then what
+would the Society say?"</p>
+
+<p>I felt myself turning red&mdash;as if I, Ph&oelig;mie Frost, could change in the
+religion of my forefathers!</p>
+
+<p>"No," says I; "there I am firm as a rock; but with firmness, I hope,
+cousin, that I join toleration. It seems to me that our Pilgrim Fathers
+made a mistake when they expected all mankind to think with them, and
+another mistake when they put aside the holiest and most solemnly
+beautiful days of all the year&mdash;those upon which our blessed Lord was
+born, suffered, and ascended into heaven.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="L" id="L"></a>L.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THAT MAN WITH THE LANTERN.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;I am back in Washington. So is Cousin E. E. and Dempster,
+who has got a case before Congress; and when a man has that he just
+makes up his mind to take permanent lodgings in a sleeping-car, and make
+his home by daytime in a railroad section.</p>
+
+<p>You never saw anything like the hurry in which such men live. As for the
+married ones, their wives scarcely see them at all unless they catch 'em
+flying with a railroad ticket in one hand, and a carpet-bag, swelled out
+like an apple-dumpling, in the other.</p>
+
+<p>To us women this kind of life is tantalizing&mdash;very.</p>
+
+<p>When Cousin D. came up from Wall Street, all in a fume, and says he:
+"Come, ladies, if you've a mind to go to Washington, just pack up and
+get your things," we both<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>212<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> rushed into the street like crazy creatures,
+and came back with our pockets crammed, and our hands full of hair-pins,
+bits of ribbon, lengths of lace, and so on. These we huddled into our
+trunks the last thing, drew a deep breath, and said we're ready, half
+scared to death with fear that D. might cut short the hour he has been
+kind enough to give us, and start off alone&mdash;a thing he was just as like
+to do as not, being a man.</p>
+
+<p>It's astonishing how much can really be done in an hour. When our time
+was up we had five minutes to spare, and sat with our satchels in our
+laps, waiting for Cousin D.</p>
+
+<p>This time, being with E. E., I just said nothing, but let things drift,
+which, after all, is about the easiest way to get along. Instead of
+going in among the easy-chairs, as we did before, they took me into the
+sleeping-car, which is a great long affair, with what we call bunks, in
+our parts, made lengthwise on each side, with a narrow hall running
+between. The bunks had curtains, and looked ship-shape when they were
+once made up; but it was funny enough to see great tall men spreading
+sheets and patting down pillows for female women to sleep on.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. and I had a little mahogany pen, with two bunks in it,
+which is considered extra genteel, and we went to bed, first one and
+then the other, not having room enough for more than one to undress at a
+time. When our clothes were hung up, and we inside the bunks, the pen
+was choke full, and off we rattled, with a jounce now and then that made
+you catch your breath. It was like sleeping in a cradle, with some great
+hard-footed nurse rocking you in a broken trot.</p>
+
+<p>I had just begun to get to sleep, when what do you think happened?</p>
+
+<p>The door was pushed open, and a man looked in. I started up, riled to
+the depths of my woman's soul. Never before, since I was a nursing baby,
+had any man looked on my face after it was laid on my pillow.</p>
+
+<p>What did the creature mean?</p>
+
+<p>I scrouched down in the bunk, pulling the sheet over my head, and peeped
+through an opening, half scared to death.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>213<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>That man had a lantern in his hand, a dark lantern, with the fire all on
+one side. It glared into my bed like a wicked eye.</p>
+
+<p>"What, oh, what <i>do</i> you want?" says I. "Remember, we are two innocent
+females that seem to be unprotected, but we have a gentleman outside&mdash;a
+strong, tall, powerful man. Advance another step and I scream."</p>
+
+<p>The man opened his mouth to speak; his one-eyed lantern glared upon me;
+he smiled as if overflowing with good intentions.</p>
+
+<p>"Go away," says I, speaking in a tone of command from under the
+bedclothes, "or if it is my purse you want, take it; but take that evil
+eye from my countenance."</p>
+
+<p>The man took the little pocket-book from my trembling hand; he opened it
+with cold-blooded slowness, took out a long strip of printed paper
+Cousin Dempster had told me to take care of, and tore it in two before
+my face. Then he put one of the pieces back, while I lay shaking and
+being shook till the teeth chattered in my head.</p>
+
+<p>"Spare me," says I, with the plaintive wail of a heroine. "Take all I
+have, pocket-book and all, but, oh, spare me; spare me!"</p>
+
+<p>He held my pocket-book towards me. I shivered, I shrunk; my hand crept
+forth like a poor timid mouse, and darted back again.</p>
+
+<p>The man&mdash;this stealthy railway burglar&mdash;seemed touched with compassion.
+My helpless innocence had evidently made an impression even on his
+hardened nature; he laid the pocket-book gently on the pillow, and
+modestly turned his one-eyed lantern away, pitying my confusion, and
+feeling, as any man with a heart in his bosom must, that I was scared
+out of a week's growth.</p>
+
+<p>I breathed again. My heart swelled with thankfulness that a great danger
+was passed. I pushed back the blankets, and looked out while a timid
+shudder crept over me.</p>
+
+<p>The man was there yet, stooping down to Cousin E. E.'s bunk. I heard
+paper rustle. Had he spared me to rob her?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>214<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> Why didn't she scream? Why
+didn't she command the creature to leave her presence?</p>
+
+<p>Robbery was nothing, but that cool way of breaking in upon two sleeping
+females had the ferocity of a wild beast in it. Was he killing my
+cousin&mdash;smothering her with pillows so that she could not scream out?
+The thought drove me frantic. My arms were goose-pimpled like a grater.</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you order him out? Why don't you scream for Dempster?" says
+I, feeling a thrill of hysterics creeping over me. "If you don't, I
+must.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," says the burglarious wretch, giving us the dark side of his
+lantern, and slamming the door. Then all was mournfully still. I half
+rose and leaned over my bunk, pale, breathless.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, cousin! speak to me if you are alive," I pleaded.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it; what is the matter, Ph&oelig;mie?" says a sleepy voice from
+below.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, thank Heaven, you are alive!" I cried, a-clasping my hands in a
+sweet ecstasy of gratitude. "Did he attempt to strangle you?"</p>
+
+<p>"He. Who?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that man. That prowling monster, with the one-eyed lantern!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he only wanted my ticket; he meant no harm," says she, more than
+half asleep.</p>
+
+<p>I drew back into my bunk, and let her go to sleep. Ignorance <i>is</i> bliss.
+She felt safe, and I left her. Why should I disturb her innocent rest
+with the knowledge that a railroad she trusted in was infested through
+and through with brigandation. If she knew the truth, I was certain that
+E. E. would never be coaxed or reasoned into travelling again, so I
+determined to keep a still tongue, and never mention this attempt at
+burglary again to any human creature.</p>
+
+<p>I have made up my mind to one thing, though. Ph&oelig;mie Frost will never
+travel again without a pistol under her pillow. What good object can any
+man have in smashing into the midnight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>215<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> dreams of two innocent females,
+and wanting to examine their pocket-books? I tremble to think what the
+feelings of the great Grand Duke would be if he had heard of the
+terrible danger I have been in.</p>
+
+<p>Of course I never closed my eyes again till the long train of cars crept
+like a great trailing snake into the depot at Washington.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LI" id="LI"></a>LI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>MRS. GRANT'S RECEPTION.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/s.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="S" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">S</span>ISTERS, Washington is splendid just now. In New York the winter seems
+to have frozen up all the sap in the trees; not a bud on the limbs, not
+a tinge of green even on the willows, which are the trees of all others
+that give out their greenness first in the spring, and keep it latest in
+the fall. The trees that grow in the Park were brown and naked when we
+left the city.</p>
+
+<p>Here the buds are a-swelling. The willow-trees are feathered over with
+leaves as soft and pale as the down on a gosling's breast. The
+beech-trees are covered over with soft, downy buds, that float on the
+air like full-grown caterpillars. Even the ragged old button-balls are
+shooting out leaves like sixty, and the young trees at the Smithsonian
+Institution, and the old ones below the Capitol of the nation, are
+bursting into greenness, while the grass seems to spring up fresh in
+your path as you walk along.</p>
+
+<p>I declare it is a satisfaction to breathe the air which is kissing so
+many buds and flowers open; and I feel sort of guilty in doing it, when
+I know that the hollows around Sprucehill are choked up with dead
+leaves, if not with drifted snow, and it will be weeks yet before the
+maple-sap will take to running.</p>
+
+<p>Nature is an institution that I hope I shall always be fond<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>216<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> of and
+appreciate; but men and women are, after all, the noblest work of a
+beneficent Creator, and, from the delicate greenness and the soft airs
+of spring, I turn to them.</p>
+
+<p>At two o'clock, yesterday, Mrs. President Grant had a grand reception at
+the White House. There hasn't been the ghost of one while Lent kept
+people down to a fish diet and morning meetings; but now, when the
+flowers of Easter-Sunday have all withered up, people begin to visit one
+another again, and this grand reception at the White House sort of opens
+the way and sets the fashions a-going once more.</p>
+
+<p>Well, when the time came, Cousin E. E. and I were on hand. My pink silk
+dress was a little rumpled; but I shook it out and smoothed it down.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. came out like a princess, in pale lilac-colored silk, with
+a whole snow-storm of lace crinkling over it. I declare, sisters, she
+looked fresh and sweet as the first lilac that blows! I was really proud
+to introduce her as my relation.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Dempster, having a claim, had to go to the Capitol; so E. E. and
+I went together&mdash;no gentlemen being absolutely necessary to a daytime
+reception, you know.</p>
+
+<p>Well, we got out of the carriage as light and chipper as two birds. The
+driver held out his arm to keep our dresses from touching the wheel, as
+they streamed out after us; and I must say Vermont didn't suffer much as
+to ladies when we walked, with the slow dignity befitting persons with
+the eye of a State upon them, into the blue room, where Mrs. President
+Grant recepted. Well, I reckon the ladies were two to one against the
+men in that blue room, and it just looked lovely!</p>
+
+<p>In the centre of the room stood the round, blue silk sofa, I have told
+you about, cut up into seats, and rising to a point in the middle, as if
+a silk funnel had been turned bottom-side up there. On the nozzle end of
+this point a great white flower-pot stood, a-running over with pink and
+white flowers, rising in great clusters one above another, till they
+brightened the whole room with a glow like early morning.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>217<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>In front of this ring sofa the Mrs. President stood, looking just as
+smiling and sweet as a bank of roses. She had on a pink dress&mdash;no, not
+exactly what we call pink&mdash;but the color was soft and rosy as a cloud;
+snowflaky lace floated around her arms, and shaded her neck, which was
+plump, and white, and pretty as any girl's. She hadn't a sign of a
+flower, or anything on her head; but the soft, crinkly hair curled down
+to her forehead sweetly, and she seemed almost like a young girl.
+Everybody there said that they never had seen her look so handsome.</p>
+
+<p>Well, there she stood, with a nice little lady on one side, helping her
+recept; and she did it sweetly, which was likely, she being the wife of
+Senator Morton, of Indiana, one of General Grant's biggest sort of guns.
+You have heard of Senator Morton, of course. He was a first-rate fellow
+during the war, when he just buckled to and raised a half a million of
+dollars on his own account for the Government, which was grand in
+itself, and accounts for the way the people in Indiana almost worship
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Well, this lady was his wife. She looked young, and was dressed
+nicely&mdash;not just like a girl, but as if she had her husband's dignity to
+take care of, as well as her own good looks.</p>
+
+<p>When we got to the door of this room, a gentleman came up, and, after
+making a bow, wanted us to tell our names. Cousin E. E. answered:</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Dempster, of New York, and Miss Ph&oelig;mie Frost, of Vermont."</p>
+
+<p>He didn't seem to hear distinctly, but bent his head; and says he:</p>
+
+<p>"Miss, did you say?"</p>
+
+<p>I flushed rosy-red, and my eyelids drooped, for I was thinking of the
+Grand Duke.</p>
+
+<p>"At present," says I.</p>
+
+<p>Then the gentleman called out so loud that everybody could hear him:</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Dempster&mdash;Miss Ph&oelig;mie Frost."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>218<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>I say, sisters, did you ever see a cage full of canary-birds flutter
+when a cat was looking through the wires? If you have, that can give you
+some idea of the buzz, hum, and rustle that was going on when we came up
+to the front of that round sofa, and gave Mrs. Grant and Mrs. Morton one
+of those sliding curtsies that set off a long-trailed dress so well.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. President Grant smiled sweetly, and held our her hand. I took that
+hand, I pressed it kindly&mdash;for I like that woman, whom poverty could not
+daunt, and sudden prosperity could not spoil. She's a good, motherly,
+nice woman, and my heart warmed to her as I took her hand in mine.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Frost, I am delighted to see you back in Washington," says she;
+"especially as the weather promises to be so pleasant."</p>
+
+<p>"In some places we are apt to forget the weather, finding everything
+bright and pleasant without regard to it," says I.</p>
+
+<p>When I spoke, the ladies around crowded up to listen, and looked at each
+other, smiling. One or two gentlemen came up, too, and when I bowed my
+head and walked on, giving common people a chance, one of them came up
+to me, and says he:</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Frost, I think I have the pleasure of claiming you as a
+constituent," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"A what?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"A constituent," says he, a-smiling softly.</p>
+
+<p>"No," says I; "I don't remember being connected with any family of that
+name."</p>
+
+<p>"But you are from Vermont?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am proud to say 'Yes,'" says I, a-bowing my best, in honor of the old
+State.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I have some claim on your acquaintance," says he. "My name is
+----."</p>
+
+<p>I reached out my hand. The fire flashed into my eyes. "Our United States
+Senator?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe the people have given me that honor," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"And honored themselves in the doing of it," says I.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>219<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>I declare the man blushed, showing that high parts and extraordinary
+knowledge haven't made him conceited. But I hadn't said a word more than
+the truth. Vermont, of all the States of the Union, I do think, has done
+herself credit in her choice of Senators. There isn't in all the Senate
+a man that either of 'em cannot hold his own with, and I don't believe a
+rough or ungentlemanly word or action has ever been on record against
+either of them."</p>
+
+<p>Before he could answer, a gentleman came and spoke low to him. Then he
+said, with a pleased look:</p>
+
+<p>"This is Mr. &mdash;&mdash;, our other Senator, Miss Frost, who is, I am sure, as
+glad to welcome you here as I am."</p>
+
+<p>I turned, and saw a tall, spare man, with the kindest, mildest, and most
+speaking face I ever set eyes on. His voice, too, when he spoke, was
+just benign. I gave him my hand. If I looked half as glad as I felt, he
+must have seen the warmest sort of a welcome in my eyes. I felt honored
+by an introduction to these men. Not because they happened to be my own
+Senators, but because they are men of heart and brains, capable of
+understanding what the people want, and both honest and strong enough to
+maintain what they understand. I write this without hesitation, knowing
+that there isn't a society or household in Vermont that will not agree
+with my way of thinking about them.</p>
+
+<p>I don't think much of beauty in a man, but there's no dreadful harm in
+being good-looking, and in that respect our Senators pull about an even
+yoke with each other, and can't be overmatched by many States in the
+Union.</p>
+
+<p>Well, we walked about the room, and had a good deal to say concerning
+the Old Mountain State, while the crowd went in and out down the east
+room, through the parlors, and into a great, long greenhouse, blazing
+out with flowers that grew so thick and smelled so sweet that I longed
+to stay there forever. But by the time I was ready to leave, the company
+had thinned off, and Cousin E. E. was waiting for me, a little out of
+sorts, for somehow I had lost her in the crowd; but she soon came to,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>220<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+and when I told her our Senators were going to call on us at the hotel,
+she chirked up. After all, Cousin E. E. <i>is</i> a good-hearted creature as
+ever lived.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LII" id="LII"></a>LII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;My ambitious longings are satisfied. I have stood before
+the Mrs. President of these United States, and in that august situation
+sustained the honor and dignity of our Society in a manner that I hope
+will meet with your united and individual sanction. Mrs. Grant has had a
+great many ladies of one kind and another standing by her side as
+honored guests of the nation, but I do think the literary strata of the
+Union has never been fully represented before. I do not say this
+vaingloriously&mdash;far be it from me to claim anything on my own
+merits&mdash;but when the reputation of our Society is concerned, I am ready
+to stand up among the best, and hold my own even in the national White
+House.</p>
+
+<p>That I have done according to the best of my abilities, and, I trust, to
+the satisfaction of the Society, but I claim no credit for it. Any of us
+young girls can bow and smile, and give out words that melt into a vain
+man's heart like lumps of maple-sugar, and that is about all that is
+expected from the female women who perform Society in Washington, and
+real pretty, smart women most of them are; but after all, they are only
+accidental females, and get there just because their husbands happen to
+be elected to a place, and wouldn't even be heard of if some smart man
+hadn't given them his name&mdash;more than as like as not&mdash;before he knew
+himself how much it was worth.</p>
+
+<p>Now you will understand, sisters, that no man, though he should happen
+to be smart as a steel trap, and pleasant as a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>221<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> willow whistle, can give
+extra brains or sweet manners to a wife who hasn't got 'em in her own
+right. So there is a chance that some short comings in the female line
+are not very uncommon.</p>
+
+<p>The senators and judges and cabinet people are, as a general thing, the
+picked men of the nation, but they choose their own wives, and some of
+them haven't half so much taste in the fine arts, to which many of this
+generation of women belong, as they have knowledge about politics.
+Still, these ladies are what they call representative women, and,
+nationally considered, are the cream on cream of American society. That
+is a fact, too, as far as they represent their own husbands. By marrying
+great men, or those who are merely fortunate, they are only lifted more
+clearly into the public view, where their virtues and their faults are
+held up for general examination. Still, it is wonderful how popular some
+of them get to be, and how soon they learn the duties of their places.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes a first-rate woman happens to marry a first-rate man, and
+takes her place by his side naturally. A good many such women have
+earned a place for themselves in society quite equal to any their
+husbands have been chosen to hold by the people.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Madison, Mrs. Polk and Miss Lane were among these, and, as a
+perfect lady, well known for years and years in Washington, Mrs.
+Crittendon, the widow of Senator Crittendon&mdash;formerly Mrs. Ashley&mdash;is
+always mentioned side by side with her husband, and stood quite as high
+among women as he did among men. In my opinion, there is a senator's
+wife from Minnesota that can hold her own with the handsomest and
+highest of those that have gone before; but as she is extra modest too,
+I give no names.</p>
+
+<p>Then there is another, I will say it, who has done honor to her position
+and credit to her husband, and that is Mrs. Ulysses Grant. She is just a
+good, honest, motherly woman, pleasant to look at and pleasant to speak
+to. She acts out what she pretends to, and pretends to be just what she
+is. If this woman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>222<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> hasn't pulled an even yoke with her husband, both in
+the war and after the war, no female of my acquaintance ever did. It's
+of no use talking, I like that woman.</p>
+
+<p>But I am a-going at a rate that wants pulling up, so I tighten the
+bridle and take a new turn.</p>
+
+<p>What I began to write about was, a reception at Mr. Horatio King's,
+which always takes off the first skimming of cream from Washington
+society.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. King is a New England man, and was born and brought up in Maine,
+which lifts him almost to a level with us of Vermont.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, in the way of statesmen and authors, I am bound to say that
+Maine pulls an even yoke with the Green Mountain State. So far as
+authors are concerned, I'm afraid she goes a little ahead of us.</p>
+
+<p>The city of Portland was just a nest of authors before they took wing
+and settled down in other places.</p>
+
+<p>John Neal, one of the most splendid men and brilliant writers that ever
+put an American pen to paper, was born there, and has spent most of his
+life in his native place.</p>
+
+<p>N. P. Willis was born in Portland; so was Sebe Smith, who called himself
+Jack Downing in his letters.</p>
+
+<p>Longfellow's family was rooted in that town long before he honored it by
+being born.</p>
+
+<p>James Brooks, who was for years a pillar of strength in Congress, and
+who started the first newspaper correspondence ever thought of, in the
+<i>Portland Advertiser</i>, which he edited before he was twenty years old,
+was a native of Portland, which city he represented in the legislature,
+then travelled all over Europe on foot, and settled down in New York
+before he was twenty-six. After this he spent twelve or fifteen years in
+Congress&mdash;earned a place, second to no man there, as a statesman,
+travelled over Europe three times, visited Egypt and the Holy Land, and
+finished his travels by a trip round the world, taken between the
+sessions of Congress. Beside this, he never ceased to be the leading
+editor of the New York <i>Express</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>223<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> and his book about Japan, China, and
+so on, which Mr. Appleton, of New York, has published, is one of the
+best books of travel extant.</p>
+
+<p>Beside all these, Mr. King made his first literary start in Portland,
+where, as a young man, he edited a weekly paper. But he has lived most
+of his after-life in Washington, generally holding a high position
+there. During a portion of Mr. Buchanan's administration, he was
+Postmaster-General of these United States, and at all times he has been
+considered a man worth knowing.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LIII" id="LIII"></a>LIII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>A LITERARY PARTY.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;Of course I, being a young girl of New England, felt
+myself at home in Mrs. King's house the minute I entered it. There is
+something in the air of a dwelling like that, pure and breezy, like the
+morning winds on the Green Mountains. I felt myself growing frank and
+cheerful as I got into the hall. The parlors were crowded full&mdash;three of
+them&mdash;with people that one liked to look at, and longed to know; for
+every face had an idea in it, and, beyond that, a good many were right
+down beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>But beauty by itself isn't enough to get an invitation here, and good
+clothes count for just nothing, though there was plenty of them, and I
+didn't feel as if my pink silk was too much. Something a little more
+austere, in the velvet or alpaca line, might have been more appropriate
+to the occasion. Still, there was a rosy brightness about my silk that
+had a tendency to give a glow of youthful thoughtlessness to
+intelligence, and combine an idea of high fashion with genius.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. King, and his daughter, a proper, pretty stylish lady,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>224<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> stood near
+the door when I went in, with the train of my dress streaming back into
+the hall, and some natural rose-geranium leaves circling my brow in a
+way that was calculated to remind an observing person of Miss Corinne
+when she was crowned in the Capitol at Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. King come forward to meet me with his hand held out. He is a thin,
+spare man, with the sweetest and kindest look in his face that you ever
+saw. I had intended to just touch his hand, and make a sweeping salute,
+half bow, half curtsey, that would take in the whole admiring crowd; but
+his frank, smiling welcome just took me right off from my feet, and I
+gave his hand a good, hearty New England shake that made him feel to
+home in a minute.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. King led me into the parlor, and gave me a soft seat among the
+cushions of a sofa in the middle room, just as Solomon must have waited
+on the Queen of Sheba. Then, feeling that the eyes of more States than
+Vermont were upon me, I spread out my skirts, leaned one arm on the sofa
+cushion, and settled myself just as Mr. Brady had done it when I sat to
+him for a picture; thus adding an artistic feature to the fashionable
+and intellectual embodiment of my first appearance. Thus, with downcast
+eyes and a modest demeanor, which must have been attractive, I waited
+for the literary programme that lay before us.</p>
+
+<p>It commenced beautifully. Mr. King took his place under the chandelier
+of the middle room, and welcomed his friends with a very poetic and
+touching little speech, which ended in a farewell which almost brought
+tears into my eyes. This was his last reunion for the year, and he
+seemed to feel the breaking-up a good deal, and his kind voice shook
+when he mentioned the possibility that death might carry off some of the
+friends who had brightened his home, before they all met again.</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. King sat down there was dumb silence for a little while; for
+the whole crowd seemed to feel all he had been saying, deep in their
+hearts. But this soon changed into smiles and a soft rustle of dresses,
+for a nice elderly gentleman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>225<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> got up and made a delightful speech, full
+of cheerfulness and nice friendly feeling, which brightened the whole
+crowd up like spring winds in a flower-garden.</p>
+
+<p>After this, another pleasant gentleman arose with a written poem in his
+hand, which he read under the gaslight, filling the whole room with the
+sound of his friendly voice.</p>
+
+<p>The poem was written to Mr. King. It was full of sweet thoughts and
+grateful thanks for all he had done to make his friends happy. But he
+blushed like a girl, for its praises seemed to take him by surprise,
+and, like all men of real talent, he is modest as can be.</p>
+
+<p>The lady who wrote this sweet poem was Mrs. Neeley, who has been writing
+to the Washington papers ever so long, in a way, too, that any woman
+might be proud of. She sat directly behind the gentleman who read her
+poem, and looked real nice in her crimson velvet dress.</p>
+
+<p>After this a lady got up and read something mournful about three curls
+of hair that a man had taken from his wife's head&mdash;golden when she was a
+child, brown when she was a bride, and snow-white when she lay dead.</p>
+
+<p>There was a sort of sob went through all the rooms when this poem died
+out. Then, after a little, every lady began to cheer up and laugh; for
+the same lady was reading a poem, half Dutch, half English, about a dog
+howling, which was so funny that I almost forgot my dignity as the
+representative of your Society, and near about clapped my hands&mdash;a thing
+I should have regretted to the day of my death.</p>
+
+<p>This dog poem set everybody into a state of high gleefulness and some
+music struck up in the front room, which could be heard a little now and
+then above the hum and rush of conversation that set in with the crowd,
+where artists, authors, and statesmen, and scientifics mingled in, and
+chatted promiscuously, saying such bright and wise and witty things,
+that they fairly made my eyes snap. I cut in, too.</p>
+
+<p>What is the use of being the emissary of a literary, scientific, and
+moral institution, if one can't hold up her end of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>226<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> yoke in
+conversation? I did my best, sisters. An artist stood near me; I talked
+with him about pictures till, I do believe, he thought that I had been
+born in Rome, and cradled with Michael Angelo&mdash;an old fellow, that both
+painted and made marble men in Italy years ago. Then I had something to
+say about flowers to an agricultural bureau scientific, and about the
+chemistry of something to a savant or savan, or a word like that, of the
+Smithsonian Institution. I tell you, sisters, it was sharp work; but I
+flatter myself you were not in any way disgraced.</p>
+
+<p>By and by I was introduced to the Chief Justice of the Court of
+Claims&mdash;about as smart a lawyer, and clear headed a judge, as can be
+found in these parts, I can tell you. He was not long ago United States
+Senator from Missouri, and has left his mark among the statesmen there;
+but his genius lay as much in expounding the laws as in making them. He
+has written some capital law-books, too, and could mate with any judge,
+statesman, or author that came across his track. His wife joined in a
+little now and then, as only a right down sensible and handsome woman
+could. It does one's heart good to see a great man and most lovely woman
+mated so for once.</p>
+
+<p>That was just what I did in Mr. King's parlors, and, when we stopped
+talking, it struck me that the gentleman knew a great deal more of
+literature than your missionary has yet learned of statesmanship or law.
+In fact, an evening in Mr. King's parlors does teach one humility, and I
+begin to discover that a person may be capable of writing poetry, and
+making a fair report, without being able to teach science to a
+professor, jurisprudence&mdash;I hope I have got the word right&mdash;to a judge,
+or high statesmanship to a senator. In fact, in the present state of
+society, it seems to me that the best of us have got to live and
+learn&mdash;live and learn.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>227<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LIV" id="LIV"></a>LIV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>DRESSING FOR A PARTY.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/m.jpg" width="60" height="61" alt="M" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">M</span>Y DEAR SISTERS:&mdash;You have no idea how many kinds of parties there are
+in Washington. Some are called receptions, because they take place in
+the daytime, in houses where every mite of sunshine is shut out, and the
+gas set to blazing as if it were midnight. That is, night isn't turned
+into day here one bit oftener than day is turned into night.</p>
+
+<p>Then there are ladies' lunch parties, where the daylight is allowed to
+shine in; and picnics, where one gets a little too much of it, besides
+being tired to death, and nothing to show for it.</p>
+
+<p>Besides these, there are political parties, where men get up
+entertainments that are called caucuses, which no lady is allowed to
+join in. Besides dinners and breakfasts, and so on, without end, which
+makes life in this city just one rush and tumult&mdash;to say nothing of
+Congress, which is just that, and a good deal more so.</p>
+
+<p>Last week, Cousin E. E. and I had so many invitations that we didn't
+know what to do with them. We should have had to go out to three
+breakfasts, two dinners, and six parties a night, if we had attempted to
+do more than read them all. For since Mr. King's literary reunion, the
+popularity of your missionary has increased like a rolling snowball, and
+her invitations came by the peck and half bushel.</p>
+
+<p>Well, out of this heap, there was one or two places that I felt like
+honoring with my presence. So E. E. and I sat down and wrote a little
+note&mdash;all ladies write <i>little</i> notes nowadays&mdash;and relieved the intense
+anxiety of the people who had invited us, by saying, in the most polite
+way, that we would come.</p>
+
+<p>This act of kindness had its reward in the feeling that we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>228<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> had relieved
+more than one anxious host, and given certainty of a brilliant success
+to parties that must necessarily have been in doubt until certain of our
+coming. With my usual modesty, I say "our," wishing to give E. E. her
+little chance, you know.</p>
+
+<p>The invitation we resolved to honor was from one of the foreign
+ministers. Of course I expected that there would be a good many
+religious people there, and, as I hadn't mingled much with persons who
+were over pious for some time, I anticipated a refreshing season; for a
+foreign minister must have a noble missionary spirit, and, no doubt,
+came to Washington on purpose to reform the members of Congress, which
+is a work of Christian mercy, if ever there was one.</p>
+
+<p>For this reason, my spiritual nature was aroused, and I was burning with
+desire to help in the noble cause, and let foreign nations know that we
+had women in this country that could be at once brilliant and devout,
+celebrated and conscientious; in fact, women who could gracefully
+combine two characters, hitherto supposed to be opposite.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, I was resolved to go to this ministerial reunion. Had I not been at
+Mr. King's literary gathering, which lifted me, as it were, out of a
+frivolous, fashionable life into the purely intellectual, and now,
+should I refuse to bathe my soul in the purer element of high Christian
+fervor? No, a thousand times no!</p>
+
+<p>On a religious occasion like this, I felt that a modest dress&mdash;simple
+black alpaca, for instance, with a pink bow at the neck&mdash;would be about
+the thing; but Cousin E. E. got almost huffy about it.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," says she, "at the Foreign Minister's a full toilet is expected,
+always. It is but proper respect."</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin," says I, "no one can have more respect for the ministerial
+functions than I have; no one ever attended meeting more faithfully. Am
+I not a missionary myself? Do you think I would or could fall short of
+the mark of the prize of the high calling? If alpaca isn't the thing, I
+am open to reason and pink silk."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>229<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That will do," says she, a-brightening up, "looped up with black velvet
+and bows, and <i>d&eacute;collett&eacute;</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Dic o' nonsense?" says I, riling a little.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, low neck and short sleeves," says she.</p>
+
+<p>"At a meeting of ministers?" says I. "Cousin E. E., are you crazy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, do as you please," says she, "only I tell you it will be
+expected. I intend to be very low, with a strap for a sleeve, and all my
+jewels."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be content with the jewels of the soul," says I, with an
+austere rebuke in my voice; for if there is anything that riles me up
+more than another, it is flashy dressing where one's mind should be
+given up to solemn thoughts. "Cousin E. E., there are times when levity
+of dress and lightness of speech are to be excused, but this isn't one
+of them. Put a bridle on your tongue, and something more than a strap
+over your shoulder."</p>
+
+<p>E. E. colored up, and gave her head a toss.</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&oelig;mie," says she, "you are past finding out. Do as you please, and
+just let me do as I please."</p>
+
+<p>I lifted my forefinger in gentle warning; for, with all her fashionable
+crotchets, E. E. is a good soul as ever lived, and I don't want to be
+hard on her, feeling that great minds should be forbearing, especially
+in religious matters. So we parted good friends, and I went into my room
+to get ready for the solemn occasion.</p>
+
+<p>I took out my pink silk dress&mdash;for the alpaca was a little rusty&mdash;and
+laid it out on the bed. Then I ripped some black velvet ribbon from
+another old dress, and tied it up into bows that looked scrumptious as
+new. After that I brushed my hair out straight, and braided it in an
+austere fashion appropriate to the occasion. Not a friz or a curl was to
+be seen; for this once I threw aside the other woman's hair, and was
+from head to foot myself again.</p>
+
+<p>"Neat, yet genteel," says I to myself, when my dress was on and the
+black bows in place. "Nothing flash or frivolous,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>230<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> though everything
+refinedly elegant. No minister, be he ever so strict a disciplinarian,
+can find fault with me. I suppose the critics of all the religious
+papers will be there. Well, let them draw my portrait; I am ready for
+the ordeal."</p>
+
+<p>With these high thoughts in my mind I went downstairs; but the sight of
+my cousin made me step back with both hands thrown up. She was just on
+fire with jewelry and precious stones. They flamed out on her neck,
+twinkled in her ears, and shot fiery arrows through her hair. Her cheeks
+were rosy red, and her eyes had shadows about them that had come since
+she went down to dinner. Perhaps she had taken a nap in a dark room,
+though. The dress she wore was soft and white and floating, like a cloud
+in the sky; and there was black lace mixed with it, and roses tangled up
+with that. I declare to you, sisters, if that woman had been going to a
+worldly party, she couldn't have been titivated off more than she was.
+It riled me to look at her.</p>
+
+<p>Advice scorned isn't to be offered again. I said nothing, but let E. E.
+go on in her frivolous career.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LV" id="LV"></a>LV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>FOREIGN MINISTERS.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;We entered the carriage, where Dempster took the front
+seat, just buried up in his wife's dress, and sat there like an
+exclamation-point gone astray. As for me, I sat upright and thoughtful,
+resolved to do my duty in spite of their shortcomings.</p>
+
+<p>We reached a large brick house; before it a line of carriages kept
+moving like a city funeral, only people were all the time a-getting out
+and walking under a long tent that sloped down from the front door.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>231<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There will be a full Conference," says I, in my heart, for I was too
+much riled up by E. E.'s dress for any observation to her.</p>
+
+<p>One thing struck me as peculiar. None of the ladies wore their bonnets,
+and a good many had white cloaks on, huddled up around them as if they
+had been going to a party.</p>
+
+<p>If I hadn't known the house belonged to foreign ministers, I really
+should have thought from the look of things that we had lost our way,
+and got into somebody's common reception. As it was I got out of the
+carriage, and went up the steps with my bonnet on, and holding up the
+train of my pink silk, feeling that so much appendage was out of place.</p>
+
+<p>A colored person in white gloves opened the door, and waving his hand
+like a Grand Duke&mdash;oh, how that word goes to my heart&mdash;said:</p>
+
+<p>"Front door, second story."</p>
+
+<p>Another time I should have known that this meant that I could take off
+my things there. But now I felt almost certain that the ministers were
+holding a prayer-meeting, or conference, or something in "the front
+room, second story," so I went upstairs with a slow and solemn tread,
+feeling that the rustle of my pink silk was almost sacrilege.</p>
+
+<p>I went into the room and looked around. It was full of women,
+wonderfully dressed women, all in low necks and short sleeves, and white
+shoes&mdash;laughing, giggling women, who looked over each others naked
+shoulders into a great broad looking-glass crowded full of faces that
+couldn't seem to admire themselves enough.</p>
+
+<p>I stopped at the door. I scarcely breathed. What could all those
+rosy-cheeked, bare-armed ladies be doing in that house?</p>
+
+<p>I asked this question, of course, of Cousin Dempster, who came into the
+hall a-pulling his white gloves on.</p>
+
+<p>"Dempster," says I, in a low voice, "what does this mean? Where are the
+ministers?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, they are in the back room. You didn't expect them to be turned in
+with the ladies, did you?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>232<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well," says I, "it is customary in our State now, though it was not
+formerly, when the men sat on one side at prayer-meetings, and the girls
+on the other, but I didn't think that notion had got to foreign parts."</p>
+
+<p>I don't think Dempster heard me clearly, for that minute his wife came
+out of the room, blazing like the whole milky-way of stars.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Ph&oelig;mie," says she, a-holding up both the white kid gloves she
+had just buttoned on, "you don't mean to go down with that bonnet on?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should think you would be ashamed to go into a conference or a
+prayer-meeting with it off," says I, severely.</p>
+
+<p>E. E. stared at Dempster, and he stared at her. Then he hitched up his
+shoulders, and she gave her hands a little toss in the air.</p>
+
+<p>I didn't seem to notice their antics, but went with them downstairs,
+where I heard the sound of music, which didn't strike me as so sacred as
+it ought to be. Besides, there was a buzz and a hum like a hive of bees
+swarming, which was puzzling.</p>
+
+<p>When we went into the great, long room, that seemed running over with
+light, the crowded state of the congregation astonished me. There wasn't
+seats enough for one quarter of the worshippers.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, I was the only one present who had studied the sacred decencies
+of a bonnet and shawl. The rest were dressed&mdash;well, they weren't dressed
+at all about the arms and shoulders, which shocked me dreadfully; the
+mere presence of a lot of ministers ought to have made women more
+decorous.</p>
+
+<p>Would you believe it, the people round the doors stared at me as if they
+had never seen a beehive bonnet, with feathers floating over it, before.</p>
+
+<p>Some people might have felt shocked at so many eyes turned on them, but
+I was in the straight and narrow path of duty, and their looks passed by
+me like the idle wind. If they didn't understand the solemnity of the
+occasion, I did.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>233<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There is the Minister," says Dempster, "let us pay our respects."</p>
+
+<p>"Why," says I, "there don't seem to be either a reading desk or pulpit
+here!"</p>
+
+<p>I don't think Dempster heard me, for he began to edge our way through
+the crowd, till we got clear into the room, which was so full of flowers
+and lights and music that I began to think the foreign ministers were
+keeping up Easter-Sunday yet.</p>
+
+<p>A gentleman was standing near the door with some ladies around him.
+Dempster took us straight up to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Your Excellency," says he, "Miss Frost. Miss Ph&oelig;mie Frost, of
+Vermont."</p>
+
+<p>I didn't think that exactly a proper place to be introducing people in,
+and measured off my bow accordingly, and passed on without troubling
+myself about the ladies around him, who seemed to wonder at it. As if I
+wanted to know them!</p>
+
+<p>When we got into the crowd again, I whispered to Dempster:</p>
+
+<p>"Do tell me where the foreign ministers are!"</p>
+
+<p>"The Ministers! Why you have just been presented to the very highest of
+them," says Dempster.</p>
+
+<p>"What, that man," says I, "with precious stones a-twinkling on his
+shirt-bosom, and a bit of red ribbon in his button-hole, who seems to
+have cut up his words with a chopping knife? You couldn't make me
+believe that, Dempster!"</p>
+
+<p>"But it is, upon my honor, Ph&oelig;mie; and those gentlemen standing
+around him are all Ministers, or persons sent out with them. Almost
+every civilized nation is represented here to-night."</p>
+
+<p>I looked around at the persons Dempster pointed out&mdash;some were young,
+some old, some you could understand, others you couldn't; most of them
+were talking and laughing with the ladies around them. I didn't see a
+downright serious face in the whole crowd.</p>
+
+<p>"Them ministers!" I said, scorning Dempster's attempt to deceive me.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>234<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Every one of them is a Minister now, or means to be."</p>
+
+<p>"Dempster, I don't believe you."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, ask some one else whom you can believe," says he, a-turning red.
+"Here is Miss &mdash;&mdash;, she can tell you."</p>
+
+<p>I didn't hear the name clear, but Dempster introduced me to a young lady
+that had just sat down by me.</p>
+
+<p>"Are those men who are chatting and laughing so, really ministers?" says
+I to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Most of them are; the rest are connected with the Legation," says she.
+"Elegant, don't you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>Before I could ask her what newfangled society had been got up under the
+name of Legation, a young gentleman with a round gold glass screwed into
+one eye, came out from the hive of ministers, and walked toward us,
+moving along slow and lazy, as if walking were too much for him.</p>
+
+<p>The girl was all in a flutter when she saw him a-coming our way. She
+looked at me as if I had a seat that she wanted for some one else, but I
+didn't move; and after shaking out her dress as a cross hen flutters its
+feathers, she pretended to look the other way, as if she didn't care a
+mite whether the young minister came up or not.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, the airs some of these school-girls put on is disgusting.</p>
+
+<p>The young divinity student came up with a sort of half-dancing step.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss," says he, a-bowing and chewing up his words as if he'd a piece of
+sweet flag-root in his mouth, "delighted to&mdash;aw&mdash;aw&mdash;have the honor of
+seeing you here&mdash;am, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>She bowed, she prismed up her mouth, waved her fan a trifle, and says
+she&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you ought to have expected me. I am a little exclusive, but
+always make a point of coming here."</p>
+
+<p>The young&mdash;no, he wasn't over young, but did his best to look so. Well,
+this foreign student just turned his glass on me, his impudent little
+eye stared right through at my bonnet. Then he looked at that finefied
+girl, and they both smiled at each other.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>235<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>This riled me.</p>
+
+<p>Then a couple of young ladies crowded by us, laughing a little. The
+divinity student turned his glass&mdash;eye and all&mdash;upon them, then he
+turned to the young creature by my side, and says he, curling up his
+wisp of a mustache:</p>
+
+<p>"Now, really, miss, what is the reason all the American young ladies
+have the manners of chambermaids?"</p>
+
+<p>I felt my Yankee heart spring straight up into my New England mouth; but
+the foreign snipe wasn't speaking to me, so I sat still and listened for
+what that young creature would say.</p>
+
+<p>"The manners of chambermaids!" says she, "did you mean that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Really&mdash;yes&mdash;I think they have, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I will not contradict you, for you generally are right," says
+she, as meek as Moses&mdash;yes, Moses in the bulrushes, "but not quite all,
+I hope."</p>
+
+<p>The mean thing couldn't keep from trying to wring a compliment for
+herself out of this insult to the general American female.</p>
+
+<p>The fellow had sense enough to see what she wanted, and he gave it to
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"Aw&mdash;aw&mdash;of course there are a few lovely exceptions, you know," says
+he, a-bowing so low that his eye-glass dropped out of his poor little
+eye that looked like a green gooseberry without it. "I speak of American
+women, generally, as having the manners of chambermaids."</p>
+
+<p>I couldn't hold in one minute more. No coffee-grounds, twice soaked,
+ever riled up like my temper.</p>
+
+<p>"If <i>you</i> find American ladies acting like chambermaids," says I, "it's
+because they feel compelled to adapt themselves to the company they are
+in."</p>
+
+<p>Here I bent my head with a low, dignified bow, and waved my fan with a
+calm but decided motion.</p>
+
+<p>That little humbug of a young lady looked half scared to death. The
+divinity student ground his glass into his eye, looked at me from head
+to foot, and says he:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>236<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Aw, aw!" and walked away.</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked after him as if she wanted to cry, but just then a great
+whirl of music burst from the next room, and I thought the meeting was
+about to organize, when a tall fellow, with his mustache quirled up like
+an ox-horn, came tetering up to the young female by my side.</p>
+
+<p>"May I have the honor?" says he.</p>
+
+<p>The girl turned her head sideways, and rolled up her eyes like a pullet
+drinking.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a quadrille, Count," says she, "and I never join in one."</p>
+
+<p>"A quadrille, pardonne! You are right. When you daunce&mdash;if you
+daunce&mdash;why, of course, you daunce a round daunce."</p>
+
+<p>The fellow flung out his white hands, making a little dive forward with
+each word; then he saw my face, which must have spoken volumes, and
+slacked off his antics. I don't think he liked the cut of my smile, for,
+crooking up his elbow, he leaned forward, and says he:</p>
+
+<p>"May I be honored with a promenade?"</p>
+
+<p>She took his arm, and the two fluttered off into the crowd, which was
+pouring off into a large room beyond the one we were in.</p>
+
+<p>"The meeting is going to commence now in good earnest," I thought. "I'll
+try and get a seat where I can hear."</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Dempster and E. E. came up, and I joined in. The lecture-room was
+long, and lighted up beautifully. Right in front of the door was the
+singers' gallery, hung round with red cloth, and over that hung great
+wreaths of flowers, but I saw neither pulpit nor reading-desk.</p>
+
+<p>"Where will the minister be?" I whispered to Cousin Dempster.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he will open the ball."</p>
+
+<p>"Open the ball! What <i>do</i> you mean?" says I. "A minister dancing! I
+won't believe it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, they all do," says he, innocent as a lamb. "No better dancers in
+Washington."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>237<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Sisters, what <i>do</i> you think of that? Was I to blame when I insisted on
+leaving that house at once? Would you have had me sit by and witness
+this degradation? "No," says I to Cousin Dempster, "I won't stay. If
+ministers of the Gospel will do such things, I, as a New England
+woman&mdash;girl I mean&mdash;would be committing a sin to look on."</p>
+
+<p>"But you do not understand. They are Foreign Ministers, sent here by
+other nations, which they represent."</p>
+
+<p>"So much the worse&mdash;how dare they set such examples?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Ambassadors! can't you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I understand. All ministers are ambassadors from the Lord;
+but I never heard of their dancing, except that Shaking Quakers do now
+and then, which is a part of their religion, and they are only elders,
+anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>"But there is no religion in these things!"</p>
+
+<p>"I should rather think not," says I, a-walking resolutely toward the
+door. "Now it's of no use explaining and apologizing to me. Dancing
+ministers ain't of my sort. I'm going right straight home."</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, I went.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LVI" id="LVI"></a>LVI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>GOOD CLOTHES.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;I told you in my last Report that there were three or
+four invitations that I had made up my mind to accept, for I have got so
+now, that it is my privilege to pick and choose who I will honor and who
+I will not.</p>
+
+<p>Well, the person I distinguished this time was just one of the
+handsomest and nicest ladies that you ever sot eyes on. Everybody<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>238<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> that
+knows her says that. No bird pluming itself on an apple-tree limb full
+of blossoms was ever more graceful; no church member could be more
+kind-hearted. She is just a sumptuous young woman who worshipped a
+true-hearted, high-minded father with all her might and honored him in
+all her acts. It is a great pity she wasn't born in Vermont, but that
+cannot be helped now. I wish it could.</p>
+
+<p>Of course I felt it a privilege to represent your Society before a lady
+like this; for it seems to me as if she were born to be an ornament to
+this great nation. I say this because I really think she is good as good
+can be. Miss Kate Chase, though she did marry a United States Senator,
+will always be best known to the country as Chief Justice Chase's
+daughter, and a compliment to her is a compliment to him, which I, as a
+distinguished wom&mdash;I beg pardon, young girl&mdash;could pay, and still
+preserve that reputation for correct deportment which, I am proud to
+say, follows me wherever I go.</p>
+
+<p>Well, not wanting to keep Mrs. Sprague in suspense, and feeling that she
+might be pining for my autograph to lie uppermost in the great dish, all
+gold and stone pictures, which she keeps full of letters and cards and
+things, I wrote her a sweet little letter, in my finest hand, with a
+green and red "P. F." twisted together on the straw-colored envelope,
+saying that I would come.</p>
+
+<p>After that I felt calm and content, knowing how much happiness I had
+given.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Dempster and E. E. had an invite too. I really hope they have
+sense enough to know the source from which all these attentions come,
+but sometimes I doubt it. Still, they do look up to me.</p>
+
+<p>The night came, and found me ready. E. E. had told me that when Mrs.
+Sprague gave a party, her guests almost always came out in span-new
+dresses. Her entertainments were <i>the</i> entertainments of the season.
+Nobody had yet been able to come up to her, let them try ever so much,
+and people dressed accordingly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>239<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Of course I wasn't going to be behindhand on a fashionable occasion like
+that, where a certain person was sure to be an object of special
+admiration and envious criticism, so I went to work at once, and turned
+my pink silk wrong side out with my own hands.</p>
+
+<p>Then I took an hour or so of solitary shopping, and had the things I
+bought carried straight into my own room, for I had given out that I had
+a sick headache, and wanted to sleep&mdash;a fib so delicate, that it seemed
+almost conscientious, besides being worth forgiving on account of its
+originality.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I worked away like everything, determined to show the world, for
+my own private enjoyment, that genius wasn't limited to writing, but
+would sometimes break out in silks and laces and flowers, with
+astonishing effects. So my heart rose, and my fingers flew.</p>
+
+<p>That headache of mine lasted three days, without intermission. During
+this season of affliction, my meals were brought up on a hotel tray, and
+I took care to order them myself&mdash;the toast and tea, which cousin sent
+up at first, not being quite satisfactory as a persistent diet.</p>
+
+<p>At last my dress was ready. E. E. said <i>she</i> had ordered hers from
+Worth, ever so long ago, expecting that something super-elegant might
+turn up, like Mrs. Sprague's party. I didn't ask who Worth was, not
+thinking a masculine mantua-maker worth inquiring about; but I kept a
+close mouth about my own toilet&mdash;that word needs explaining, sisters.
+With us it means a half-moon table, curtained down, and ruffled over
+with spotted muslin, and set under a looking-glass. But here it means
+your whole dress-frock, boots, everything that you wear from top to toe.
+This is why the word "toilet" comes in so naturally in my Report. But
+understand, it does <i>not</i> mean a table&mdash;quite the contrary.</p>
+
+<p>You should have seen me when I came out of my room that evening. Up to
+this I had been harmonious in my dress, but newness was the thing here,
+so I had studied the grandly poetical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>240<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> harmony of contrasts. My aim had
+been something poetical and striking.</p>
+
+<p>My pink silk had turned beautifully. It looked good as new, if not more
+so; the fresh lining hunched it out behind, till a good-sized baby could
+have sat on it, as such little fellows billow themselves among the
+clouds in an old picture. Contrast, I have told you, was my
+idea&mdash;novelty my object. Pink and white roses I had worn, black velvet,
+too, and natural geranium-leaves, which are given to wilting fearfully;
+so I cast these things all aside, and looped up my dress with pond
+lilies, of a rich orange color.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, the effect was wonderful. The broad green leaves on the pink
+ground, the yellow flowers clustering amongst them. The lilies of red
+gold entwining my head was a picture in itself&mdash;to say nothing of the
+tall and elegant young person who, as I may write, carried off the
+dress.</p>
+
+<p>You should have seen Cousin E. E. when I swept into the room, where she
+stood ready, my pink silk rustling, my golden lilies on the high quiver,
+my hair crinkled in front, curled behind, and looped up with those
+yellow flowers. Sisters, her surprise was really a tribute.</p>
+
+<p>I did not deign to ask her how she liked my dress. The look that
+followed her first surprise was clouded with the envy she did not dare
+to speak. I was seized with a desire to punish such malice, and swept up
+and down the room, looking back on my train, as a peacock spreads his
+tail-feathers in the sun.</p>
+
+<p>E. E. looked ready to burst. She saw that her own dress was nowhere, and
+resented it in angry silence. So I kept on walking slowly up and down,
+in order to bring her into a reasonable state of mind, which Christian
+exertion, I am sorry to say, failed.</p>
+
+<p>Dempster came in, and he, too, was struck dumb with admiring surprise.
+He looked at me, then at E. E., but said nothing. Still the comparison
+must have been humiliating to a man who really does take some pride in
+his wife.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>241<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LVII" id="LVII"></a>LVII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE PARTY OF THE SEASON.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;The carriage was full to overflowment; E. E. and I filled
+it with the sumptuosity of our garments. Dempster was nowhere. Now and
+then the carriage jolted his head into sight&mdash;that was all.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sprague lives in a great, square corner-house that looks rich and
+respectable&mdash;two things that do not always come together in these days,
+when people creep into society, and build themselves up there on the
+property that should belong to the Government. It has some wide, jutting
+windows, and plenty of room inside.</p>
+
+<p>The hall-way was crowded full of ladies, and so was the stairs. Some
+were going up, and some were coming down. The first in shawls and
+cloaks, the others with their arms and necks uncovered, or with just a
+shadow of lace on them, nothing more.</p>
+
+<p>The great square chamber that we went into was as full as a bee-hive.
+Silks swept and rustled against each other like oak-leaves when the wind
+shakes them. The great looking-glasses were full also&mdash;you saw a crowd
+of handsome faces coming and going in them all the time. Each glass was
+like a picture always changing.</p>
+
+<p>The bed was covered over with cloaks and shawls, but you could see that
+the bedstead was beautifully carved, and the pillow-cases were ruffled
+all round and edged with lace. On a table near the door was a case of
+shiny black wood, curlicued with gold, and lined with velvet. In it was
+a lot of gold things, essence bottles, knives, scissors with gold
+handles, and glass cases with gold lids. It lay open, and anybody could
+use the things that wanted to; I didn't, but had a good look while E. E.
+was titivating in the crowd before the glass.</p>
+
+<p>My dress must have carried out the grand idea in my mind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>242<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> when I made
+it, for all the ladies stopped, and gave me a good, long look before
+they went out, and I could see smiles of approbation dancing about their
+mouths. My triumph commenced, sisters, even in the dressing-room.</p>
+
+<p>Dempster was waiting for us, and we followed him downstairs into the
+largest and handsomest room I've seen in Washington City.</p>
+
+<p>It was just afire with lights. The great curving window was crowded full
+of flowers; every table in the room blazed out with them. Two
+folding-doors, like those we have in a Vermont meeting-house, opened
+into another great room, just as rainbowish with light, and smelling
+just as sweet with flowers&mdash;I never saw anything like it.</p>
+
+<p>A crowd went in with us, and we had to wait till they let us go up to
+Judge Chase and Mrs. Sprague, who stood in the front room.</p>
+
+<p>Goodness gracious, what a female woman that is! No willow tree was ever
+half so graceful, and, as for manners, the nicest woman I ever saw is
+nowhere to her. Her dress&mdash;well, I really cannot say that it didn't pull
+an even yoke with mine&mdash;at any rate the contrast between us was
+striking, nothing could have been more so. But I can say, without
+vanity, the crowd as it came in stopped to look at mine quite as much as
+it did at hers. Original taste, you know, sisters, is everything; then
+literary genius united with taste isn't easily matched. Still, Mrs.
+Sprague's dress was well worth noticing.</p>
+
+<p>"What did she wear?" I hear you say.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, your wishes are laws to me.</p>
+
+<p>This lady, for she <i>is</i> a lady, every inch of her, as I have said, was a
+complete contrast to your missionary. Her dress had three colors; blue
+satin in front, wreathed across with a wreath of rosebuds and leaves
+over each flounce. Running up each side were other wreaths, fastening
+down the edges of a long train of white silk, that was fastened in a
+wide box-plait at the back of the neck, and swept away to the carpet,
+where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>243<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> it fell and floated like a snow-drift scattered over with roses,
+for they were done in needle work all over the white robe, and seemed to
+grow there. The dress was cut square about the neck, and filled in with
+lace. She had half-sleeves, too, a thing I was glad to see, for some of
+the stuck-up persons who came there with no sleeves, and their dresses
+cut short about the neck, might have taken it for a rebuke. Thank
+goodness, I didn't.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sprague wore some jewelry. A wreath of blue stones with white ones
+that shone like rain-drops in the sunshine, was fastened in her hair,
+and hung quivering in her ears. She had gold bands, full of fiery
+stones, on her arms, and some gold thing fell down to her bosom, set
+with something that looked to me like half-ripe cherries. Pink coral, E.
+E. said it was.</p>
+
+<p>There now, you have Mrs. Sprague's dress, and you have mine. I say
+nothing. Certainly hers was handsome. I am not the person to draw
+comparisons, but, from the notice given to mine, I had no reason to be
+dissatisfied.</p>
+
+<p>Chief Justice Chase stood by his daughter, and shook hands with me in
+the most friendly manner&mdash;he was quite impressed, I can assure you. He
+was large and tall&mdash;in fact, grand in his appearance. His smile was
+enough to make any one long to know more of him. It reminded me a little
+of the great Grand Duke's, which made my heart beat a little sadly.</p>
+
+<p>We moved into the crowd. There I saw a lot of those foreign ministers.
+One of them bowed to me. I gave him a dignified bend of the head. This
+messing-up of divinity and parties goes against my ideas of propriety.</p>
+
+<p>A Vermont minister would be turned out of his pulpit if he ventured to
+show himself in a worldly gathering like that.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you so dignified about, Cousin Ph&oelig;mie?" says Dempster.
+"Didn't you see the minister bowing to us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says I, "but I don't mean to encourage backsliding and worldly
+amusements in Christian leaders. They have no business here."</p>
+
+<p>"But they are not particularly Christians," says he.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>244<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I should think not," says I; "and the Churches that sent them here
+ought to know how they are going on."</p>
+
+<p>"But the Churches did not send that gentleman. It was the Queen."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly," said I; "and isn't she the head of the Church. No, no,
+cousin, you can't make excuses for them."</p>
+
+<p>"But their mission is political," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," says I. Church and State&mdash;I understood."</p>
+
+<p>A whole lot of candles, white as snow, were burning over the wide doors.
+That opened into another long room where a great picture, worked with a
+needle, years and years ago, hung on the wall, and crowds of people were
+moving about. Then came a storm of music, and I saw one of the ministers
+teetering off with a lady as if he were going to dance again.</p>
+
+<p>"I declare I won't look on," says I to Dempster; "take me somewhere
+else."</p>
+
+<p>He did take me into a little room full of books, and there&mdash;standing
+round a table on which a great giant of a china bowl stood, filled to
+the brim with punch, on which slices of lemon floated temptingly&mdash;we
+found some more of them ministers, each one with a full glass in his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, I stood there like a monument, and saw them drink that punch
+with my own eyes&mdash;more than one glass apiece, too. Ministers, indeed!</p>
+
+<p>While we stood watching them in one door, they went out by another, and
+then Dempster took us in.</p>
+
+<p>E. E. sat down on a sofa; so did I. Dempster went up to the great bowl,
+and began to dip out the punch with a big silver ladle as if it had been
+soup. He filled two glasses. A slice of lemon floated on each one; they
+looked deliciously cool, and I was thirsty. Sisters, I took that glass,
+and I drank of the punch. After that I began to feel more charitable
+toward the foreign ministers. In fact, I rather think a sweeter and more
+benevolent feeling came over me in all respects, for a soft mistiness
+settled on the crowd, and the dancers were peculiarly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>245<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> mazy. I felt
+myself smiling blandly, and, in fact, glided into a state of dreamy
+enjoyment that was pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>The music stopped; the dancers locked arms, and moved toward an open
+door through which a fresh flood of light was pouring. We followed into
+a great tent, hung all round with damask linen. Two long tables, loaded
+down with great vases full of fruit and flowers; steeples, and towers,
+and baskets, made out of candy, and running over with sugar things;
+peaches, and grapes, and all sorts of fruit, natural as life, but candy
+to the core&mdash;all delicious and gorgeous and&mdash;well, I haven't language to
+express it; but the whole thing was sumptuous.</p>
+
+<p>All down and around these two long tables great wreaths of flowers and
+leaves, half buried in moss, made a border of bloom, and over them the
+light came pouring, while the music sounded nearer and nearer, and the
+crowd poured in.</p>
+
+<p>Really, sisters, I can say no more. That whole scene was more than I can
+describe. It just sent me home dizzy with bewilderment.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LVIII" id="LVIII"></a>LVIII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>DOWN THE POTOMAC.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;The Father of our Country was a great man&mdash;no doubt on
+that subject. He conducted a war on small means and with few men, which
+gave us a country that will be a crowning glory of all ages, if we don't
+melt down and go to nothing under the hot sunshine of our own
+prosperity. He was a great man and a good boy, not because he cut down
+the cherry-tree and wouldn't lie about it, for good boys and great men
+are not made out of one action, but a harmonious character which
+produces many good actions.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>246<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then again, I am not so certain that the action was what it is cracked
+up to be, anyway. In the first place, good little boys don't cut down
+their father's fruit-trees. Generally, they like to climb them a great
+deal better, especially when the cherries are ripe. I know that&mdash;being a
+girl, who could have borrowed a hatchet and made myself immortal by
+chopping instead of climbing to pick half-green cherries, which I did,
+and tore my frock, besides getting a pain in the&mdash;well, heart, which two
+things betrayed me just as the little hatchet betrayed George.</p>
+
+<p>Now, when my mother asked me what the mischief I'd been about, I didn't
+think of saying I couldn't lie, because I could, and longed to do it;
+but I knew that New England women would find me out and give me double
+"jessie" if I piled a whopper on top of the green cherries and torn
+frock, so I told her I didn't know, being conservative&mdash;took my whipping
+like a man and a trooper, scorning to cover up two sins under one pious
+truth.</p>
+
+<p>I didn't follow George Washington's example, for two reasons. First, I
+had never heard of the hatchet; and again, the story don't wash to a
+degree that is expected of high-priced morality. When the youthful boy,
+Father of our Country, said he <i>couldn't</i> lie, he was a-doing it that
+very minute. What boy ever lived that couldn't lie? Lying is born in
+'em, and they take to it as naturally as a kitten laps milk.</p>
+
+<p>The fellow that wrote that story was a botch. Why didn't he make little
+George say, "Father, I won't tell a lie; so there&mdash;I cut down the
+cherry-tree with my little hatchet."</p>
+
+<p>There would have been something heroic and above-board about that&mdash;a
+struggle against temptation foreshadowed, and a brave determination to
+stand up to the rack, fodder or no fodder, worthy of a boy that meant to
+be father of the man, who in his turn was the father of his country,
+thus doing up all his paternity in a wholesale way. But to say he
+couldn't was so sneakingly good that I don't believe it of him. In fact,
+I don't believe one word of the story.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>247<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Put that down on the records of your Society.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, one never thinks of George Washington, that a nice boy,
+showing a hatchet, does not come in as the first picture.</p>
+
+<p>The reason I happened to think of it was an invitation to go in a
+Government steamboat down to Mount Vernon, Washington's old homestead,
+and see the tomb where he was buried.</p>
+
+<p>Of course I wanted to go. When the President of these United States gets
+out a Government steamboat on purpose to carry a distinguished New
+England female down to the tomb of her country's forefathers, it's an
+honor she's bound to accept.</p>
+
+<p>I did accept it with enthusiasm, and at once invited Cousin Dempster and
+E. E. to go with me, for it always gives me pleasure to act as a sun to
+their moon.</p>
+
+<p>The Japanese were invited to join me on the boat, and as many as two
+hundred other people were allowed to go down, which I was rather glad
+of&mdash;they being amongst the best&mdash;and my nature being social, as you
+know.</p>
+
+<p>Well, between nine and ten in the morning, we drove up to the Navy
+Yard&mdash;a place where the Government builds the ships that are always
+being altered, and mended, and made worse than they were before. It's
+like a village on the water, is this Navy Yard, with a high wall around
+it, and a gate big enough for our carriage to go through, which it did,
+taking us down to the water in fine style.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want to go on board the 'Tallapoosa'?" says a man on the wharf.</p>
+
+<p>"The 'Tallapoosa'!" says I to Dempster. "What outlandish thing is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"The steamboat," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, why don't they call it a steamboat?" says I; "such airs!"</p>
+
+<p>With that, I jumped out of the carriage, taking a neat dancing step as I
+touched the ground, and spread my parasol.</p>
+
+<p>Just then another carriage drove up, choke full of little dark men.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the Japanese," says Dempster.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>248<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The Japanese! How can you say so?" says I. "Where are their punch-bowl
+hats and stiff veils?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," says Dempster, "they have given those things up, and dress just as
+we do now."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me!" says I, a-looking into the carriage from under a slope of my
+parasol. "How funny they look with stovepipe hats, and boots, too&mdash;oh
+my!"</p>
+
+<p>The Japanese were getting out of their carriage, but they seemed as if
+afraid of straining too hard on their clothes, and stepped on the ground
+as if it was paved with eggs.</p>
+
+<p>Bang!</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, goodness gracious!"</p>
+
+<p>It was I that screamed out these words, and I hopped up at least half a
+yard from the ground, for somewhere, close by, a great gun went
+off&mdash;roaring over the water, like thunder.</p>
+
+<p>"What does that mean? Does anybody want to murder us?" says I, shaking
+like a poplar-leaf.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," says he, "they are only saluting us."</p>
+
+<p>"Saluting <i>me</i>?" says I. "How dare they? Of course they knew I should
+jump and scream. So loud, too! No young girl would stand it."</p>
+
+<p>With that, I lifted my parasol, and walked across the plank on to the
+deck of that steamboat, and sat down.</p>
+
+<p>Them Japanese came after, and sat down close to me. Mr. Iwakura looked
+at me, and I looked at him. He smiled, and I smiled. This Japanee knows
+how to smile with his eyes, and that's more than a good many other men
+can do.</p>
+
+<p>Then I felt it my duty to talk a little, as these Japanese had been
+invited on my account; so, thinking that he would expect something
+original from me, I said:</p>
+
+<p>"I think we shall have a pleasant day, Mr. Iwakura."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says he, in real cunning English, looking as if he appreciated my
+little speech.</p>
+
+<p>"I really hope," says I, "that you and your friends will feel quite at
+home."</p>
+
+<p>He said "Yes," again, and smiled.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>249<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>That smile was catching.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if Mr. I. left a wife behind to languish for that peculiar
+expression? If not&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I checked these roving thoughts as incompatible with former ideas.</p>
+
+<p>The steamboat was puffing and blowing, and giving a scream now and then.
+It began to tremble&mdash;it veered and made a slow plunge down the river.
+The decks were crowded with ladies and gentlemen&mdash;all smiling
+happy&mdash;that seeming to be overjoyed to have the pleasure of coming with
+me.</p>
+
+<p>The Potomac River is just lovely. All the trees along its banks were
+budding and feathering out with greenness. We passed by a town. Then a
+great round heap of stone walls, that they called the Fort. The grass
+was green around it, and some soldiers came out on the walls to look at
+us as we swept by.</p>
+
+<p>It was pleasant; I felt the occasion to be something like that on which
+that Egyptian woman went down the River Nile in a row boat; so I lowered
+my parasol as we passed the Fort.</p>
+
+<p>At last the steamboat made a dead stop in the river. We were right
+opposite Mount Vernon. I looked at the sacred old place from the water.
+It was lovely in itself, standing there on a high knoll, carpeted with
+soft spring grass, and with tall trees a-bending over it. The sunshine
+lay on the water and the shore, but that old house was a good deal in
+shadow, and all the more pleasant for that.</p>
+
+<p>Some smaller boats came up to the steamboat. We got into them and went
+ashore.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>250<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LIX" id="LIX"></a>LIX.<br />
+<br />
+<small>MOUNT VERNON.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/m.jpg" width="60" height="61" alt="M" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">M</span>OUNT VERNON had looked lonesome enough till now; but when we all landed
+it was like a picture. We wandered about; we broke up into little
+crowds, and the whole place was alive with happy people.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Iwakura and the rest of the Japanese walked slowly up the road.
+Dempster, E. E., and I went with them till we came to a tomb dug into
+the bank, with an iron fence before it.</p>
+
+<p>Iwakura took off his stove-pipe hat and held it, just as if he had been
+at a funeral. The rest did the same, looking sad and touchingly solemn.</p>
+
+<p>I dropped my parasol low, to hide the tears that came gushing up to my
+eyes, without warning. Cousin E. E. began to sob.</p>
+
+<p>I turned away, longing to creep off into some dark corner, and have a
+good cry all by myself.</p>
+
+<p>A good many of the people had gone up to the old homestead which is
+spread out low on the ground, and has a stoop with pillars running all
+along the front. From this stoop you can see the bend of the river and
+the blue of its water through the trees. There was a well near by that
+put me in mind of home; a lot of girls were drinking from the bucket,
+and chirruping together like birds around a spring.</p>
+
+<p>I didn't like the sound just then, and went into the hall-way of the old
+homestead. There was nothing worth while in it but a great, big, heavy
+key, covered with rust, and big enough to knock a man down with.</p>
+
+<p>"This," says a gentleman, a-standing close by me, "is the key of the
+Bastille."</p>
+
+<p>I jumped back.</p>
+
+<p>"What!" says I&mdash;"that old prison in Paris, where men were buried alive,
+without trial?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>251<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The same," says he. "Lafayette gave it to General Washington."</p>
+
+<p>I felt myself shuddering, but said nothing. The subject struck me dumb.
+We went upstairs into the chamber where Washington died. It was not over
+large, and low in the joints; but the windows looked out on the trees
+and the river, which took away some of its gloominess. Nothing but a
+bedstead, with high, spindling posts, was there.</p>
+
+<p>"Did he die on that?" says I to a gentleman near me.</p>
+
+<p>"No," says he, "but on a bedstead just like it."</p>
+
+<p>I turned away. What business had a sham bedstead in that room? The idea
+of it riled up something besides sympathy in my bosom. I had rather see
+bare walls than a bedstead <i>like</i>the one he died on. Why don't they take
+it down?</p>
+
+<p>We went into the parlor. It isn't over-large, and looks cheery. An old,
+coffin-shaped piano was there, with broken wires; some old china plates
+and dishes were piled together. That was about all.</p>
+
+<p>I couldn't stand it. The tomb had sunshine about it, and wasn't half so
+gloomy. The hall-door was open, and I went out. A little way from the
+house was Washington's flower-garden, where a few jonquills and crocuses
+were spotting the earth with yellow. Near that was a large brick house,
+long and low, crowded full of plants which had flowers on them.</p>
+
+<p>This wasn't Washington's greenhouse, but a brand new one, which looked
+like a spring bonnet worn with a ten-year old dress. This riled me too.
+It seemed to me that the old homestead should be kept just as Washington
+left it. Newfangled improvements are an aggravation.</p>
+
+<p>Before I came away from Washington there was a good deal of talk about
+the lady who lives here and takes charge, but I couldn't for the life of
+me find out anything that seemed extravagant or wrong about her. The
+truth is, the ladies of this country have spent years collecting money
+to buy Mount Vernon, and make it a place sacred to the nation, but they
+failed in obtaining a fund large enough to maintain it with honor.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>252<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>The society give this lady no remunerative salary, and nothing but a
+pure missionary spirit could keep her in that dull and mournful place.
+If she raises money enough to keep the homestead in repair, it is all
+any one ought to ask, and all the nation wants. But for my part, I scorn
+this quiddling way of making money. There is a meanness about it that
+disgraces the nation.</p>
+
+<p>The thing that should be done is this: put the whole concern into the
+hands of Congress. It ought to belong to the nation. Washington was not
+the saviour of a lot of women only, but of the whole country. Let the
+country have possession of his old home, and appropriate all the money
+needed to keep it in perfect order, as Washington left it. If the women
+of America raised money enough to buy the estate for no better purpose
+than to peddle out a sight of Washington's tomb for twenty-five cents a
+sight, and keep flowers to sell, they have sent their patriotism to a
+mighty small retail market.</p>
+
+<p>Well, in the afternoon we all went on board the steamboat again, and had
+a good time running up and down the river, which is just one of the
+things I should like to do every day; for the day was bright enough to
+keep one out-doors forever, if it would only have lasted so long.</p>
+
+<p>When we had got out of sight of Mount Vernon, a band of music came on
+deck, and played like anything, while we went down into the cabin, one
+party at a time, and ate dinner, which tasted delicious, I can tell
+you&mdash;to say nothing of the bottled cider, and such like, that kept the
+corks a-flying about like bullets.</p>
+
+<p>It is wonderful what smartness that cider gives to a person. It sparkles
+through one like the first spring sap in a maple-tree.</p>
+
+<p>When I went on deck again, my limbs felt springy as a steel trap, and I
+couldn't help dancing along, for a band of fiddlers and toot-horns was
+a-pouring out music, that, joined to the cider, was enough to make one
+want to dance with her own grandfather.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>253<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>They did dance, sisters&mdash;I own it, with shame and contrition. I joined
+in with the other young girls, and flatter myself they know by this time
+what a genuine Virginia reel is.</p>
+
+<p>Forgive me, I know it wasn't just the thing for a church member to do,
+especially while returning from that tomb; but bottled cider and
+fiddlers must be a stronger power in the hands of the Evil One than
+anything I have tried yet; and more church members, and ever so much
+older persons than me, just made that deck shake with their dancing,
+half the way up that beautiful river.</p>
+
+<p>Still, my head aches this morning, and I have a sort of backsliding
+feeling. The truth is, Tombs and Virginia reels don't seem to gibe in
+together.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LX" id="LX"></a>LX.<br />
+<br />
+<small>MR. GREELEY'S NOMINATION.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;What do you think of the dear old Mountain State now?
+Have you reason to be proud of her, or have you not? Do you understand
+what she has done lately in the way of literature&mdash;in the female line, I
+mean&mdash;and now, only think of it, the next President of the United States
+is expected from that sacred and hilly soil.</p>
+
+<p>I know that Vermont will be almost tickled to death about this. It will
+be a crown of glory to her mountains, and a song of rejoicing in her
+valleys. The sap in her maple-trees will start earlier, run brighter,
+and sugar off more gloriously than it has ever done before. Up to this
+time, Vermont has never had her share of honors at the national Capitol,
+but now her time has come.</p>
+
+<p>I am so glad I went to Mr. Greeley's birthday party, and I haven't a
+doubt that a great many other persons feel pretty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>254<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> much as I do about
+it. When I shook hands with him there, and saw him standing in the midst
+of his friends, with his kind face looking smooth and enticing as a
+sweet baked apple, I little thought it might be the next President of
+these United States that was enjoying himself over a birthday. But
+things do get tangled and untangled dreadfully in this world of
+ours&mdash;don't they? and the most uncertain thing on this side of sundown
+is any man's destiny. The most certain thing is the popularity of
+success. It seems to me now as if I think considerable more of this
+great Vermonter than I did last week, but what has he done to make
+me?&mdash;that's what I should like to know. He's just the same man; has just
+as many faults&mdash;no great new supply of virtues. In fact, what has he
+done this week more than he did last, that I should feel a sort of honor
+and glory in being his friend?</p>
+
+<p>I have been putting these questions to myself, and the answer makes me
+feel a little meachen. I am the missionary of one of the most august
+bodies that can be found in this or any other country. I represent a
+body of blameless, heroic ladies, whose glory it is to be above
+prejudice, and capable of self-judgment&mdash;ladies that are ladies, and
+wish to set an example of Christian womanliness to their own sex and the
+rest of mankind, feeling that "the eyes of all Vermont are upon them."</p>
+
+<p>I am all this, yet I feel the humiliation of thinking all the better of
+a man because a great hullabaloo of other men have declared before the
+world that they want him for President of these United States. This is
+weak, but natural&mdash;natural, but awfully weak. Why should we let crowds
+of men we never saw judge for us? But then, how are we to judge for
+ourselves?</p>
+
+<p>After all, this self-government is a difficult thing to carry out. What
+man really does govern himself?&mdash;either through his brain, or heart,
+some one else governs him. He gives himself up by the wholesale to a
+crowd, or by retail to his own family.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>255<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>In the parlor of our hotel last night there was nothing but confusion
+and commotion. I went down there with Cousin E. E., for we all felt the
+glory that had settled down on us in a reflected way, and longed to
+enjoy it before folks. So down we went, trying to look as if nothing was
+the matter, but feeling the smiles quivering and playing about our lips
+like lady-bugs about an open rose.</p>
+
+<p>The parlors were full. Everybody had something to say. Some were
+smiling, some looked ready to cry, and others looked grim as gunlocks;
+but most of the faces we saw were beaming like a harvest moon.</p>
+
+<p>As for me, I felt&mdash;yes, as the poet says, "I felt&mdash;I felt like a morning
+star."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Miss Frost, how do you like it?" says a little mite of a woman,
+with pink ribbons spreading out on her bosom. "What do you think of the
+nomination?"</p>
+
+<p>"Think?" says I. "Why, this is what I think&mdash;the sun will rise and set
+on the top of the Green Mountains like a crown of glory, after this."</p>
+
+<p>"Will Vermont go for him?" says another, cutting in.</p>
+
+<p>"Will the mountains stand on their old rocky base?" says I. "What a
+question!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you think it will?"</p>
+
+<p>"Think! I know it will. When did that glorious old State neglect one of
+her own sons?"</p>
+
+<p>"But it's so strange!" snivelled the little woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Strange!" says I; "what is strange?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that Mr. Greeley should be nominated."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," says I, with cutting irony, "do you think it strange that the
+people of this country should choose an honest man once in a while?
+ain't we always ready to reward merit? Haven't we done it in the
+military way with General Grant? Haven't we a right to go into a new
+field? First the sword, now the pen."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! not that; but&mdash;but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but what?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>256<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He's so&mdash;so peculiar."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he is," says I, "if integrity, simple good faith, and sound sense
+is peculiar&mdash;and I begin to think it is."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know him, Miss Frost?"</p>
+
+<p>I drew myself up, and that feeling I have spoken of came over me. It was
+a temptation, and&mdash;well, I and Mrs. Eve are a little alike in our
+feminine weaknesses; I'm glad I have Bible support in the disposition to
+fib a little that comes over me.</p>
+
+<p>"Do I know him?" said I. "Yes, intimately."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" says she.</p>
+
+<p>"You can judge how intimately," says I, smitten with compunction, and
+craw-fishing down into a deceiving truth, "when I tell you that I was an
+honored guest at his birthday party."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't say so!" says she.</p>
+
+<p>I didn't feel bound to remind her that I had said so, and only drew
+myself up a trifle, and waved my fan back and forth with a dignified
+movement.</p>
+
+<p>"And you really think well of him? But, then, he is an editor, and
+authors always have a sort of affinity for gentlemen of the press," says
+a pert young creature, twisting her head on one side, and coming up to
+me.</p>
+
+<p>"I think well of him," says I, "because he is a man that has worked his
+way up in the world by the hardest; studied wisdom from the type he was
+setting, when he had no time for books; worked like a Trojan to support
+himself days, then sat up half the night to improve his mind. Mr.
+Greeley is in all respects a self-made man. This nomination is but the
+proper and natural crown of a busy life like his, of integrity like his,
+and of wisdom like his."</p>
+
+<p>"You talk earnestly," says a gentleman, coming up into the little crowd
+that grew thick around me.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I feel earnestly," says I, a-doubling up my fan, and laying
+down the law with it. "I don't pretend to know a great deal about
+politics, but I do know something about the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>257<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> history of my country, and
+it has never been better governed than when self-made men have ruled
+over it; but here is something more&mdash;the editor of a great daily journal
+is gathering up knowledge and wisdom every day of his life. He has
+opportunities for watching events and judging of actions that prepare
+his own mind for the exercise of power when it comes. "Why," says I,
+warming up, "the greatest statesmen that you have are editors and
+self-made men. The fact is, men who have worked their own way in the
+world, haven't time to be rogues, and very seldom are even grasping. It
+is your lazy fellow, who lives by the cunning that he calls wits, who is
+not to be trusted. For my part, as two candidates have to be in the
+field to have a good run, I am glad that those Cincinnati folks had the
+sense to take a man right out of the bosom of the people to govern the
+people. Brought up so close to the public heart, he'll know how it
+beats. Having been a working man, he'll know how to feel for toilers
+like himself, just as General Grant now feels for the soldiers."</p>
+
+<p>"You talk like a book," says the young lady, a-twisting her head the
+other way.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know till you told me, miss, that books did talk," says I,
+opening my fan again.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, they do," says she, giggling.</p>
+
+<p>"Bound to talk, I suppose," says I, a-smiling in my usual bland way.</p>
+
+<p>They all laughed at this, but the girl looked around as if she wondered
+what it was all about.</p>
+
+<p>I just made a little inclination of the head, and went on:</p>
+
+<p>"We were speaking of self-made men, I think," says I; "such men have
+drifted away from New England, like shooting stars. Wherever they may
+shine, New England is proud of them, and claims them as her own; for
+this reason; and because I love my country, I am glad Horace Greeley is
+on the highway to be its next President. With him and Grant running neck
+to neck, I shan't care much which beats."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>258<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXI" id="LXI"></a>LXI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>WOMEN AND THINGS.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;I wish you could have seen that stuck-up thing, with all
+the color taken out of her hair, perking herself up for an argument with
+me. All the people in the room had crowded round us, which set her all
+in a flutter.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, pray excuse me," says she, a-shaking her curls, "we are broaching
+into politics, and I assure you," says she, a-primming herself up, "I
+know nothing about such subjects."</p>
+
+<p>"Why," says I, "you speak as if ignorance were something to be proud
+of."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I do not pretend to know anything of politics, at any rate," says
+she, a-coloring up with inward madness.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, what is politics," says I. "The history of the present? Why
+should the most refined lady on earth be ignorant of one period of
+history more than another?"</p>
+
+<p>"Politics are things going on at the present time, and no real lady is
+expected to take interest in them," says she.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the present time? The breath we are drawing&mdash;nothing more. That
+very breath has now gone into the past, which is history. All the rest
+is guess-work and prophecy," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me, how strong-minded you are," says she, giving her curls a toss;
+"I suppose you would be splendidly eloquent on Woman's Rights too."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said I, "all my life I have had more rights than I have known how
+to use, so I leave that question to persons who have no better field of
+ambition. Mine happens to be of a different kind. I want to make women
+wise, good, generous, faithful to duties that come down to them from
+their mothers. I want to improve women, miss, not turn them into
+contemptible men."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>259<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"By talking politics?" says she, as saucy as a sour apple; "what is the
+good of that if you don't go in for voting?"</p>
+
+<p>"What is the good of any knowledge which may be turned into blessings by
+woman's influence?" says I, blandly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you believe that women ought to have influence in politics," says
+she.</p>
+
+<p>"I think that women should have influence everywhere," said I, "but only
+as women. We are governed through the heart, and those finer portions of
+the intellect that people call taste. Men plant the grain and timber of
+every-day life with their strong hands, which God made for that very
+purpose. We women fill in the hollows and crevices and swelling banks
+with flowers and ferns and delicate shade-trees, which make the vigorous
+work of their strong hands beautiful."</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, I said this to that stuck-up girl because I wanted to express
+an opinion on this subject&mdash;first, because it was my opinion, and again,
+because I know that it is yours, going as you do for it in a spirit of
+feminine spontaneosity. I don't want the nature of our Society
+misunderstood. We are not Woman's Righters, nor Woman's Wrongers, but
+straight out women, wanting nothing better on this earth than to be just
+as God made us, with a full, free, and generous development of all the
+femininities that belong to the sex.</p>
+
+<p>For my part, I don't want to be a man; his work is too rough and hard
+for me. His thoughts have too heavy and coarse a grain. His clothes
+wouldn't fit me any better than his thoughts and duties.</p>
+
+<p>We being women, according to a beneficent God's intention, have got
+enough to occupy a whole life in the same path that our good old New
+England mothers trod. We don't want to get out of that path into any
+other, and we don't mean to entice the children that are growing up
+amongst us into an idea that pure-thinking, hard-working womanliness
+isn't the highest and best destiny that God has yet given to his
+creatures.</p>
+
+<p>I have no patience with women who scorn their own sex so much that they
+would rather turn into weak, meddlesome<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>260<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> men than work, study, bring up
+children, and live as high-souled, loving women should. As for voting
+and all that, it's just turning gold into brass, and getting nothing but
+the baser metal for change.</p>
+
+<p>Why, influence is a thousand times sweeter and more certain than legal
+power, and that is given to every woman who loves and is beloved.</p>
+
+<p>As for my part, I should be ashamed if I couldn't persuade ever so many
+men to do any right thing I wanted. Shouldn't I be a fool to swap off
+that influence for the rights that only one man owns for himself?</p>
+
+<p>If women want power, let them be sweet, good, and persuasive, wise
+enough to have their opinions command respect, and bright enough to
+enforce them pleasantly. That is the way to move nations, if the mind of
+woman ever can do it. At any rate, it is the way to govern families and
+make them respectable in the next generation; and out of families
+nations are made.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you ever noticed one thing?" says I to the people about me.
+"Whenever women get dissatisfied with themselves and hanker after the
+rights of men, the very foundations of life seem to be breaking up all
+around us. Marriage ties fall into ashes like fire in hatcheled flax,
+morals are burned up, families torn to pieces, and society falls into
+revolt against law and religion. When women begin to hanker after votes,
+they hanker after divorces too, and, while they want unlimited power
+with men, throw away the noblest of all power over men&mdash;that of honest
+respect and a sacred consciousness of protecting."</p>
+
+<p>If women will break through all the delicate safeguards and childlike
+purity which keeps them so much above men, that they are aspired after
+and worshipped, let them take the consequences. To be hustled in
+conventions, hissed off from platforms, and received with hidden sneers
+by three-fourths of mankind, doesn't seem to me half so pleasant and
+respectable as the friendship of one's neighbors, and the love of one's
+own family; but, if they like it better, I haven't the least mite of an
+objection.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>261<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> Only such things force an honest woman into awful bad
+company once in a while, and it sometimes happens that ambition leads
+them to shake hands with persons that sweet charity itself could never
+persuade the best of them to touch with a ten-foot pole.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't think," says I, "that I go against female progress, or would stop
+its infinite capabilities&mdash;far from it. There are questions mixed up
+with this subject that ought to have our warmest sympathy and most
+ardent help. Female labor is one of them, and in that lies the greatest
+moral question of these times.</p>
+
+<p>"When a woman finds herself doing the work nature carved out for her,
+with a man crowding her out, doing no more, yet getting double pay, only
+because he happens to be a man, it is a burning shame and disgrace to
+both sexes. If that injustice can't be swept away by fair means, I go in
+for trying any that a female woman can handle without bringing herself
+down to a level with the males who seem to be as sick of being men as
+some of our sex are of being women.</p>
+
+<p>"Still, it seems to me that the best way of doing this is by such
+appeals for justice as have brought the women of New York State more
+freedom than they know what to do with. At this day there is no legal
+slavery for any woman in the great Empire State. The fact is, the women
+there have got their feet on the necks of the men. But this don't
+satisfy them, and they are all the time crying out for more, as the
+Scripture says, like the leeches&mdash;which is a passage of Scripture that I
+never have quite understood, because leeches in our day suck your
+<i>blood</i> without asking, and I never yet heard of one who went farther
+than a bite in the way of crying out.</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me," says I, drawing breath, "if I sometimes digress, and turn
+down a Scripture path in search of scientific truth or illustration. I
+was saying that a woman in New York State is to all intents and purposes
+master of herself&mdash;herself and husband too. If she has money when a poor
+fellow marries her, it is all her own to do with as she has a mind to,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>262<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+just as much as if she had never been married at all. But he has to
+support her, anyway, keep up the house, pay all the bills, settle her
+debts, if she is mean enough to make them, and she can be hoarding up
+her own money all the time, while he has no more right to touch a cent
+of it than the man in the moon.</p>
+
+<p>"More than this; when he dies, she comes in for a full third of his real
+estate for life, and has half his personal property, to sell, give away,
+or do with as she pleases. If <i>she</i> dies, he cannot touch a red cent.
+Then, again, she can sell all the real estate that belongs to her,
+without so much as asking his advice, but he cannot sell an acre or a
+wood-shed, and give a clear title, without her written name to the deed.
+Then, again, if he earns money, the law makes him support her; if she
+earns money, he has no right to a cent of it.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor, downtrodden creatures are these women of New York State&mdash;don't
+you think so," says I. "Is it a wonder they get dissatisfied with their
+hardships, and hanker after more power, more freedom, and less work?
+When marriage is so profitable, is it strange that some of them want a
+great deal of it, and go through the divorce courts three or four times
+with a rush, picking up scraps of alimony and leaving scraps of
+reputation along the way.</p>
+
+<p>"If it wasn't that I mean to stand by my own sex through thick and thin,
+I should say that the laws lean a trifle over on the woman's side in
+York State; but, being a woman, I keep a lively thinking, while the
+other poor, downtrodden souls rush to the women's rights meetings, and
+wring their hands in desperation over the wrongs I have just explained."</p>
+
+<p>"But what has this to do with your Society?" says Cousin E. E.</p>
+
+<p>"Everything. We are in for Infinite Progress. We want women to be all
+that God intended them to be&mdash;the full companions and helpmates of men.
+We want them to cultivate all the Christian and kindly virtues, not only
+because they make women lovely and beloved, but because men are
+humanized,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>263<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> softened, and made better by such help and such
+companionship. When men seek peace, rest, the inspirations of prayer,
+they turn at once to us for tender guidance and sympathy. Would they do
+that if we elbowed them at the polls, or held knock-down arguments at
+the primary elections? No, no! If we can soften human misery, strengthen
+weakness, make women wiser and men better, it is all that the best woman
+among us can ask."</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, I had got too much in earnest. I felt the blood come like a
+dash of wine into my face. It seemed to me as if I were on a platform,
+lecturing, and the thought covered me with confusion, like a crimson
+garment. I bent my head slightly, and went away dreadfully ashamed of
+myself.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXII" id="LXII"></a>LXII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>A TRIP TO ANNAPOLIS.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;Another of those pleasant excursional entertainments
+which this nation gives to genius in the female line has been offered to
+me, and I accepted. For my part, I think the country ought to be
+encouraged in giving these little testimonials to her favored children.
+She hasn't done much of that in former years, but has practised a good
+deal more on foreigners than she has ever thought of doing where
+home-made writers are concerned.</p>
+
+<p>Them Japanee potentials always seem to go along when an entertainment is
+got up for me, and, if that didn't rather mix things up, I should be
+glad of it; for Mr. Iwakura is just splendid in his black coat and
+stovepipe hat, and talks beautifully with his little black eyes; I feel
+it in my bones he has not left a heathenish impediment behind, or
+anything that ought to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>264<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> stand between him and a wife who might carry
+fresh missionary spirit into his benighted land.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, all the other Japanees were on hand, and seemed to feel proud
+and chipper, as if the party had been made for them instead of me; but I
+didn't mind that a bit. Even if they did think so, what harm? There is
+so much happiness in delusions, that I wouldn't rob those nice-looking
+heathens of one for the world.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the Japanees, a very distinguished party had been invited to go
+with me, and I couldn't help but feel the whole thing a triumph.</p>
+
+<p>There was Postmaster-General Creswell, with a head of hair and a beard
+that warmed you, it was so silky and bright. There was his wife, too, a
+real pretty creature, with manners as sweet as her face; and Mrs. Fish,
+almost a mate for a lady I will not name for queenliness; and Governor
+Cook with his wife. Besides these, there were lots of young people, and
+old people, and middle-aged people, filling car after car, till we had a
+whole train all to ourselves. The party was large, but so is a genuine
+New England heart, and I managed to make them all welcome in an
+off-handed, queenly way, which I hope was understood. It certainly was
+by Mr. Iwakura, who lifted his stovepipe hat and bowed like a native
+Vermonter before he sat down.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, I do think there is a meaning in that&mdash;a Japanee isn't likely
+to study the elegancies of our manners for nothing. Still, I wish he
+wasn't a heathen. The Greek Church of Russia sat heavy on my conscience,
+but a heathen! I shall have to meet all this politeness with the icy
+chill of Christian reserve, unless&mdash;the thing is possible, for, to love,
+all things are so&mdash;that heathen should adopt our religion with the
+stovepipe hat.</p>
+
+<p>There was a thing that troubled me a good deal before I came away from
+the hotel that morning. I have been told that Mr. Grant and our Vermont
+statesman have got up a little spirit of rivalry about being
+President&mdash;a thing I never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>265<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> dreamed of, they seemed such good friends,
+and, till now, I thought Mr. Grant had kind of half invited his old
+friend to take the chair. But it isn't so by any manner of means, and
+I'm afraid there may be some little dispute about it in the end, which
+will be unpleasant to those who like them both.</p>
+
+<p>Now, sisters, here comes in the benefit of being a female, which is
+great in such perplexing cases. Female women are not expected to be
+consistent, and they're not expected to take sides for any great length
+of time. They can just climb any fence that comes handy, and sit on it
+with the dignity of hen turkeys at sundown if they have a mind to, and
+no one has a right to scare them up. But, considering myself as an
+exceptional female, whose duty it is to have ideas, I scorn the fence,
+and come right up to the crib, corn or no corn.</p>
+
+<p>It is a duty I owe to the State, and from that I shall never turn aside.
+Besides&mdash;I own it boldly&mdash;in this case duty and a hilarious state of
+pleasure unite and make me jubilant as a Fourth of July salute. I like
+Greeley because he is first-rate as an author, an editor, and a man. I
+admire Grant as a brave soldier and as a man too, but then, the old
+State! I don't care who knows it&mdash;from this day out, white is my color.</p>
+
+<p>But, feeling this in my very bones, how could I accept the great
+national compliment of a special train filled with admiring friends from
+the Government, which is General Grant?</p>
+
+<p>I spoke of this to Cousin Dempster, and, says he:</p>
+
+<p>"This makes no difference in the world. Take all you can from the
+Government. That is high patriotism."</p>
+
+<p>I shook my head.</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin," says I, "it kind of seems to me that this special train is a
+sort of a trap. How can I, a free-born Vermonter&mdash;national in some
+respects, and brimming over with first-class patriotism, but Vermont to
+the back-bone&mdash;first and foremost, lead off a party like this, one car
+choke full of Mr. Grant's cabinet people. Now, if Mr. Greeley and Mr.
+Grant should rile up against each other&mdash;which I hope they won't&mdash;don't
+you see that I am in an awful mixed position?&mdash;the National<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>266<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> Government
+on one side with that stupendous soldier at the head, and that great
+white-hatted Vermonter on the other?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is, you want to be neutral," says Dempster.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, yes&mdash;kind of neutral," says I, "and a little for both."</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly on the fence, but cautious," says he; "keep your boat in
+harbor till the tide rises and the wind blows, then hoist sail and catch
+up with the old craft that has been tugging on in shallow water?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," says I, feeling the old Puritan blood beginning to boil up. "That
+may answer for some people, but not for me. An idea has just struck me;
+a woman's political ideas should be suggested, not proclaimed."</p>
+
+<p>Without speaking another word, I put on my things, went right down to
+Pennsylvania Avenue, and bought a soft white hat, a little broad in the
+brim, which I turned up on one side. Then I went into a milliner's
+store, carrying it in my hand, and made a woman curl a long white
+feather over the crown, which gave the whole affair a touch of the
+beehive, stamping it with beautiful femininity.</p>
+
+<p>With this hat on my head, and a double-breasted white jacket over my
+black alpaca, I took my honored place in the cars that day.</p>
+
+<p>Of course I sat in the cabinet car, feeling myself the sole
+representative of Vermont in that august company. The ladies looked at
+me sidewise when I came in; some of the cabinet men half winked at each
+other and tried to smile. But that white hat was no laughing matter, and
+they wilted down before it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>267<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXIII" id="LXIII"></a>LXIII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>AMONG THE CADETS.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;The train started, and there I sat in my glory till we
+got to Annapolis, just the sleepiest town, crowded full of the oldest
+houses and the slowest people that I ever saw in my born days. Some
+colored persons were dawdling around the depot, and a few lazy white
+folks passing down the street, stopped to look at us as we got out of
+the cars. Especially my white hat and double-breasted jacket seemed to
+take them.</p>
+
+<p>Once I heard something that sounded like the beginning of a cheer, but
+the voices were so lazy that they couldn't carry it out, so it muttered
+itself to death, and that was the end of it.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty of the Japanees were with me when I alighted from the car and
+spread my white parasol, which hovered like a dove over us, for I made
+it flutter beautifully as we passed along.</p>
+
+<p>The cabinet people followed after, and just as we were forming to go
+down street, like a military training, my white hat and feather leading
+them on, a gentleman came up to us and began to shake hands all round.
+He was a tall, genteel sort of a person, with light hair and a beard
+soft and silky as corn tassels; but all under his eyes, blue powder
+marks were scattered, as if he'd spent half his life firing off Fourth
+of July powder salutes, and had burst up on some of them.</p>
+
+<p>While I was wondering who it could be, Mr. Robeson, who has some
+dealings with navy yards and shipping, come up to where I stood, and
+says he:</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Frost, allow me to present Commodore Worden, the gentleman who
+distinguished himself on the first Monitor."</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, that minute the powder marks on Worden's handsome face were
+glorified in my eyes. I reached out my hands. I pressed his, my beaming
+eyes covered him with particular<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>268<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> admiration. Feeling as if I were the
+colonel of that company, I longed to lift my white hat and give him a
+military salute. What I did say was significant.</p>
+
+<p>"Worden," says I, "when certain events come about&mdash;I say nothing, but
+this hat and jacket are typical of what I mean&mdash;when these great and
+luminous events fill the hemisphere your glorious bravery on that iron
+flat-boat shall have its full record. I will myself send your picture to
+the great Grand Duke of all the Russias, and if there is a higher notch
+in the public shipping than you have, I know nothing of the friend whose
+colors I wear if anybody stands before you. I have seen the picture of
+your Monitor. To my eye it looks like a flat-iron, with the handle in
+the water; but it did good work, and so did you. Grant knows it. My own
+immortal statesman will appreciate it."</p>
+
+<p>Commodore Worden bowed, and smiled, and squoze my hand so long that I
+began to feel anxious about my white gloves. But he dropped it at last,
+and we all moved on, my white feather waving in front, just like that
+which King Henry of Navarre wore in battles. Only mine was a peaceful
+emblem, dyed in the milk of human kindness, and curled up in the
+sunshine of prosperity.</p>
+
+<p>We marched through dull streets and round deserted corners, cutting in
+and out every which way till we came to a large gate, which shut the
+Navy Yard out from the rest of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>Then we filed through into a beautiful meadow, with the grass cut short,
+sprinkled over with trees, and cut into footpaths. Part of it was
+bounded by water, the rest by rows of handsome houses and great
+buildings that looked like factories shut up for want of work.</p>
+
+<p>The minute I and Mr. Iwakura walked through the gate, bang! went a
+cannon; bang, bang, bang! seventeen times.</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth is that?" says I, turning to Dempster, who was just
+behind me.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a salute for us," says he.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>269<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Us!" says I, with accents of disdain that put him in his place at once.</p>
+
+<p>"For you, then," says he, smiling in a way I didn't like, for, having no
+envy in my own disposition, I cannot endure it in others.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Iwakura and I walked on slowly. He looked at me and smiled as the
+guns kept going off, till I counted seventeen; then they stopped and I
+was glad of it, for I remembered that our meeting-house bell tolls once
+for every year, when a person dies, and I felt a little anxious about
+the number of guns they might pile on to live folks. But they stopped
+short at seventeen, which is an age no girl need be ashamed to own, and
+which showed how young some persons can look in spite of hard literary
+toil.</p>
+
+<p>Well, first we went into Commodore Worden's house, where Mr. Iwakura and
+I were introduced to Mrs. Worden and some other ladies. Then the rest
+came in for a little notice, and we filed off into the grounds again,
+where there was a general training of boys in blue jackets, with buttons
+and things, all armed with guns, which they handled like old militia
+men. Sometimes, when they poked their guns right at us, I kind of got
+behind Mr. Iwakura, who, being small, wasn't much of a shelter, but
+better than nothing. In fact, I was rather glad when this part of the
+fun died out.</p>
+
+<p>After this, we went into one of the big houses where the blue boys live,
+and a whole lot of little, make-believe ships were shown to us, and two
+Japanee boys told Mr. I. how they were worked&mdash;which would have been
+interesting, only we didn't know a word of that language, nor much about
+the baby-house of ships, and didn't listen to what was said in English.</p>
+
+<p>Then the boys in blue and buttons went into the meadow again, and got
+out a lot of small cannon, and banged, and ran in lines and squads down
+to the river, as if they were awful mad with the water and meant to dam
+it&mdash;dam it up, I wish you to understand, for even indirect profanity
+isn't in my nature.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>270<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>After this, we all went down to a great, lumbering old ship, which is
+all the home these blue boys have the first year they come to the
+Annapolis school, which, being a sailor institution, gives them a taste
+for creeping into holes and sleeping on a yard or two of rope swung to
+the ship's beams&mdash;which may be pleasant fun, but doesn't look like it.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, it was getting along in the day, and, though in a certain sense
+spiritualized by genius, I was hungry. Mr. Iwakura, too, had a pitiful
+look in his black eyes; but a storm of music called us from hankering
+thoughts, and we all streamed, at a faster double-quick than the boys
+could show, into the great dining-room of one of the big houses. A
+splendid table was set out there, which we gathered round like a
+half-starved regiment on training-day. Then began such a practice in
+cider bottles, flying corks, and cider foaming and fizzing into glasses,
+as beat all the cannon and howitzer blazings of the day&mdash;for that ended
+in something, and the rest didn't.</p>
+
+<p>It is astonishing what effect eating and drinking has on the feet; I
+could hardly keep from dancing all the way from that dining-hall to the
+other building, which is kept especially for dancing. Well, we did
+dance, for the music just took one right into the midst of it, want to
+or not. Besides, we hadn't been to a tomb, and nobody had been killed,
+so we just went in for it. My alpaca dress isn't over long, and I wasn't
+afraid of showing my feet when there was no train to tangle them up. We
+danced with our bonnets and hats on&mdash;we ladies, I mean&mdash;and the way my
+white feather rose and fell and fluttered over the rest was enough to
+wake up the American heart in every bosom present.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>271<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXIV" id="LXIV"></a>LXIV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>AMERICAN AUTHORS.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;You have heard of Mr. Shakespeare, a writer of old
+England, who died, years and years ago, in a little country place in
+England. He was celebrated for several things besides writing. Going to
+sleep under trees is one of them; shooting deer that belonged to
+somebody else&mdash;who took him up and made an awful time about it before a
+justice of the peace, who fined him, or something&mdash;is another. Then,
+again, he married an elderly girl, and forgot to live with her ever so
+long. While she stayed at home, he went up to London, and wrote plays
+and played them before her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, who ought to have
+reminded him of his married elderly girl, being her own royal self of
+that class, only not married. There is no reason to think she did have
+much influence in that direction though, for that particular queen was
+more celebrated for keeping husbands away from their wives than bringing
+them cosily together.</p>
+
+<p>The truth is, from the very first&mdash;when she got up a series of romping
+platonics with Lord Seymour, her step-mother's husband, to her last,
+gray-headed old flirtation with the young Essex&mdash;her taste ran against
+the practical idea of husbands living with their own wives. That
+non-matrimonial creature may have tried her power on Shakespeare&mdash;who
+knows?</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, there is one part of this man's life and character that may
+shock your religious feelings. <i>He wrote plays</i>; <i>he acted plays too</i>;
+and that female queen encouraged him in it. Now, ever since I went to
+see the "Black Crook," I scorn myself for ever having one mite of
+charity for such things, and I haven't the conscience to say one word in
+their favor to you, as a Society. Still, this Mr. Shakespeare did write
+some things<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>272<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> that might have sounded tolerably well in a lecture or a
+sermon that wasn't too strictly doctrinal.</p>
+
+<p>Last night I was talking with a lawyer from away "Out West," who spoke
+real kindly about Mr. Shakespeare's writings, and seemed to think if he
+had put off being born until now, and settled "Out West," where he could
+have given him a hint now and then, he might have made a first-rate
+literary man. "Even as it is," says he, "I do my best to make him
+popular, for he wrote some very readable things&mdash;very readable, indeed.
+For instance, not long since, in an exciting slander case, I quoted
+these lines, with a burning eloquence that lifted the judge right off
+from his bench:</p>
+
+<div class="block4">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="io">"'He,' says I, 'that steals my purse, steals stuff;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Twas something, t'aint nothing, t'was mine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Tis hisen, and has been slave to thousands;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But he that hooketh from me my good name,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Grabs that which don't do him no good,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But makes me feel very bad indeed.'"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>"Is that the genuine old English that Mr. Shakespeare wrote in?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that is the beauty of it," says he. "Shakspeare was no doubt a very
+respectable writer, but perfection is the watch-word of modern progress.
+Of course one doesn't introduce a quotation of his without all the
+modern improvements. Shakespeare&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Mr</i>. Shakspeare," says I, determined to keep up the dignity of
+authorship with my last breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr. Shakspeare would have made a very superior writer if he had
+lived in this country and been fostered by an American Congress."</p>
+
+<p>"An American Congress," says I. "What on earth did that ever do for
+writers?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, don't it publish books for the members to give away. Isn't that
+encouraging literature?"</p>
+
+<p>I said nothing, never having read one of the books in my life, and never
+having seen any one that had.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>273<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then," says he, "hasn't every man that can write the life of a
+President of these United States before his election, been made an
+ambassador, or counsel, or something? Didn't Pierce send Hawthorne to
+Liverpool, not because of his transcendant genius, but for the reason
+that he had written a paltry life of himself?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Mr.</i> Hawthorne," says I, with expressive emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>"And didn't General Grant send Colonel Badeau to London, after his life
+was taken by that young man?"</p>
+
+<p>"I give in," says I; "the literature of this country has been fostered
+beautifully. Hawthorne was rewarded for degrading the finest genius this
+country has ever known, by writing a commonplace life of a ordinary man;
+and Adam Badeau was made a colonel, and is now figuring in London,
+because all the talent he ever had was crowded into such a book. Yes, I
+give in. But one thing is to be relied on, each of the Presidents
+struggling to rule over this country next, has brains enough to write
+his own life. Grant has written his out with a sword, and Greeley can
+handle his own pen. He won't have any debts of that kind to pay off, and
+I'm awfully mistaken if the authors of this country won't stand almost
+as high with him as corporals in the army do now. In his time bayonets
+will be stacked, and pens have their day. During the next four years I
+shouldn't wonder if Mr. Shakspeare might have a little chance if he were
+alive."</p>
+
+<p>"That puts me in mind," says the Western gentleman, "that a statue of
+Shakspeare is going to be unveiled in the New York Central Park
+to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow?" says I; "then I'm off to New York to see it done. By and
+by, when we have put all the British authors in marble, some one born in
+America may get a chance."</p>
+
+<p>"But Shakespeare belongs to the world," says Cousin Dempster, who was
+sitting near me.</p>
+
+<p>"All men or women of genius belong to the world," says I, "just as far
+as the world knows them; but the country in which a great man or woman
+was born, and has lived and written,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>274<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> is the place where he should be
+first honored. Have we done anything of that kind yet? I'm not saying
+one word against Mr. Shakespeare; his monument ought to be in the most
+beautiful spot we have; but let the next statue be that of some
+first-class American. Mr. Shakespeare belongs to us as much as he did to
+England, because when he lived England was our country, and he belongs
+to us now. But since then we have cut loose from the Old World, and
+built up a powerful nation, where great authors, both men and women,
+have worked out their own birthright of genius, with no help but the
+power God has given them&mdash;worked it out, too, with not half the
+recognition that our Government and our people, to their shame be it
+spoken, have given to coarser and weaker intellects from over the sea."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Ph&oelig;mie," says Cousin Dempster, "don't get so excited; do you
+know that you are talking like a book?"</p>
+
+<p>"It must be an English book if any American takes much notice of it,"
+says I; "but rile me up on this subject, and I don't know or care how I
+talk. In our part of the country we are Americans to the backbone, and
+we mean to keep so."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but this statue of Shakespeare was first thought of by the actors
+who have been living over his plays years and years&mdash;Booth, Wallack,
+Wheatley, and your dead and gone Halleck, set it a-going.</p>
+
+<p>"What Shakespeare did for theatres, theatre people know how to
+acknowledge. They have some spirit; but what author ever comes forward
+and asks a place for his fellow-author? How can they expect the country
+to be generous to them when they do nothing for each other?"</p>
+
+<p>It kind of took me down when Cousin Dempster said this, and not having
+anything to observe, I said nothing, but got right up, and says I:</p>
+
+<p>"If we mean to start for New York, it's time to be getting ready."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>275<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXV" id="LXV"></a>LXV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE STATUE OF SHAKESPEARE.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/w.jpg" width="60" height="60" alt="W" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">W</span>ELL, sisters, we got to New York in time, and went right up to Central
+Park, which was just one garden of flowers, all in full bloom. The
+trees, too, were of a bright, lovely green, and the little lakes blue as
+a baby's eye, sparkled and rippled wherever the sun shone and the wind
+swept over them. A wide green circle, with lots of trees shading it, and
+great heaps of bushes heavy with pink and white flowers everywhere
+around it, was just alive with men and women. They were all in their
+Sunday go-to-meeting best, some on the grass, some in carriages, and all
+chatting, laughing, and enjoying themselves mightily, but crowding
+toward one spot.</p>
+
+<p>Under these trees, where the grass was greenest, and the flowers
+brightest, there was a sort of pyramid, covered over with star-spangled
+banners of bright silk. Sweeping round that, like a ring cut in two,
+were platforms with rows on rows of seats, built against flag-poles,
+from which ever so many flags were a-streaming out on the wind. These
+seats were crammed and crowded full of people. The centre platform was
+roofed in, and just running over with men holding fiddles, drums,
+twisted horns, trumpets, great puffy bass viols, and everything else
+that could turn music into thunder, and thunder back into music.</p>
+
+<p>There was an inside circle nearer to the pyramid, and our tickets took
+us there, among the greatest people of the country, which was an honor I
+felt in behalf of the society. This was the penetralia, which, I
+suppose, from the first syllable, was got up especially for authors. I
+took my seat in that honored place, and, spreading my white parasol,
+looked about me, feeling the exaltation of my position in a modest way,
+but willing that others should make their little mark even if I was
+there.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>276<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Well, the first thing that came was a crash that made me hop right up,
+and near about break my parasol. No wonder; for more than a hundred men
+were just flooding the air with music, that rose and fell and fluttered
+till the trees and bushes shook under it. I do believe the sweetness and
+the thundering outbursts would have inspired me to break into some good
+old tune myself, if there hadn't been so much rustling and talking and
+flirting all around me. As it was, there arose a clatter of confusing
+sounds that gave one's nerves a jerky feeling that I for one haven't got
+over yet. I do wonder why city people have no better manners. I should
+just as soon think of speaking out in meeting, as of chattering when
+others wanted to listen to music.</p>
+
+<p>Well, after a hard tussle between the people and the music, the people
+came out first-best&mdash;more shame to 'em. Then a gentleman they call Judge
+Daly&mdash;a real nice-looking person&mdash;got out and reached out his arms
+toward the pyramid, wrapped up in flags.</p>
+
+<p>The minute he did this all the people began to stamp and clap their
+hands, and fling out their handkerchiefs as if they had gone crazy. The
+more he tried to speak, the more they stamped and clapped and shouted;
+and he kept a-bowing real graceful, till by and by they stopped and let
+him speak.</p>
+
+<p>Then he went right on and told them all about the statue, which ought to
+have been done and put up on the day that Mr. Shakespeare was three
+hundred years old, only the statue wasn't ready then, but that was of no
+account, when we considered how beautiful the whole thing was, and what
+an honor it would be to American art. Judge Daly was all alive with this
+idea, and spoke splendidly. When he had done, I just laid down my
+parasol, and clapped my hands till a pair of three-button gloves gave
+out. Sisters, that one clap cost me just three dollars and fifty cents.</p>
+
+<p>When Judge Daly sat down, a gentleman walked up to the pyramid, and
+stood by it looking awful pale and anxious, as if the thousands and
+thousands of eyes bent on him had drawn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>277<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> all the blood from his body. He
+was a fine, handsome-looking man, and somehow I took a shine to him at
+first sight.</p>
+
+<p>All at once his face flushed up, and I saw that he held the end of a
+rope in his hand. While I was a-looking and wondering, he gave the rope
+a jerk, and down come those silk flags, all in a wild flutter, and there
+stood Mr. Shakespeare as if he'd just stopped to rest a minute after
+walking, and had been struck with an idea which he was thinking over.
+His head was just a little bent, and he held a book up against his
+bosom, with his finger between the leaves.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Shakespeare must have been a proper handsome man about two hundred
+and seventy-five years ago. No wonder that elderly young lady fell in
+love with him. I could have done it myself, not because I am elderly,
+far from it, but because he was&mdash;well, I suppose because he was
+Shakespeare, and awful handsome at that.</p>
+
+<p>Queen Elizabeth must have given him the suit of clothes he wears; for
+when I said his trousers were too puffy and short for my liking, and his
+cloak nothing to speak of in the way of a covering, a gentleman near me
+said the dress was Elizabethan.</p>
+
+<p>This rather set me against the memory of Mr. S. He ought to have died
+rather than take anything from that cruel, hard-hearted old&mdash;I was going
+to say old maid, but refrain, not wishing to be hard on her, cruel as
+she was.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, mercy, what a shout that was. It seemed as if every heart in that
+great crowd had burst out in a glow of admiration. Mine just fluttered
+like a night hawk. I stood up and whirled the white parasol over my
+head; more than that, I split the other glove, and was glad of it.</p>
+
+<p>That Mr. Ward had been working eight years on the statue he had just
+uncovered, and our enthusiasm was his best reward. There he stood face
+to face with the people, who were to give him pain or cruel
+disappointment. I felt for him. No wonder his face turned white and then
+red as fire. Years of labor for one hour of triumph. He deserved all the
+praise he got, and that was stupendous.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>278<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>The statue was now all uncovered, and the sunshine lay upon it. Sisters,
+it is beautiful; but one thing troubles me&mdash;the color. Was Mr.
+Shakespeare of that complexion, or has the great man been darkened out
+of regard to the Fifteenth Amendment and Mr. Sumner? When a man is
+statued in bronze, does he always turn out a mulatto? I don't like the
+idea&mdash;it's carrying the Civil Rights Bill too far.</p>
+
+<p>Judge Daly had made a present of this statue to the park, in his speech.
+Now Mr. Stebbins, the President of the Park Commissioners, came forward
+and thanked him for it in the nicest way. He was just the man to do it,
+though he is a broker and banker; for he cares quite as much for art as
+he does for gold. Wherever he finds genius, this man spends his money
+like dew upon it. It was he that gave Miss Kellogg her first start in
+music, and a good many other stragglers have secretly been helped by him
+when they felt almost like giving up. For my part, I honor and glorify
+such men.</p>
+
+<p>The next thing I saw was a grand-looking old man, with a long, white
+beard falling over his bosom, and soft, white hair floating about his
+head. I held my breath when this man arose, and while the crowd yelled
+and shouted and made the ground tremble under me, I looked at him with
+my heart in my eyes. What Shakespeare was to England, this old man is to
+America&mdash;the best part of the land that gave him birth. He made a long
+speech, a beautiful speech. I have read his poems, so have you; but the
+poetry of his spoken words, of his voice and looks, is grander than
+written language, and nothing that I can write will give you the least
+idea of it.</p>
+
+<p>For my part, I hope that the next statue set up in the park will be that
+of William Cullen Bryant. What is the reason that we should wait till a
+man is dead before we give back something for the genius with which he
+has honored his country? The readers that may come up three hundred
+years from now owe him no more than we do. What are we waiting for,
+then? When Mr. Bryant sat down, there was another earthquake of
+applause, which had but just time to stop, when it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>279<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> burst out again for
+Edwin Booth. The best actor, and one of the handsomest men you ever saw,
+came forward and read a long piece of poetry, which just made the blood
+stir like wine in your veins. There was a double gust of genius in this
+poem; because the poet Stoddard wrote it, and then Booth gave it the
+fire of his soul and the music of his voice, which seemed to float and
+whisper around the statue long after the crowd had scattered itself over
+the park.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXVI" id="LXVI"></a>LXVI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>RACING DRESSES.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;Don't be startled; don't hold up your hands in holy
+astonishment when I tell you that I&mdash;Ph&oelig;mie Frost&mdash;your moral and&mdash;I
+say it meekly&mdash;religious missionary, have been to a horse-race. I am
+shocked myself now, in the cool of the morning, not exactly because I
+went, but from what happened after I got there.</p>
+
+<p>Have I done wrong? Can a missionary, without knowledge, do her duty? If
+she knows nothing of sin, how can she warn against sin?</p>
+
+<p>Then, again, is the running of swift horses sinful?</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, I am troubled. The more one knows, the more one is perplexed
+and put about. It is so easy to condemn things by the wholesale that you
+know nothing about. One can speak so positive about them, for total
+ignorance admits of no argument, and is entirely above all evidence.
+That is why ignorant stubbornness is so self-satisfied and comfortable.</p>
+
+<p>After all, I begin to think that "ignorance is bliss." Is there anything
+on this earth more snoozily comfortable than a litter of white pigs
+revelling with their mother in a mud-puddle&mdash;say in August? What do
+these contented animals<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>280<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> care for the mud that soils their whiteness,
+with the pink skin shining through&mdash;rosy pigs, as one may call the kind
+I am speaking of. Think of them muzzling about in the rily water, free
+as air; then turn to your learned pig, chained to a master by the forced
+action of its own intellect&mdash;poor thing! obliged to play cards with its
+fore-foot, teach geography, and cipher out numbers like a
+schoolmaster&mdash;and then say if ignorance isn't bliss! Look in the little
+black eyes of the animal, and see the sad and hungry look that knowledge
+has brought to him!</p>
+
+<p>To know is to want&mdash;to want is to suffer.</p>
+
+<p>Where was I? Speaking about horses, naturally I wandered off down to
+other grades of animals&mdash;the laziest, largest, best-natured creatures of
+all&mdash;but, as you may observe with propriety, not suggestive of
+horse-races, which I admit and apologize for.</p>
+
+<p>Well, right or wrong, I have been to the races at Jerome Park, which is
+a hollow among the hills, clear out of New York, and the other side of
+Harlem River. There, every spring and fall, the best horses owned about
+here are set a-going like wildfire, and the one that beats is thought
+the world of.</p>
+
+<p>The park isn't much of a piece of woods, after all; a good-sized maple
+camp in Vermont has got twice as many trees, but then a good deal of it
+is turned out to grass. Then, again, a level turnpike curls in a ring
+all round one of the hills, and on the top of that is a kind of hotel,
+or long tavern, with a tremendous stoop stretched around it, where the
+upper-crust of fast horsedom crowd in to see the creatures run.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hillside, right against the tavern, is a great long, open
+shed, with seats after seats sloping down from the inside, where the
+lower-crust of fast horsedom crowd in from the railroads, and so on.
+They have to pay for going in, but, for all that, haven't a right to go
+across to the upper side, which must be aggravating.</p>
+
+<p>All the men that go to the upper-crust tavern wear a huge round thing
+with a ribbon fastened to their coats, and strut<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>281<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> awfully under them, as
+if they were the crowning glory of all creation. Maybe they are; I don't
+know, not being highly educated in horsiness.</p>
+
+<p>Well, Cousin Dempster has one of these medals, which he hitched to the
+lappel of his coat that morning. Cousin E. E. had been fidgeting awfully
+all the week about a dress she was bent on wearing, and when it didn't
+come home from the dress-maker's till late the night before, I really
+thought she would take a fit right before us all. But the dress came at
+last, and then she wheeled right round the other way with joy.</p>
+
+<p>"Such a dress!" says she. "There won't be anything to match it. All my
+own idea, too"</p>
+
+<p>Here she tumbled a cataract of silk from a great paper box, and shook it
+out till it fluttered like the leaves on a young maple-tree.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it superb?" says she; "peacock green and peacock blue
+intermingled like a poem, sloping folds up the front breadth two and
+two, bunching splendidly behind, frilled, flounced, corded, folded,
+trailing, and yet demi to a large extent. Cousin Frost, Cousin Frost!
+did you ever see anything so original, so&mdash;so&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Scrumptious," says I, a-helping her out, "peacock green and peacock
+blue; if we only had the half-moons on the train now."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at me earnestly; her soul had taken in the thought, and it
+burned in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, why didn't I think of that?" says she.</p>
+
+<p>I smiled. It takes genius to understand the fine irony of genius. Cousin
+E. E. is bright, but the subtle originality of a new thought isn't in
+her. That usually does in a family what this Government is trying so
+hard for&mdash;centralizes itself in one person.</p>
+
+<p>It is not difficult to say where this supreme essence condenses itself
+in our family. Still, I do not object to other members making their
+little mark, and if E. E. can make hers in the peacock line, why not?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>282<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>To my fancy, that dress was a nation sight too much. It was all in a
+flutter, silk heaped on silk. E. E. tried it on, and fairly waded in
+silk when she walked. There was neither elegance nor simplicity in it,
+nothing but a sickening idea of extravagance and money.</p>
+
+<p>E. E. looked like a peacock, walked like a peacock, and seemed to feel
+like one. She took a little mite of a bonnet from a box that came just
+after the dress, and put it on. It was shaped like the small end of a
+loaf of sugar, with a pink rose and a bunch of green and blue feathers
+on the top, bee-hivy in height, but brigandish in shape, slightly
+pastoral, and a little military.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it stylish?" says she, setting it on the top of her curls and
+puffs, with such an air.</p>
+
+<p>"Original," says I, "but you know which is <i>my</i> color."</p>
+
+<p>E. E. laughed till the feathers shook on her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" says she, "Dempster and I are prudent. After the middle of July
+perhaps we may&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Till then," says I, "you'll sit on the fence peacock fashion."</p>
+
+<p>We had more words, for E. E. is nobody's fool; but just then Cecilia
+came in, and I made myself scarce.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXVII" id="LXVII"></a>XLVII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE FIRST HORSE-RACE.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/w.jpg" width="60" height="60" alt="W" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">W</span>ELL, we started for the races in high feather. Cousin D. had just got
+his open carriage cushioned off beautifully. His horses had rosettes on
+their heads, and little looking-glasses about as big as a dollar
+flashing between their ears.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. wore the peacock dress and the brigandish hat.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>283<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> The parasol
+had a red coral handle, and, to own the truth, no horse on the
+race-ground looked faster than she did.</p>
+
+<p>I followed her modestly. My pink silk seemed to grow brighter when it
+settled down against her green and blue; my white hat was looped up on
+one side with a white cockade, and the white feather streamed out banner
+fashion. With me all was simplicity, patriotism, and whiteness&mdash;pure as
+the distinguished individual of whom they were a delicate typification.</p>
+
+<p>The drive up to that race-ground was just too lovely for anything. The
+horses fairly flew. The wind just shook the white fringe on my parasol,
+and kept my emblematical feather dancing after my hat. Cousin Dempster
+drove, and that girl Cecilia sat high up on the front seat by him, with
+her short dress ruffled and pinked about the bottom like a full-blown
+poppy; her&mdash;well, ankles visible to the knees, and all her hair floating
+out loose and crinkly. I say nothing, but ask you, as females of
+experience, what kind of a woman will that stuck-up child make, in the
+long run?</p>
+
+<p>The race ground was gay as a general training when we got there. It had
+rained lately; the trees and grass were green as green could be, and
+thousands of red-birds, yellow-hammers, blue-jays, and golden-robins,
+seemed to have settled down around the long tavern, the hill-side, and
+under the old trees. I declare, the sight was beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin D. had to show his badge and thing at the gate; then we drove up
+to the long tavern with a dash, hopped gracefully out of the carriage,
+and walked right in among the great crowd of gentlemen and ladies
+chatting, laughing, and moving about the long stoop.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, I do try to be humble, but it is awful hard work. When I went
+into that crowd, with my pink silk trailing and that white feather all
+afloat, the whole congregation seemed to break into groups and hush up,
+just to look at me. I didn't pretend to notice this delicate ovation,
+but walked slowly forward, and with a becoming blush on my cheek, while
+E. E. and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>284<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> that child kept bowing and shaking hands with everybody they
+met.</p>
+
+<p>After I had seated myself in one of the great splint-bottomed chairs
+that stood in dozens on the stoop, the crowd felt at liberty to go on
+again&mdash;and it did. A flock of birds couldn't have twittered and tittered
+and flitted more joyaceously than the females crowded together on that
+stoop.</p>
+
+<p>But I soon had something else to look at. Down in front of the hotel a
+lot of horses were prancing to and fro, up and down, breaking into a run
+here, wheeling round, going back, standing still, and generally cutting
+about in a promiscuous manner, as if they were dying to have a dance in
+the street.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, in all your born days, you never saw anything like those
+horses! Slender, smooth as glass, with eyes like balls of fire, they
+just took the shine off from everything in the horse line that I ever
+set eyes on. But the animals were nothing compared to the funny-looking
+creatures that rode them. A circus was nothing to them&mdash;neither is a
+theatre. Some of them were dressed in red, some in yellow, some in blue;
+one had on purple&mdash;all fitting just as tight as the skin to a rabbit's
+back. Each one had a boy's cap on his head; and, in fact, they all
+looked like boys out on a spree. There was a place just above the long
+tavern where most of these fellows always took their horses after a
+little run and blow&mdash;that was a little, cubby house, built up high from
+the ground, in which some men stood like captains on a steamboat.</p>
+
+<p>By and by there was a stir among the horses and a hustle among the men.</p>
+
+<p>"They're going to start! they're going to start!" says everybody to
+everybody else. A flag on the little house seemed to break down. Then
+off the whole lot flew like a flock of wild birds. The flying horses
+rushed along the road, beating time on the hard ground, and fairly
+taking the breath from one's lips.</p>
+
+<p>I gave a little scream, and jumped up. The whole crowd<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>285<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> rushed forward,
+and seemed as if it would pour itself over the railing of the long
+stoop.</p>
+
+<p>"Where have they gone?" says I. "What has become of 'em?"</p>
+
+<p>"Here they come&mdash;here they come," shouted the whole crowd, answering me
+all at once.</p>
+
+<p>And they did come skimming along the road like
+wildfire&mdash;flash&mdash;flash&mdash;now two horses abreast&mdash;now one ahead&mdash;now
+another&mdash;then a sudden pull up, and the brown horse had won. Now it
+seemed to me as if the whole squad came up pretty much at the same time,
+but the whole crowd fell to clapping hands over the brown horse. I
+clapped too, and swung out my handkerchief as well as the rest; for when
+a multitude go into a thing like that it just sets one wild.</p>
+
+<p>Then the flag took another fall, and off went another squad of horses,
+and around the hill they went out of sight. Then came a stormy sound of
+hoofs, and another streak of lightning dash in which a chestnut-colored
+horse showed his head first, and then came another rolling thunder-clap
+from the crowd, and "Joe Daniels has beat," ran from lip to lip, as if
+"Joe Daniels" had been up for the Presidential election and got all the
+votes.</p>
+
+<p>Then the people cooled down, and, after a long wait, there was another
+rush, as if a whole training band had broke loose. We had hardly time to
+draw a deep breath, when they all came sweeping round in front of the
+long tavern, two of 'em just a little ahead, running so even and so
+fast, that I really believed that both of them beat the other, till the
+crowd began to clap and shout Alarm, which frightened me, for I thought
+something dreadful had happened; but Dempster hushed me up, saying it
+was the name of the horse that had won the race, and he was glad of it,
+for his friend Travers was one of the warmest-hearted, kindest fellows
+in the world, and ought to have a horse win every day of his life. This
+friendly little speech set me clapping my hands, both for the horse
+Alarm, his orange-colored rider, and the jolly-hearted man who owns
+him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>286<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>There was a great commotion after this. The whole crowd was in a wild
+whirl of excitement. All the ladies were talking about gloves and pools,
+and gentleman riders, while the gentlemen talked fast, looked eager, and
+were restless as caged birds. Something was going to happen now, I was
+sure of that.</p>
+
+<p>"Do tell me what is the matter," says I to a gentleman that cousin had
+just introduced to me, "everybody is so excited."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says he, "all on the keyvive."</p>
+
+<p>What queer names they do have for horses. Alarm had just come in ahead,
+and now Keyvive.</p>
+
+<p>"What kind of a horse is the Keyvive?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>He didn't seem to hear me. No wonder, for that very minute five horses,
+with such nice-looking fellows on their backs, took a start, like a
+flock of wild deer, and went up the road so swift that before I could
+see them they were gone.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the hurdle-race," says the same gentleman, "splendid&mdash;splendid;
+what a leap!"</p>
+
+<p>His eyes were bright as stars; they fairly danced in his head.</p>
+
+<p>I sprang up, for a great wind seemed to be rushing around the hill. Then
+I gave a scream, for some wicked person had built a fence right across
+the road, and those five horses were galloping like mad right toward it.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, stop them&mdash;stop them&mdash;for mercy's sake!" says I, a-clasping my
+hands, and pleading wildly to every one around. "They'll be killed&mdash;they
+don't see that awful fence."</p>
+
+<p>While I was screaming, the whole five horses came, one after another,
+sailed right over the fence, dived down like hen-hawks after a chicken,
+and away toward another fence that choked up the road. Before I could
+shriek out, and warn them, over they came, like a whirlwind, without
+touching the fence or seeming to care&mdash;over, and away up the road,
+taking one's breath with them.</p>
+
+<p>"Mercy on me! what a providential escape!" says I to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>287<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> gentleman;
+"what wicked wretch could have heaped up things in the road? I do hope
+they'll be found out and sent to State's prison. Why, it's just as bad
+as blocking up a train of cars. Such nice-looking riders, too!"</p>
+
+<p>The gentleman looked a trifle puzzled, then he smiled a little funnily,
+and says he:</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you do not understand that this is a 'hurdle-race.'"</p>
+
+<p>"No," says I; "they told me that it would be horse-racing&mdash;nothing worse
+than that."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," says he, "it is nothing worse than that, only a little more
+dangerous, and to you ladies more interesting, because the riders are
+all gentlemen."</p>
+
+<p>"What, those men in the caps, gentlemen&mdash;not circus-riders, nor
+nothing?"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed, and says he:</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say no one of them has ever been in a circus since he left off
+tunics, but they have learned to hunt, and love these hard leaps."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean to say that they skiver over such fences on purpose?"
+says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed they do, and build them higher and broader every year."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't say so," says I, feeling my eyes open wide.</p>
+
+<p>"They love the peril, for that increases the excitement."</p>
+
+<p>"What if some of them were to be flung head over heels?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that has happened."</p>
+
+<p>"Not to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but fortunately the man was not killed."</p>
+
+<p>I felt myself a-growing pale.</p>
+
+<p>"But they don't know of it. Everybody is laughing," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it is generally known, but that is a part of the excitement. In a
+crowd like this, it is difficult to realize trouble or death."</p>
+
+<p>"How strange!" says I, putting the handkerchief that I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>288<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> had torn with
+hard shaking into my pocket, with a deeply penitent feeling.</p>
+
+<p>"It is strange," says he; "but this is no place for deep feeling, or you
+would not see so many smiling faces around you, for a gentleman who owns
+some of the race-horses, and came up only a day or two ago to see them
+tried, is lying dead in his home now."</p>
+
+<p>My heart sank. I felt tears crowding up to my eyes. Death in one
+place&mdash;all this gorgeous confusion and wild gayety here. A lonely widow,
+weeping bitter tears; all these gay fluttering young people reckless and
+happy, in spite of it.</p>
+
+<p>I arose, and looked around me. No one seemed to feel this man's death.
+Never in my whole life had I been in such a whirlpool of gayety. There
+was not a sad or thoughtful face in the crowd. Yet many of the persons
+there had known the man who lay dead in the city. I had never heard of
+him till then, but no smiles came to my lips after that mournful
+knowledge reached me. In the midst of all this hilarious gayety I felt
+the shadow of human suffering creeping over me, and I rode home from the
+race-park in sad silence.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXVIII" id="LXVIII"></a>LXVIII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>OFF AGAIN.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;New York City is full of epidemical contagions.
+Horse-racing is one of them. Every spring and fall it rages fearfully,
+especially among the female women who wait for the races&mdash;dress up for
+the races, and come out with splendiferous spontaneosity, whenever the
+fast horses are ready to run.</p>
+
+<p>I have been up to see the creatures rush once, and sent you my report,
+which, owing to verdancy of mind caught from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>289<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> Green Mountains, was
+only skim milk to which I now pour in cream with a liberal hand. To own
+the truth, it takes more than one visit before a regular New England
+young lady can understand the inns and outs of a horse-race.</p>
+
+<p>Now, I dare say you think it a sort of agricultural fair for
+animals&mdash;for the horsey kind meant to show off their beauty, try their
+speed, and encourage farmers to go in for improvement.</p>
+
+<p>Exactly, and a good deal more so. Why, sisters, it's gambling&mdash;just
+gambling, open handed and above board, in which the upper-crust female
+women of New York take a hand with the men, and glory in it. But I mean
+to tell you all about it in the regular way, and shall do it as I go
+along.</p>
+
+<p>You never saw such a crowd of carriages, wagons, buggies, and queer
+horse machines as crowded along the road when we got within three or
+four miles of the race-course. When we come to the long bridge that runs
+across the Harlem River, there were two lines of carriages stretching
+before and behind us, just as far as we could see, horses that tossed
+their heads and champed their bits, and shone like satin under harnesses
+mounted with gold and silver, with little looking-glasses flying in and
+out over their heads, and hoofs that struck the ground like the feet of
+a Vermont girl when she dances from the heart.</p>
+
+<p>All these carriages were filled as if they were on the way to a high
+jubilation, choke full of ladies, with parasols hovering over them like
+wild birds taking wing, and great clouds of silk, lace gauze, and shiny
+stuff a-billowing over the sides, till you could but just see the silk
+cushions they leaned against. Then, again, some were crowded over with
+gentlemen, mostly in white hats&mdash;which delighted me&mdash;some with cigars in
+their mouths&mdash;some not&mdash;but every one of them just boiling over with
+good-nature and fun.</p>
+
+<p>This was the way we went. Cousin Dempster has made a good deal of money
+in Washington&mdash;contracting, or something&mdash;and he got a spick-span new
+open carriage for this high<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>290<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> occasion&mdash;a carriage made soft as a bird's
+nest with brown satin cushions, and that glittered outside like a crow's
+back whenever the sun struck it.</p>
+
+<p>We had a great big fellow, in new plum-colored clothes on the driver's
+seat, and another genteel youngster by his side&mdash;all plum-color and
+hat-band, like the coachman. Inside, there was Cousin E. E. with a
+pea-green dress on, all flounces and fringe, and overskirts piled up so
+high behind that she couldn't lean back, and your missionary, Miss
+Ph&oelig;mie Frost, in her pink silk (turned again), and the white hat with
+plumes of snow, which bespoke at once her good taste and her most sacred
+political preferences, which would keep going on both sides all I could
+do.</p>
+
+<p>There, in the front seat, with his back to the horses and his face to
+us, sat Dempster, looking out with envy and bitter feelings on the men
+in buggies, that were laughing like fun, and smoking like New England
+stone chimneys. At such times I do not think that Dempster appreciates
+all the sweet benefits of female society.</p>
+
+<p>Last and least, I am sorry to say, was that child, Cecilia, with a pink
+parasol about as big as a good-sized toadstool, fluttering before her
+face, and all in a storm of flounces above her knees, with nothing but
+kid boots and silk stockings below.</p>
+
+<p>I do wonder what possesses Dempster and E. E. to train that child along
+wherever they go! She is just the aggravation of my life.</p>
+
+<p>Well, with our open carriage yeasting over with green, pink, white, and
+blue, which Dempster broke up with a lean streak of black, we rolled
+through the gate of the race-grounds and came up, with a magnificent
+sweep, to the back door of the club house, when E. E. and I gave a neat
+little jump, and tipped gracefully around the long stoop, right into the
+upper crust society of New York.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, it was like wading right into a flower-bed! Everybody there had
+on her good clothes&mdash;I may say, her bettermost clothes of all. Red,
+green, purple, blue, white, black&mdash;every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>291<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> color or shade of color to be
+found in the sky, in flowers, in fruit, or in water, rustled against
+each other. Sisters, it was gorgeous! But one thing struck me as
+peculiar&mdash;most of these female ladies had the loveliest pink color in
+their cheeks all the time. While my face was turning red and white, as I
+grew warm or comfortable, theirs kept one steady pink. Ladies with hair
+as yellow as gold had ink-black eyebrows and lashes&mdash;things we never see
+together in the country. I don't understand it. Well, we had but just
+got seats on the largest stoop when the people below us let off a squad
+of horses that seemed to fly; for the mud was soft as mush on the road,
+and their hoofs made no more noise than as if they had trod on velvet.</p>
+
+<p>Just before these horses made their first dive, Dempster came up to us
+with a person who carried a white hat in his hand, and held it out as if
+he wanted something put into it. I thought that somebody had been
+cheating the poor fellow, for there was nothing but little, crumpled
+bits of paper in the hat. Of course I did not want to equal these
+treacherous people in meanness, so I took out my pocket-book and dropped
+a five-cent piece into the hat, smiling benignly on the good-looking
+suppliant as I did it. I really was ashamed of Cousin E. E.; for instead
+of giving the poor fellow a trifle of money, she just nipped up one of
+the crumpled bits of paper, and, opening it, called out, laughing like a
+girl:</p>
+
+<p>"I've drawn the favorite! Oh, isn't that splendid!"</p>
+
+<p>I declare I was mortified by such silly nonsense, and wanting to keep up
+the credit of the family, dropped another five-cent piece in the hat,
+and nodded toward E. E., as much as to say: "Never mind; I give it for
+her."</p>
+
+<p>Instead of thanking me, the man stared and turned a trifle red, as if
+the gratitude that filled his heart were trying to burst through his
+face. It was a noble feeling, and I appreciated it by another kind nod
+and smile.</p>
+
+<p>Then he held out the hat to "that child," and she, too, snatched up one
+of the papers and began to giggle over it. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>292<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> declare you might have
+lighted a candle by my face, it burned so.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there no end to such meanness?" thought I, and once more I opened my
+pocket-book.</p>
+
+<p>"No matter, Ph&oelig;mie, I'll attend to that," says Cousin Dempster,
+waving his hand at me.</p>
+
+<p>Out came his pocket-book then, and he took from it a handful of
+greenback-bills, which he gave to the man, who laughed as if he were
+half-tickled to death, and well he might be, for Dempster was as
+extravagant as the female portion of his family had been mean.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is the last number, and our pool is complete," says he, taking a
+bit of paper from the hat, and dropping it into my lap. "Don't trouble
+yourself, Ph&oelig;mie, it's all right."</p>
+
+<p>I did trouble myself, in spite of his smiling face. Charity is one
+thing, and ostentation is another. After my gift, which I must say was
+liberal enough, there was no need of such a display as Dempster made. No
+wonder the man looked pleased as he marched away, with the money in one
+hand, and that white hat in the other.</p>
+
+<p>When the horses came rushing by again, and made a sharp halt just above
+the house, the man came up to us choke full of pleasure, and wanted to
+look at my paper. I thought he was taking liberties, but gave him the
+mite of paper, and drew back in my seat, in proper fashion.</p>
+
+<p>"Your horse has won," says he; "Mid-day has the race by a length."</p>
+
+<p>With that he laid a roll of bills in my lap, and went away, bowing low,
+till his white hat almost touched the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Mercy on me! what does this mean?" says I, a-taking up the money. "Is
+the man crazy?"</p>
+
+<p>"It means that you have won the pool," said Dempster.</p>
+
+<p>Before I could ask him what on earth he meant, Cousin D. was swept off
+by a crowd of ladies, and three sandy-haired horses were put upon the
+run. I could not tell one horse from another, they were so alike; but
+they all were long and lank,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>293<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> with hind legs that looked as if all their
+strength lay in that direction to a wonderful extent, and the way they
+threw them out was surprising.</p>
+
+<p>About this time I saw a great many white hats flying about, and men had
+pocket-books in their hands, while ladies talked wildly about gloves and
+neckties, and clapped their hands when the horses rushed by, and the
+word "pool" was in everybody's mouth&mdash;in fact, it was Bedlam let loose.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXIX" id="LXIX"></a>LXIX.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE STEEPLE-CHASE.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/s.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="S" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">S</span>ISTERS:&mdash;This horse hurdling is something that just lifts you right off
+your feet. All that I had seen was nothing to what was to come. All
+along the winding road, and the lots each side, some men went to
+building fences, till every few yards were fenced in, and yet seven
+long-legged, long-bodied, and not over fleshy horses, with riders in
+white, in blue, in yellow, and striped brown and yellow, were ready for
+another start, which they made like a thunderburst.</p>
+
+<p>On they came, flying and flashing through the lots, like a flock of
+birds, right up to the first fence. I sprang up&mdash;everybody sprang up,
+wild and anxious&mdash;I expected to see the whole grist of them pitch
+head-foremost against the rails, when up they all rose, and away they
+went straight over, and off like a shot to the next and the next,
+clearing one after another, before you could draw a deep breath. Across
+lots, down the road, in and out they went, jumping fences, now abreast,
+now in a swift line, till they came up all at once to a pond of water.</p>
+
+<p>I screamed right out, and felt myself growing cold, for they were
+rushing toward it full split, and it was wider across than the
+mill-stream back of our school-house.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>294<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Stop 'em, stop 'em! They'll be drowned, they'll be killed!" I screamed
+out, just crazy with fear.</p>
+
+<p>No one minded me; the whole crowd was too busy watching those wild
+riders to mind me if I had yelled like an engine whistle. They came
+rushing up nearer&mdash;nearer, almost in a line, as if some enemy were
+ahead, and the whole squad meant to ride right through and trample
+everything down. They were close by the water now, with a low fence that
+side. On they rushed&mdash;a whole cloud of hoofs ploughed up through the
+air, and those seven horses went shooting like sparrows over the fence
+and across the water. Their hoofs struck fire from the stone wall on the
+other side, and away they went, pell-mell, their riders shooting out
+colors like a broken rainbow, and the crowd cheering them on as if it
+had been a sham fight on training-day.</p>
+
+<p>On they flew like a young whirlwind, though one bay horse they called
+"Blind Tom" fell short. The rider, trying to bring him up, was pitched
+over his head, at which the crowd was hushed, but burst out again when
+Blind Tom left the poor fellow behind, and dashed on with the other
+horses neck and neck round the fields, leaping a fence or two, before
+the poor stunned rider could roll over and pick himself up.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, it was too droll&mdash;that plucky horse, dashing along with the rest,
+shooting over the fences, up to time, and acting like a soldier charging
+under command. I could just have gone down and kissed the splendid
+creature, and the whole crowd&mdash;thousands and thousands&mdash;set up shout
+after shout that you could have heard almost on the Green Mountains.</p>
+
+<p>Another horse came out first best on the second round, but a couple of
+men, right behind me, insisted that Blind Tom ought to have the
+money&mdash;what money I didn't understand&mdash;but I agreed with the men, if
+there was anything that a horse could accept, Blind Tom was the animal
+for the money.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, there don't seem much that is wrong about this. You can't see
+any amount of deep iniquity in it, can you now?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>295<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> I didn't discover
+anything poisonous to the moral character; but then we female women
+don't always see deep enough into great social and religious questions,
+and horse-racing is one.</p>
+
+<p>What do you think the gloves and neckties meant? What hidden sin lay
+buried under the pools? What, after all, took that great multitude up to
+that beautiful hollow among the hills? Gambling, my dear; male and
+female gambling, nothing more, nothing less. The horses run for money.
+The jockeys ride for money. The men bet money, hats, gloves, hundreds,
+thousands, on this horse and that. Everybody gambles, and everybody
+likes it.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, that poor man's hat was a pool; there wasn't a drop of water in
+it; still it was a pool. The two five-cent pieces I threw into it were a
+dead loss to charity. The scraps of crumpled paper meant dollars. The
+heap of bills that I tucked away in my pocket-book, innocent as twenty
+lambs, was money that I had won gambling, ignorantly, innocently.</p>
+
+<p>With Christianity at my heart, and gambling money in my pocket, I feel
+demoralized as a church member; yet I must confess it exhilated me as if
+I had been on the top of a high mountain, and was looking down with
+delicious dizziness. I a gambler, I a diver into pools no larger than a
+man's hat, but dangerous as the bottomless pit! I cannot realize it; and
+when realized, it seems to me as if I couldn't be properly penitent.
+That sort of thing doesn't seem so awful to me as it did before I got
+into it, in this pleasant, innocent, and sweetly promiscuous manner.</p>
+
+<p>Is this "rolling sin like a sweet morsel under the tongue"? Am I getting
+faithless to the trust with which I set forth on this city mission?</p>
+
+<p>This much I will say in my own behalf: horse-racing, if pernicious, is
+awfully pleasant, and horse-betting (gloves and neckties I mean)
+is&mdash;well&mdash;ditto.</p>
+
+<p><i>Such</i> a ride home as we had! Trees and grass, cool and green&mdash;no dust.
+The sun going down, and throwing red shadows across the fields.
+Carriages crowded full of smiling people, horses wild to pass each other
+and get home; yourself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>296<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> deliciously tired, with half a dozen swift
+horses chasing each other through your brain, and trampling down your
+conscience.</p>
+
+<p>Well, sisters, I may have been wrong, but frankness is my peculiarity,
+and I should like to try it all over again, just once. Don't think hard
+of it, but I should.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXX" id="LXX"></a>LXX.<br />
+<br />
+<small>PREPARING FOR SEA.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;With an aching head and bitter taste in my mouth, I take
+up my pen to write. Myself, and not myself, I sit here as if I had just
+come out of the upheaving of an earthquake. If I write anything of what
+happened yesterday, it must be sensational; for, of all sensations that
+ever riled up a human constitution, that I felt while out to sea beat
+all that I ever knew or heard of.</p>
+
+<p>I have been out to a yacht race.</p>
+
+<p>Horse-racing is a science not unknown, in its rudiments, to our rural
+population. You can remember when we took our first lessons, bareback,
+with a rope-halter looped around the horse's nose for a bridle. No&mdash;that
+was our second lesson; the first was on father's old grey horse, which
+was blind of one eye, and had a natural saddle curved into his back.
+Being a mite of a child, I sat in that hollow like a bird in its nest,
+hung on to the mane with one hand, and held a crooked stick before the
+eye that could see when I wanted the creature to turn. In this way I
+began my horse-alphabet. First, we waded through the plantains and
+burdocks, at a slow walk, with a stumble now and then, which set my
+little heart to quaking like a swampy bog trod upon. Then I grew
+venturesome, and the old grey warmed into a soft trot, which shook me up
+like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>297<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> anything, but was more exhilarating than the walk. With my bare
+feet pressed close to the animal's side and my fingers gripped into his
+mane, I began to rattle my stick timidly against his shoulder; at which
+he broke trot and racked himself off into a canter, which made my heart
+leap with every fall of his hoofs, and filled it with the courage of a
+trooper.</p>
+
+<p>Didn't we wade through the burdocks and sweet ferns then! Didn't we ride
+round and round that pasture lot, without giving the dear old beast time
+for a bite of grass or a fair nip at the sweet ferns! Didn't my crooked
+stick rattle and my hair fly out in the wind! Didn't my mother scream
+after me, and my father rush out like a crazy man, with both arms spread
+out, and try to head Old Grey off! Of course he did. But the dear old
+horse didn't want to give up, and I didn't mean that he should; so he
+shied, and, of course, having nothing to hold him in by but the tuft of
+hair and the stick, he left father behind, and, I do believe, kicked up
+a trifle, just to show his independence.</p>
+
+<p>That was my first lesson on horseback. On the second, my father insisted
+on haltering the creature, which gave me a pull at his head, and mane,
+too, which rather interfered with the use of my crooked stick, and
+bunched me up, till father called out to me to sit up straight&mdash;which I
+did, at last, going it with both hands on the halter, and the hair
+blowing about my face like a veil. That morning Old Grey and I jumped a
+brook a full yard wide, and cleared both banks beautifully.</p>
+
+<p>After that I did a great deal of bareback riding, along the road and in
+the pasture lots, and could sit and ride like a trooper before I ever
+got into a side-saddle or knew what a curb-bit was.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, that is the way to learn things&mdash;begin at the beginning, and
+get a firm, steady seat before you attempt to cut a dash. The lady that
+can't sit her horse handsomely without regard to bit or stirrup, needn't
+set herself up as much of a rider&mdash;at any rate, in our part of the
+country.</p>
+
+<p>So much for one kind of racing. Now for the water-course.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>298<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>We used to send little boats, dug out with a jack-knife, under paper
+sails, down that brook by the school-house, and see them swamped among
+the cowslips or capsized in the eddies, when we were in the A B C class.
+Some of us went far enough to sail down the mill stream in a canoe dug
+out of the trunk of some big tree. In fact, I have a remembrance of
+crossing a large river in a scow pushed forward with awful long poles.
+But beyond these rudimental experiences, ship-rowing is not indigenous
+to the Green Mountains, as a general thing, and I do not see how it can
+ever become a Vermont institution, yet awhile. Therefore I say,
+horse-racing you can understand, but ship-racing is really a novelty in
+the Mountains.</p>
+
+<p>Now, a yacht, sisters, is nothing more or less than a baby schooner,
+which has two masts, or a sloop, that has one, built up slender and
+graceful, with a cock-pit, which is in the stern, and a cooking-room,
+which is in the bow, and all the other fixings which make it as much
+like a ship as a first-rate baby-house is like an old homestead.</p>
+
+<p>Dempster has been to Washington, and got some contracts or something,
+and what does he do but come home one hot day when we were all just
+sweltering in white loose gowns, and says he:</p>
+
+<p>"Girls, what do you say to going down to the Regatta?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Regatta," says I, "what is that&mdash;anything cool?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, it is a race given by the Yacht Club," says he, "and of course it
+will be cool if we go out to sea."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't object to seeing, if that will make things cool," says I;
+"but how a club can race, except when it is in a policeman's hand, I
+can't begin to make out."</p>
+
+<p>Cousin D. gave one of his long, hearty laughs, and says he:</p>
+
+<p>"Now, really, Ph&oelig;mie, don't you understand what a club is?"</p>
+
+<p>I felt the blood rise up into my face.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't I know what a club is?" says I. "Well, I should rather think so.
+There are hickory clubs, oak clubs, yellow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>299<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> pine knots, that answer
+pretty well, and locust clubs, but how a little ship can be turned into
+a club beats me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it isn't one ship that makes the club, but a good many," says he,
+"crack ships, too."</p>
+
+<p>I just dropped the two hands I had been holding up, quite out of breath.</p>
+
+<p>"So a good many ships make one club, do they?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," says he. "When a lot of men join together for any particular
+thing, it is called a 'club.' There is the Jockey Club, the Union Club,
+the Rural Club, the Union League Club, the Yacht Club."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, for mercy's sake, do stop before you club me to death," says I,
+clapping both hands to my ears. "We have got timber enough in Vermont,
+but clubs of any kind are not in our line. Just tell me what you want of
+us, and we'll say Yes or No."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I want you to get into my new yacht, and go a little way out to
+sea," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"To see what?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"The Regatta."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you for once speak honest English?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, a Yacht Race," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"That is, little ships running races," says I; "but where?"</p>
+
+<p>"On the Atlantic Ocean," says he.</p>
+
+<p>My spirit rose. I have seen the East River and the upper bay, and more
+than once have caught a view of the Long Island Sound from the
+car-windows, but a live ocean&mdash;a great, broad, heaving ocean, with waves
+roaring up thirty feet high, is an object we do not often get a chance
+to contemplate on the slopes of the Green Mountains. Would I go and see
+that? Wouldn't I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you will go?" says Cousin Dempster.</p>
+
+<p>"Go!" says I, "yes, if I have to walk afoot with snow-shoes on."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, get your yachting clothes ready," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"Pink silk?" I suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no; something that can stand the water," says he.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>300<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Say black alpaca, with a white hat and plumes&mdash;principle and patriotism
+before anything else," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"That will be lovely on the blue waves," says Cousin E. E. "I will wear
+a blue feather, and Cecilia shall turn up her Leghorn flat with an
+anchor."</p>
+
+<p>"That's just the thing," says Cousin D., with maritime enthusiasm. "I
+have had the yacht painted white, and on her long white pennant you will
+find a name all Vermonters love particularly, and the world generally."</p>
+
+<p>"What is her name?" we all said right out at once.</p>
+
+<p>"The Vermonter," says he, straightening himself up proudly.</p>
+
+<p>We all sprang to out feet, and clapped our hands with the wildest
+enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not afraid to dare the wildest storms on the ocean with that
+craft," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I."</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, it was a spontaneous outburst of pure state patriotism&mdash;even
+that child Cecilia seemed to feel it&mdash;for ten minutes after she was busy
+as a bee, sewing a silver anchor on her Leghorn flat, and that day, for
+the first time, I kissed the child with spontaneosity.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXXI" id="LXXI"></a>LXXI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>YACHT-RACING.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/s.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="S" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">S</span>ISTERS:&mdash;When you go to a yacht-race, the first step is peculiar. You
+get into a carriage or a car, and ride down to the docks. Then you steam
+off in a ferry-boat to Staten Island, get into a thing they call a yawl,
+which floats like a cockle-shell, and carries two or three people,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>301<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> and
+row off to one of the cunningest, prettiest, slenderest, most
+scrumptious little ships you ever set eyes on, sitting on the water like
+a white duck with its wings spread.</p>
+
+<p>Some black-walnut steps fell down the side, over which I climbed, with
+my heart in my mouth, and jumped into a little pew, with a sofa running
+round it, and some light cross-legged chairs ready for visitors.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was hot overhead and up from the water, so I just went down into
+the prettiest little cabin you ever saw, all finished off with shiny
+wood, like a lady's bedroom, and carpeted with sky-blue, with a pale
+touch of gray in it. Right by this were two lovely little bedrooms, all
+blue and cloud color, with snow-white beds and cloudy curtains. There
+were four beds in the cabin, too, built into the wall, and lots of
+silver things were shining on brackets and silver hooks.</p>
+
+<p>A sofa, all cushioned with blue, ran down each side of the cabin, and on
+one of these I took my place while the rest came in.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin D. had invited a dozen people to try his new yacht, and when they
+all came swarming in, it was cheerful as a beehive.</p>
+
+<p>Some cramped themselves in the cockpit, some flung themselves on the
+long sofas of the cabin, some got under the sails, cosey as birds in a
+tree, two and two; but I always remarked that two men and two women
+somehow never got together; they were sure to split up one of each sort,
+just as they are apt to do on land.</p>
+
+<p>Well, the yacht spread her sails, made a graceful dive and off she went,
+her canvas snapping and her colors flying. A whole squad of other
+vessels set sail too, and off we went like a flock of birds.</p>
+
+<p>The water of the bay was blazing like quicksilver. Some white clouds
+cooled the sky a little, but everything around was sweltering with
+hotness. On we went, fleet and cheerful, sending up the water in
+sparkles, and flying toward the ocean, with green banks on each side of
+us, and that gloriously hot sun heating up the air like a furnace.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>302<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>By and by we passed a couple of great stone forts, and came out into the
+ocean. Oh, what a broad blaze of sky and water&mdash;blue and silver
+everywhere, blue and silver!</p>
+
+<p>On these waters, far out, lay a crimson ship, settled down like a
+mammoth red bird, and around that a crowd of little vessels, with their
+sails spread ready for flight. Ever so many steamboats, crowded with
+people, waited a little way off for the race to begin.</p>
+
+<p>One of these steamboats had the President of these United States on
+board, and hung out its flag that all the world might know where to find
+him. We didn't try, but kept modestly down among the small craft.</p>
+
+<p>By and by there was a fluttering among the yachts around the red ship;
+then a gun banged off, then another, and away the whole flock went,
+flying across the water in a white cloud.</p>
+
+<p>After it went the steamboats, ploughing and snorting through the water,
+and after them a whole storm of sailing craft, all on the wing, each
+dashing up foam like fury.</p>
+
+<p>Now the wind rose higher, and seemed to cool the air, while it spread
+out all the sails as they flew before it. This seemed to bring in a
+whole army of little waves from the great ocean, and, as true as you
+live, every wave had a white hat on.</p>
+
+<p>I jumped up and fairly clapped my hands when I saw these waves trooping
+in, battalion after battalion, all tossing up their white hats and
+dancing forward, as if the winds were singing Yankee Doodle behind them.</p>
+
+<p>Then the party in our yacht gave a shout.</p>
+
+<p>"They are rounding the spit," says Cousin D. "Do look, Ph&oelig;mie."</p>
+
+<p>I did look, but saw nothing particular&mdash;who could? What would one spit
+be in a whole ocean of water.</p>
+
+<p>Then came another shout.</p>
+
+<p>"They have marked the boy."</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness, gracious," says I, "is there a boy overboard? Do fling out a
+boat-hook or something!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>303<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Do not disturb yourself, Ph&oelig;mie," said Cousin D.; "that particular
+boy has been swimming in one spot these ten years."</p>
+
+<p>"And alive yet?" says I, feeling my eyes widen like saucers.</p>
+
+<p>"Just as live as he ever was," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't say so," says I. "Can we see him from here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; yonder!"</p>
+
+<p>Cousin D. pointed toward something in the water, black, with a red cap
+on. There did not seem to be much danger of his sinking, for he kept his
+head high, and a good many boats were near enough to keep him up. I lost
+sight of him, and watched the vessels flying off again. But somehow,
+when they came in sight once more, my enthusiasm was all gone, and I
+began to feel limp and dreadfully discouraged. I haven't had such an
+uproar about my&mdash;well&mdash;heart, since the Grand Duke sailed, and that was
+very different, a sort of affectionate flutter, while this is beyond
+ex-pres-sion.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, at the end of the last sentence, my head fell into one of those
+blue cushions, and I have a dreamy feeling that waves with white hats on
+were bowing to me right and left.</p>
+
+<p>I have lifted my head again. The yachts are coming in full split. As
+each comes up, the steamboats and vessels give a yell that makes the sea
+tremble, and scares all the birds in the neighborhood. One time they
+shriek&mdash;that is for the <i>Gracie</i>. Then there was a deep, long howl&mdash;that
+was for the <i>Jantha</i>. Then there was a yell, a shriek, and a howl, all
+together, which was for the <i>Vixen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>What yacht beat, I don't pretend to know, but it comes to me as if in a
+hideous dream that it was the <i>Vixen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The next thing I have on my mind was, a table set out in the cabin, and
+the popping of corks from long bottles, with a sound that made me quiver
+all over. Then I recollect that some one was persecuting me with offers
+of something nice to eat, for which I shall loath them as long as I
+live.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>304<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Sisters, I did <i>not</i> see a single ocean wave thirty feet high&mdash;far from
+it&mdash;but those I did see were quite high enough. If you don't believe me,
+go to a yacht race, that's all.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXXII" id="LXXII"></a>LXXII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>MUSIC THAT IS MUSIC.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;I love music. My soul was brought up on Old Hundred, and
+refreshed from time to time with Yankee Doodle. The lively tones of a
+fiddle drove me wild with delight, in my foolish, school-girl days; and
+I cannot keep my feet still when one rattles of money-musk or the Opera
+Reel even now, when enthusiasm is delicately toned down into graceful
+ease.</p>
+
+<p>The truth is, Nature is full of music, and we who live in a mountainous
+country know how much of it is to be found outside of instruments and
+the human voice. In fact, the sweetest music I ever heard has come to me
+through the woods&mdash;not from the birds, but the whispering leaves. Have
+you ever listened&mdash;with your heart&mdash;and learned, by the faintest sound,
+the different voices of the trees&mdash;the quick, soft rustle of the maple;
+the stronger sound of the oak-leaves; the weird, ghostly shiver of the
+pine-needles? I know little of music, if anything out of heaven can
+touch a human soul more tenderly than these sounds. Then the birds&mdash;what
+joyous or solemn music they can make! Have you never felt your heart
+leap to the singing of a robin among the branches of an apple-tree in
+full blossom, or shiver and grow sad at sunset, when the cry of a lonely
+whip-poor-will comes wailing through the dusk?</p>
+
+<p>There is the music of trees in the spring, when their blossoms are sweet
+and their leaves are just unfolding&mdash;soft, cheerful, happy music, full
+of tenderness and love. Then there is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>305<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> the low, drowsy music of the
+summer-time, when bumble-bees and lady-bugs and humming-birds fill the
+warm air with greedy droning as they plunder the wild flowers of honey.</p>
+
+<p>Did you never close your eyes, half go to sleep, and listen to them,
+with a lazy consciousness that you could rest and enjoy, while those
+little, busy creatures were singing at their work? I have, a thousand
+times.</p>
+
+<p>Then comes the fall, when the hills are burnt over with red and gold and
+brown. How the full, rough-edged leaves strike together, with a sound of
+copper and brass&mdash;with a rustle and shiver that makes one think of
+military funerals. Then comes the swift, rustling sound of ripe nuts
+rattling from burs and husks; the coarse, bass voices of the crows among
+the naked stubble-lots; the mellow crash of corn-stalks, as the cattle
+tread them; the slow, liquid grinding of cider-mills, and the sharp
+sound of the hackle, where flax is broken for the spinning-wheel.</p>
+
+<p>After this, comes stormy music&mdash;fierce, high winds, whistling sharp and
+shrill through the long, naked branches of the woods, which answer them
+back with moans and sighs and wild shrieks that make you shiver at night
+and hide yourself under the bed-clothes.</p>
+
+<p>When I was a little girl, sisters, my heart rose and fell to music like
+this till I suffered terribly, sometimes, without speaking a word to any
+one&mdash;for these are feelings which one never does talk of&mdash;there is no
+language that I ever learned which will express them. But I have never
+heard any music that could reach my soul like that which God gives us in
+the blossom season&mdash;the summer, the fall of late fruit&mdash;and the bleak,
+hard winter, when the clash of ice against ice has a sound that no man
+or woman can reach.</p>
+
+<p>This is my idea of music, and that is scattered far and given to all men
+alike. You can't gather it up and deal it out in great, thundering
+gushes. It isn't to be got for five dollars a ticket. In fact, the best
+and sweetest things we have are given to the poor and rich just
+alike&mdash;free, gratis, for nothing.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>306<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXXIII" id="LXXIII"></a>LXXIII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>HUBBISHNESS.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/s.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="S" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">S</span>ISTERS:&mdash;The music I have just been writing about is not fashionable by
+any manner of means. Boston, the great central hub of all creation,
+can't bottle it up or engage it by the ton to astonish all creation
+with. She must have the manufactured article, and has sent all over the
+world to get it.</p>
+
+<p>Every fiddler, flute-player, drummer, and curlecued horn-man in Europe
+has been brought over here to thunder-out and roll-off billows of sound
+for people to pay for and wonder at.</p>
+
+<p>We have a Niagara of waters that astonishes the world. Now the people of
+Boston are determined to give us, in a great, wild, conglomeration of
+voices, a full Niagara of sound.</p>
+
+<p>I am New England all over, from the top of my beehive-bonnet to the sole
+of my gaiter, but&mdash;confidentially, among ourselves&mdash;don't you think
+Boston takes a little too much on herself? That narrow-streeted,
+up-hilly city isn't all six of the New England States by a long shot.</p>
+
+<p>My opinion is that Boston is putting on airs, and I for one don't mean
+to put up with it. I hate stuck-up people, and I despise stuck-up towns.</p>
+
+<p>Of course it is my duty to see all things in behalf of the Society, and
+to do my best to lay them before you. I cannot say that my ideas of
+Boston have not toned down considerably since I came to New York. Still
+New England is New England, and Boston is Boston, if she does now and
+then make a tremendous old goose of herself, and sometimes threatens to
+cackle the hub all to pieces.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Dempster hasn't much to do in summer-time, so he was on hand for
+the Great High Jubilee; and E. E. was just crazy to go; for she is what
+you call musical, and goes right off the handle whenever a fellow that
+can't speak English plays<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>307<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> on the piano or sings to her in some language
+that she don't know a word of.</p>
+
+<p>Well, we went, and found Boston just running over with people. Every
+house along the crooked streets had one or two flags a-streaming from
+the roof, or out of the windows&mdash;star-spangled banners tangled-up with
+red and yellow and all sorts of colors; some with eagles, some without,
+but making every street gorgeous, as if the Fourth of July had burst out
+before its time.</p>
+
+<p>The Coliseum is a tremendous building, big enough to roof-in forty
+thousand people, and leave room for the whole swarm of drummers,
+toot-horners, piano-thrashers, blacksmiths, anvils, and swivel-guns,
+with a thousand people to blow, thrash, and blast them off, and twenty
+thousand singers behind, ready to pile in the thunder of their voices.</p>
+
+<p>The Coliseum is grand, barny in its structure, and all outdoorish when
+you get into it; but there is a good deal to see before you do get into
+it. The streets were just jammed-up with people when we came in sight of
+the great building, which stands out in a bare piece of ground, without
+a tree near it, and the hottest sun you ever wilted under beating down
+on everything around it, till I felt as if approaching the mouth of a
+great New England brisk oven, heated to bake a thousand tons of beans
+in. The streets were blocked with people.</p>
+
+<p>The little wooden bridges built over the railroads were creaking under
+the tramp of a never-ending crowd. The street cars were crowded like
+beehives till the horses could not move, and some of the cars broke
+down, choking up the track.</p>
+
+<p>Female women, with red books in their hands, scrambled through the
+crowd. Little tents and shanties were scattered all about, everybody
+talked fast and loud&mdash;some in one language, some in another. It was like
+going into the Tower of Babel, with all the languages in full blast.</p>
+
+<p>From one of the shanties we heard the sound of a loud, eager, wild
+voice, as of some fellow going to be hung, and wrestling for his life.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>308<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What is that?" says I to Dempster. "What on earth are they doing in
+there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's a prayer-meeting," says he; "some man is wrestling with the
+Lord in behalf of sinful souls."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's it," says I, just disgusted: "Well, I hope he'll get through
+with his wrestling before we come this way again. To haul religion and
+force prayers into such a crowd as this, is making a farce of
+Christianity. We have churches for such things, and the calm of a holy
+Sabbath set aside for the service of God. Who has time to think of such
+things here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it takes all sorts of men to make a world," says Dempster, pushing
+his way through the crowd, while E. E. and I followed, with that child
+a-dragging after us.</p>
+
+<p>We went at the rate of three feet in as many minutes, and that
+wrestler's voice was wrangling over us all the time. If the angels
+caught one sentence, I'm sure they must have clapped their wings to
+their ears and left the hub to take care of itself.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXXIV" id="LXXIV"></a>LXXIV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THUNDERS OF MUSIC.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/w.jpg" width="60" height="60" alt="W" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">W</span>ELL, at last we crowded and fought our way into the Coliseum, which was
+pretty well filled up when we got through the entrance.</p>
+
+<p>It was a sight, I must say that. Before us was a whole mountain-side of
+benches, rising one above another till you could hardly see the end of
+them&mdash;benches, benches, benches&mdash;crowded down and running over with
+people, all in a state of bewildering commotion&mdash;humming, whispering,
+and rustling together like ten millions of bees in a mammoth hive.</p>
+
+<p>You never saw so many female women together in your born days. Think of
+it, thousands and thousands with crimson<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>309<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> books fluttering in their
+hands, as if each woman had caught a great red butterfly and was holding
+him out by the wings. All these female women were rigged out in gorgeous
+dresses, rustling, moving, and flaming with all sorts of colors, like a
+hillside covered with gorgeous flowers, broken up with a dash of
+blackness now and then, as if a thunder-cloud had settled down amongst
+them. These black patches were the musicians, the flower garden was the
+singers&mdash;almost all female women, with fans, and voices, and red books
+in motion.</p>
+
+<p>Below were the people, crowded together by the acre, all jolly, smiling,
+and looking as if Boston were ready to burst her tire and whirl on her
+own bare hub, with all her spokes a-whizzing.</p>
+
+<p>Flags streamed and blazed on the walls, the roof, and around the
+pillars. All the stars in the skies seemed to have been torn down,
+scattered on a blue ground, and hung over that great building. It was a
+grand sight, I must say that&mdash;grand, but hubby.</p>
+
+<p>It was the German day, Cousin Dempster said. England had had her turn,
+France had flared up, and now Germany was to splurge just as much as she
+was a mind to.</p>
+
+<p>Well, Germany did splurge, but she began with a loud, deep, woe-begone
+rush of music, that seemed to roll out from a graveyard where everybody
+lay uneasy in his grave and was begging to get out. This ended off when
+the day closed with a dreary, low complaint, as if they had begged long
+enough and gave up. Now and then they broke in with a grand crash that
+made me start from my seat, and went off in a low wail, with a storm of
+music between.</p>
+
+<p>Something lively followed the first moan. Then a lady got up and sang
+all alone by herself, and her voice went floating through that great
+barny place, full, loud, and clear, as if ten thousand nightingales&mdash;not
+that I ever saw or heard a nightingale in my life, but I persist in
+it&mdash;as if ten thousand nightingales had broken loose in a swamp of wild
+roses.</p>
+
+<p>"Who on earth is that?" says I to E. E.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>310<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Madame Puschka Leutner," says she, clasping her hands. "Isn't she
+delicious?"</p>
+
+<p>Then out E. E. drew her handkerchief and set it flying.</p>
+
+<p>"I never heard anything like it, so strong, so sweet, so spreading,"
+says I, flirting out my own handkerchief with enthusiasm. "The human
+voice is something worth while in the way of music after all."</p>
+
+<p>It was no use saying more, for up jumped all the thousands of people in
+that great encampment, out went a swarm of white handkerchiefs, flocking
+together like a host of frightened seagulls, and the roar of the people
+went up like thunder.</p>
+
+<p>Then a great band of men, mostly with yellow beards and rosy faces, got
+on their feet, and went at the fiddles, the twisted horns, the drums and
+things, like crazy creatures, and the way the music rose, and swelled,
+and thundered out was enough to drive one crazy.</p>
+
+<p>Once more that great crowd burst in with yells and shouts, and a wild
+storm of praise. Then one of the yellow-haired men stood up alone with a
+wide-mouthed toot-horn, made of bright brass, in his hand. After looking
+around a minute, he just put the horn to his mouth, and blew a slow,
+long blow. Then he went at it tooth and nail, bringing out great round
+tones that seemed as if they never would grow faint or die away.</p>
+
+<p>I have heard a great many toot-horns in my life; in fact, I have blown a
+tin one myself to call the men folks in to dinner; but never did I hear
+anything like that. It was what Cousin E. E. called wonderful&mdash;so-low.</p>
+
+<p>I couldn't quite agree with her there, for to me it seemed wonderfully
+loud and riotous, but it was enough to make one in love with brass
+toot-horns forever.</p>
+
+<p>By and by something happened that just took the starch out of my New
+England soul. There, in the midst of all those dashy singers, one
+hundred and fifty men and women of the colored persuasion rose up in a
+human thunder-cloud, and broke into that noble song of freedom, which is
+a glory to one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>311<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> New England woman, and a glory to New England, for no
+better thing has been written since the "Star Spangled Banner:"</p>
+
+<div class="block2">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming Lord."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>Oh, sisters! there mightn't have been the highest-priced music in those
+colored voices, but the words are enough to wake up a dead warrior; they
+went through and through me as the wind stirs a forest. It was something
+to hear those dusky-faced freedmen chanting the glory of their own
+emancipation&mdash;something better than music, I can tell you. But the
+thrill of the thing was all gone when twenty thousand white people, with
+drums, trumpets, fiddles, organs, everything and every creature that
+could make a noise, thundered in, and bore all the sentiment off in a
+wild whirlpool of thunder.</p>
+
+<p>I do wish the white people would stop helping the colored population so
+much. They only drown them out and stifle them. Why couldn't the
+jubilant darkies be left to sing their own song, and rush on with old
+John Brown without being whirlpooled up in twenty thousand white voices.
+They could have stood their own without help, I reckon.</p>
+
+<p>There was a little resting spell after the darkies sat down; then came a
+great heaving crash and storm of music. Everything from a jew's-harp to
+an organ was set a-going, and behind them thousands of women sent up
+their voices amid a crash of anvils, the thunder of guns, and the
+ringing of bells that plunged one headlong into a volcano of sound that
+was neither music, nor thunder, nor an earthquake, but altogether a
+stampede and whirlwind of noises that engulfed you, body and soul.
+Ring&mdash;crash-bang&mdash;thunder rolling, rolling&mdash;oceans in tumult&mdash;whirlwinds
+of sound&mdash;armies crashing together&mdash;the world at an end!</p>
+
+<p>That was what it seemed like to me. Sisters, I haven't a nerve left in
+my body; my temples throb, my heart feels as if it had been blown up
+with brass horns. There is a drum beating in each temple. Oh, if I could
+only hear a robin sing, or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>312<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> a brook in full flow&mdash;anything soft, and
+low, and sweet&mdash;it would be a relief.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXXV" id="LXXV"></a>LXXV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>SARATOGA TRUNKS.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;Do you know where Long Branch is? I reckon not, owing to
+its being a sandy slip, cut off from the edge of New Jersey, and not
+much of a place over two months in the year; it hasn't got into the
+geography books as a school item of importance, though, if a President
+or two more should settle in there, it might lift it a notch higher.</p>
+
+<p>But in duty bound, I am here in pursuit of my great social mission, and
+can tell you, confidently, that Long Branch is a great watering-place,
+brim full, and running over with fashion once a year, when the hot sun
+drives all the upper-crust people out of New York, and everybody that is
+anybody feels the want of extra washing.</p>
+
+<p>When I speak of watering-places, do not understand that I mean a tavern
+corner with some brook emptying itself into a huge wooden trough for
+horses to drink out of. Of course, that is our Vermont idea; with a
+willow-tree shading the trough. That, no doubt, gave the name here. But
+the two things are no more alike than trout streams are like the broad
+ocean.</p>
+
+<p>I ask no questions, always finding it best to wait and watch, and learn
+for myself; but when Dempster asked me if I would like to go down to a
+watering-place in New Jersey, I asked him if there wasn't Croton Water
+enough in the pipes for all the horses they kept.</p>
+
+<p>Dempster laughed, and said it was salt water he was thinking of, and
+asked, right on that, if I had got a bathing-dress?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>313<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"A bathing-dress," says I. "Goodness, gracious, no. When I bathe, as a
+general thing, I&mdash;that is&mdash;I take off&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Here I broke off, and felt myself turning red. I declare, Cousin
+Dempster has a way of putting things upon you for explanation, which I,
+as a single lady, with expectations, of course, find embarrassing.</p>
+
+<p>Just then, E. E. came in, all of a flurry about her trunks; she wanted
+more and must have 'em, she said. Seventeen Saratoga trunks, and a
+basket or two, were just nothing to what she needed. Dempster must go
+out and get half a dozen more. Why, her fluted skirts alone filled three
+trunks.</p>
+
+<p>Dempster went. To own the truth, he is an obedient creature as ever wore
+coat and&mdash;well pocket-handkerchiefs. It wasn't long before a lot of
+trunks&mdash;big enough for country school-houses&mdash;were piled into the hall,
+and then Cousin E. E. began to revel. Her bed was crowded and loaded
+down with skirts, dresses, shawls, bonnets, round hats, broad flats,
+peaked caps. You never saw such heaps and mountains of clothes; such a
+litter of small things; such stacks of boots and shoes.</p>
+
+<p>It really seemed as if she was fitting out an army of feminines. Even
+Cecilia was down on her knees packing, and E. E. was deep in a high
+trunk with her slippers half dropping from her feet as she punched
+things in and pressed them down. The help, black and white, kept running
+up and downstairs like hens with their necks wrung. Every few minutes
+there came a ring at the door, and paper-boxes and bundles were set down
+in the hall, and struggled upstairs when any of the help thought it
+worth while to bring them, which was once in about ten minutes, all
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>I think Dempster made a cowardly attempt to get out of the way, but it
+was of no use. On such occasions men are wanted, especially when the
+bills come in, and E. E. knows her privileges.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>314<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXXVI" id="LXXVI"></a>LXXVI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE DOLLY VARDEN.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/a.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="A" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">A</span>S I stood looking on, wondering if cousin really meant to turn the
+house inside out, and set up a village of trunks somewhere on the
+sea-shore, that hard-working creature lifted her face, and looked at me
+deploringly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Ph&oelig;mie," says she; "are you packed? How cool you look."</p>
+
+<p>"Packed," says I; "oh, yes; I always keep my pink silk folded."</p>
+
+<p>"But your summer things, are they ready? Surely you'll have a Dolly?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," says I; "its years since I have thought of a doll, and I haven't
+the least idea of going back to my play-house days."</p>
+
+<p>"But I mean a dress," says she, lifting her head out of the trunk, and
+wiping the swe&mdash;well, perspiration from her face. "A Dolly Varden. Don't
+you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"A dress, and some Miss Dolly Varden, all at once! Now I can't think
+what dress you mean; and, as for that young person, I don't know her
+from a bag of sweet corn. How should I? Never having been introduced!"
+says I.</p>
+
+<p>E. E. just sat back on the floor, and drew a deep breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Ph&oelig;mie," says she, "you are so stolid about some things. Why, it
+is only a dress I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what did you drag in that young person for?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Because she gives her name to the dress."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure the dress ought to be very much obliged to her. That is if she
+came by the name honestly," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"And it's all the rage now. You must order one, Ph&oelig;mie."</p>
+
+<p>"What, the dress or the girl?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. got out of patience, and sprung up red in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>315<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> face. Across
+the room she went, slopping along in her slippers, flung back the lid of
+the trunk that seemed to be overrunning with poppies, marigolds, and
+morning-glories, and, giving something a jerk, brought up a puffy, short
+gown of white muslin, blazed all over with great straggling flowers&mdash;the
+morning-glories, poppies, marigolds that I had seen bursting up from the
+trunk.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a Dolly," says she, a-shaking out the puffy, short dress, as
+if it had been a banner.</p>
+
+<p>"Not by a long shot," says I, laughing. "It may be a whopping big doll's
+dress; in fact, it looks like it, for what woman on earth would ever
+think of wearing that? Why, the flowers would set her on fire."</p>
+
+<p>"This is for Cecilia," says she, "but I have one just like it, and mean
+to wear it if you've no objection?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not the least in the world," says I. "It isn't my mission to stop
+peacocks from strutting and showing their half-moons if they want to."</p>
+
+<p>E. E. laughed. She is a good-hearted creature, and I set store by her
+after all.</p>
+
+<p>"I will try this on," says she. "They are all the rage, I tell you. Try
+one, Ph&oelig;mie; your tall figure would set one off splendidly."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really think so?" says I, beginning to take a notion to the
+great bunches of flowers which did stand out from the white ground with
+scrumptious richness.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure of it. No one carries off a dress so well," says she, "and it
+will be expected of you. Distinguished persons are so criticised, you
+know."</p>
+
+<p>I looked at the dress again; the flowers were natural as life; the
+muslin was wavy, and white as drifted snow.</p>
+
+<p>"But the cost?" says I. "A burnt child dreads a blisterous
+contamination. That pink dress of mine is a scrumptious
+garment&mdash;palatial, as one might say, but costly. The value of
+twenty-five yards of silk is a load for any tender conscience."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, a Dolly doesn't take half as much," says E. E.; "besides<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>316<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> short
+skirts are the style on the sea-shore. The expense really isn't very
+enormous. In fact, almost any one can afford a Dolly."</p>
+
+<p>I yielded. Human nature is weak, and I had a letter yesterday from uncle
+Ben, saying that the hay and corn crops are promising. Besides, there is
+a sort of reason just now why I should be a little self-liberal in the
+way of dress. As Cousin E. E. says, people do expect something better
+than alpaca and calico of high genius&mdash;especially when the form is tall,
+and the figure commensurate to the genius.</p>
+
+<p>"But have I time? That French dressmaker will want three weeks, at
+least."</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. saw by this that the austerity of my economical education
+was giving way; so she jumped up, flipped the slippers from her feet,
+and was soon buttoning her boots and tying her bonnet, ready for a
+start.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you a-going?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Where they'll take your measure and send the Dolly home to-morrow
+morning, or down by express. Leave it to me, and you shall have
+something really beautiful."</p>
+
+<p>"Let there be plenty of flowers," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," says she, "bright, rich colors."</p>
+
+<p>"Hollyhocks," says I, "are my favorites; dandelions and feather-edged
+poppies come next; then a vine of trumpet flowers tangling the bunches
+together, would look scrumptious."</p>
+
+<p>"I see you enter into the spirit of it," says she; "but have you got
+everything else?"</p>
+
+<p>"Everything else? Of course I haven't. Who has, in fact? But my pink
+dress is turned wrong side out, and packed."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you a flat?" says she.</p>
+
+<p>"A flat! I? Not that I can call my own. Dempster has introduced half a
+dozen, but I don't claim them."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't mean men, but a broad straw flat that answers for a bonnet
+and an umbrella."</p>
+
+<p>"No," says I; "I have a Japanese thing that opens like a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>317<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> toad-stool,
+and shuts like a policeman's club. Will that do? That Japanese
+embassador gave it to me, with such a tender look. I never open it that
+his smile does not fall upon me like sunshine in a shady place."</p>
+
+<p>"That will be distinguished; take it, by all means. But you will want
+the straw flat, and a bathing-dress as well."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Cousin E. E., says I, "what do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you mean to bathe, of course?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin E. E., have you ever seen a Vermont lady&mdash;not to say a woman of
+genius&mdash;who did not bathe?" says I, with dignity.</p>
+
+<p>"But you will go into the water?"</p>
+
+<p>"To a certain extent," says I, "that has always been my habit."</p>
+
+<p>"But the ocean&mdash;salt water?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," says I, "salt water is beyond me; but if that is the fashion
+down at Long Branch, I don't object to a trifle of salt."</p>
+
+<p>"The bathing is delightful," says she. "At the turn of every tide you
+see parties in the water all along the shore."</p>
+
+<p>"Parties in the water&mdash;<i>parties</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ladies and gentlemen."</p>
+
+<p>"What!!"</p>
+
+<p>"Children, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Ladies and gentlemen bathing together! Cousin, you&mdash;well, if I were
+telling a story like that to a congregation of born idiots, they might
+believe me&mdash;that's all."</p>
+
+<p>"But it is true."</p>
+
+<p>"And you call this a civilized country!" says I, blazing with
+indignation. "Emily Elizabeth Dempster, do you mean to say that men and
+women&mdash;gentlemen and ladies&mdash;go down to the salt water and bathe
+together?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed they do."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe it! I won't believe it! If my great-grandmother were to
+rise from her grave and swear to it, I would tell her to go back again
+and hide her face. Somebody has been imposing on you, Cousin E. E."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>318<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Believe it or not, it is the truth," says E. E. "Ask Dempster."</p>
+
+<p>"Ask Dempster! Do you think I have lost every grain of modesty, that
+such an outrageous question should pass my lips?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, believe it or not, as you like," says she, "I haven't time to
+prove it; only it isn't worth while to scout at what every one does, and
+you are a little apt to do that, Ph&oelig;mie."</p>
+
+<p>"So, if I lived among hottentots, I mustn't object to rancid-oil on my
+hair&mdash;but I think I should, anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well; get on your bonnet, or the Dolly Varden will never be
+finished in time," says she, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>I put on my beehive, and we both went right down town. On our way we saw
+a wire woman standing in a broad, glass window, with a dress on, that
+took the shine off from anything I had ever seen in the way of a dress.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a Dolly," says E. E., "and really, now, I do believe it would
+fit you."</p>
+
+<p>We went into the store, had the wire woman undressed, and her Dolly
+carried up-stairs, where I put it on, behind a red curtain, with a
+chatty female woman hooking it together, and buttoning it up in puffs
+and waves that made me stand out like a race-horse with a saddle on. The
+girl was French, with a touch of the Irish brogue&mdash;just enough to give
+richness to the language.</p>
+
+<p>I asked her what was the reason of it, and she said in their
+establishment a great many of the upper crust Irish came to trade, and
+she had caught just the least taste of a brogue in waiting on
+them&mdash;which was natural, and accounts for the accent so many of these
+French girls have, which I must own has puzzled me a little.</p>
+
+<p>When my dress was on, E. E. and this French girl led me up to a great,
+tall looking-glass, and stood with their hands folded, while I took an
+observation. The French girl clasped her hands, and spoke first:</p>
+
+<p>"Tra jolly," says she.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>319<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No," says I, "that is not exactly my state of mind&mdash;composed I may be,
+but not jolly, by any manner of means."</p>
+
+<p>"She means that the dress is beautiful," says E. E.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" says I, "why didn't she say so then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, she did, in her way."</p>
+
+<p>"Magnifique," says the girl, cutting the word off with a squeak.</p>
+
+<p>"Why can't you open your mouth wide enough to say magnificent," says I,
+"if you like it so much; nipping off words with a bite isn't one thing
+or another."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but it is, beside the dress, that figure," says she, a-spreading
+her hands.</p>
+
+<p>After all, the girl did manage to express herself. I was sorry for not
+understanding her at first.</p>
+
+<p>Before I could say this, Cousin E. E. got out of patience.</p>
+
+<p>"Does the dress suit? for we have no time to throw away," says she.</p>
+
+<p>"Suit," says I, turning round and round with slow enjoyment of that
+queenly figure in the glass. "Of course it does. Why, cousin, it is
+superb; the bunching up is stupendous. Then the pattern&mdash;a whole flower
+garden in full bloom."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it had better be sent home at once, for we must go early in the
+morning," says she, short as pie crust.</p>
+
+<p>I paid for that Dolly Varden with satisfaction. It might have been
+dear&mdash;I think it was, but there were no extras, and I knew what I was
+about from the first. Besides it was a smashing affair, rain-bowish,
+beautifully puckered up, and blazing with flowers.</p>
+
+<p>Well, we went into the street, and then Cousin E. E. began:</p>
+
+<p>"One minute, Ph&oelig;mie; I want some hair pins."</p>
+
+<p>We went into the next door and got the hair pins, then out again. After
+walking about fifty feet she broke out once more:</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me, I forgot the black ribbon."</p>
+
+<p>In she darted through another door, and came out stuffing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>320<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> a bit of
+twisted paper into her pocket. Ten feet more and she turned square
+about:</p>
+
+<p>"Some pins, Ph&oelig;mie; I must get some pins."</p>
+
+<p>So we kept darting in and out of doors till there wasn't another in the
+street, and went home with both our pockets stuffed full of pins, lace,
+gloves, combs, buttons, and a general assortment of other small things,
+all of which E. E. had forgotten till the last minute.</p>
+
+<p>That night I left her plunged headforemost into a huge trunk, with a
+sloping roof, her feet just touching the ground, and complaining
+bitterly because Dempster was not at home to help press the things down.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXXVII" id="LXXVII"></a>LXXVII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>STARTING FOR LONG BRANCH.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/e.jpg" width="60" height="60" alt="E" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">E</span>ARLY the next morning a big wagon-load of trunks drove from the door.
+Then a carriage came up ready to take us to the boat. It was awful hot,
+and the air in that house was so close one could hardly breathe. The
+parlors were all shut up. The stone girl and that other fellow had white
+dresses on, and for once made a decent appearance. The chairs and sofas
+were all done up in linen, the blinds were shut, and the whole house
+looked like a church whose minister had been sent off on his travels at
+the expense of an adoring congregation.</p>
+
+<p>E. E. and I stood in the hall, I with a satchel in my hand, she with a
+little brown affair buckled on one side of her waist.</p>
+
+<p>That child was a-standing in the open door, watching the men pile the
+trunks on the wagon.</p>
+
+<p>"Mamma," she called out, as the man drove away, "I'm sure they have left
+a trunk, for I counted, and there was only nineteen."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>321<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>E. E. ran to the foot of the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>"Dempster, Dempster!"</p>
+
+<p>Down came Dempster, looking hot and worried.</p>
+
+<p>E. E. called out:</p>
+
+<p>"Do stop the wagon, something is left."</p>
+
+<p>Dempster ran into the street, stopped the man, and stood in the hot sun
+counting over the trunks. His face was in a blaze when he came back.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right," says he, "twenty of them, full count. Come, get into
+the carriage."</p>
+
+<p>E. E. moved forward a step or two, then halted.</p>
+
+<p>"The basement door&mdash;is it bolted?"</p>
+
+<p>Dempster dived down to the lower hall and up again, panting for breath.</p>
+
+<p>"The scuttle," said E. E., pointing upwards.</p>
+
+<p>Dempster rushed upstairs, banged away at the roof, and ran down again.</p>
+
+<p>E. E. drew down her veil, and tightened her shawl.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Dempster, have you locked the wine-cellar?"</p>
+
+<p>Again Dempster made a rush into the depths of the earth, and came up
+again dripping with swe&mdash;well, perspiration.</p>
+
+<p>"There, I think everything is safe now," he said, offering E. E. his
+arm.</p>
+
+<p>She took it a moment, then dropped it suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me! Dempster, you haven't been near the stable, and I haven't a
+doubt it is wide open!"</p>
+
+<p>Dempster said something between his teeth which I tried my best not to
+hear; then off he went down the pavement, looking as if he would give
+the world to knock some one down. By and by he came back, panting like a
+mad dog.</p>
+
+<p>"Anything more!" says he, savage as a jack-knife, wiping his face with a
+white pocket-handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear," says E. E.; "I'm afraid I left my parasol&mdash;just run up and
+see."</p>
+
+<p>Dempster went, and came down with the parasol in his hand.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>322<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>She took it, and got into the carriage. I followed, and "that child"
+dived in after me. Dempster had his foot on the step, when E. E. broke
+out again:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, darling, what shall I do?&mdash;Snip has been left behind. I think you
+will find her in the bath-room."</p>
+
+<p>Dempster dashed the handkerchief across his face, ran up the steps in
+desperate haste, and by and by came out with E. E.'s little black dog in
+his arms.</p>
+
+<p>E. E. reached out her arms, but Cecilia snatched it from her father.
+That moment a policeman went by, and E. E. leaned through the carriage
+window.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Dempster, you have forgotten to see the policeman."</p>
+
+<p>Dempster followed the man, diving one hand down into his pocket. I saw
+him draw out some money, which the man took; then poor Dempster came
+back on a run, and plunged into the carriage.</p>
+
+<p>"Drive on&mdash;drive on, I say&mdash;or we'll be too late for the Long Branch
+boat!"</p>
+
+<p>The man did drive on, but E. E. jerked the check-string.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, husband, do oblige me just this once&mdash;I have left my longest back
+braid on the bureau!"</p>
+
+<p>"No," says Dempster, "I'll be&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I put my hand over Dempster's mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Dempster," says I, "if you ever want to be a Christian, this is the
+place to begin in, for here patience can have its perfect work."</p>
+
+<p>My gentle rebuke had its effect. Dempster got out of the carriage, and
+once more mounted those stone steps.</p>
+
+<p>By and by he came back with a long braid of hair trailing from his hand.
+Then he planted his foot on the carriage step with decision, and says
+he:</p>
+
+<p>"Drive on!" which the man did.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>323<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXXVIII" id="LXXVIII"></a>LXXVIII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THAT HAIR-TRUNK.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;We are here at Long Branch, bag and baggage&mdash;Cousin
+Dempster, E. E., myself, and that creature Cecilia, who is more trouble
+than the whole of us put together. We came down in&mdash;not on&mdash;the
+<i>Plymouth Rock</i>, which is nothing of the sort, but a steamboat, as long
+as all out-doors, with room enough for a camping-ground for the next
+generation on the decks, and rows of staterooms that would line the main
+street of Sprucehill on both sides, and have some to let. There was a
+whole lot of fiddlers and horn-players on board that began to play the
+minute we came in sight&mdash;a compliment that I should feel more deeply if
+it hadn't become so common; but somehow wherever I go, those musical
+fellows start up, and grind and blow till one almost begins to wish for
+the privacy of an obscure position.</p>
+
+<p>Fame is beautiful, and reputation is the glory of genius; but when they
+are sounded out by fiddles in broad daylight, and blasted over creation
+by wide-mouthed toot-horns, innate modesty shrinks within itself.</p>
+
+<p>I really felt this way when a squad of music-grinders burst out in high
+jubilee the moment my foot touched the deck. It was a compliment, of
+course, but the sun was pouring down upon us, hot as a fiery furnace.</p>
+
+<p>The express-men were smashing our twenty-two trunks on deck end
+foremost, caving one in every minute or two, and I felt too hot and
+anxious for reciprocity when the musicians struck up, for all the genius
+and ambition was just burned out of me.</p>
+
+<p>When we got aboard, the thermometer was running up so fast that another
+hitch would have made it boil right over. Those glass things ought to be
+made longer at both ends.</p>
+
+<p>I haven't a blinding faith in express-men since I saw three<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>324<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> of E. E.'s
+best Saratoga trunks stove in, so I let the music storm on while I kept
+watch of my own hair-trunk, which came down from my grandmother on the
+father's side, who fed the calf that gave up the skin that covers that
+trunk only with its innocent life. She fed it with skim-milk from her
+own saucer, and set store by the trunk on that account up to the day of
+her death. Then she willed it to me in a codicil, that being more sacred
+than the original testament, she said, which I cannot understand&mdash;all
+testaments, old or new, being first in my estimation.</p>
+
+<p>Well, of course, I kept watch of that trunk, and when I saw a great
+broad footed Irishman take it from the wagon and pitch it ten feet on
+deck, I just shut my parasol, clenched it in the middle, and went up to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"How dare you pitch my property on end in that way?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"I hain't touched none of your property," says he, a-wiping his forehead
+with the cuff of his coat. "Never see a bit of it."</p>
+
+<p>"That trunk is my property," says I, pointing toward it with my parasol,
+which I still held belligerently by the middle.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," says the fellow, eyeing the trunk sideways, "it does look sort
+of pecular, but still I reckon it's nothing more 'en a trunk, after
+all&mdash;one of the hairy old stagers&mdash;but only a trunk, anyhow!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," says I, with emphatic dignity, for the honor of my ancestors was
+concerned, "that is a traditional trunk&mdash;a testamentary bequest from my
+grandmother&mdash;who was revolutionary in her time."</p>
+
+<p>"What," says the man&mdash;"what is that you say?"</p>
+
+<p>Here a real nice-looking gentleman came up to where I stood, and says he
+to the man:</p>
+
+<p>"You should be more careful, the trunk is evidently an heirloom."</p>
+
+<p>"You are very kind," says I, relenting into a bow; "it's only a
+hair-trunk&mdash;grandmother's loom went to another branch of the family."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>325<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, anyway, I'll put the crather by itself, and bring it to yez safe,
+marum, never fear," says the Irishman; and with that he sat down on my
+blessed grandmother's trunk and wiped his face again. Then he waved his
+dirty hand and motioned that I should go away, which I did, and found E.
+E. spreading her skirts out wide on a settee, and looking as innocent as
+twenty lambs if any one seemed to turn anxiously toward the extra seat
+she was covering up for me.</p>
+
+<p>I took the seat thankfully, spread my parasol, and tried to catch a
+mouthful of air, but there wasn't a breath stirring. The water in the
+harbor was smooth as a looking-glass. The sky was broad, blue, and so
+hot with sunshine that it blistered one's face to look up.</p>
+
+<p>I put a blue veil around my beehive, and wilted down into my corner of
+the settee. Dempster stood by us blowing himself with a broad-brimmed
+hat, but not a breath of air he got.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll run down and see how the thermometer is," says he. "Never&mdash;never
+did I swelter under such a stifler in my life."</p>
+
+<p>Off he went, swinging his hat. In a few minutes he came back again,
+panting with the heat.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a hundred," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"What?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"The thermometer," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"And is it that which makes things so hot?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," says he, "one hundred is as much as we can bear."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, why on earth don't they get rid of some? What is the use of
+piling-up things to this extent? For my part I never will travel on
+boats that carry these red-hot thermometers again. It's as much as one's
+life is worth. Nitro-glycerine is nothing to it; that blows you right
+straight up, but these other things pile on the heat and never come to
+an end."</p>
+
+<p>Congress ought to put a stop to such dangerous freights being piled-up
+in steamboats. It's enough to breed suicides on the water.</p>
+
+<p>Dempster wanted to laugh, I could see that, but his face just<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>326<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> puckered
+up a little, and it was all he could do in that line. So he took a
+camp-stool, pulled his new white hat over his eyes, and fell into a
+soggy sort of sleep. There he sat, kind of simmering, like a baked apple
+in the mouth of an oven, till the steamboat stopped on the end of a
+sand-bank, and gave a lazy snarl, as if it was glad to get rid of us.</p>
+
+<p>After this they packed the whole cargo of live people in a line of cars,
+and sent them off sweltering through the sand with the engine roaring
+before them like a fiery dragon.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXXIX" id="LXXIX"></a>LXXIX.<br />
+<br />
+<small>AT THE BRANCH.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/b.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="B" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">B</span>Y AND BY, we came to Long Branch, where the engine gave another long
+whoop, and were turned out into the sunshine again among stages, wagons,
+carriages, and all sorts of wheeled creatures, all looking as if they
+had been in a whirlwind of red dust.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Dempster had sent his carriage ahead, and there his handsome bay
+horses stood sweating themselves black, and dropping foam into the dusty
+road. We got in, helter-skelter&mdash;no one cared which was first&mdash;and were
+driven toward the sea-shore.</p>
+
+<p>When we got in sight of the water the horses made a sudden turn, and
+wheeled into a wide, dusty street, that runs right along the edge of the
+water. It was an awful grand sight, but the waves didn't seem to have
+strength enough to move, only gave out a lazy sob once in a while, as if
+they were tired of carrying so many loafing ships about that hadn't
+spirit enough to flap their own sails.</p>
+
+<p>Long Branch is a real nice place after all; and just the broadest,
+coolest, and most scrumptious tavern in it is the Ocean<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>327<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> Hotel, which
+stands just back of the sea-shore, stretching its white wings widely,
+from the centre building a quarter of a mile, I do believe, each way.
+Before the house is a great green lawn, with walks and carriage roads
+cut through it that lead from the house to the high bank, against which
+the ocean keeps beating all the year round.</p>
+
+<p>On each side the walks are great white marble flower-pots&mdash;vases they
+call them here&mdash;choke full and running over with flowers and vines, and
+great broad-leaved plants that looked cool and green, hot as it was.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," says Cousin E. E. "Isn't that beautiful? So fresh, so bright, it
+is like a moving garden."</p>
+
+<p>So it was. All along those deep verandahs that run clear across the
+front of the hotel in double rows, were swinging baskets full of flowers
+and cool green leaves&mdash;hundreds of them&mdash;brightening the whole broad
+front of the hotel, and under them was a crowd of people&mdash;gentlemen,
+ladies, and children&mdash;reading, chatting, sleeping in the great easy
+willow chairs, or walking up and down on the soft grass.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, I know now exactly the way an Arab feels when he finds a bright
+spring&mdash;which they call an oasis&mdash;in the deserts of Sahara, and hears
+the leaves shiver and the waters murmur. This hotel looked cool, still,
+and refreshing like that. All the front was in shadow, before it lay the
+deep blue water. Inside was Mr. Leland, a potentate among hotel-keepers,
+ready to make us at home.</p>
+
+<p>There it was again. Ovations will follow me. I had but just taken off my
+dusty clothes, bathed my face and hands with cold water, and stepped out
+on the verandah, when a storm of music burst out from a little
+summer-house on the grass. Wherever I go this sort of ovation follows
+me. Music and flowers seem to be my destiny. No matter where I roam, in
+all the steamboats and hotels they send storms of homage after me. Well,
+I am grateful, and I hope bear these honors with Christian meekness.</p>
+
+<p>I have been riding all along the beach. The sun has gone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>328<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> down and the
+ocean ripples to the softest and blandest wind I ever felt. The vessels
+that move on it show signs of life now. Their great white sails bend and
+strain with a look of power. The day has been hot, but a cool wind comes
+off the water, and you breathe once more.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, do not be led to suppose that the Ocean Hotel, large and grand
+as it is, means all Long Branch. Why, there is a mile of hotels and
+cottages running along the beach, all swarming over with people. As you
+ride up the street you pass dozens and dozens of little summer-houses,
+full of young people looking out at the sea, which comes in with a slow
+rush and swell now that leaves a lonesome feeling in the heart.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXXX" id="LXXX"></a>LXXX.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE RACE-COURSE.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/t.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="T" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">T</span>HERE is a race-ground three miles from here, where everybody is going
+this morning, though the weather is hot and the ocean is sound asleep,
+with great silver scales of sunshine trembling over it.</p>
+
+<p>New York has come down in crowds to Long Branch, and all the hotels have
+emptied themselves on to the race-course. Three miles of road are
+covered with moving carriages, wagons and stages&mdash;one cloud of yellow
+dust rolls along the road without a break. Every carriage is gay with
+brightly dressed ladies. Thousands go up or down on the railroad, whose
+engine stops and pours out clouds of black smoke close by the race
+track. From the cars a stream of people now on to the course, packing
+themselves into the benches of the Grand Stand, or scattering on the
+grass around it.</p>
+
+<p>When we got into the enclosure fifteen thousand people were waiting,
+some in the hot sun, others in the hot shade, all choked with dust and
+sweltering with heat.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>329<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>We were late. There was but one thing that we wanted to see: the race
+between Longfellow and Harry Bassett&mdash;two of the swiftest horses in the
+country.</p>
+
+<p>If horses could gamble I should call these two beautiful creatures
+black-legs, and the gayest of gamboliers; but as they can't do it
+themselves men and women do it for them.</p>
+
+<p>This time twenty-five thousand dollars was to go to the swiftest
+horse&mdash;twenty-five thousand dollars&mdash;enough to build a meeting-house.
+Doesn't it make you tremble in your shoes; but that isn't all. Everybody
+was betting with everybody else, just for the fun of betting.</p>
+
+<p>I saw a little shaver there, ten years old, who boasted that he had won
+three pair of gloves from a little girl of eight.</p>
+
+<p>The cream of that fifteen thousand skimmed itself off and consolidated
+in a handsome square building that they call the Club House. We went
+there, of course, and soon got seats among a crowd of upper-tenists on
+the roof, which took in a view of the whole race-ground.</p>
+
+<p>One or two horses, with funny little fellows on their backs, were moving
+up and down before the Grand Stand, but no one seemed to care about
+them. Harry Bassett and Longfellow were all they wanted in the way of
+fast horses.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, don't fancy now that Longfellow is of a poetic, or even
+literary, turn of mind. Nor do I want you to think that his owner named
+him after our great New England poet because he was fired with
+admiration of his genius. Nothing of the kind. I don't suppose that "old
+Kentucky gentleman" ever read a line of Longfellow's poetry in his
+life&mdash;may be, though I hate to think so, he never heard of him&mdash;at any
+rate this great, long, swift, beautiful animal was named after himself,
+and nobody else. His body is long and slender, very long, and that is
+why the colt got his name. I wish it had been the other way, but it
+wasn't, and truth is truth. In fact, I'm afraid literature isn't
+appreciated on the race-course. It takes all the romance out of one to
+know that this grand young horse was named after his own body, and not
+after our great New Englander.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>330<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Never mind about the name now, Harry Bassett is coming down the road,
+and slackens his speed in front of the Grand Stand. A beautiful,
+beautiful animal, with limbs like a deer, and a coat smooth as satin,
+colored like a plump ripe chestnut. Fifteen thousand people clap their
+hands, stamp their feet, shout, cheer, and flutter out their
+handkerchiefs as the horse goes by.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, you never saw anything like it. A camp-meeting, where every
+man, woman, and child was just converted, might be a comparison, with
+drawbacks.</p>
+
+<p>Harry Bassett took all this cool as a cucumber. It didn't disturb a hair
+on his glossy coat. The creature knew that he was being admired, and
+liked it&mdash;that was all. Down he came by the Grand Stand, past the Club
+House, where he got another ovation and another whirlwind of white
+handkerchiefs, and, wheeling round, walked back again and gave the other
+horse a chance.</p>
+
+<p>Longfellow came next&mdash;a little larger, a little longer, and heavier in
+the limbs&mdash;a splendid horse; but he did not take my fancy as Harry
+Bassett did. From the first minute I wanted that chestnut beauty to
+beat; there was something about him, I can't tell what, but he suited
+me.</p>
+
+<p>I was half put-out with Longfellow for being such a grand, powerful
+fellow. When he came opposite the Grand Stand, out flew the
+handkerchiefs and out rolled the thunder, just as it had when Bassett
+went by. Both the animals were so handsome that you couldn't help
+clapping your hands.</p>
+
+<p>Bless you, the splendid creature didn't care a cent for it all. The
+crazy applause passed him like wind. He liked the fresh air, and gloried
+in a swift run, on his own hook; twenty-five thousand dollars were
+nothing to him. But he showed off his magnificent proportions and
+allowed the hot sunshine to stroam over his brown coat with the most
+abominable indifference.</p>
+
+<p>I insist upon it, Longfellow is a noble horse, but not so handsome or so
+lithe in his movement as Bassett. If these two creatures should ever
+come to Sprucehill, I know you will all stand by me in what I say&mdash;but
+then every one of you would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>331<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> be turned out of meeting if you only looked
+at a race-horse through a spy-glass.</p>
+
+<p>Well, when the two handsome beasts had shown themselves off long enough,
+they drew up together and made ready for a start. A red flag was
+floating close by them. There was no noise now; not a man in all those
+benches clapped his hands. Instead of that, the whole crowd seemed
+afraid to breathe.</p>
+
+<p>The red flag fell. The two horses started close together, and kept so
+once round the course; then that long-bodied fellow began to stretch
+himself a little ahead. They passed us like two arrows shot from one
+bow, Longfellow's head showing first. Once more they went round. Now a
+roll of wild, thundering noises followed them. Longfellow was ahead; you
+could see a gap of light between them. Beautiful Harry Bassett tried his
+best; but that long-bodied trooper just flew, and came out yards ahead.</p>
+
+<p>I declare it riled me. I know that the chestnut beauty could have beaten
+if something hadn't been the matter with him. Poor fellow! he looked
+awfully down in the mouth when he was ridden up right into the whirlwind
+of noises that rejoiced over that other horse. It seemed to me as if he
+knew the pain and humiliation of defeat, just as well as if he had been
+human; I am sure he did. Still, sisters, I stand by Harry Bassett.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, mercy, how hot it was coming home those three dusty miles! How tired
+and thankful I was when we got safely into the Ocean Hotel, with plenty
+of lemonade and ice-water, with a cool wind blowing up from the water.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, I sometimes think you do not quite appreciate all the
+sacrifices that I make for you. The great want of our society, has been
+a thorough knowledge of what is going on in the wide world outside of
+Vermont and the Hub. That deficiency I am determined to make up by extra
+mission duties in the direction of general human nature. In order to
+prove or condemn a thing, one must see it in all its features. If
+ignorance were goodness, the universe would be crowded with pious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>332<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+people. But it isn't any such thing; and your pioneers and missionaries
+who mean to teach, musn't be afraid to learn. Now, there is a good deal
+to be said about races, and if 'twere not for the betting&mdash;which is
+gambling, under another name&mdash;I should rather like it. A noble horse in
+full training is a brave sight; and, next to a noble man or woman, I,
+for one, am glad to see him put forward. There isn't a bit of harm in
+swift running; but then twenty-five thousand dollars lost and won
+between two horses, is a snare and a delusion that the noble beasts have
+nothing to do with. I do not like that, and am quite sure that you will
+make it a subject of particular denunciation. I hope you will. Not that
+such things have ever found a mite of countenance in Vermont; but horses
+are raised there, and that may lead to something dreadful. If a patch of
+ground level enough for a race-course can be found in the State, some of
+these New Yorkers will be for fencing it in; and the way they are
+progressing here, some ambitious fellow may be wanting to charter the
+Green Mountains for a hurdle, for horses all but fly in these parts.</p>
+
+<p>Understand me&mdash;I am not blaming the animals&mdash;they are just splendid; but
+betting, especially among women, is my abomination. It is an open gate
+through which feminines slide into a habit of gambling. I don't like it,
+and the sooner our American feminine women know my opinion, the sooner
+they will be ready to turn back and consider what they are about.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXXXI" id="LXXXI"></a>LXXXI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>CLIMBING SEA CLIFF.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;You are right. My mind has been too much in the world. I
+have been led into walks of life that do not accurately jibe with the
+pious experiences of former days. I confess my shortcomings with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>333<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+humiliation, and am resolved on a season of mission duties in another
+direction than horse-races. They are exciting, and give one a
+high-stepping inclination. Still, my motive is good.</p>
+
+<p>"Try all things, and hold fast to that which is good," is scriptural,
+but on some occasions may be temptations, especially when the thing that
+is good happens to be disagreeable, and the other is awfully enticing.</p>
+
+<p>Any way, sisters, I am determined to do my duty in every walk of life,
+and the foremost duty this moment takes me far away from Long Branch,
+puts me on two steamboats and two short snatches of railroads, which
+land me at the foot of a great, sandy, high-sloping hill&mdash;some people
+call it a bluff&mdash;but which religious people of several denominations
+call "Sea Cliff Grove."</p>
+
+<p>Now, Sea Cliff Grove is a sacred institution, lifted high up toward
+Heaven, and bathed in an especial odor of sanctity, conglomerated from
+ever so many different churches, and so centralized in a place that may,
+to the fanciful mind, be considered a city set on a hill.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, it is. If Jordan is a hard road to travel, Sea Cliff Grove is an
+awful hill to climb, even in a covered stage, with two long, thin horses
+dragging the blessed pilgrims upward with all their might.</p>
+
+<p>Before we got clear up, there was now and then an encouraging glimpse of
+brightness from the dome of the tabernacle, covered over with tin, which
+blazed and sparkled and shone in the hot sunshine, till it set one's
+brain to sweltering. If it hadn't been for a cool fringe of trees
+running along the edge of the hill, it seemed to me as if the whole
+bluff must have burned up, and gone off in a blaze of glory. That dome,
+which looked like a great cone, roofed in with milk-pans set on edge,
+was the crowning glory of a new tabernacle&mdash;not the one built without
+hands, for it took a great many hands to build this great, rambling
+affair, besides the cottages and tents and long, open stoops, that look
+out on the sea from morning till night.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>334<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Among these tents and little houses and the great tabernacle, the man
+who drove us took his ten cents a-piece, and set us down, and wheeled
+about, singing "Old Hundred" to his horses, and swinging his whip with
+slow solemnity as he lumbered down hill again.</p>
+
+<p>Then we started off afoot in search of Cousin Dempster's cottage, for he
+had sent on ahead, and hired one of the little cubby-houses for us to
+stay in till the religious season was over.</p>
+
+<p>We found our cubby-house at last, but somebody else had got their nine
+points of the law out of it. So the man sent on beforehand had pitched a
+tent on the grass, which we went into like Indians just returned from a
+hunting-party&mdash;dusty, thirsty, and sort of wolfish for something to eat.</p>
+
+<p>We took off our bonnets, and pinned them by the strings to the walls of
+the tent, which were of the best tow-cloth I ever saw out of Vermont.
+Then we shook ourselves, as hens do when they have been rolling in the
+dust, and pushed back our hair with both hands, which E. E. said was
+making a rural toilet worthy of the occasion. Then I, with the kindest
+intentions, shook out E. E.'s&mdash;full panier&mdash;and found it puckered-up
+with green burdock burs, which she had got on from the weeds on her way
+to the tent. These I picked off, one by one, while she was stamping her
+foot with a spirit that shocked me dreadfully in that sacred place, for
+all around us the people were singing and praying, and shouting
+"Hallelujah" and "Amen" and "Glory," in a way that made the pious
+teachings of my grandmother rile up within me. I looked upon the burdock
+burs as a judgment upon Mrs. Dempster, especially as I hadn't any
+puckerings in my dress to catch them in, and she had brought all her
+wordliness on her back.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>335<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXXXII" id="LXXXII"></a>LXXXII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>FIGHTING FOR THE BODY.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/b.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="B" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">B</span>Y AND BY the shouts and noises hushed up a little, and there was a
+stampede, like a rush of cattle, in the grounds.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," says Dempster, "or we shall get nothing to eat."</p>
+
+<p>"Does that mean dinner?" says E. E., with a hungry look.</p>
+
+<p>"Just that," says Dempster, "so look sharp; for here it is every man for
+himself, and the&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Dempster!" said I, stepping back with pious horror, "do you know where
+you are?"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly; but I know, too, that unless we look sharp, we shall feel flat
+when we get to the dining-hall and find everything swept off."</p>
+
+<p>We took the hint. I lifted the skirt of my alpaca dress gently, between
+my thumb and forefinger, just enough to give an idea of the ankle
+without revealing it, and went out of the tent, imbued with the spirit
+of the place, but humiliated with worldly craving.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, if the denizens of this Sea Cliff are only half as earnest in
+their souls' salvation as they are in replenishing poor, frail human
+nature, there will be a glorious harvest of regeneration this holy
+season. The way they poured out of the tents, the houses, the long
+stoops, and through the bushes was fluttering and noisy as the flight of
+ten thousand chickens from a barn-yard. Still the crowd did not break
+all at once from the spiritual to the temporal wants of human nature.
+They kept on praying and singing in breaks and snatches clear up to the
+dining-hall, when the old earthly Evil One got uppermost, and each man
+seizing a knife and fork, went at the first dish he saw, and held on to
+it with one hand, while he did double express duty with the other.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>336<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Sisters, this crowd of sinners sanctified, and to be sanctified, was
+made up of about the hungriest mortals that I ever set eyes upon. The
+way those safety-seeking souls took care of their bodies was
+regenerating, I can tell you. For my part, after seeing every dish swept
+away from before me, with Christian fortitude becoming to the place, my
+carnal nature rose uppermost, and, seizing upon a plate of summer
+squash, I held on to it valiantly, while E. E. snatched a potatoe with
+its jacket on, from a flying dish, and Dempster wrestled with one of the
+saints for a plate of bread, as Jacob wrestled with the angels; only
+this saint was six feet high, wore a hood-brimmed straw hat, and carried
+off the plate of bread in his hands, after all.</p>
+
+<p>I greatly fear Cousin Dempster didn't meet this test of a meek and lowly
+spirit with the fortitude of a martyr. In fact, I'm afraid he said
+something beside "Amen" between his grinding teeth, when that plate
+disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>As for E. E. and myself, we got a spoon between us, and dined on the
+squash, generously giving up the potato to Dempster, with an admonition
+which did not seem to suit him much better than that stone-cold
+vegetable.</p>
+
+<p>Well, when we had vegetated the inner man to this extent, and watched
+the swarm of hungry eaters devouring the food like a cloud of ravenous
+locusts, Cousin Dempster laid down his potato-peel on the table with
+mournful sadness, and said, plaintively:</p>
+
+<p>"This is all we are likely to get; let us go."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait," says I, "some one is going to return thanks."</p>
+
+<p>"What, for two spoonfuls of squash and one hollow-hearted potato for
+three of us? Never!" says Dempster.</p>
+
+<p>Really, sisters, the spirit will have a tough job before it brings the
+proud nature of Cousin Dempster into a state of perfect sanctification.
+E. E. and I gave him a beautiful example, and looked as humbly grateful
+as two hungry female women could, over a double spoonful of watery
+squash; I fear he did not appreciate it though, for when a deep Amen
+rolled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>337<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> down the hall, after the thanks were given, he meanly growled
+out&mdash;well, a very peculiar word, that made my heart jump into my mouth.
+In any other place, I should write out boldly that Cousin Dempster&mdash;but
+in that out-door sanctuary&mdash;no, the secret of what he said shall go with
+me to my grave.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXXXIII" id="LXXXIII"></a>LXXXIII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>LIONS AND LAMBS.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/s.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="S" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">S</span>ISTERS:&mdash;The tabernacle under that tin roof will hold, well packed, six
+hundred anxious souls&mdash;each with a weak, human body attached. The seats
+are all cushioned with the softest pine, and have luxurious board backs.
+A stage rises grandly for the ministers of many churches who harmonize
+and fraternize like lions and lambs, each shepherding his own flock and
+drawing converts into his fold, wherever he can find a straggling sinner
+on his knees. The dining-room all at once emptied itself into the
+tabernacle; the ministers mounted the stage, and out in front came a man
+whose first words woke you up like the blast of a war trumpet.</p>
+
+<p>A stout, smart, almost grand-looking man, who looked over the crowd as
+if he owned every man and woman in it, and meant to regenerate them in
+flocks, or turn them over to what-you-may-call-him at once. His dark
+face, broad forehead, and silver-gray hair looked strong, if not
+handsome. His light eyes gleamed out from behind a pair of gold
+spectacles, and when he got in earnest his heavy brows drew together and
+left deep lines between them which made him look stronger yet.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is that?" I whispered to Cousin D.</p>
+
+<p>"Inskip," says he, "the greatest gun amongst them."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me!" says I.</p>
+
+<p>There was no time to say more, for that great gun was pouring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>338<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> a hot
+storm of eloquence into the crowd, and stirring it up as a north-easter
+lashes the hemlocks on our mountains. Sisters, the scene was wonderfully
+impressive. I felt the old revival spirit in all my bones. When he
+stopped a minute for the crowd to say Amen, the word rattled out like a
+discharge of guns on a training day.</p>
+
+<p>By and by his discourse grew warmer and more startling. He just pitched
+headforemost into the cause, and stirred up that great congregation like
+a tornado. The Amens grew noisy, and were let off from lip to lip like
+fire-crackers on a Fourth of July. Then some one sang out "Hallelujah!"
+and another "Glory, Glory, Glory!" till the whole congregation broke
+into a young earthquake. Some started up, some rocked on their seats,
+and half a dozen fell to the ground, trembling, praying, and shouting
+"Hallelujah."</p>
+
+<p>There was a mixture of all sorts of people in the crowd, which made it
+yeast over like a baking of bread when the rising is lively. When one
+got a-going the rest set in. Half the crowd were crying and the other
+half clapping hands.</p>
+
+<p>Then Mr. Inskip rested a little, and a real handsome young gentleman
+stood up and sung beautifully. When he got through, the crowd joined in,
+every man, woman, and child singing on his own hook, which was noisy,
+and might have been harmonious if half of them had settled on the same
+tune, which they did, but cut across each other and sung out "Glory,"
+when they forgot everything else, which made the music a little uneven.</p>
+
+<p>Of course when a crowd like that gets a-going in a full blast of
+eloquence, stirring up consciences, and dancing and thrilling along the
+nerves, there is sure to be a whirlwind of magnetism heaving souls
+against each other till they cry out with the shock.</p>
+
+<p>I looked around; the crowd was all in commotion; every face burned with
+excitement of some kind, for under that man's voice human nature was
+stirred, aroused, lashed into a fury of wild enthusiasm. Female women
+grew pale, and trembled on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>339<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> the hard seats; men wilted down into
+childish softness; children cried and shouted.</p>
+
+<p>Before the stage was an open space, left free for sinners under
+conviction to come up and beseech the thrice-regenerated ministers to
+exhort and pray for them. Into this space those mostly stricken in the
+crowd, came like sheep looking for a shelter, some sobbing, some
+praying, some half sullen, as if the man's eloquent pleading for souls
+had forced, rather than persuaded them into that "Pen of the Penitents."
+But with each new convert, Brother Inskip broke forth in a new place,
+and the crowd shouted "Glory!" "Amen!" "Hallelujah!" till you could not
+hear yourself think.</p>
+
+<p>The enthusiasm was catching. I felt it blaze and tremble over me from
+the crown of my head to the sole of my foot, and when a young minister
+joined in, and poured the notes of a beautiful hymn on the tumult, my
+heart fairly swelled with the glory of it.</p>
+
+<p>I looked around for my cousins.</p>
+
+<p>There was Dempster, with the eyes fairly dancing in his head, clapping
+his hands like an overgrown boy, though he did drop them when he met my
+look, and turned his head away, half ashamed of his own feelings.</p>
+
+<p>I looked around for E. E., who sat with her mouth half open, while sobs
+came through her trembling lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, cousin, cousin, what shall I do? Have I really been regenerated, or
+has the Lord sent me here this day to be made a new creature?"</p>
+
+<p>I did not answer her; there was no chance for free thought or cool
+reason in a crowd like that. In fact, I began to feel like a vile
+sinner, myself, and as if being unregenerated was the duty of every
+female woman every time a camp-meeting offered a good opportunity.
+Seeing E. E. crying there as if her heart were breaking up, and both men
+and women wild with joy or grief all around me, I just caved in, pulled
+out my handkerchief, and sobbed with them, though what on earth we were
+all crying about I couldn't have told to save my life.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>340<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>The truth was, the more some women cried the more others shouted; and
+when the meeting was over, everybody told everybody else what a
+refreshing time they had experienced under Brother Inskip's preaching,
+which was true as the Gospel, if tears refresh the soul as rain does the
+earth.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXXXIV" id="LXXXIV"></a>LXXXIV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>EXPERIENCES.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/a.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="A" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">A</span>FTER the preaching was done, the crowd broke up into sections and had a
+half-dozen prayer-meetings and spontaneous love-feasts, where men and
+women, and sometimes little children, got up and told all the strangers
+within hearing how wicked they had been&mdash;with tears, and sobs, and
+groans, that made one's heart ache. Still one and all of them seemed to
+enjoy their own depravity and put themselves down as such horrible
+sinners, that any amount of praying could not have dug them out of the
+degradation into which they dived headforemost and seemed to revel in,
+for a thousand years at least.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody told his experience.</p>
+
+<p>Among the rest, a young man from the Hub, slim as a beanpole and fiery
+as a race-horse, prayed and shouted, and sung, and blazed away at the
+crowd, like all possessed. His straight, black hair was parted down the
+middle of his forehead, and his mustache rose and fell like fury as the
+words of warning came like red-hot shot through his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is that?" says I to Cousin Dempster, who was listening with all his
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>"That," says he, "is Corbett, the young fellow who shot Wilkes Booth
+through the crevices of the old barn in which he had taken shelter."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>341<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>I shuddered all over, and I'm afraid the spirit of prayer had a shock.</p>
+
+<p>That young man was about the last person I should have expected to see
+praying, storming, and exhorting at a camp-meeting. He told us all how
+he had become so sanctified by the Lord, that small-pox could not touch
+him, though he went into the midst of it and nursed people down with the
+deadly disease, right straight through.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, he seemed to think sanctification a certain preventative
+against small-pox, only I suppose you must be sure to get the genuine
+thing, just as he had got it.</p>
+
+<p>Then another little fellow got up and told us that he had been an awful
+bad boy in his early days, and learned to chew tobacco and drink
+cider-brandy when he wasn't more than knee-high to a grasshopper. That
+the cider-brandy and tobacco had stuck in and defiled him through and
+through, till nothing but saving grace could have washed him clean and
+made his soul white as a lamb, which it then was, Glory hallelujah.</p>
+
+<p>All the congregation chimed in here and struck up a solemn chorus of
+Glory, Glory, Glory, Glory, which ended in a rejoicing "Amen," when the
+young man informed us that religion had reformed all his depraved
+tastes, and now he both hated and despised cider-brandy, tobacco, and
+all the abominations he had formerly hankered after.</p>
+
+<p>Before the young man sat down, another was on his feet, brimming over
+with sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>"I too," says he, "have got an experience which urges me to bear
+testimony that what our precious brother says is true. I know it. I feel
+it in my own soul, for I, too, have met with regeneration, whereby all
+things with me have become new. Why, brethren, before I got religion I
+couldn't bear the sight of tomatoes, cooked or raw. They were an
+abomination to my unconverted mind; but now that I have got religion,
+there isn't a wigitable that grows, which I set store by as I do
+tomatoeses. So I can testify that old things pass away, and everything
+becomes new."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>342<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>After bearing this testimony, the man wiped his mouth with one hand, and
+sat down, his head meekly bowed.</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin," says I to E. E., "as camp-meetings do not belong to our
+special persuasion, and as I do not feel the regenerating spirit grow
+strong in my bosom just at present, supposing you and I go back to the
+tent? Don't you see it is getting to be after dark now, and we have had
+an awfully warm day in all respects."</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. arose, looking heavy-eyed and worn out.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Ph&oelig;mie," says she, "I have gone through a good deal, and feel
+the nothingness of everything but religion. Oh, cousin, if one could
+always feel as we do here."</p>
+
+<p>I shook my head, but only answered:</p>
+
+<p>"Come, cousin, we can hear the still, small voice better alone in our
+tent."</p>
+
+<p>She yielded, and we started to make the best of our way out of the
+crowd, but five or six thousand persons swarmed around that regenerating
+camp-ground, and it was some time before we got safely into our own
+tent. Then I sat down by Cousin E. E., drew a deep, long breath, and
+said, "Thank goodness," with all my heart.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXXXV" id="LXXXV"></a>LXXXV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE SECOND DAY.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;I have been two days at this camp-meeting, fasting,
+because I have given up the fight about something to eat, and awake all
+night because the hot weather almost drove me into the anxious seat,
+from dread of a hotter place.</p>
+
+<p>I hope you are satisfied with the way I have been walking this straight
+and narrow path of missionary duty. I wish I could say quiet path, but,
+being of an honest turn of mind, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>343<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> must say it is both steep and noisy.
+Just at this minute a prayer-meeting and revival is going on in the next
+tent to ours and the groaning and shouting is enough to drive one crazy.
+The tent is crowded full of women and children, and I don't know which
+jump the highest or make the most noise.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I am not a wife&mdash;which you know is not my fault; neither am I a
+mother, which, under the circumstances, I am grateful for; but why
+little boys and girls should be brought here, and put in the way of a
+second birth, puzzles me. One event of that kind ought to be enough for
+any family of moderate ambition. In fact, I know of people who would do
+without any, with Christian fortitude. But here we are&mdash;men, women, and
+children&mdash;trying to save each other with all our might, and doing it in
+a way that brings strangers together with a jerk sometimes.</p>
+
+<p>Just as we were coming into the camping-ground this morning, where the
+whole road was beginning to swarm again, a nice old lady, in a gray
+dress, and with a little, white muslin shawl pinned over her bosom, came
+up to me, and, lifting her meek eyes from under her sugar-scoop bonnet,
+informed me that the Spirit was upon her. She was exercised with a sense
+of duty regarding my sinful condition, which was miserably apparent in
+the white feather that curlecued itself around my hat, and the cut of my
+gaiter boots that had heels enough to send a dozen souls to everlasting
+ruin.</p>
+
+<p>I looked down at my boot, which is a scrumptious one, and said, with
+thankfulness, that I couldn't see anything in them that should carry the
+souls off; besides, they could be heeled again.</p>
+
+<p>The woman shook her sugar-scoop bonnet at me, mournfully, and said
+something about a wicked and perverse generation, as if all mankind were
+standing in my gaiter boots, and she was rebuking it in a lump.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, sister!" says she, "if I could only make you see with my eyes, and
+hear with my ears! Why will you be so perverse? Have you no fear of the
+eternal flame that burneth and burneth forever?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>344<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Fear!" says I, a-looking up at the hot sun, and wiping my forehead. "I
+should think so! If all creation has a hotter place than this, I'm too
+big a coward to hurry that way. If there is an ice-house in the
+neighborhood, I should prefer that by all manner of means, by way of a
+punishment, if I deserve any."</p>
+
+<p>"Ice!" says she, solemnly. "Ice! have you never read the Scriptures?"</p>
+
+<p>"Several times," says I, with sarcastic forbearance. "My father had a
+book of that kind, which he sometimes opened."</p>
+
+<p>She could not understand the delicate irony of this answer; but pressed
+forward like an old camp-meetinger as she was.</p>
+
+<p>"Did that good father never read of a place where a drop of water could
+not be found to cool a certain person's tongue?" says she. "If not, your
+paternal ancestor fell short of his duty. It is no wonder his child
+should have gone half through life without a ray of saving grace, and
+with a white feather in her hat."</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, I was riled. "Half through life," says I. "Madam, do you know
+how old I am?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at me half a minute, with all the eyes in her head; then,
+with the cool air of a woman counting money, said, "about for&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, I <i>cannot</i> repeat the audacious falsehood of that creature's
+calculation. It was enough to rile up venom in the heart of a born
+cherubim. If ever a fiend took the disguise of a sugar-scoop bonnet, I
+have encountered one. A heart of stone lay under the innocent folds of
+that muslin half-shawl.</p>
+
+<p>"Madam," said I, with a look of overpowering indignation, "you must have
+begun and ended your arithmetic in multiplication. Take off half of the
+years you have mentioned."</p>
+
+<p>The woman smiled so knowingly, that I longed to&mdash; Well, no matter, she
+smiled, and says she:</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate, you are not too old for the mercy-seat."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think not," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Look yonder."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>345<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>I looked at half a dozen children jumping, kneeling, praying, and
+singing before the revival tent, which had been so full of worrying
+noises all night long, that none of us had got a wink of sleep.</p>
+
+<p>"Look," says she; "unless you are born again, and become like one of
+these, there will be no chance that you will ever enter the kingdom of
+Heaven."</p>
+
+<p>I looked at the lovely children, and I looked at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me," says I, "the object don't seem quite equal to the trouble.
+I have no notion of going backward in my life. In the first place I was
+too handsome a baby in the beginning to hanker after a change, and since
+then&mdash;I say nothing; but really, I have seen a good many people that
+claim to have been born again, and, so far as I can judge, they don't
+look a mite better, or a day younger, after taking all the trouble,
+which is discouraging."</p>
+
+<p>"Discouraging!" said the woman; "why, you are talking of regeneration!
+Come&mdash;come with me to the anxious-seat&mdash;hundreds are flocking there
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me," says I, "if you please. Crabs may change their shells, and
+snakes creep out of their skins&mdash;I rather think they do sometimes&mdash;but
+born-again females look so much like the old pattern, that it don't seem
+to me worth trying after one is grown up."</p>
+
+<p>"Many an older person than you are has been born again," says she.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't say so," says I, a-fanning myself with a palm-leaf, for every
+drop of blood in my body grew hot when she talked about my age, and I
+was mad enough to bite a tenpenny nail in two with my front teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do say so, humble as I am," says Sugar-scoop. "Look out there.
+See those women in Israel&mdash;three precious souls, just gathered into the
+fold. For two days they have been constantly at the redemption-seat. The
+spirit is upon them now. Their souls are struggling to be free. Before
+another morning they will be born again."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>346<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>I looked at a group of women she pointed out, and the human nature
+within me yeasted over. They were three of the homeliest creatures I
+ever set eyes on&mdash;long and lank, with faces like sour baked-apples.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my beloved sister," says Sugar-scoop, a-laying her cotton-gloved
+hand on mine; "can you look on that heavenly sight and not pray to be
+like unto them?"</p>
+
+<p>I shook the cotton glove from my arm, and the hand that was in it, just
+as St. Paul shook off the viper.</p>
+
+<p>"Like them, madam&mdash;like them! If I were one-half as lank and homely, I
+should want to be born again once a week, at least."</p>
+
+<p>Sugar-scoop lifted both hands in awful horror.</p>
+
+<p>"There are souls," says she, "given up to eternal darkness, I fear. Oh,
+sister, how I tremble for yours!"</p>
+
+<p>I was trembling with indignation. What right had this woman to assault
+me in this fashion? I did not know her; she did not know me. My white
+feather was a badge of noble patriotism; my gaiter boots fitted a foot
+that has been an object of encomium with every shoemaker who has been
+honored by taking its measure&mdash;to say nothing of a glance given it by
+imperial eyes. Does religious zeal justify uncivil intrusion? What right
+had this sugar-scoopy woman to exhort me? How did she know that my heart
+was not already in the right path?</p>
+
+<p>I asked this very question:</p>
+
+<p>"Madam," says I, "by what right do you pretend to teach me, a stranger,
+of whose life you can know nothing?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm in the service of the Lord," says she, "looking up lost sheep. When
+I find one, torn and draggled with sin, it is my duty to drive it into
+the fold, where its fleece can be worked white as snow."</p>
+
+<p>"But how can you tell? By what authority do you claim the right to judge
+of a person you have never seen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Are we not told to go out into the highways and the hedges, and force
+them to come in?" says she.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>347<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Whether they want to or not?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly," says she; "their not wanting to come into the fold shows the
+state of wickedness into which they have fallen."</p>
+
+<p>"But how do you know that I am wicked?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>She looked at me a long time, as if the idea were new to her. She had
+been so eager in raking up sinners, that it seemed to hurt her feelings
+to think that any human being she met wasn't on the high road to&mdash;well,
+what's its name?</p>
+
+<p>"That feather," says she, "isn't a mark of regeneration."</p>
+
+<p>"No," says I, "but it is the badge of a patriotic idea."</p>
+
+<p>The creature didn't take in this delicate political hint. In fact,
+anything fine or keen is sure to puzzle your woman of one idea.</p>
+
+<p>"Where do you go to meeting?" says she, as abrupt as a cracked stick.</p>
+
+<p>"Where my father did, generally," says I.</p>
+
+<p>She looked at me queerly from under her sugar-scoop.</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't backslid, nor nothing; because, if you have, remember, before
+it is too late, that the last state of a backsliding sinner is worse
+than the first."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXXXVI" id="LXXXVI"></a>LXXXVI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE BLACKSMITH'S CONVERSION.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/b.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="B" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">B</span>EFORE I could answer that audacious woman, a man came along with green
+spectacles on his eyes, and a broad straw hat on his head.</p>
+
+<p>"What, sister, hard at work? got hold of a case, I reckon; but press
+forward to the mark of the prize."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, brother," says Sugar-scoop, "can't you stop a moment, and sow a
+morsel of seed on this barren rock. This is a precious sheep."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>348<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Lamb, if you please," says I, quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"No," says she, as smooth as oil, but no doubt boiling over with inward
+spite, "I have eyes, and can see. Sheep is the word. She is a precious
+sheep that, perchance, has once been in the fold, but is wandering far
+away from the straight and narrow path."</p>
+
+<p>"A backslider," says he, eying my face over his spectacles.</p>
+
+<p>"Hardened," says she.</p>
+
+<p>"Take her to the anxious-seat. Brother Blank is just the man for her
+case. You've heard of Brother Blank, just from the West, and burning
+with zeal. Heard of the way he converted a blacksmith out there&mdash;a
+great, stout, burly, unregenerated fellow. Why, compared to him, this
+poor, sinful creature is just nothing. That was a mighty work. What, you
+never heard of it? Well, I was there, and heard all about it on the
+spot.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, Brother Blank, who belongs to the Methodist wing of this
+camp-meeting, was sent out by the conference to a sparse Western
+district, where the meeting-houses were a good way apart, and there was
+any amount of horseback riding to be done. On the cross-roads, near one
+of the stations, there was a blacksmith shop, where a great, two-fisted,
+tough old sinner was blowing up red-hot coals into red-hot flames,
+morning and night, which ought to have reminded him of the eternal fires
+which threatened him, but only kindled his wicked soul into fierce
+rebellion against God.</p>
+
+<p>"Now this fellow had an awful spite against the ministers, and never let
+a new one pass his shop, without going out with his leather apron on,
+and a hammer in his hand, to scare the pious soul half to death with
+abuse, if nothing worse. When Brother Blank came on the district, he had
+to ride by the four corners like the rest; but he was a brave soldier of
+the Cross, and rode a first-rate horse, besides being a tall, powerful
+man in body as well as in spirit. I rather think he had heard of the
+blacksmith, but that made no difference to him, he neither<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>349<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> rode faster
+nor slower when he came in sight of the shop, but looked straight ahead,
+and trusted in the Lord.</p>
+
+<p>"The moment Brother Blank came in sight, that miserable heathen brought
+his hammer down on the anvil with a crash, flung it across the shop, and
+went out with his fists clinched, his great bony chest bare, and his
+eyes blazing like sin.</p>
+
+<p>"'Hallo!' says he, standing right in the middle of the road.</p>
+
+<p>"'Hallo!'</p>
+
+<p>"Brother Blank drew up his horse, and says he:</p>
+
+<p>"'What's wanting, my friend?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I want you to just tumble down from that saddle, and pay toll,' says
+the old sinner. 'No minister passes this corner without stopping to take
+a thrashing from these.'</p>
+
+<p>"Here the blacksmith held up two clinched fists, hard and black as
+sledge-hammers.</p>
+
+<p>"'No nonsense; but get off, I say,' he bellowed out.</p>
+
+<p>"Brother Blank had a heavy whip in his hand, with a short plump lash,
+which he began to play with.</p>
+
+<p>"'Get down, I say!'</p>
+
+<p>"Brother Blank got down and laid the bridle on the neck of his horse.</p>
+
+<p>"'Now step out here and take it like a man,' says the blacksmith. 'The
+last two ministers were such puny fellers, there was no fun in thrashing
+them; but you're something worth while. Stand out, I say.'</p>
+
+<p>"While he was talking, the fire-blowing wretch rolled up his red flannel
+shirt-sleeves to the elbow, and went at Brother Blank with both fists.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, sisters, Brother Blank is a true Christian&mdash;meek as a lamb in
+prayer and persuasion, but the sight of that audacious old sinner riled
+up the natural man in him awfully. He stepped back. His right arm swung
+out, and that whip-lash curled round the fellow's bronzed neck like a
+garter snake. Again and again the lash fell, now across the red face,
+now across the naked arms, but generally left great red welts, like the
+bars of a fiery gridiron, across his chest.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>350<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Blind with the blows, and crazy with rage, the fellow struck out
+fiercely, but the lash stung him at every point, and at last he was glad
+to yell for quarters. Then it was that Brother Blank remembered that his
+mission was to convert sinners.</p>
+
+<p>"'Down upon your knees,' says he, pointing to the dusty road with his
+whip&mdash;'down upon your knees, and pray the Lord to forgive your sins.'</p>
+
+<p>"Down the fellow went, plump on his two knees, and down Brother Blank
+went beside him right in the dust of the street; and the way he wrestled
+for that blacksmith's soul was a lesson to all faltering Christians.</p>
+
+<p>"'Lift those blood-shot eyes to Heaven and pray,' says he, and his voice
+was tender with compassion.</p>
+
+<p>"'I won't. Pray for me,' says the sinner.</p>
+
+<p>"He did pray. All the old Adam had left Brother Blank's soul when he
+laid down that whip. It was flooded now with the milk of human kindness.
+In a voice, strong as his right arm and clear as his conscience, he
+poured forth a petition to Heaven, so loud, so powerful, so full of
+Christian force, that the blacksmith began to tremble on his knees, the
+two hands that had been clenched like sledge-hammers clasped themselves,
+till the palms met and were uplifted to Heaven as a child pleads with
+its mother.</p>
+
+<p>"By and by another voice&mdash;hoarse, deep, and earnest&mdash;joined with the
+prayer of Brother Blank. All that it said was, 'God be merciful to me a
+sinner;' but that was enough, for there was that stout old reprobate
+with his face to the earth, his broad chest swelling with repentance,
+and great tears making furrows through the cinders and ashes on his
+cheeks, penitent as a child, and meek as a spring lamb.</p>
+
+<p>"When Brother Blank saw this, his feelings came forth in a grateful
+shout, tears leaped down his own cheeks, and in one voice these two men
+thanked God for the soul that had been saved."</p>
+
+<p>When the man with green spectacles had finished his story, he took out a
+silk handkerchief from the crown of his hat and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>351<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> wiped his own eyes;
+then turning to the Sugar-scoop, says he:</p>
+
+<p>"Let this encourage you to persevere to the end, for 'while the lamp
+holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return.' If this person is
+hardened in the perversity of a depraved nature, think of the
+blacksmith, and do not despair."</p>
+
+<p>"Did that heathen blacksmith hold out?" says I, so interested in the
+cindery wretch that I passed over his comments about my perversity.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold out!" says he; "I saw him at a camp-meeting three years after, and
+heard him tell the story with his own lips. Brother Blank himself was
+sitting on the speaker's stand, and the blacksmith pointed him out to
+the people, and called on him to say if it was not his prayers that had
+snatched him as a brand from the burning.</p>
+
+<p>"Brother Blank got up and walked with a lazy motion down the platform.
+Putting both hands behind him he smiled benignly down on the agitated
+face of his old enemy. Then he looked around on the congregation, and
+spoke:</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes,' says he, 'I really do believe that I was the humble instrument
+of mauling some grace into that precious brother's soul.'</p>
+
+<p>"Sisters, that was a glorious moment for Brother Blank; think of it&mdash;a
+human soul turned heavenward in the midst of its wrath; persevere with
+this one. Leave her not till she is brought to the anxious-seat, and so
+by regeneration to membership with the church."</p>
+
+<p>"But I am a Church member," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"A Church member?" says the man with spectacles.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"In good standing?" says the woman, dropping her underlip.</p>
+
+<p>"A missionary from one of the first societies in the world," says I,
+with becoming dignity.</p>
+
+<p>The woman with the sugar-scoop bonnet looked at the man with spectacles,
+and the man with spectacles looked at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>352<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> woman with the sugar-scoop
+bonnet. Before they could begin again I bowed my head with a lofty and
+dignified air, and walked away; which, I take it, was something of a
+rebuke to people whose religious zeal runs ahead of their good breeding.</p>
+
+<p>I have left that camp-ground and descended a hundred or two feet nearer
+the earth again, without feeling the worse or very much the better for
+it. The path of duty is sometimes awful steep. I found this precipitous
+to a wonderful extent. I really think nothing but the saving grace of
+church-membership kept me from the anxious-seat; but the opportunities
+of a new birth are not unlimited, and when one is folded and tethered
+among the lambs, there is a little awkwardness when you are exhorted to
+have it all done over again by a new minister and another church.
+Fortified with a certificate of church membership, I passed through the
+whirlwind and storm of this camp-meeting, with that graceful dignity
+which has won the high post you have kindly imposed on me.</p>
+
+<p>True, sisters, the pressure brought to bear upon me was long, strong,
+and persistent. A fierce raid was instituted against my back hair and
+the soft puffings of my frizzes in front. My white hat was a terrible
+source of trouble to those who want regeneration in nothing but
+religion; and the feather seemed to get more notice than the preaching
+did wherever I happened to take it.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXXXVII" id="LXXXVII"></a>LXXXVII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THAT OVATION OF FIRE.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/s.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="S" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">S</span>ISTERS:&mdash;I give you this little dash of camp-meeting, because I wish to
+level myself gradually and gracefully down to the gay sinfulness of Long
+Branch again, where the salt air is revivifying, and our return is a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>353<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+source of complimentary jubilation at this no-end of a hotel. We came
+here in the ten o'clock boat&mdash;that floating mansion-house, which Mr.
+James Fisk left as a memorial of the public good a splendid sinner can
+do when he is active and oriental in his taste.</p>
+
+<p>I am used to these things now; but it was gratifying as we drove up in
+Dempster's carriage from the railway to hear a glorious burst of music
+swell out from a round summer-house on the lawn. A serenade of that kind
+was what I had not expected, and my heart swelled with not unworthy
+triumph when I listened. The moment that crowd of musicians saw my white
+feather, they struck up "Lo, the Conquering Hero comes," with a soft and
+touchingly subdued sweetness, which threw an exquisite femininity into
+the air, and plainly marked out its object.</p>
+
+<p>Feeling this, I bowed a graceful recognition to those superior
+performers, who answered with a prolonged blast from the most curlecued
+of the long toot-horns as our carriage swept down the curving road that
+forms a horse-shoe&mdash;just a little broad at the heel&mdash;in front of Messrs.
+Leland's hotel.</p>
+
+<p>Feeling that many admiring eyes were upon me, I stepped with dignity
+from the carriage, and walked with a downcast look, which I did my best
+to make unconscious, through the gay crowd that had gathered in front of
+that long portico, only just to get a glimpse of me as I went in.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, I had compassion on these people, and walked with slow
+gracefulness through their midst, determined to give even the humblest a
+chance to see how true genius can deport itself when ovations of music
+and respectful admiration recognize its greatness.</p>
+
+<p>There was a great publisher present when we got back to the hotel. I
+have no doubt that he listened to the music of that band when it gave me
+this harmonious reception, and I hope he indirectly felt the compliment
+reverberate back on himself. It was an honor he deserved to share with
+me, or any other high-bred, intellectual person to whom he had opened a
+golden pathway<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>354<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> to the Temple of Fame through his numerous art journals.</p>
+
+<p>I had an idea of the gentleman in my mind, and tried to single him out
+from the crowd of persons standing in silent homage on the balcony as I
+passed into the hotel, but I think he was not there.</p>
+
+<p>Before the day was out, I could give a good guess at the reason why he
+did not appear to claim the honor of my acquaintance. He was meditating
+a delicate little surprise for me&mdash;one of those poetic fancies that take
+root only in highly artistic minds. By and by you will hear what it was.</p>
+
+<p>In Washington, and at the Grand Duke's reception at Sandy Hook&mdash;why that
+strip of salt water, which lets ships in and out from New York to the
+Atlantic Ocean, is called a hook, I cannot make out, for the life of me;
+and as for its being sandy&mdash;well, in my opinion, it is deep, salt water,
+and nothing else. But, as I was a-saying, in Washington, and at Sandy
+Hook, the largest guns of the nation did me homage. Here I am received
+with bursts of music from the middle of a home-lot belonging to the
+hotel; but this evening the crowning glory of an ovation was given me by
+the great publisher, who, unseen, and with the most delicate attention,
+startled me into a wild enthusiasm of gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>By guns on the water, by guns on shore, and by enchanting strains of
+music, my appearance in society has been heralded. Now the cap-sheaf has
+been placed on all these honors by a compliment of fire combined with
+the most exhilarating music. On Saturday nights, every hotel along the
+beach is crowded from ground-floor to gable, and gay as a spring
+morning. Then the husbands and brothers and beaux come down from New
+York, till all the trains run over with masculine humanity. When the
+cars come in, it really is a sight to behold. Out from a long train of
+cars rushes a swarm of men, with here and there a feminine sprinkling,
+carrying carpet-bags, satchels, umbrellas, and little baskets of fruit.
+Then they cluster in a thick, black cloud around the depot, like bees
+swarming from their hives.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>355<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> The streets all around are choked up with
+carriages, hacks, omnibuses, wagons, and all sorts of wheeled things, in
+which drivers sit, on the sharp watch, and ladies and girls wait for
+their men folks to get in and be drove away. I beg pardon&mdash;driven away.</p>
+
+<p>On Saturday night, every female seems to own a mate of some kind, and be
+on the watch for him. Then the engines give a snarl, and carriages make
+a grand start and go off in a line, stringing down Ocean Avenue a mile
+or so, and leaving clouds of dust rolling along the beach, each driver
+going it as if he were crazy to leave all the other fellows behind.</p>
+
+<p>Well, this fills the whole Branch with delightful confusion. The ladies
+put on their most scrumptious dresses, and the masculines blaze in red
+and blue and green neckties that almost set you on fire.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody dances on Saturday night. Streams of music pour upon you in
+cataracts if you walk up the beach after dark. All the doors and windows
+are open, and you feel dizzy with the idea that all creation has got
+into one grand whirl. This is Saturday night at Long Branch, as a
+general thing; but the particular Saturday night after we came from the
+camp-meeting, was the beatinest thing of all. Early in the evening the
+people seemed to flock in crowds to this hotel. They came afoot; they
+came in carriages; they came by the omnibuses, load after load. Cousin
+E. E. was astonished, and couldn't understand it. "Never," says she,
+"have I seen such a crowd before. What can it mean?"</p>
+
+<p>I said nothing, but kept a deep and satisfied thinking. What did it
+mean? Hadn't <i>I</i> just arrived? Hadn't the news spread? Was not this a
+popular uprising&mdash;a great wave of homage to the worth and genius of a
+woman whom I did not care to mention? These thoughts were in my mind
+when a great storm of music broke out from that summer-house in the
+front home lot. Then whiz went a fiery snake, clear up into the sky,
+where it bent its head, opened its mouth, and poured a stream of burning
+stars down over the people.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>356<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mercy, what a great crowd those falling stars lighted up! The street in
+front of the hotel was black with people. The long, long stoop was
+swarming with them&mdash;the ladies all in scrumptious dresses; the gentlemen
+with red and blue ribbons on their hats, and the same colors glowing at
+their throats. This I saw by the light of the gas-globes and of those
+shooting stars that dropped like great jewels through the still air. The
+sight of that fiery snake frightened me; I jumped like a pea on a hot
+shovel, and gave a little scream.</p>
+
+<p>"What does it mean? What temptatious snake is it?" says I, a-trembling
+all over.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a rocket," says E. E.; "a publishing gentleman is going to
+compliment the ladies with a display of fireworks."</p>
+
+<p>"The ladies!" thought I, in silent irony. There is but one lady to whom
+so noble a compliment can be paid, and that lady&mdash;is&mdash;but no matter!</p>
+
+<p>I did not say this in words. Let E. E. have her vanities and her little
+delusions. She does assume a few airs on account of our relationship,
+but I seldom notice it&mdash;let her make her little mark in society. It
+pleases her, and does not hurt me. Only, an ovation like this&mdash;to think
+she, or any one else, could share that with me, is asking a little too
+much.</p>
+
+<p>Out went another snake, curling along the grass, shooting straight up,
+with a venomous blue light in its folds that was enough to frighten one;
+but it sort of melted away in sparks, and then a great wheel of
+fire&mdash;crimson, blue, green, yellow, rainbowish in every line and
+spoke&mdash;began to whirl round and round at the other end of the home lot,
+sending out great curving plumes of sparks, and twisting them into ten
+thousand rainbows, all winding, whirling, and shooting fire like a great
+wheel of jewels and revolving stars.</p>
+
+<p>Another broke out, and began to whirl close to one of the mammoth
+flower-vases, raining light down upon it, till the great white vase
+shone like snow, and all the flowers it held were frosted over with a
+beautiful light.</p>
+
+<p>Then another wheel&mdash;another and another&mdash;kindled and burst<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>357<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> out, sending
+torrents of fire every which way, changing, flashing, shooting out
+gorgeous flames of color, till the grass was all aglow with light, and
+flashed under the vivid rain of sparks like a meadow full of
+lightning-bugs.</p>
+
+<p>Now the whole front of the hotel was blazing with wheels, and the air
+was alive with fiery serpents that spit forth a storm of great jewels
+before they died. Between the wheels, tall thickets of fire started up,
+and rose into quivering trees, and shot golden fruit of many colors into
+the air, lighting up the crowd like ten thousand gorgeous lamps tossed
+upward and broken as they fell.</p>
+
+<p>All this time the music was swelling through the fiery display, and the
+crowd clapped hands, as if enough honor could not be done to the
+occasion. My heart swelled&mdash;I felt this homage intended by this display,
+and the wild sympathy of the crowd filled me with a tumult of grateful
+feelings.</p>
+
+<p>I arose, and, with one hand on my heart, bowed profoundly every time the
+crowd clapped its multitudinous hands. It was a glorious moment. I
+longed to meet the publisher face to face, and tell him how profoundly
+his generosity had touched my soul; but, with that modesty which ever
+accompanies true merit, he kept in the background, and hid away from the
+thanks my soul was panting to give.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, Sisters, I wish you had been here in a body to see how this great
+white house&mdash;a half a mile or so long&mdash;was turned into a snow-white
+palace by the flood of fire in front of it. Then the sea&mdash;the great,
+heaving sea&mdash;on the other side of the road, was red as blood, and bright
+as gold, when the flames shot highest. I tell you, the golden gates of
+the New Jerusalem could not have been more beautifully luminous.</p>
+
+<p>Earth, sea, and air were kindled with light, and full of shooting-stars
+for a whole hour. Then, as the fires began to wane, and the jewels to
+melt, two great, tall balloons, striped red, white, and blue, were
+illuminated, and sent sailing up and up in the air, each with a trail of
+shooting-stars dropping along its path. Up and up, higher and higher,
+the balloons rose, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>358<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> a slow, graceful movement, and drifted away to
+sea&mdash;away, away, away&mdash;till they shone like little stars, and went out
+in the distance.</p>
+
+<p>Then a great shout went up from the pleased multitude, which increased
+to frenzy when I once more showed myself.</p>
+
+<p>My white hat was on; the feather floated out in the air like a banner.
+In my hand I held a fan. In the fervor of my emotion I pressed it
+against my bosom. The people saw it, and the storm of applause that
+burst from them fairly took me off my feet. Emotion overcame me; I
+retired from that long stoop.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. followed me. She hasn't been herself since the
+camp-meeting; and when I asked her if it was not a beautiful ovation,
+she shook her head and answered, that all flesh was grass, which I don't
+believe any more than I believe that grass is flesh, which I know is not
+the fact, each being itself independent grass and independent flesh.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," says I, "call it grass, or anything you please, but wasn't the
+whole thing perfectly gorgeous."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says she, "it was a pretty compliment to the ladies of the
+hotel."</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, that jealous, provoking woman said "ladies of the hotel," not
+"the lady of the hotel." She is an aggravating creature, sometimes; I do
+believe she is jealous of the homage which is lavished on your
+missionary. At any rate speeches like this look like it. Don't you think
+so?</p>
+
+<p>I said nothing. A tart reply trembled on my tongue, but the atmosphere
+of that camp-meeting still clung to me, and I forbore to rebuke her.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, I was too lenient; somehow or other E. E. has spread her
+selfish idea through this hotel. The ladies were all carried away by the
+fireworks&mdash;no, excuse me, that would be dangerous to such as had tindery
+tempers, but they could talk of nothing else, and made a great fuss
+about the compliment paid to them. To them&mdash;as if any man who has an
+appreciative soul would think of diffusing a compliment among a crowd of
+ten thousand people; but the vanity and presumption<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>359<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> of some females are
+just disgusting. But for the secret consciousness that no one could have
+been intended but myself, their conceit would provoke me. As it is, let
+them have their conceity illusions. Others may think what they please,
+but I have an inner consciousness that is satisfaction enough.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXXXVIII" id="LXXXVIII"></a>LXXXVIII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>LET HIM GO.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;You know, or can guess, at the anxious state of mind in
+which a sensitive female-woman must have found her experiences since the
+great Grand Duke left this country. I am told that the Imperial Court of
+Russia is hard to please in the way of marrying its sons&mdash;that nobility
+is not considered enough, and nothing but the child of an emperor or of
+a king will satisfy the pride of Czar Alexander.</p>
+
+<p>But emperors are not to be found, like huckleberries, in the woods, and
+those among them that have lots and lots of children can't always find
+mates ready cut-out and made-up for all of them in the very uppermost
+crust of all the world.</p>
+
+<p>When emperors are scarce, and imperial children plentiful, is it strange
+that some of them should be sent to a free country, where the highest
+royalty in all the world is to be found waiting for orders.</p>
+
+<p>Republics have but one kingly order, that of individual genius, which
+ranks above kings all over the world, and is aspired to by queens,
+whenever a queen is gifted with superior ambition, as little Victoria
+Guelph was when she wrote her book of travels, and the life of her
+first-class husband.</p>
+
+<p>That which a queen hankers after, the son of an emperor may be glad to
+mate himself with. Is it wonderful, then, that a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>360<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> Grand Duke of all the
+Russias should aspire to the first feminine genius of a free land, and
+to a certain modest extent receive encouragement from her?</p>
+
+<p>A union between an archduke and the first lady writer of this
+country&mdash;excuse me, but truth is stranger than fiction&mdash;was a
+consummation that you as a Society ought to expect, and this nation, in
+its administrative capacity, ought to have insisted upon. If an aspiring
+and unprotected female cannot receive the support of her own Government,
+where can she go for it.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, this union between Sprucehill and Russia is a great national
+question, which ought to have agitated this country from the shores of
+the two oceans, the Mississippi and Rocky Mountains inclusive.</p>
+
+<p>There has been considerable of an internal rumbling sort of a
+convulsion, earthquaky and threatening, in various sections, which ought
+to have given timely warning of what the true national feeling was; but
+somehow Russia don't seem to understand it, and I'm beginning to think
+that there is secret treason here at home&mdash;deep, double-dyed treason&mdash;of
+which your missionary is the object.</p>
+
+<p>It is a shameful fact that the Government has taken no sort of interest
+in an engagement which would have linked the two great social centres of
+Russia and Sprucehill in a close and loving union.</p>
+
+<p>From the day my Alexis had an interview with President Grant my
+heart-history has been allowed to drag like a lazy funeral train.
+Before, all was bright and luminous, with beautiful aspirations; but
+from that time suspense has coiled around me, hope has flared up,
+blinked, and almost died out. I did not understand it then. It seemed to
+me that fickleness was in the heart of the great Grand Duke.</p>
+
+<p>But I did him a cruel injustice. If our two hearts and destinies are
+severed, it has been by the underground machinations of this
+Administration. General Grant saw what was going on, and has cruelly
+circumvented two young and unsophisticated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>361<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> hearts that were knitting
+together, like ivy round an oak sapling.</p>
+
+<p>I am determined on it. The country shall hear of my wrongs. Sprucehill
+shall have redress for the insult put upon her favorite daughter. In all
+that General Grant has done in the way of omission, nothing approaches
+the inactivity which has wrung my heart, as wet blankets are twisted in
+the strong hands of a washerwoman.</p>
+
+<p><i>He</i> has not written me a line. His letters must have been interrupted.
+Evil machinations have been at work. The Government detectives are
+everywhere scattering slanders and distrust. I shouldn't wonder a bit if
+they have been to our old homestead on Sprucehill, mousing among church
+registers, and interviewing family physicians. Well, let them. Since I
+learned to write, some figures have been changed in the old Family
+Bible, and, thank goodness! old Doctor Perry is dead. The keenest
+detective won't find much difference between 1830 and 1850. It only
+requires that the curve of the three should be rubbed out, and a dash
+sharpened to a point added. If they look for eighteen hundred and thirty
+there, I can tell them it isn't to be found. Let them search&mdash;that's
+all!</p>
+
+<p>This was my state of mind three days ago. Now I am revivified with extra
+animation. Hope has perched on my white hat and sits there waving its
+feather like a pennant.</p>
+
+<p>I am glad from the bottom of my heart that I didn't follow the duke
+across the ocean. After all a duke is only a man, hard to catch and
+expensive to cage. Why should we trouble ourselves about princes and
+dukes and lords, when we have the most genuine of all manly articles
+right under our feet. Dukes are scarce and hard to scare up, but there
+are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. That's my motto
+to-day.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>362<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="LXXXIX" id="LXXXIX"></a>LXXXIX.<br />
+<br />
+<small>DONE UP IN A HURRY.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/s.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="S" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">S</span>ISTERS:&mdash;the atmosphere of Long Branch is propitious, not to say
+exhilarating, for close by this half-mile of a hotel is another, crowded
+full at this time of the year, in which we can hear fiddling and dancing
+every night of the week. The hotels at watering-places are celebrated
+for several things, particularly low ceilings, widows, youngish ladies,
+and girls like our Cecilia, who wonder every day of their lives how
+their mothers ever got along decently till they were born to tell them
+how.</p>
+
+<p>Well, the most enterprising of these hotel accompaniments are the
+widows. Their superior advantages of experience is just overpowering,
+and these advantages are used with unscrupulous freedom. I say this with
+feeling, being one of the class that suffers from such unwarrantable
+competition.</p>
+
+<p>A widow was in the hotel I have spoken of. Yes, what might be called two
+widows rolled into one, for she had put two husbands into their little
+beds, and tucked in the sods comfortably before she came to Long Branch
+in search of a third.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, she found him; her little traps and lines and baits had been
+all out to no sort of purpose for three or four weeks. She danced in the
+parlor, exhibited all the lines of a plumptitudinous figure at the
+bowling alley, which is a place I never saw, but have heard about;
+walked on the beach with a Leghorn hat on, curled up at the ears, and in
+front too, and Japanese umbrella, brown outside and yellow in the
+interior, which looked as if she had lots of money and meant to put it
+on the market with a dash.</p>
+
+<p>There was a great deal said about this widow. Some observed that she was
+handsome. Some said she wasn't&mdash;mostly ladies. Some observed how
+graceful she was, at which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>363<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> others smiled and shook their heads. One
+person persisted in it that she was awful rich&mdash;two or three hundred
+thousand dollars, at least. Then that was contradicted. Forty thousand
+was more than any one could prove she had. Others persisted that her
+wealth, like her virtues, was unlimited. In fact, being a widow, she
+made the best of it and let people talk, minding her snares and traps
+and things all the same.</p>
+
+<p>Last week a strange man came to that hotel. It was Saturday morning, and
+the first object that his eyes fell upon at breakfast was this widow,
+without the sign of a cap, and with a long curl straggling down to one
+shoulder, very fluffy and enticing. He looked at the curl; then his eyes
+wandered up to the widow's face. That face had smiled through a couple
+of matrimonial campaigns, and received the first battery of admiring
+eyes with a sweet, downcast look, innocent as blanc-mange. Then she
+lifted her eyes with slow modesty, and glanced wonderingly at her
+admirer, as if she were sort of bewildered by his looking so much that
+way.</p>
+
+<p>The stranger did not smile, but a light came over his face when he
+caught that childlike glance. Then both these innocent creatures fell to
+eating. Then he happened to look up again. So did she&mdash;a romantic
+coincidence that sort of affinitized them to a great extent, before
+anybody saw what was going on.</p>
+
+<p>After breakfast the stranger hunted up some one who knew him and the
+widow also. An introduction brought the two halves of that pair of
+scissors together, and the blades fitted beautifully. All they wanted
+was the rivet. But wait.</p>
+
+<p>At twelve o'clock that day the stranger ventured to ask a favor. Would
+the widow give him a little music?</p>
+
+<p>The widow said she would. The sweetness of a whole boiling of maple
+sugar was in her smile as she sat down by the parlor piano, and sent her
+two little hands fluttering over it like a pair of white pigeons with
+love-letters under their wings.</p>
+
+<p>The widow flew her fingers; the widow looked at the stranger<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>364<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> from under
+her eyelashes, and her voice thrilled through him till he began to think
+of magnolias and mocking-birds and other ornamental things which soften
+a man's feelings down to the fluffiness of a feather bed.</p>
+
+<p>When she had done singing, he asked her to walk with him on the beach.
+She gave another slow lift of her eyelashes, said she would, and ran
+upstairs after the Leghorn and the Japanese umbrella, brown and yellow,
+with as many bones in it as the first April shad.</p>
+
+<p>They walked the beach up and down, she leaning heavier and heavier on
+his arm at each turn. Then they sat down on the sand with their faces to
+the sea, and held the umbrella so as to shade off the people on the
+bank&mdash;they didn't care for the sun a bit&mdash;and in that condition they sat
+and talked and talked and talked.</p>
+
+<p>By and by he got up from the sand. She lifted her eyes with a pitiful
+look of helplessness. He reached out his hand, and she rose to it
+gracefully, like a trout to a fly. The hand clung to his more than a
+minute after she got up&mdash;the sand was so uneven, you see. The stranger
+bore this with Christian fortitude, and really seemed as if he rather
+liked it. In fact, he encouraged her to hold on; and she did, with her
+sweet widowed face lifted to his just long enough to set his heart off
+like a windmill, when she dropped it again.</p>
+
+<p>When they came up the flight of wooden steps that leads down from the
+bank, both her white hands were clasped over his arm as loving as the
+soft paws of a kitten, and he looked like a fellow that had been out
+shooting doves, and had come in with his net full.</p>
+
+<p>They went in to lunch, and ate spring chickens; then they ended off with
+silly-bubs, which is a sweet froth that melts to nothing on the
+tongue&mdash;delicious, but not exactly hearty food.</p>
+
+<p>Two hours after lunch, the stranger asked the widow to ride out with
+him; which she did, in the puffiest and silkiest of dresses, and with a
+lace parasol, lined with pink, between her and the sun. This was one of
+her snares, for she depended on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>365<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> that pink lining for her blushes,
+having left them a good way behind her somewhere about the first
+wedding.</p>
+
+<p>The drive was paradisical. They talked, they smiled, they said the
+loveliest little things to each other with delicious reciprocity. He
+drove, and divided his manly attentions between her and the horses,
+giving her a generous share, which was creditable to him as a man.</p>
+
+<p>It was nearly twelve o'clock that night when those two people went up to
+their neglected couches&mdash;nothing but a widow would have stood the shock
+of such impropriety among the critical of her sex; but she didn't care a
+mite.</p>
+
+<p>Early the next morning, which was Sunday, these two persons were seen
+coming out of the little cubby-houses under the beach in the queerest
+sort of dresses&mdash;I cannot describe them, because, up to this time, beach
+flirtations have been forbidden subjects with me.</p>
+
+<p>But they came out on the beach, clasped hands, and walked right into the
+biggest waves they could find.</p>
+
+<p>What she said to him there I cannot tell, but by and by they came back
+to the hotel, the sneakiest-looking creatures you ever set your two eyes
+on.</p>
+
+<p>I don't know when it was that she brought him to the point, but the
+widow had netted him so close that he didn't even try to flounder.</p>
+
+<p>That night there was sacred music in the hotel parlor, and, somehow, a
+minister of the Gospel dropped in, with a white cravat on, and waited
+for something, looking as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>He hadn't been there long before the strange gentleman came in with a
+swallow-tailed coat on, a white vest and cravat, with ball-gloves on his
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>Hanging on to his arm was that widow, in a long, white dress, that
+streamed after her in windrows, and with a shower of lace falling over
+her.</p>
+
+<p>The minister got up, and opened his book. The people hanging about
+hushed their talk, and in less than ten minutes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>366<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> a third gold ring was
+chucked over the other two that weighed down the widow's finger, and she
+walked off with number three as proud as a white peacock.</p>
+
+<p>It took this widow just two days and part of a night to spring her traps
+and draw her hooks&mdash;but, then, she was a widow.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, there is a good deal of commotion in our hotel just now. Rural
+single ladies talk of going over to the other place.</p>
+
+<p>I had a little hankering in that direction at first, but, come to think
+it over, mean to stay where I am. It isn't the house that has done this,
+but the bland atmosphere of Long Branch. If that sort of thing is
+indigenous to the place&mdash;and I mean to test it thoroughly&mdash;Russia is
+welcome to the Grand Duke; a whole-souled American is good enough for
+me. Besides, Russia is an awful cold place, and I don't think I ever
+could bring myself to eat cabbage-soup or the roe of a sturgeon.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, if this sort of thing lies in the atmosphere, don't you think
+it would be a good thing for the whole Society to come down here next
+summer? A generous diffusion of masculine energy into the course might
+be a desirable change. For my part, I don't mean to leave this place
+till frost comes. I believe this thing is going to be an epidemic at the
+Branch, and when contagions rage I am sure to catch any disease that is
+going. I have had the measles twice, and two pretty severe tugs with the
+scarlet-fever. In fact, I was celebrated, as a child, for catching
+double. One thing is certain&mdash;I never ran away because a disease was
+catching, and I'm not going to do it here. On the contrary, I am making
+over one of my old alpaca skirts into a bathing-dress. If I know myself
+I shall fight it out on that line, if it takes all winter.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>367<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XC" id="XC"></a>CHAPTER XC.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE YELLOW FLAG.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;I have gone and done it! Now let me give you a little
+wholesome advice. It comes out of my superior knowledge of the world,
+and experience of the human heart. Never say that you won't do a thing,
+because if you do, just as sure as you live it is the very thing that
+you are sure to plunge into, whether you want to or not. Besides, people
+who know enough to doubt themselves, understand that men and women are
+made up principally of human nature. Now human nature is a great fraud,
+and isn't to be trusted when he's found in the interior of your own
+heart, or anywhere else.</p>
+
+<p>In one of my reports, I expressed myself as shocked out of a year's
+growth, when I heard about gentlemen and ladies going into the salt-sea
+waves together, and submerging themselves like mermaids in the swell and
+foam of the ocean. I said, in the heat and glow of modest feminine
+shrinkitiveness, that nothing on earth, or in the water, should induce
+me to do it; but circumstances alter cases, and the capacity of eternal
+change is the essence of genius, which is always making new combinations
+and discarding old prejudices.</p>
+
+<p>I say it with reluctance, but truth demands frankness. Sometimes I am a
+little hasty in my conclusions.</p>
+
+<p>Have I said enough&mdash;need I go on to explain that the result of a thing
+proves its propriety?</p>
+
+<p>Now, bathing in company, in the abstract, does seem&mdash;well, peculiar. I
+might add other words which at one time came uppermost in my mind; but,
+looking toward results, I feel constrained to say nothing on the social
+aspect of multitudinous ablutions, but go into the high moral question
+which has slowly presented itself to my understanding.</p>
+
+<p>Isn't there a passage of Scripture somewhere that speaks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>368<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> about "fishers
+of men"? I think there is, and I am inclined to see that kind of
+business from a high moral stand-point. If men are to be legally caught
+with a dripping dress and an old straw hat for bait, who shall say that
+the thing is wrong? If men are told to go down to the sea in ships, what
+should prevent a female woman from going down in a four-cornered straw
+hat, a flannel tunic, and&mdash;well, pantalettes on? Everything depends on
+the point of view from which one sees a thing.</p>
+
+<p>As a marine picture, salt-sea waves rushing in upon a sandy beach can
+hardly be considered complete without throwing a little life into the
+foreground; but when that life is composed of a flock of old straw hats,
+and a lot of staggery, blinded, dripping people under them, I can't say
+that I hanker after this particular marine view.</p>
+
+<p>From an artistic stand-point then I reject the whole subject; but as the
+means of catching a heart afloat, that same picture offers numerous
+facilities.</p>
+
+<p>Well, sisters, as a social institution I no longer sneer at sea-bath
+flirtations. When two days of them end in matrimony, it isn't worth
+while to fight out the question on that line any longer. I give in.</p>
+
+<p>Such engagements may be unstable as water, but a damp engagement is
+better than none at all.</p>
+
+<p>With these sentiments, I finished off my bathing-dress, and put a red
+ribbon over a high-crowned, square-brimmed hat, coarse and clumsy, which
+was to keep my face from the sun, and my flowing tresses from the briny
+ocean waves.</p>
+
+<p>Early in the morning I went out into the veranda, and took a survey of
+the ocean&mdash;the broad infinite expanse of waters into which I was about
+to plunge in search of&mdash;well, health.</p>
+
+<p>In front of the veranda, on the high bank, was a pole, like the
+liberty-poles we run up on almost every village green of New England. On
+that pole a pale yellow flag was flying.</p>
+
+<p>A chill ran over me, and I know that my arms must have been roughened
+like a grater.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>369<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The yellow-fever." I knew it was in the harbor, shut up there by the
+authorities. Had it escaped through Sandy Hook, and come poisoning the
+waters along shore? Now that I was ready for the first plunge, were my
+best hopes to be frustrated? Had I sat up all night sewing red braid on
+that tunic, and those&mdash;well, Turkish pantalettes, for nothing? Had I
+conquered a great New England prejudice, to be conquered myself by
+careless health officers? Why hadn't they taken an example by some of
+the old stock, and divided the whole thing among them in perquisites? I
+only wish they had.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, it was a keen disappointment. I was looking at that yellow
+flag, with tears in my eyes, when Cousin E. E. came on to the veranda.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Ph&oelig;mie," says she, bright as a May morning, "where is the new
+bathing-dress? It will be splendid bathing!"</p>
+
+<p>I looked at her, I looked at the ocean and at the path that led down to
+the beach, along which half a dozen real nice-looking gentlemen were
+picking their steps like rabbits toward a sweet-apple trap. It was
+tantalizing.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says she, as contented as a lamb, "it will be lovely bathing this
+morning; I mean to try it."</p>
+
+<p>"Try it," says I; "haven't you read that yellow-fever is in the harbor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what then?" says she. "It won't hurt us."</p>
+
+<p>"Won't hurt us," says I. "Did you ever hear of poison getting into water
+that could be washed out? No, if it is in the harbor, some of it will
+drift down here. Look, you can see it sweltering in the waves now."</p>
+
+<p>She looked out on the ocean, where a faint yellow tinge rippled and
+shone with treacherous temptatiousness.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that is only the sunshine," says she.</p>
+
+<p>"But the fever," says I, "I know it is in the harbor, for the newspapers
+said so. They have run up the yellow flag wherever it is to be found.
+See there."</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. sat down and dropped both hands in her lap.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>370<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Cousin Ph&oelig;mie," says she, "I really don't know whether you are a
+real genius or the greatest goose that ever lived. You are just a puzzle
+to me. Who ever heard of yellow-fever in the water?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have," says I, "in the harbor, and isn't the harbor all water?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says she, "that is true."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, isn't it dangerous to bathe in that water, and don't that flag
+give us warning not to do it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin," says she; "as I said before, you know too much for common
+ideas to make an impression. Now do try to understand. There is one ship
+in the harbor that has yellow-fever on board&mdash;that is all. It will not
+be allowed to spread from that one ship."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," says I, drawing a deep breath, "then it has not poisoned the
+water."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all."</p>
+
+<p>"But the yellow flag?"</p>
+
+<p>"That means good bathing, and plenty of it. Come along. Don't you see
+people crowding down to the shore?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XCI" id="XCI"></a>CHAPTER XCI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE MAN THAT SAVED ME.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/i.jpg" width="60" height="60" alt="I" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">I</span> RAN into my room, and came out with a bundle in one hand and a coarse
+straw hat in the other. That group of gentlemen was just dropping down
+the bank out of sight, and after them went a crowd of girls, with their
+parasols flaming in the sun like a bed of poppies.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," says I, all joyful animation, "I am dying to begin."</p>
+
+<p>E. E. spread her parasol, and off we marched.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>371<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>We came to the steep bank, and went down a flight of wooden stairs to
+the sandy shore. Right under the bank was a long row of cubby-houses,
+made of boards.</p>
+
+<p>"This is ours," says E. E., "come in."</p>
+
+<p>I went in. Sisters, what happened in the privacy of that board
+sanctuary, is not for the public&mdash;let this satisfy the curious.</p>
+
+<p>Two ladies went into that little retreat, with bunched-up skirts,
+beehive bonnets, and a general assortment of dry-goods, such as weighs
+down the ladies of the present generation to an extent that approaches
+martyrdom.</p>
+
+<p>Two persons came out skimped down into nothingness. They had grown tall
+and slim, not to say spooky. There was a deficiency of glossy ringlets
+under the two hats that squared off in front and behind, and were
+flapped down over each ear.</p>
+
+<p>E. E.'s plumptitudinous figure was mostly lost and gone, and I&mdash;well, I
+felt like a church steeple on a very high hill. I say nothing, the
+subject being one of great delicacy; but from my experience in those
+Turkish&mdash;well, pantalettes&mdash;the female that begrudges her husband that
+class of garments, must hanker after change more than I do. When I came
+out of the little house, Dempster stood on the sand with a pair&mdash;well,
+of garments like mine, only more so, on, and a flaming red upper
+garment, bright enough to set the waves on fire, covering his broad
+bosom.</p>
+
+<p>Another gentleman stood near him&mdash;blue and brown in his sea-outfit,
+youngish, and with eyes that made me wilt like a poppy the moment they
+fell upon me.</p>
+
+<p>My goodness, how I did feel in that dress! It was all I could do to keep
+from kind of scrouching down to hide my bare feet; but it was of no use,
+so I dug them deep into the sand, and felt myself blushing all over,
+while that gentleman in blue fixed his eyes upon them.</p>
+
+<p>Anyway, there was nothing to be so mightily timorous about, for,
+according to my calculation, two smaller or whiter feet didn't leave
+their prints in the sand that day, though I do make that assertion with
+my own lips, that ought to be mute.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>372<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Cousin Dempster came forward, took both E. E. and my trembling self by
+the hand, and led us to the water.</p>
+
+<p>I took one glance: a swarm of straw hats, a crowd of men, women, and
+children were floundering, swimming, screaming, laughing, tumbling
+through the waves, that lifted them up, flung them down, pitched them
+forward, and behaved in a way that no well-bred ocean would have thought
+of doing.</p>
+
+<p>I shrank&mdash;I shivered&mdash;the heart seemed to die in my agitated bosom when
+the first wave kissed my feet; I gave a little scream, but checked
+myself bravely. The waves were full of men, some of them were looking at
+me.</p>
+
+<p>I determined to act bravely, and be the heroine of the occasion. I let
+go of Dempster's hand. A wave struck me, my head went down and my feet
+went up. In my fright and anguish I remembered their size and whiteness,
+and found consolation in the thought while I strove to right myself.</p>
+
+<p>It was in vain; while I staggered with one big wave, another took me
+unawares, like a thief in the night, and dragged me under, like a wild
+beast growling over some poor helpless lamb&mdash;it tore me away. I
+shrieked&mdash;I plunged&mdash;I fought madly for my life. Up through the vivid
+green of the waters the sunshine came toward me like light upon beaming
+emeralds. I clutched at it. I tried to scream; but my mouth filled with
+water, green flashes shot through and through my eyes. I began to pray.
+The Green Mountains, the farm, and all my life there shot through my
+brain; things I had forgotten came uppermost, and those thoughts grew
+pleasant while the waters seemed roaring me to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Something came toward me, bluish. Was it a monster of the deep hungry
+for the life that was so fast dying out?</p>
+
+<p>It seized me. I was born upward on a great wave, and swept off into the
+light. The claws of some monster, or the arms of some friend, held me
+close. Which was it?</p>
+
+<p>Some power of good or evil, beastly or human, had dragged me into the
+sand, where white foam curled around me, and the sun struck down upon my
+eyes like fire.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>373<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Some man was thanking another for a great favor; a crowd of people came
+swarming around me. I attempted to open my eyes, but the water dripping
+down from my hair came into them sharp and salt.</p>
+
+<p>"Is she sick? Is she afraid? Do tell who it is?"</p>
+
+<p>These questions came from women who had rushed up from the waters, and
+flocked around me like mermaids. I did not care about them, but by and
+by it came to me that men might be there as well. I lifted my hand,
+swept the wet hair back from my face, and, with a smarting pain in my
+eyes, saw my deliverer.</p>
+
+<p>His blue garments were black with dripping water, the thick hair
+streamed over his forehead, his bare feet looked hard and powerful on
+the sand. It was the man under whose admiring eyes I had blushed and
+trembled.</p>
+
+<p>"My preserver!" said I, clasping my wet fingers in an ecstasy of
+gratitude; "shall I ever live to thank you for the poor life you have
+saved?"</p>
+
+<p>He smiled, he shook his head; I am afraid he laughed, such was his joy
+and exultation; yet the modesty of true greatness possessed him still.</p>
+
+<p>"It is nothing," he said. "A wave knocked you head-foremost&mdash;that was
+all."</p>
+
+<p>I knew better. It was the inherent greatness of a noble soul that
+impelled him to make nothing of his own heroic act. He must have
+supported me miles on miles in those stalwart arms. No protest of his
+could lessen the bravery of his action or the force of my gratitude. If
+woman's gratitude and woman's love are anything, his reward shall be
+great.</p>
+
+<p>They bore me into that weather-beaten cubby-house, and there, with the
+help of E. E., my dripping garments were taken off, my wet hair done up
+snugly under the braids that had been left behind, and, filled with
+tender gratitude, I walked up to my hero in blue before going to my
+apartment in the hotel.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me see you to-morrow," said I, pressing the hand of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>374<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> that heroic
+man. "Then I may find language to express my life-long gratitude."</p>
+
+<p>He bowed; he drew his hand, with evident reluctance, from my clasp, and
+retreated.</p>
+
+<p>Ah, sisters, my destiny has come! I feel it in every breath I draw, in
+every sweet thought that haunts my brain. To-morrow I shall see him
+again. To-morrow!</p>
+
+<p>Oh, sisters, he has just left me. Alas! alas! for human aspirations. I
+had written thus far when he came.</p>
+
+<p>I received him in my room, looking pale, and, I think, interesting, for
+the sweet romance of my feelings left its imprint on my features. He
+came in with hesitation, and sat down on the edge of his chair, looking
+ill at ease, as if wishing to escape a mention of his own heroism. I
+felt a glow of admiration, a thrill of tender gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>"You have saved my life," I said, clasping my two hands, "and from this
+hour I devote that life to your happiness. Tell me how I can begin to
+repay you."</p>
+
+<p>He sat uneasily; he shifted in his chair. Then he murmured:</p>
+
+<p>"Anything you please; I never thought of asking. It was only my duty."</p>
+
+<p>"Heroic man!" I exclaimed; "and brave as modest. It is my pleasure to be
+more than grateful. Never, never can I repay you save with the warmest
+and sweetest emotions of a woman's heart. I owe you&mdash;ah, how much&mdash;how
+much!"</p>
+
+<p>My hands were clasped, my eyes were uplifted; emotion prevented me
+finishing my sentence. He spoke, while my soul halted for words&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if you think so much of just helping you out of the way of a
+seaward wave, supposing we say five dollars. It is my duty, as
+bathing-master, to help people up from the sand when they get face
+downwards, as you did; but as you insist, I don't mind a fiver."</p>
+
+<p>Oh, sisters!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>375<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XCII" id="XCII"></a>XCII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>PLEASURE BAY.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;I really do think that Cousin Dempster is one of the best
+creatures that ever lived. He seems to understand all the wounds and
+pains that a female woman's heart is exposed to, and sort of eases them
+off, so that you are cheated out of half your natural suffering.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot say that the bathing in the salt-sea waves was not a failure as
+a matrimonial speculation; but that is my luck. In some respects, the
+future to me is like a mirage&mdash;I put my hand out hopefully, and grasp
+nothing but fog.</p>
+
+<p>That bathing-master was a fine-looking man until he opened his mouth and
+attempted to sit down on a chair. He created a pleasant delusion in my
+bosom for a few moments, and then&mdash;well, we will say nothing more about
+that&mdash;the private sanctuary of a female woman's thoughts are too sacred
+for a Report.</p>
+
+<p>If I wept in the stillness of the night, no one but the angel that
+records broken love-dreams will ever know of it. With this precious
+angel I am in full sympathy. He has done too much of that kind of
+writing for me not to feel the cruel pangs of the long list of
+disappointments with which his books are blotted.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I arose the next morning after my experimental bath, heavy-eyed,
+heavy-hearted, and altogether blue as indigo. Cousin Dempster saw this,
+and his generous heart seized upon a remedy.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go down to Pleasure Bay," says he. "What do you think of a day's
+crabbing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Crabbing?" says I, "just as if I didn't feel crabbed enough already. Do
+you want me to keep it up all day?"</p>
+
+<p>Dempster laughed; so did E. E.; just as if I'd said something<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>376<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> awful
+funny, which I wasn't in the least conscious of, not having a spark of
+fun left in me since that salt-water deluge and its consequences.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," says he, as good-natured as pie, "there is nothing like Pleasure
+Bay when one has the blues&mdash;a lunch under the trees, and a boat before
+the breeze."</p>
+
+<p>I stopped him; the dear, good fellow was launching off into poetry
+without knowing it; association with genins is doing everything with
+him. There is no knowing where he might have ended, if I hadn't lifted
+my forefinger, for a whole gust of poetry was riling up in his earthly
+nature like yeast in a baking of bread.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go to Pleasure Bay," says I, "but, for goodness sake, don't try
+that sort of thing again; genius isn't catching, and though you have
+married into our family, don't expect that it will spread like an
+epidemic into yours, because it won't."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" says he; "is there nothing in association?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I can't exactly decide," says I; "strange things do happen in
+that direction. I have heard of young women marrying literary men who
+never wrote a line worth reading before, who burst out into full-blown
+geniuses right in the honeymoon. But it is wonderful how much their
+style was like their husbands'. Of course, those must be cases of
+especial affinity. When a woman has ransacked a poor fellow's heart, she
+naturally begins to pillage his brain, and I reckon he must like it at
+first; but after that, he subsides into himself, and she subsides into
+herself, and somehow she writes just as she did before, and so does he!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then there are plenty of young ladies who carry their ambition and
+their flirtations in among the newspaper people and stray Bohemians,"
+says E. E., kindling up to the subject; "for every time they get into a
+new flirtation, which is once in about three months, their style
+changes, giving them a wonderful versatility of talent that, somehow,
+dies out after awhile, as she grows old and homely."</p>
+
+<p>"That is," says Dempster, laughing, "every time a literary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>377<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> lady of this
+stamp changes her lover, she changes her style, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly," answers E. E., "and where she hasn't any good-natured lover
+she retires into modest privacy till one comes along."</p>
+
+<p>I just listened, holding my breath.</p>
+
+<p>"What," says I, "does fraud and deception creep into the sacred
+literature of our country? I cannot believe it."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you?" says E. E.; "but you have never been in Bohemia."</p>
+
+<p>"No," says I, "that is a part of Europe that I hope to visit, but never
+have. Is it a popular place for Americans?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, wonderfully popular, for people who dash off things here and there,
+write for this and that, and are willing to give half that they earn and
+know to any adventurer that comes along, free gratis for nothing; or, on
+occasion, sell reputation by the line, and for a price. Oh, Bohemia is a
+splendid place for adventurers and adventuresses to forage in!"</p>
+
+<p>"What!" says I, "genius sell itself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says she, "and its readers, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin E. E.," says I, "you slander the grandest, the purest, the most
+sublime people on the earth."</p>
+
+<p>"Do I?" says she, nodding her head and laughing. "Wait and see."</p>
+
+<p>"Remember&mdash;you are speaking of authors, the first and purest aristocracy
+known to our free nation."</p>
+
+<p>"No; I speak of would-be authors&mdash;guerillas in literature&mdash;men and women
+of erratic ability, who adore inspiration and scorn work; for
+authorship, I am told, and believe, requires the hardest work of any
+calling in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid it does," said I, drawing a long breath, "but then such work
+brings its own prompt payment. The power to write is happiness in
+itself."</p>
+
+<p>"But what has this to do with Pleasure Bay?" says Dempster; "we mean to
+go there&mdash;not to Bohemia."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," says I, a-tying on my bonnet.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>378<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>We got into Dempster's carriage, and after a delightful drive, we came
+down on the edge of a little bay, with green grass growing close down to
+the shore, and great, tall trees clumped here and there all around it.</p>
+
+<p>I was so charmed with the scenery that I didn't realize where we were
+till the carriage stopped before a white house, with a long wooden stoop
+in front, when we got out and walked right away down to the shore, where
+a plank platform ran out from the land, and a cunning little boat, with
+white sails, lay dipping up and down like a duck in the water.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, I'm not timersome, but getting into a boat that rocks like a
+cradle in the water tries me, I must own to that. With what holding on
+and keeping your dress well down upon the ankles, one is seized with a
+sense of being awfully unsteady. This riles up the constitution to a
+state of dizziness that makes your ears buz like a bumblebee's nest.</p>
+
+<p>I was thankful to get seated at last, and, tucking up my dress, prepared
+at once for a long sea-voyage. E. E. had slung a great straw gypsy hat
+on her arm, by the strings, when she left Long Branch, which she bent
+down over her head like an umbrella with herself for a handle; over that
+she spread a broad yellow parasol that blazed in the hot air like a
+great sunflower.</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&oelig;mie," says she, a-looking up from under her straw tent, "didn't
+you bring a flat?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," says I; "the young fellows of that stamp didn't happen to be about
+when we started."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me! you'll burn your face up," says she; "that beehive is no
+protection."</p>
+
+<p>"About as much as one of your York flats would be," says I. "But
+supposing I hoist my parasol, too&mdash;one don't need a beau for that."</p>
+
+<p>The sun was pouring down like blazes, and I was mighty glad to spread my
+parasol, I can tell you; so I did it, and settled down on the same bench
+with E. E.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>379<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Dempster had been awful busy on shore, pulling out fish-lines, looking
+up nets that swung like a great hang-bird's nest, on the end of a pole:
+and now he was on his knees, hacking a fish into chunks, which he tied
+to a line and dropped into the bottom of the boat. At last he lifted his
+great straw hat, wiped the blazing warmth from his face, and jumped in.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XCIII" id="XCIII"></a>CHAPTER XCIII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>NETTING CRABS.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/o.jpg" width="60" height="58" alt="O" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">O</span>H, sisters! judge of my feelings, when directly after Dempster, came a
+splendid gentleman&mdash;a creature of romance, shaded from the vulgar gaze
+by a felt hat, and dressed like a mariner along-shore. He lifted his hat
+to me, and also to E. E.&mdash;with a lofty reservation in her case.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Burke," says Dempster, with a degree of carelessness that, I am
+sorry to say, is characteristic&mdash;"he will teach you how to catch the
+creatures; for there is an art in it."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I shall never succeed," says I, in a low, gentle tone of voice.
+"Where anything but pure nature is expected, I must always keep in the
+shade. You know, Cousin E. E., what an artless young thing I always
+was."</p>
+
+<p>E. E. smiled&mdash;not at me but right up in the face of that strange
+gentleman. I declare, I never saw anything so bold in my life! But it
+was of no use; he came and sat down close to me. In fact, he took the
+parasol from my hand with a gallant air that made my heart beat like a
+partridge on a log. In one respect that movement wasn't an advantage:
+the parasol was not large enough to shade two, and he held it
+carelessly, as was natural to a dashing, splendid creature like him; but
+somehow the shade always fell on his side. I felt dreadfully certain
+that freckles were falling like split peas all over my face.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>380<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> Still he
+smiled so sweetly and looked so magnificent that, freckles or no
+freckles, I was ready to give him up my beehive, too, if he had only
+looked as if he wanted it.</p>
+
+<p>Dear me, how that boat did heel up and rock as we went sailing off down
+to a green grassy point, where the gentleman told me the crabs swarmed
+like lady-bugs around a full-blown rose&mdash;pretty simliar, wasn't it,
+sisters, and so original?</p>
+
+<p>I was dying to know what sort of a fish a crab was, never having seen
+any in our brooks. Were they like sun-fish, rainbowish and flat; or like
+trout, sparkled over with dripping jewels; or small and silvery, like
+shiners and pin-fish?</p>
+
+<p>I did not like to ask that magnificent stranger about this, and let him
+believe that crabbing had been an amusement of my childhood up in the
+Green Mountains&mdash;not that I said so outright&mdash;but my idea of discretion
+is to say nothing of a thing you don't understand, but wait and find
+out. What is the good of telling the world how much you don't know?</p>
+
+<p>Well, I hadn't the least idea what a crab was, but the name made me feel
+a little rily. The water was full of them; I was pretty sure to find
+out; so I waited.</p>
+
+<p>By and by, Dempster flung a great stone co-slash into the water, and
+tied us up just below a little green point of land that took the
+sunshine in its long grass till it seemed full of drifting gold which
+spread out upon the water in soft, shiny ripples.</p>
+
+<p>E. E. shut down her parasol. Mr. Burke shut mine. "Now," says he, "for
+the lines."</p>
+
+<p>With this he took up a lump of raw fish, gave it a swing and a splash
+into the water, and handed me the other end. Dempster gave another line
+and a chunk of fish to his wife, and then took one of the hang-bird nets
+and stood by as if he meant to do business.</p>
+
+<p>By and by I felt a sort of hungry nibbling at the end of my line, and
+gave it a jerk just as if it had been a brook trout, hard to catch.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, goodness!" I just dropped the line and screamed like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>381<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> everything,
+scared half to death. If ever an innocent female caught a claw-footed
+imp, I came near doing it then. Why the animal, varmint, double and
+twisted serpent&mdash;I don't know what to call it&mdash;clung to the bait till I
+hauled him clear out of the water, and then fell back with a big sprawl
+and an awful splash, sinking down again like a great mammoth spider that
+made the water bubble with disgust.</p>
+
+<p>"What was it? What was it?" I said, turning my scared face on Mr. Burke.
+"What kind of young sea-devil is this?"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed, and laid down the net he had just taken up.</p>
+
+<p>"You pulled too quick," says he. "Crabs are like women."</p>
+
+<p>"Like women," I shrieked. "What, those horrid things? Sir, I thank you!"</p>
+
+<p>My voice shook so I could hardly get the words out with proper irony. A
+generous rage in behalf of my sex possessed me.</p>
+
+<p>"You did not hear me out," says he, pleasant as a sweet apple. "I was
+going to say crabs were like women in this respect. They must be led
+along, enticed, persuaded up to the bait."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" says I, "that is a sentiment I can appreciate, but the comparison
+is dreadful."</p>
+
+<p>"There is hardly anything in nature which would not be dreadful compared
+to some females that I know of," says he.</p>
+
+<p>I laid one hand on my bosom and bowed, but the next instant I felt one
+of those scraggly fiends pulling at my line, and I drew it softly in,
+hand-over-hand. Oh, how the beastly thing crept and crawled, and spread
+its scraggles as it nibbled and rose with the bait! I declare it made
+the flesh creep on my bones.</p>
+
+<p>"That's right, draw gently&mdash;lure him up. Ho!"</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke Mr. Burke just slid his net under the varmint, and flashed
+him up into the air, bait and all.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, there is no use in talking; if these creatures they call crabs
+ain't great salt-sea spiders, no such animals exist; and eels ain't
+fish, that's all.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>382<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Oh, I wish you could see them crawl up through the sea-grass and spread
+themselves. I declare it is just awful.</p>
+
+<p>Well, down went this crab&mdash;which they all gloried in, being a great big
+gridiron of a fellow&mdash;into a hole in one end of the boat, and out went
+my bait after another.</p>
+
+<p>At one great pull I brought up two wapping big fellows at a time, and
+trolled them on while Mr. Burke scooped them up. Chasing dragon flies in
+the old times was nothing to it.</p>
+
+<p>E. E. was busy as a bee on her side of the boat, Dempster ladled the
+animals up for her, till we had a couple of dozen trying to creep away,
+and fighting each other like chickens in a coop.</p>
+
+<p>By this time I could see that E. E., like a good many other people I
+could mention, was getting sort of restless for other attentions than
+those her husband could give. She kept casting side-glances at Mr.
+Burke, and at last says she to Dempster:</p>
+
+<p>"Dempster, it isn't expected that a man should always be a-hanging about
+his wife. It's time for you to do some netting for Ph&oelig;mie."</p>
+
+<p>E. E. said this almost in a whisper, but I heard it, and all the temper
+in me riled up to my throat.</p>
+
+<p>Sisters, this married woman was just dying to change off her husband for
+the beau that was devoting all his energies to me. I felt that the
+crisis had come that self-interest and a high moral standard demanded
+that I should keep this man from the lure of a married woman. I owed it
+to myself, to Dempster, and, above all, to the cause of morality, to
+hold that man firmly to his post.</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&oelig;mie," says Dempster, coming up to me and looking as if butter
+wouldn't melt in his mouth, "let me scoop for you?"</p>
+
+<p>Before I could speak Mr. Burke took that nefarious hint and went over to
+E. E.</p>
+
+<p>I gave Dempster a look of withering contempt, and flung my bait out with
+a splash that must have scared all the crabs out of a year's growth.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>383<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No," says I, "you may be willing to desert the marital outposts, but I
+will not help you. Go back to your wife; I can catch all the crabs I
+want without help."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, just as you like," says Dempster, and, settling down on the bow
+of the boat, he pulled his hat over his eyes and went to sleep, then and
+there.</p>
+
+<p>Three crabs come up to my bait&mdash;nibble, nibble, nibble. I drew in the
+line, they crawled through the water after it. Still I drew and drew.
+Three great plump fellows came to the top of the water. It was a good
+chance to call Burke away. He was leaning over E. E. and whispering,
+while she listened.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, here!" screamed I, "three at a haul. Will nobody help me?"</p>
+
+<p>That man did not seem to hear me, but kept on whispering, while E. E.
+listened with a smile on her lips and her eyes half shut. The sight made
+me awful mad.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll catch them myself," says I, and down I plunged my hand into the
+water. I meant to grip the crab, but he gripped me.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, mercy, how he pinched and bit, and screwed his claws around my hand.
+It seemed as if he were twisting it into a corkscrew. I shrieked&mdash;I
+yelled&mdash;I tried to shake the varmint off&mdash;to dash him to atoms against
+the side of the boat. It was of no use: his sharp claws dug into me in
+fifty places; he bit like fury. The blood ran down my fingers, my voice
+grew weaker, but it broke up that flirtation. It was a cruel price, but
+I paid it cheerfully. While I retain my moral sense, no married woman
+shall degrade her sex by a flirtation in my presence. Never, never!</p>
+
+<p>Yes, my screams broke up that well-arranged plan to delude Mr. Burke
+from my side, and it broke up the crabbing party too.</p>
+
+<p>Dempster woke up and hauled in the lines. We had thirty crabs
+floundering in the hold, all fighting like imps of darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll have them for dinner," says Dempster, ferociously, "they won't be
+so lively half an hour from now."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>384<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>He was right, it took us just fifteen minutes to sail back to that white
+house with the long stoop. Fifteen minutes after that, every crab was in
+water so hot that they gave up clawing and began to turn furiously red.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour after we sat around a long table out under the trees, with
+a great platter of those scrawny creatures lying with their red shells
+uppermost, a good deal easier to catch than they had been, I can tell
+you.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Burke was busy as could be, telling me how to put in my knife under
+the red shell, so as to lay the sweet white flesh open.</p>
+
+<p>I say nothing, but it seemed to me there was one jealous female around
+those premises, and that female certainly was not me.</p>
+
+<p>The meat of those creatures is just delicious&mdash;what there is of it.</p>
+
+<p>Take it altogether, sisters, it seems to me that catching and eating
+crabs is an amusement which promises better than bathing.</p>
+
+<p>If I am not very much mistaken, Mr. Burke held my hand longer than was
+quite necessary when he said good-night after we reached the hotel. I
+saw E. E. looking at us sideways, and I let it rest&mdash;rest lovingly in
+his clasp long enough to wring her heart. What right has she to have any
+feeling about it, I should like to know? Isn't she married?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XCIV" id="XCIV"></a>CHAPTER XCIV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>EXTRA POLITENESS.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;Life is a pleasant thing to have when its chariot-wheels
+revolve in smooth places. I went to bed last night angry with Cousin E.
+E. Ever since Mr. Burke was introduced into our party she has exhibited<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>385<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+a desire for gentlemen's attention which I think entirely unbecoming a
+married lady. I do not wish to be severe or captious; such feelings
+should be left to maiden ladies of an age that I have not yet dreamed of
+reaching. But a married woman who hankers after any other man's society
+than that of her own lawful husband is&mdash;well, not to speak harshly, an
+example that some people may follow, but I won't.</p>
+
+<p>This morning, as we sat on the long stoop of the hotel, gazing out on
+the broad expanse of the boundless ocean, Mr. Burke came gently to my
+side, and spoke:</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Frost."</p>
+
+<p>My heart beat; my eyelids dropped, but I lifted them, in shy innocence,
+to his face, inquiringly, wistfully. What would he say next?</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Frost, have you ever seen a clam-bake?"</p>
+
+<p>I reflected a moment. Were clam-bakes indigenous to our Vermont soil?
+Were they a product of the mountains, or a spontaneous growth of the
+river vales?</p>
+
+<p>"I do not think I have ever seen them growing in Vermont," says I, at
+last; "yet there are few roots or vegetables, wild or tame, that I don't
+know something about. There is wake-robin, on the mountains, with its
+spokes of red berries; and snake-root, and adder's-tongue; but I don't
+remember clam-bakes among them, and I know they are not cultivated in
+our parts as garden-sas, I beg pardon, as vegetables."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Burke smiled out loud, and his black mustache curled down on each
+side of his lips delightfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I fancy you have never seen anything of the kind in Vermont. Clam-bakes
+are only found at the sea-side&mdash;principally around Rhode Island. I don't
+think they prevail much in the mountains, as yet."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't say so!" says I. "Then they are a salt-water plant?"</p>
+
+<p>"Principally found in the sand and mud."</p>
+
+<p>"That don't seem to me very remarkable," says I; "most vegetables are
+found in one or the other. Watermelons, for instance,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>386<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> grow best in a
+bare sand-bank: perhaps your new-fangled vegetable is of that species?"</p>
+
+<p>Again his black mustache gave a lovely curl, and his black eyes looked
+into mine so tenderly, as if something I had said tickled him almost to
+death.</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>are</i> an original creature," said he.</p>
+
+<p>I put one hand on my heart, and bowed.</p>
+
+<p>"People about Sprucehill, especially the Society of Infinite Progress,
+have done me the honor to think so," says I.</p>
+
+<p>"But about the clam-bake&mdash;if you like it, we must start for Pleasure Bay
+at once," says Mr. Burke.</p>
+
+<p>"Do they grow down there?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"Not as a general thing, but we shall make out to get one up, with a
+little trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"Do they grow so deep?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"You will see when we get there. Mrs. Dempster is ready, and the
+carriage is waiting."</p>
+
+<p>To please that man I would have done almost anything; but it did seem a
+wild-goose chase for a lot of grown people to rush down to Pleasure Bay
+for the fun of pulling up a lot of the strangest vegetables that ever
+grew.</p>
+
+<p>"Do make haste!" cried E. E. through the green slats of her
+window-blinds.</p>
+
+<p>I got up and shook out my dress.</p>
+
+<p>"It will be such fun!" she called out. "Mr. Burke has been so kind as to
+invite us, so don't keep him waiting."</p>
+
+<p>I lifted my eyes to the dark orbs of that noble-looking man, and he must
+have known from the expression that I did not mean to keep him waiting
+in any respect. Gently bending my head, I withdrew.</p>
+
+<p>I came from my room like a moving picture, with my black alpaca newly
+flounced, and surmounted by that fleecy white jacket with great buttons
+and double-breasted in front. Then my white hat, curled up victoriously,
+and the feather waving above it and curlecued around it, was enough to
+tantalize a minister.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>387<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Burke smiled graciously when he saw me come forth clad in the
+whiteness of my principles, and I knew that the sympathy between us was
+national as well as individual.</p>
+
+<p>E. E. came out of her room flaunting a red jacket and a long black
+plume. Dashy for a married woman! But I said nothing. Let that young
+woman work out her own destiny; I am not her husband. I caught her
+sending sly glances from under her eyelashes at Mr. Burke. I wish
+Dempster had been close by, to see for himself, that's all.</p>
+
+<p>If there is anything on earth that I detest, it is a flirty married
+woman.</p>
+
+<p>We rode down to Pleasure Bay, four in the carriage, with that child
+perched up alongside of the driver. E. E. wanted to sit opposite to Mr.
+Burke, and, seized with a fit of extra politeness for that occasion
+only, insisted on it that I should get in first&mdash;which would have
+brought me face to face with Dempster. But I, too, was suffering under a
+sudden epidemic of good manners, and stepped back, bowing till the white
+feather shaded my face. She kept waving her hand; but I would not be
+persuaded into pushing myself before a married woman, and at last she
+got in, biting her lips as if she had a tenpenny nail between her teeth.
+I followed, looking innocent as a cat with cream on its tongue, and away
+we went.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XCV" id="XCV"></a>CHAPTER XCV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE CLAM-BAKE.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/t.jpg" width="60" height="62" alt="T" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">T</span>WO carriage-loads of people were at Pleasure Bay, wandering about under
+the trees in front of the hotel. Down between them and the bank was a
+lot of men piling up a heap of round stones and crossing sticks of wood
+over them till a high sort of a cross-beam pinnacle was built,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>388<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> to which
+one of the men set fire. Mercy, how it blazed up and flashed through the
+cracks in the wood! They seemed to enjoy the blaze, and worked like
+beavers around it&mdash;though I don't know how a beaver works, never having
+seen one.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the men went down to the water, and, dragging up great armfuls
+of dark green and yellow grass, swelled out here and there with bulbs
+and blisters, laid it in a heap before the fire. Some of the others sat
+down on the rocks, with pails of potatoes and sweet corn between their
+knees, which they began to wash and tie up in their husks.</p>
+
+<p>I was awful curious to know what all this was about, but made up my mind
+to wait and see; for Mr. Burke seemed so anxious and busy that I didn't
+want to stop him by asking questions.</p>
+
+<p>When the wet weeds, potatoes, and corn came on, I thought that the next
+thing would be some clam-bake; but instead of that, a fellow came down
+from the house with a lot of young chickens, picked clean, which he
+carried by the legs, and another loafed up from the water with three
+great horrid green monsters, like crabs swelled out&mdash;green as the
+sea-weed, and so dreadfully crawly that the very sight of them made me
+creep all over.</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth are those creatures?" says I to Dempster; "mammoth
+cockroaches that have taken to a seafaring life, or what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, lobsters," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"Lobsters!" says I. "Not a bit of it. All the lobsters I have ever seen
+were bright red, and still as mice."</p>
+
+<p>"That was after they were cooked," says he. "Wait till these come out,
+and they'll be red enough, I promise you."</p>
+
+<p>Well, I waited and watched, for what these men were up to was more than
+I could make out. When the wood was all burned down they brushed the
+coals and ashes away with an old broom, and two colored men came up from
+the shore, carrying a two-bushel basket full of little longish-round
+creatures, hard as stone, and with a long black sort of a knot hanging<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>389<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+out of one end. They were dripping wet, and pieces of sea-weed clung to
+them, as if they grew in the water like the crabs and lobsters.</p>
+
+<p>Well, when the ashes were swept away, and nothing but the hot stones
+were left crowded close together, the two nig&mdash;well, colored persons,
+lifted that great basket between them and poured the round creatures
+among the hot stones till they sissed again. Then they piled on a heap
+of sea-weed, and a cloud of steam came pouring through. Then another
+layer, and over that the potatoes and corn were poured down and laid on.
+Then another layer of weeds, and the chickens and three great large
+fish, done up in cloths, were laid out for a steaming, and with them
+those live, green lobsters. Oh, mercy! how they did spread their claws
+and crawl through the sea-weed! It was enough to make you creep all
+over; but the men soon smothered them with steaming grass, which heaved
+up and down for a while, and then sank off, till the lobsters lay as
+dead as the chickens, and made no more fuss about being roasted alive.</p>
+
+<p>By this time the whole heap&mdash;grass, chickens, corn, lobsters, and other
+shell creatures&mdash;was big as a small haystack. At last the two colored
+persons came down with a long tin pail, in which was a roll of butter
+and some vinegar. They sunk the pail down into the steaming sea-grass,
+clapped the corn on, and buried it with all the rest. Then more sea-weed
+and an old boat-sail flung over all, and that little mountain of
+roasting things was left to steam and sizzle while the whole party went
+to take a walk along the shore.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Burke kept by my side, and part of the time he carried my parasol,
+shading my face with it in the tenderest way.</p>
+
+<p>He said something about the clam-bake, but I had really got so sick of
+everything in the fish, fowl, or vegetable line, that a curiosity, more
+or less, was of no consequence, so I said I should know how I liked
+clam-bakes better when I had seen one.</p>
+
+<p>He answered that would be soon, for half an hour was enough to put one
+through.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>390<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Sisters, I was in no sort of hurry about it, for the rest of them were
+busy chatting and talking, so that we were just as good as alone, and
+the moments were precious as gold sands in an hour-glass.</p>
+
+<p>By and by some one set up a shout. Mr. Burke wheeled right round, and
+says he:</p>
+
+<p>"They are going to open the clam-bake; come and see it done?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XCVI" id="XCVI"></a>CHAPTER XCVI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THAT CLAM BAKE.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/h.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="H" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">H</span>E walked fast. I followed him with reluctant footsteps. What did I care
+for clam-bakes or any other new-fangled vegetable while he was by my
+side?</p>
+
+<p>The crowd were all around that heap of sea-weed when we came up. Men,
+women, Irish help, and nig&mdash;well, colored freemen, with eager eyes and
+open mouths, were waiting for the sail-cloth to be taken off. On the
+grass, under the trees, a great long table was set out with plates,
+glasses, castors, and things. At the end, two pails of ice, with the
+necks of a dozen bottles peeping up like hungry birds in a nest, stood
+ready for somebody to uncork.</p>
+
+<p>Well, the nig&mdash;freedman gave that sail a jerk, and a cloud of salty
+steam rolled up from the sea-grass. Then he raked away a winrow of that,
+dug out a pail of melted butter and vinegar, and held a lobster up by
+one claw, looking red as a British soldier's jacket. The creature had
+given up fighting, and hung in his hand meek as Moses. The poor thing
+was green enough when he went in, but came out blazing red and steaming
+hot.</p>
+
+<p>More sea-weed; chickens dripping with gravy; heaps of corn; potatoes,
+mealy, and broken open; fish, and then those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>391<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> longish-round shell
+things, heaped in plates and dishes, were carried off to the table. We
+followed those dishes; we sat down to eat. Those longish hard-shelled
+creatures had all burst open, and something that smelt delicious lay
+inside, with black heads sticking out.</p>
+
+<p>I watched to see what the rest did with those animals, then seized one
+by the head, drew him out, soused him in the melted butter, and dropped
+him softly into my open mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Delicious, scrumptious, beyond anything I ever ate in my life," says I,
+when Mr. Burke leaned toward me and wanted to know how I liked it. "But
+what are these black-headed things with shells, called?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, soft-shells&mdash;the best part of the clam-bake, I think," says he.</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon you are right," says I, taking another little fellow by the
+nape of the neck, and biting him off at the shoulders. Then I drank a
+glass of the sparklingest cider you ever tasted, and went in for an ear
+of corn, smoking hot, and the breast of a chicken.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Burke wanted me to eat some of the red lobster, but the thought of
+it made me creep all over, so I asked to be excused, and said I
+preferred a dozen or two more soft-shells.</p>
+
+<p>There was a good deal of first-rate cider drank around that table, and
+we left a bushel of open shells under the trees, besides a heap of
+lobsters, clams, and chicken bones, well picked.</p>
+
+<p>Then we went back to look at the place where they had been cooked, and
+found nothing but a heap of smoking stones, a ring of burnt grass, and a
+pile of steamy sea-weed. Somehow, the sight of it all made me feel sort
+of faint, and it didn't seem to me that I should ever want to eat or
+drink again.</p>
+
+<p>We went home from Pleasure Bay in the carriage, feeling lazy and kind of
+half sea-sick.</p>
+
+<p>That night I dreamed that a whole regiment of green lobsters were
+crawling over my bed, clawing at me fiercely as they went. Then I
+thought that Mr. Burke came and shoved them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>392<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> off with both arms flung
+out, and invited me to breakfast on a heap of empty shells, dipped in
+butter, which set awful heavy on my stomach.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, I had a worrying night, and got up feeling as if I had been
+feasting on tenpenny nails and roasted flat-irons.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XCVII" id="XCVII"></a>XCVII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>ONE HOUR OF HEAVEN.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;You haven't the least idea of what warm weather is in
+Vermont. Why, if one of your mountain trout streams could have run
+through New York, it would have boiled over and cooked the poor little
+speckled creatures that live in its waves. You never saw anything like
+it in your born days. The sea breezes at Long Branch seemed to come over
+an ocean of melted lead, blasted up by some old furnace of a volcano.
+For one whole week I was just dying of envy, when I thought of the pigs
+roving loose in our village, with such lovely mud puddles to lie down
+in, without caring a sumarke whether their clothes were mussed&mdash;excuse
+that word, I got it here in York&mdash;or not.</p>
+
+<p>While I was panting for breath on the sea-shore, I could think of them,
+with home-sick longing, up to their throats in the soft, mushy fluid of
+a delicious puddle, with swarms of yellow butterflies rising, floating,
+and settling around them, as if a bed of primroses had got tired of
+growing in one place, and had burst off on a grand spree through the
+air, settling down for a drink now and then.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, sisters, I was brought, in the hot blast of those summer days, to a
+state of unchristian envy, and would have been glad to swap places with
+flounders, or have slept in some cellar, with a block of ice for a
+pillow.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>393<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>But nothing that I ever saw lasts for ever, or if it does I haven't
+lived long enough to prove it. Still, one gets restless in weather like
+this, when human beings are dropping down dead in the streets of a city
+close by in dozens, from sunstrokes.</p>
+
+<p>This morning I sat in my room, with a short gown and not over many
+skirts on, looking through the green slats of my door, and watching the
+sunshine shimmer down on the waves where the little white vessels were
+folding their sails, and going to sleep like birds too lazy for flying,
+when a colored person came to my door, and says he:</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Burke's compliments, and will Miss Frost take a walk with him on
+the beach?"</p>
+
+<p>I started up, and, says I:</p>
+
+<p>"Won't I!" Then I composed myself, and sent back compliments, and Miss
+Frost will have great pleasure in complying with Mr. Burke's polite
+invitation.</p>
+
+<p>When the&mdash;colored messenger was gone, I sat down in the Boston rocker,
+clasped my hands, and drew a deep, deep sigh of ecstatic expectation.
+Then I remembered that he was waiting, and sprang to my feet.</p>
+
+<p>With my two shaking hands I fastened the other woman's hair over my own,
+that would neither curl nor friz worth a cent that awful hot day. Then I
+put on a white muslin dress, that looked seraphically innocent, and
+tightened it up with a plaid silk sash, that circled my slender waist
+and floated off like a rainbow breaking through a cloud.</p>
+
+<p>Then I took my parasol in one hand, held my flowing skirts up with the
+other, and went forth to meet my destiny. Oh, how my feet longed to
+dance! How my girlish heart beat and fluttered in this innocent bosom.</p>
+
+<p>He was waiting for me in the long stoop, leaning against a post, and
+fanning his manly head with the broad brim of his Panama hat. Oh, how
+majestic, how&mdash;but language fails me here.</p>
+
+<p>Arm in arm we walked along the beach. He leaned toward<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>394<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> me, I leaned
+with gentle heaviness on him&mdash;delightful reciprocity&mdash;eloquent silence.
+A soft breeze blew up from the ocean, and kissed us both with refreshing
+softness.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said the noble man by my side, "this is delicious."</p>
+
+<p>"Deliriously so," I murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"You feel the revivifying effect?" says he.</p>
+
+<p>"Exquisitely," says I, leaning a little more confidingly on his stalwart
+arm.</p>
+
+<p>He bent his stately head and looked down into my eyes. Sisters, the
+thrill of that glance shook my delicate frame as bumble-bees set a
+full-blown rose to trembling when they swarm in its heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we go down to the sands?" says he; "the incoming tide is dashing
+them with coolness."</p>
+
+<p>I understood the delicate meaning conveyed in these words. Nothing could
+be more exquisitely suggestive. The tide&mdash;what was that but his own
+noble self? The sands&mdash;pure, white, untrodden&mdash;in my whole life I never
+heard anything more typical.</p>
+
+<p>"If you desire it," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"If I desire it. Ah! Miss Frost, it is for you to say."</p>
+
+<p>My heart leaped to this as a speckled trout snaps at a fly. Nothing so
+near a proposal had ever reached me before. But a New England woman is
+modest; she does not snatch at the first offer&mdash;far from it. I pretended
+not to understand the badly hidden meaning of his metaphor. A little art
+of this kind is feminine and excusable, even in a young girl dignified
+with Society membership and a mission. I felt that he could appreciate
+it. He did. Some people were below us on the sands. They paused to look
+up as this noble creature handed me down those wooden steps. The effect
+must have been artistical. My cloud-like skirts floated softly on the
+zephyrs. My scarf streamed out like a banner. I am afraid the curve of
+my boot might have been seen from below, for many admiring faces were
+turned that way, and Mr. Burke cast his eye downward in a fugitive
+manner.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>395<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>At last we reached the sands, on which both the sun and waves were
+beating luminously. By a ridge of white sand he paused.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we sit here?" says he, with tender questioning.</p>
+
+<p>"Anywhere," says I, with sweet feminine complacency.</p>
+
+<p>Then I dropped down on the sand ridge, and sweeping my skirts together,
+cast a timid glance up and around.</p>
+
+<p>That noble man was spreading a silk umbrella. There was a hitch in the
+spring, and, such was his eager impatience to occupy the seat I had so
+delicately suggested, that a real naughty word broke from his lips&mdash;a
+word I, as a missionary, never could forgive, if it hadn't been the
+proof of such loving impatience. As it was, like a recording angel, I
+blotted it out of my memory with a forgiving sigh.</p>
+
+<p>That refractory umbrella was hoisted at last, and its owner placed
+himself on the sand beside me, holding it not seaward, but like a tent,
+shading us two from the whole world, while the sun took care of itself.</p>
+
+<p>"This," says he, "is a sweet relief. Don't you find it so, Miss Frost?"</p>
+
+<p>I answered him with a sigh, soft, but audible.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, one can draw a full breath here," says he. "I was sure you would
+enjoy it."</p>
+
+<p>"I do, indeed," says I, playing with the sand in the innocence of my
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently embarrassed by deep feeling, he too began to sift the white
+sand through his fingers, which came so near mine that they made me
+catch my breath for fear he might clasp them. On the contrary, he gave
+up the temptatious exercise, and throwing a generous restraint on
+himself, began to talk metaphorically and metaphysically about many
+things, especially about gathering maple-sap, of which he questioned me
+tenderly, veiling the hidden meaning in his heart, by a seeming interest
+in our trees.</p>
+
+<p>He asked me, with infinite meaning in his voice, at what period the
+sparkling sap began to mount up from the curly roots<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>396<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> of our maples, and
+vivify the trunk, twigs, and branches of that noble tree.</p>
+
+<p>I understood his meaning, delicately veiled as it was. He wished to
+reveal his contempt of young saplings compared to the vigorous tree. It
+was a poetic way of comparing young snips of things with whole-souled
+girls, who had all the bloom of youth, and all the strength of maturity.</p>
+
+<p>I spoke my mind on the subject. I said that strength, greenness, a
+full-grown trunk were necessary before sweet wholesome sap could
+circulate from root to top of a sugar maple. That saplings amounted to
+just nothing at all. In fact, they kept absorbing, but gave forth
+nothing; that a rich maturity was desirable before the maple became
+important as a forest-tree or an object of wealth.</p>
+
+<p>I think he understood me&mdash;or rather he understood that I, with the
+exquisite intuition of genius, understood him. For right off, on that,
+he said that he would like to live in Vermont, and own maple-trees
+himself; that native sugar was a sweet business, and must have a
+softening tendency upon those who entered into it.</p>
+
+<p>He sometimes bought it of little boys in the cars, and always felt a
+soothing influence after eating it, that made him long to drink the
+native sap fresh from the tree. In fact, he took a deep interest in
+Vermont and all its institutions.</p>
+
+<p>While we were talking on these sweet subjects, quite a breeze sprang up
+from the water.</p>
+
+<p>Things brighten around us. The sky looked blue. The heaving waves of the
+ocean began to swell and sparkle as if a diamond mine were breaking up
+in their depths. I am satisfied that Long Branch is all that it has been
+cracked up to be&mdash;and more too, when kindred souls meet on its sandy
+shores.</p>
+
+<p>"How bright! how beautiful!" says he, backing off suddenly from the
+maple question, which had covered a world of hidden meaning, and looking
+out to sea, with a delicate wish, no doubt, to spare my blushes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>397<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Some persons have been kind enough to think so," says I, "but it isn't
+for me to say."</p>
+
+<p>"I love the fitful changes&mdash;the soft transparency: nothing can be more
+lovely," says he.</p>
+
+<p>The occasion required downcast eyes and shrinking silence. I gave him
+both. There could be no better answer for a speech so personal and yet
+so poetic.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you share my feelings in this."</p>
+
+<p>That moment&mdash;that precious, precious moment&mdash;was broken in upon in a way
+that makes me clench my teeth as I write. Up the sands, racing forward
+like a young colt, came "that child," with her flat flying back by the
+strings, and a broken parasol in her hand; up she flew toward Mr. Burke.</p>
+
+<p>"Come here," says she, "I want you to whip that boy out there within an
+inch of his life. I broke my parasol over his head, but it wasn't half
+enough; I want you to give it to him good."</p>
+
+<p>"But what has he done," says Mr. Burke, no doubt riled to the depths of
+his noble heart, as I was.</p>
+
+<p>"Done enough, I should think. He mimicked the way I carried my parasol,
+and said some folks wanted to be young ladies before they could
+read&mdash;that's what he has done," says the creature, flaming out like a
+bantam.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps we had better go in," says Mr. Burke, lifting himself out of
+the sand.</p>
+
+<p>"Not till you've given him hail Columbia," says the creature, taking a
+new grip on her broken parasol.</p>
+
+<p>"I rather think he has got that," says Mr. Burke, reaching out his hand
+to help me up.</p>
+
+<p>I arose. I jerked that Leghorn flat by the strings, and tied it under
+the creature's chin with a pull that made her scream. Then I took Mr.
+Burke's arm and mounted the wooden steps, with a feeling at my heart
+that is not to be described by mortal pen. What a world of bliss that
+wicked little wretch broke in upon. His soul was verging towards mine so
+beautifully. The final words were burning on his lips when she rushed
+in. Still,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>398<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> memory is left, reason is left. I know what was in that
+noble heart, and that knowledge is bliss.</p>
+
+<p>I felt this: I knew his meaning. To a common woman he might have said,
+"I love you dearly. I wish above all things to spend my life with you;"
+but to a creature made up of sensitive pride and poetic niceties,
+unclothed proposals of this kind must be quite out of place. Of course I
+understood all that, and felt the refinement of his conduct deeply.</p>
+
+<p>What more <i>could</i> a man say than this? In order to be delicately
+personal, one must talk by comparisons. To praise the State one is born
+in, is to praise one's self. To seize upon any material thing for a
+poetical comparison with a human being, is to be intensely complimentary
+to that being.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time in my life I feel the sweet certainty of duplication.
+My heart swells with the beautiful faith of hope deferred. Those
+heavenly lines we have sung so often together in our meeting-house come
+back to my mind&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="block3">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"To patient faith the prize is sure&mdash;"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>I dare not go farther and complete the rhyme, because human sensation
+should not encroach on the divine; but the spirit of that hymn sings in
+my heart; for if there is anything on this earth that woman should be
+grateful for, it is love.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, my sisters, at last I feel that I am beloved. A ray of sympathetic
+feeling has darted from a grand and noble soul to mine, changing that
+dull, sandy coast to Elysium.</p>
+
+<p>Last night, when I retired to the secrecy of my chamber, it seemed to me
+that if ever a woman's heart&mdash;beg pardon, a young girl's heart&mdash;was born
+again, mine had become more tenderly infantine than it was when I lay
+one week old in my loving mother's arms.</p>
+
+<p>The moonlight was streaming through the muslin curtains of my room when
+I entered it. It was an ovation of silvery light dawning upon the new
+life that opens before me. I do not know how other people feel when the
+crisis of fate is on them, but in my heart there is room for nothing but
+infinite thankfulness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>399<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Yes, sisters, I think you can conscientiously congratulate me. Virtue
+does sometimes meet with its own reward, especially when it is combined
+with youthfulness, elegance, and high mental attributes.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XCVIII" id="XCVIII"></a>XCVI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>C. O. D.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/d.jpg" width="60" height="59" alt="D" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">D</span>EAR SISTERS:&mdash;The cruelty of one female woman to another is something
+awful. As a general thing, E. E. Dempster is a good-natured, amiable
+person, but her conduct on the very day after that heavenly season on
+the shore was worthy of the Spanish Inquisition. She has lacerated the
+heart in my bosom, and torn me away from this place like a ruthless
+highwayman. That is what she has done.</p>
+
+<p>Early in the morning, while I was dreaming sweetly of the sea-shore,
+that unfeeling female rushed into my room.</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&oelig;mie," says she, "you can't sleep any longer. We are packing up
+for the city. Cecilia has been insulted here, and I won't stay another
+hour in the place."</p>
+
+<p>"What! what is it?" says I. "How could you! He was just giving up
+metaphor and coming squarely out in the sweetest way."</p>
+
+<p>"You will have no more than time to pack your trunk before the train
+starts," says she.</p>
+
+<p>"Starts&mdash;what for! where?"</p>
+
+<p>"For New York, and after that to Saratoga; Cecilia insists on it, poor,
+sweet darling."</p>
+
+<p>"For New York?" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"On the way to Saratoga."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but who is going. Is&mdash;is&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you and I, Dempster, and that sweet, ill-used child. Would you
+believe it, that rude boy's father refuses to whip<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>400<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> him, and said a girl
+that could give a black eye with her parasol was&mdash;well, I can't find the
+heart to repeat it. At any rate, she doesn't stay another hour under the
+same roof with that little fiend."</p>
+
+<p>"But is that all&mdash;Oh, tell me is no one else going?" says I feeling as
+if a ton of lead had been heaped on me.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me. There is no one else to care for the poor child. Of course, no
+one will take it up but us. So make haste."</p>
+
+<p>Out she went, leaving me just heart-broken and ready to give up. How
+could I go? how could I leave him and "the Branch," as if my soul were
+fleeing from his?</p>
+
+<p>It was of no use. E. E. was set upon going, and I couldn't help myself.</p>
+
+<p>Well, sisters, two hours after I left that bed we had packed up bag and
+baggage, given a cart-load of trunks for the express-men to smash or
+carry, just as they liked, and then took a little run of railroad, and a
+sail in a steamboat so grand and airy, and no ending, that we began to
+feel sorry that James Fisk was dead, or that his splendid ghost didn't
+roam along the steamboat track and keep things ship-shape, as he left
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Well, in that steamboat we reached New York, warm, restless, and nigh
+about ready to give out, or take a friendly sunstroke and be peaceably
+carried away to a cool vault in some shady graveyard.</p>
+
+<p>I mentioned this alternative to Cousin Dempster, but he shook his head
+and answered that some of us might find ourselves waking up in a more
+uncomfortable place than the streets of New York; which I thought
+impossible, but said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Well, we had a few hours to stay in the city before a boat would be
+ready to take us to Saratoga Springs&mdash;a name that sounded so cool and
+refreshing, that I longed to get there and breathe again.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. said, when we went ashore:</p>
+
+<p>"Ph&oelig;mie," says she, "there are a few hours before us; suppose we go
+a-shopping? I want ever so many things. Saratoga is a dressy place, and
+I haven't a thing to wear."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>401<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then, before I could object, says she to Dempster:</p>
+
+<p>"A check, my dear, or if you have the funds on hand."</p>
+
+<p>Dempster gave a sigh that shook his manly bosom through and through, and
+says he:</p>
+
+<p>"There," drawing a roll of bank bills from his vest pocket, "will that
+do?"</p>
+
+<p>E. E. unrolled the bills and sorted them out.</p>
+
+<p>"Ten, twenty, fifty, ten, ten, ten, fif&mdash; Why, Dempster, what do you
+mean? How far will a hundred and fifty dollars go? I want to spend more
+than that on Valenciennes lace for Cecilia's dress. The child must have
+something to wear."</p>
+
+<p>She spoke in a grieved, half-angry way, that touched Dempster to the
+heart. He took out his pocket-book, but not another sign of money was in
+it. Then he felt in three or four pockets with the air of a man who was
+tormented with doubts of finding anything. At last he stopped looking.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't another red cent about me, dear. Indeed I haven't."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me, what am I to do? There is a guipure sacque at Stewart's that I
+must have."</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't you get along without it?" says Dempster, with such pathetic
+earnestness that I really felt sorry for him.</p>
+
+<p>"Get along without it! How can you ask?"</p>
+
+<p>"That Brussels lace thing," faltered Dempster.</p>
+
+<p>"What, that? I have had it six months at least; besides, I saw another
+just like it at the hotel, and that is enough to disgust one with
+anything. If people will pattern after me, I can't help it. Then again
+one gets so tired of the same thing."</p>
+
+<p>"But I have no more money."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you draw a check?"</p>
+
+<p>"My check-book is at the office."</p>
+
+<p>"Always so when I want anything. Now, Dempster, this is too bad."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," says Dempster, desperately, "get the thing, and tell Stewart to
+charge it?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>402<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>Cousin E. E. turned her face away. It was awful cloudy, and I could see
+that she was biting her lips. She had an awful long bill at Stewart's
+already. Then her face lighted up.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't I have them sent C. O. D., by express? You will have time to get
+plenty of money before then," says she, as soft as silk weed.</p>
+
+<p>"I hate the system," says Dempster; "money in hand is the only way a
+lady should make purchases. Then she knows what she is about. Everything
+else leads to extravagance. I hate bills as if they were copperheads;
+they are things I never will forgive."</p>
+
+<p>I saw that E. E. turned pale, and a red flush came around her eyes as if
+she were just ready to burst out a-crying.</p>
+
+<p>Dempster thought it was because he had stood out about the money and
+gave in a trifle.</p>
+
+<p>"For this once," says he, "have the things charged, but bring the bill
+with you. I must know what I am about in these matters."</p>
+
+<p>"But I mightn't find them all in one place. Hadn't we better make it a
+C. O. D., just for once?" says she, pleading for her own way as if her
+mouth were full of humble pie.</p>
+
+<p>"Do as you please for this once," says he, half out of patience, "but
+remember, I am set against bills and running accounts&mdash;pay as you go
+along, is my motto."</p>
+
+<p>E. E. drew a deep breath, and, putting the money in a little mite of a
+leather satchel fastened to her side by a belt, took up her parasol and
+prepared to march off.</p>
+
+<p>Cecilia followed after, surveying her little toadstool of a parasol, and
+stooping forward as she walked, like an undersized kangaroo.</p>
+
+<p>I only wish E. E., or even Cousin Dempster, could see that child as I
+see her. But they can't. Where she is concerned, they seem born fools,
+both of them.</p>
+
+<p>Well, off we went one way, and Dempster the other&mdash;he to get the money,
+and his wife to spend it. I looked on, and wondered how any man living
+could afford to get married. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>403<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> whole thing made me down-hearted, and
+half-ashamed of my relationship with a woman who could worry money out
+of her husband like that, and not feel how mean she was&mdash;could not my
+cousin see that she was poisoning the soul of her own child by an
+example which she was just as certain to follow as she was to live.</p>
+
+<p>Well, we got into a carriage and drove up Broadway; but instead of going
+to Stewart's great marble building, E. E. stopped at some other places,
+and kept buying and buying till I got tired out, and sat on a round
+stool by the counter, saying nothing, but thinking a good deal. Each
+place we left, I heard her say, "Grand Union Hotel, Saratoga: C. O. D.,"
+till I got tired to death of the word.</p>
+
+<p>At one place my cousin and that child had a grand set-to in the store.
+Cecilia wanted a bright-red silk dress to wear under her lace one; but
+E. E. liked blue best, and ordered it. Then Cecilia declared she didn't
+want any dress at all, broke her new parasol striking it against the
+counter, and ended off by flinging herself down on a stool and drumming
+her feet against the counter&mdash;so mad that she cried till everybody in
+the store heard her.</p>
+
+<p>Of course E. E. gave in, just to pacify her, while I would have given
+fifty of the brightest silver dollars ever issued by the U. S.
+Government, for the happiness of giving her the neatest little trouncing
+she ever got in her life. But luxuries like these, I can hardly expect
+just yet. How that cousin of mine can give up a parental prerogative so
+tempting to the hands I cannot imagine. I really would not put so much
+pleasure off an hour.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>404<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XCIX" id="XCIX"></a>XCVII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>TAKEN IN.</small></h2>
+
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 60px;">
+<img src="images/w.jpg" width="60" height="60" alt="W" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="hidden">W</span>ELL, after trapesing about from one store to another till I was nigh
+about tired to death, E. E. concluded that she had got through her
+shopping, except a few things that we could carry in our pockets, which
+kept us rushing in and out of every little shop we came to for an hour
+longer. Then she said we would stop into Purssell's and get something to
+eat, for she was beginning to feel hungry. This had been the case with
+me ever so long; not that I hankered much in hot weather for hearty
+food, but I felt a sort of faintness; and when she said something about
+Purssell's having delicious peaches, I knew that they were exactly the
+thing which would appease all the internal longing of my nature.</p>
+
+<p>But just as my mouth was beginning to water, E. E. took out her watch
+and gave a little scream.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," says she, "who would a-thought it? We have but just fifteen
+minutes to reach the boat in?"</p>
+
+<p>My heart sank. The taste of those peaches had almost got into my mouth,
+but now a taste of dust came in their place. I could just have sat down
+and cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind," says E. E.; "we can get dinner on board."</p>
+
+<p>"Dinner on board!" Thin soup; hot meat down in the bottom of a
+steamboat, with a smell of oil, sour water, and musty linen all around
+you&mdash;that is what "a dinner on board" means, and nothing else. The very
+thought made me feel rily about the temper&mdash;all that I wanted was some
+peaches.</p>
+
+<p>You will not wonder, sisters, that I hankered after this delicious
+fruit, which is about the only good thing that grows which we do not
+have in the old Vermont State. Only think of them&mdash;round, plump, juicy;
+with the redness of a warm sunset burning on one side, and pale-gold
+glowing on the other; cool, delicious, melting away in the mouth with a
+flavor that just<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>405<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> makes you want to kiss some smiling baby while it is
+on your lips! Think of them! then imagine my feelings when I was hurried
+into a hack, and rattled off to the steamboat with the promise of a hot
+dinner in its internal regions. We saw peaches on every hand as we drove
+along&mdash;in stores, on street tables, in baskets carried by Irish women,
+who looked up at the carriage-window pleadingly as we drove along.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait one minute," says I, as a woman came up with her long basket
+brimming over with the luscious fruit; "I must have some peaches."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a second," says E. E.; "don't you see Dempster beckoning from the
+deck? The last bell is ringing. Come, come!"</p>
+
+<p>The Irish woman lifted up her basket, and stood there enticing me. E. E.
+rushed up the plank, calling out: "Make haste, make haste!"</p>
+
+<p>Cecilia sung out: "Come along, Ph&oelig;mie!"</p>
+
+<p>Two men had hold of the plank bridge. I had to cross then, or be left
+behind. I cast one yearning look towards the basket, rushed up the
+plank, and stood panting, by the side of Dempster.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear, it is too bad!" says I.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Ph&oelig;mie?" says Dempster.</p>
+
+<p>"Peaches!" says I. "Those delicious peaches&mdash;see how they glow in the
+sunshine!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nonsense! There is plenty on board," says he; "I'll go and get
+some."</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet," says E. E.; "the deck is so crowded."</p>
+
+<p>Dempster got seats for us and a stool for himself. The crowd was packed
+so close that one could hardly breathe. I was thirsty, I was tired out,
+and just ready to cry. E. E. was tired also, and a little cross. Cecilia
+was just as she always is&mdash;a nuisance. I felt like thanking Dempster
+when he jumped up, and says he:</p>
+
+<p>"Now for the peaches!"</p>
+
+<p>Away he went, just as good-natured as could be, calling back for me to
+keep his seat for him. I laid my parasol on it, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>406<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> kept my hand on
+that; but a minute after came a great heathen of a fellow and attempted
+to take the stool.</p>
+
+<p>"It is engaged," says I, pressing down my hand.</p>
+
+<p>"What of that?" says he, jerking the stool away, and throwing my parasol
+on to the floor. "Every one for himself, and no favors."</p>
+
+<p>I was blue as indigo before that. At another time this creature would
+have riled me into a tempest, but now I felt more like crying. But there
+he sat, plump on the stool, looking as self-contented as if butter would
+not melt in his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>Dempster came back. I looked up longingly. His hands were empty.</p>
+
+<p>"I am very sorry," says he, "but there isn't a peach on board."</p>
+
+<p>Well, there I sat, with the sun pouring down on me, while E. E. read the
+illustrated papers, and that child made herself generally numerous among
+the passengers. After awhile I got up to look over the side of the
+vessel, when that horrid wretch snatched up my seat and carried it off,
+looking back at me and laughing.</p>
+
+<p>I said nothing&mdash;what was the use?&mdash;but leaned against the cabin-door,
+holding my satchel, the most forlorn creature you ever saw. Just then
+some one spoke to me. I looked round. It was a roly-poly, oldish woman,
+who spread considerably over her chair, and held a travelling-basket on
+her lap. She had found an empty stool, and asked me to take it.</p>
+
+<p>I sat down while she smiled blandly upon me.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind that fellow," says she. "Some men are born animals of one
+kind or another, so let them go."</p>
+
+<p>Her words were kind&mdash;her manner motherly. I liked the woman. She is not
+elegant, I thought, but who could be with all that breadth of chest and
+brevity of limb? I smiled and thanked her, wondering who she was.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty scenery," says she, pointing to the bank on which some
+cottage-houses, and a wooden tavern with red maroon half-curtains at the
+window, seemed to set the whole neighborhood<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>407<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span> on fire. "Now I would give
+anything for a house like that. Snug, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>She might have been looking at the wooden tavern, or at a cottage close
+by with a beautiful drapery of vines running along the porch. "Of
+course," thought I, "she means that."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," says I, "it looks delightfully quiet."</p>
+
+<p>She nodded, and opened her basket, a capacious affair, quite large
+enough to hold half a peck of peaches. My mouth began to water.
+Perhaps&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Take one," says she, handing over a cracker.</p>
+
+<p>I took the disappointment, and tried to eat, but with that hankering
+after peaches in my throat it seemed like refreshing one's self on
+sawdust. She noticed this, I think, and, with a little hesitation,
+looked into her basket again, then closed it, and, looking towards me,
+whispered&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"That's dry eating. Come down to the cabin, and I'll give you something
+nice."</p>
+
+<p>"Something nice!" I felt my eyes brighten. "Something nice&mdash;peaches, of
+course. What else could she have but peaches?" I thanked her with
+enthusiasm; my eyes gloated on her basket. Peaches and plenty of
+them&mdash;delicious!</p>
+
+<p>The stranger arose, smoothed down her dress, and led the way downstairs.
+Her presence was imposing, her step firm as a rock. Assuredly my new
+acquaintance was no common person&mdash;a little stout, certainly, but so is
+the Queen of England.</p>
+
+<p>I followed her eagerly, thinking of the peaches, longing for them with
+inexpressible longing. We went through the cabin&mdash;on and on&mdash;back of
+some curtains that draped it at one end. Here she paused, set her basket
+on a marble table, and proceeded to open it.</p>
+
+<p>I did not wish to show the craving eagerness which possessed me, and
+delicately turned my eyes away. Then she spoke in a deep mellow voice,
+as though she had fed on peaches from the cradle up.</p>
+
+<p>"Look a-here," says she. "Isn't this something nice?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>408<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p>I looked! the basket was open. She held a tumbler in one hand and a
+bottle in the other, from which a stream of brandy gurgled. That rotund
+impostor came toward me, beaming.</p>
+
+<p>"There," says she, "take right hold. It's first-rate Cognac."</p>
+
+<p>All the Vermont blood in my veins riled suddenly. I drew myself up to
+the full queenly height that so many people have thought imposing.
+Disappointment sharpened virtue's indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"Madam," says I, "you have practised a hospitable fraud&mdash;in Christian
+charity I will call it hospitable&mdash;on a New England lady, who looks upon
+temperance as a cardinal virtue. Put up your bottle. Maple sap and sweet
+cider from straws are the strongest drinks I ever indulge in."</p>
+
+<p>"Maple sap," says she, with a rumbling, mellow laugh, which ended in a
+cough as the brandy went down her throat. "Sweet cider, through straws!
+Well, every one to her taste."</p>
+
+<p>Here she filled the glass again and held it out, smiling like a harvest
+moon.</p>
+
+<p>"What, you won't take the least nip, just to save it, you know?"</p>
+
+<p>I turned my back upon that rotund tempter, and walked with a stately
+step to the deck, followed by a rich gurgle from the second glass as it
+went down that perfidious creature's throat.</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness gracious! What a surprise!"</p>
+
+<p>This was my exclamation when I saw Mr. Burke coming towards me, across
+the deck, with a small basketful of the most delicious peaches in his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>There he came, smiling so blandly, and held out the basket for me to
+help myself. He was going to Saratoga, he said. The hot season had
+driven him to seek mountainous air. O sisters!</p>
+
+
+<h4 class="end">THE END.</h4>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Phemie Frost's Experiences, by Ann S. Stephens
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+</pre>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Phemie Frost's Experiences, by Ann S. Stephens
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Phemie Frost's Experiences
+
+Author: Ann S. Stephens
+
+Release Date: October 13, 2009 [EBook #30245]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHEMIE FROST'S EXPERIENCES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roberta Staehlin and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+Unexpected and alternative spelling, hyphenation, capitalisation
+punctuation, possible typographer's errors and omitted words, and
+incorrectly numbered chapters and page numbers have been retained as
+they appear in the original publication. Where the lead character's
+name has been spelt with an OE or oe ligature, the spelling has been
+represented as Phoemie or PHOEMIE. Accents on words in the French
+language have been removed, and the ae ligature changed to ae.
+
+
+
+
+PHEMIE FROST'S EXPERIENCES.
+
+BY
+
+MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS.
+
+AUTHOR OF "FASHION AND FAMINE," "REJECTED WIFE," "OLD HOMESTEAD," ETC.,
+ETC., ETC.
+
+    NEW YORK:
+    _G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers._
+    LONDON: S. LOW, SON & CO.
+    M.DCCC.LXXIV.
+
+
+    Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by
+    G. W. CARLETON & CO.,
+    In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
+
+
+    Maclauchlan,
+    Stereotyper and Printer, 56, 58 and 60 Park Street, New York.
+
+
+
+
+    To
+
+    FRANK LESLIE, ESQ.,
+
+    ONE OF THE BEST-TRIED AND MOST VALUED FRIENDS I HAVE,
+
+    _THIS VOLUME_,
+
+    THE LIGHT AMUSEMENT OF MY LEISURE HOURS,
+
+    IS
+
+    Respectfully Dedicated.
+
+        ANN S. STEPHENS.
+
+    ST. CLOUD HOTEL,         }
+    NEW YORK, _March_, 1874. }
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+    Thistle down, thistle down, cast to the wind
+      So lightly and wildly, you scarcely can find
+    A glimpse of it here, or a gleam of it there,
+      As it trembles, a silvery mist, on the air.
+
+    Like the wide thorny leaves whence the mother root threw
+      Up its crown of rich purple, bejewelled with dew,
+    These feathery nothings, barbed, sparsely, with seeds,
+      Must struggle for life with the brambles and weeds.
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+     CHAPTER                                             PAGE
+
+           I.--Leaving Home.                               11
+
+          II.--Phoemie's First Visit.                      25
+
+         III.--About Girls.                                28
+
+          IV.--More About Girls.                           33
+
+           V.--Poor Children.                              39
+
+          VI.--He Has Come.                                41
+
+         VII.--The French Dress-maker.                     45
+
+        VIII.--The Genuine Madame.                         48
+
+          IX.--Ready to Land.                              51
+
+           X.--Down the Bay.                               54
+
+          XI.--The Grand Duke.                             57
+
+         XII.--Tickets for the Ball.                       60
+
+        XIII.--The Grand Duke's Ball.                      63
+
+         XIV.--The Natural History Philanthropist.         67
+
+          XV.--Christmas in New York.                      74
+
+         XVI.--The Night Before Christmas.                 78
+
+        XVII.--Early Service.                              81
+
+       XVIII.--High Church.                                84
+
+         XIX.--Christmas Morning.                          88
+
+          XX.--About Lions.                                90
+
+         XXI.--Dining in the Dark.                         95
+
+        XXII.--New Year's Day.                             99
+
+       XXIII.--The New Year's Reception.                  102
+
+        XXIV.--Mignon: A Night at the Grand Opera.        108
+
+         XXV.--The Black Crook.                           114
+
+        XXVI.--Living Apart.                              120
+
+       XXVII.--More About Fisk.                           124
+
+      XXVIII.--She Would Go.                              128
+
+        XXIX.--Mr. Greeley's Birthday Party.              132
+
+         XXX.--Leap Year.                                 135
+
+        XXXI.--A Man that Wouldn't Take Money.            140
+
+       XXXII.--A Democratic Lunch.                        144
+
+      XXXIII.--Dempster Proposes a Trip.                  149
+
+       XXXIV.--In Washington.                             152
+
+        XXXV.--Getting Information.                       157
+
+       XXXVI.--The Liederkranz Ball.                      161
+
+      XXXVII.--How Did the Papers Know?                   165
+
+     XXXVIII.--Reception of the Japanese.                 168
+
+       XXXIX.--The Japanese.                              171
+
+          XL.--That Diplomatic Stag Party.                174
+
+         XLI.--The Dinner.                                179
+
+        XLII.--In the Basement of the Capitol.            182
+
+       XLIII.--Phoemie Dines with a Senator.              186
+
+        XLIV.--Marble Halls.                              191
+
+         XLV.--Randolph Rogers' Bronze Doors.             194
+
+        XLVI.--Was it a Meeting-house?                    197
+
+       XLVII.--Easter.                                    201
+
+      XLVIII.--A Church Higher Yet.                       204
+
+        XLIX.--Easter Sunday.                             206
+
+           L.--That Man with the Lantern.                 211
+
+          LI.--Mrs. Grant's Reception.                    215
+
+         LII.--Representative Women.                      220
+
+        LIII.--A Literary Party.                          223
+
+         LIV.--Dressing for a Party.                      227
+
+          LV.--Foreign Ministers.                         230
+
+         LVI.--Good Clothes.                              237
+
+        LVII.--The Party of the Season.                   241
+
+       LVIII.--Down the Potomac.                          245
+
+         LIX.--Mount Vernon.                              250
+
+          LX.--Mr. Greeley's Nomination.                  253
+
+         LXI.--Women and Things.                          258
+
+        LXII.--A Trip to Annapolis.                       263
+
+       LXIII.--Among the Cadets.                          267
+
+        LXIV.--American Authors.                          271
+
+         LXV.--The Statue of Shakespeare.                 275
+
+        LXVI.--Racing Dresses.                            279
+
+       LXVII.--The First Horse-race.                      282
+
+      LXVIII.--Off Again.                                 288
+
+        LXIX.--The Steeple-chase.                         293
+
+         LXX.--Preparing for Sea.                         296
+
+        LXXI.--Yacht-racing.                              300
+
+       LXXII.--Music that is Music.                       304
+
+      LXXIII.--Hubbishness.                               306
+
+       LXXIV.--Thunders of Music.                         308
+
+        LXXV.--Saratoga Trunks.                           312
+
+       LXXVI.--The Dolly Varden.                          314
+
+      LXXVII.--Starting for Long Branch.                  320
+
+     LXXVIII.--That Hair-trunk.                           323
+
+       LXXIX.--At the Branch.                             326
+
+        LXXX.--The Race-course.                           328
+
+       LXXXI.--Climbing Sea Cliff.                        332
+
+      LXXXII.--Fighting for the Body.                     335
+
+     LXXXIII.--Lions and Lambs.                           337
+
+      LXXXIV.--Experiences.                               240
+
+       LXXXV.--The Second Day.                            342
+
+      LXXXVI.--The Blacksmith's Conversion.               347
+
+     LXXXVII.--That Ovation of Fire.                      352
+
+    LXXXVIII.--Let Him Go.                                359
+
+      LXXXIX.--Done Up in a Hurry.                        362
+
+          XC.--The Yellow Flag.                           367
+
+         XCI.--The Man that Saved Me.                     370
+
+        XCII.--Pleasure Bay.                              375
+
+       XCIII.--Netting Crabs.                             379
+
+        XCIV.--Extra Politeness.                          384
+
+         XCV.--The Clam-bake.                             387
+
+        XCVI.--That Clam-bake.                            390
+
+       XCVII.--One Hour of Heaven.                        392
+
+      XCVIII.--C. O. D.                                   309
+
+        XCIX.--Taken In.                                  404
+
+
+
+
+PHOEMIE FROST'S EXPERIENCES.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+LEAVING HOME.
+
+
+I have made up my mind. Having put my hand to the plough, it isn't in me
+to back out of a duty when duty and one's own wishes sail amicably in
+the same canoe. I am going to give myself up to the good of mankind and
+the dissemination of great moral ideas.
+
+Selected by the Society of Infinite Progress as its travelling
+missionary, with power to spread the most transcendental of New England
+ideas throughout the world, I shall take up my cross and go forth.
+
+The evening after the Society had crowned me with this honor, I asked
+Aunt Kesiah and Uncle Ben Frost, who have been working the farm on
+shares ever since my father died, if they could not make out to do
+without me for some months, or weeks, or years, just as duty or my own
+feelings took a notion to stay.
+
+Aunt Kesiah sat right down in the rocking-chair, and looked straight in
+my face for a whole minute without speaking.
+
+"What," says she at last, "going away from home at your age--a female
+woman all alone in the world! You and the Society just take my breath
+away, Phoemie. Where on arth are you a going to?"
+
+"Well," says I, "it seems to be my duty to seek a field where there is
+the most sin and iniquity a going on, where dishonesty rides
+rampagnatious as a roaring lion, and fashion flaunts herself like a
+peacock with moons in every tail feather. First of all, the field of my
+duty lies in York, that Babylon of cities."
+
+"But whose a going to bear the expenses?" says Uncle Ben, who always was
+'cute as a miser about money matters. "Duty is sumtimes rayther
+expensive."
+
+"The Society," answers I. "The members are a picking up produce now, I
+shan't go empty-handed on my mission. All the members are wide awake
+about that. Crops have been first-rate."
+
+"Yes," says Uncle Ben, "I give in there."
+
+"And hens never laid better since chickens were hatched," continued I.
+
+"Jes' so," says Aunt Kesiah, "if the pesky creturs wouldn't run off and
+hide their nests."
+
+"Hams are plenty, smoked beef ditto, to say nothing of dried apples. I
+mean to sell everything at a profit and settle accounts with the
+Society."
+
+"I reckon you'll get cut short; up to this time there has bin lots of
+talking in that Society. When it comes to giving--but never mind--we
+shall see!"
+
+"There, there, Benjamin, don't you go to pouring cold water on our
+Phoemie's missionary work. She is sot on going, so let her go."
+
+"Is she sot?" says Uncle Ben, looking at me sort of anxious.
+
+"Yes," says I, "my face is turned to the mark of the prize of the high
+calling."
+
+"Jes' so," says Uncle Ben, "got your hand on the prow with a hard grip?
+That being the fact, old woman, the best thing is for you to lend a
+helping hand and send her off comfortably. She can try anyhow, though I
+have a notion that the world has got to be so wicked since the war, that
+one female woman--"
+
+"Girl!" says I.
+
+"Well, girl--may fall short of regenerating the hull of it all to once.
+Still there is no knowing what any one can do till they try."
+
+"When do you lay out to start?" says Aunt Kesiah, all in a flutter.
+
+"Right off," says I.
+
+"By land or water?"
+
+"Both," says I.
+
+"Oh, dear! what if you should get shipwrecked, and all the produce and
+garden sass with you!" says she.
+
+"There now, don't skeer the girl, Kesiah," says Uncle Ben. "The Sound
+don't rage to any great extent, neither are the engines alles a busting
+as a general thing."
+
+"Well, well, if she's sot on going, I'll do my best to help get her
+off," says Aunt Kesiah, and she goes right to putting lard in a kettle,
+and while it was a heating, rolled out a lot of doughnuts, which article
+of food she excels in. For two whole days that good soul devoted herself
+to making crullers, doughnuts, and turnover pies, as if she thought I
+should not find anything to eat till I got home again.
+
+Well, by and by the day came for me to start. That tea-party and a
+prayer-meeting at Deacon Pettibone's house was a season that none of us
+will ever forget. Mrs. Pettibone, our president, is a wonderfully gifted
+woman, and that night she seized right hold of the horns of the altar
+and fairly beat herself. Oh, sisters, it was a touching time when I
+drove with Uncle Ben through Sprucehill a bowing from one window to
+another, for every member of the Society seemed to rush heart and soul
+to the windows; and when I found your executive committee on that
+platform, the tears that had been standing in my eyes just burst out and
+overflowed my soul.
+
+There I sat on my trunk in your midst, with a bandbox at my feet, and a
+new satchel, large, plump, and shiny, in my hand, ready to start, but
+feeling the responsibility of my trust, and the danger of a young girl
+going forth into the world all alone. No wonder some of you thought I
+should give up and take my hand from the plough. It was a trying
+situation. I felt it; I suffered; but, knowing that the eyes of all
+Sprucehill were upon me, I was firm. Yes, even when Aunt Kesiah placed
+that satchel in my lap, and told me with tears in her eyes to take
+special care of it, for she did not know what I should do if it got
+lost.
+
+She said this so loud, and with such deep sobs, that a tall gentleman
+who stood on the platform with a satchel in his hand, seemed to be
+greatly affected by the touching scene, and kept close to us till the
+train come lumbering and snorting in.
+
+Then, sisters, you remember how we fell upon each other's neck, and wept
+and kissed each other, then tore apart. How I went weeping into the cars
+leaving the satchel behind, and how Uncle Ben pushed it through the
+window, telling me to be awful careful of its precious contents so loud
+that everybody heard, and I have no doubt wondered how many thousand
+dollars it held. Well, the contents of that bag were miscellaneously
+precious. I had seen Aunt Kesiah pack it, with a feeling that made me
+homesick before I left the old farm. Doughnuts, crullers, turn-over
+pies, with luscious peach juice breaking through the curves. A great
+hunk of maple sugar, another of dried beef, some cheese, and a pint
+bottle of cider. It nearly broke Aunt Kesiah's heart because she
+couldn't top things off with a pot of preserves, but I wasn't sorry,
+thinking they might be unhandy to carry.
+
+Well, I took the satchel, set it upon my lap, and looked out of the
+window at you all, as well as I could for crying, till the train gave a
+jerk that made my teeth rattle, and moved on.
+
+When I lost sight of you, sisters, I felt awfully lonesome and almost
+'fraid to trust myself among so many masculine men as filled the cars.
+Being an unprotected female, with a certain amount of promiscuous
+property in my charge, I felt a commercial and moral responsibility that
+weighed down my shoulders till I felt like a camel with an enormous load
+to carry.
+
+Had I been travelling with nothing but my own self to take care of, the
+sense of responsibility would have been less; but I could not help
+thinking that the dignity of our Society was in my keeping, and the
+anxieties of all Sprucehill followed me swifter than the cars could run
+or the snorting engine draw. So I pulled my dust-colored veil tight
+over my face, and, with my feet planted firm on the floor, sat
+bolt-upright, holding the satchel on my lap with both hands, kind of
+shivering for fear some man might attempt to sit down by me. I couldn't
+think of this without feeling as if I should sink right through the red
+velvet cushions that I sat on.
+
+I was so anxious that my heart jumped right into my mouth when that man
+I had seen on the platform come my way. While he was looking around, the
+breath stood still on my lips, and I gave my satchel a grip which would
+have hurt it if such things have any feeling. I have no doubt that the
+austerity of my countenance scared all the rest of them off, for most of
+'em passed on, after giving me a regretful glance; but when he come in
+swinging his new satchel, so independent, I moved a little; for I knew
+he was a gentleman by the way he wore his hat--clear back on his
+head--by the great seal, with a red stone in it, on his finger, and by
+the heavy gold chain swinging across his breast.
+
+When I saw this man's eyes fixed on my seat so beseeching, I kind of
+moved a little more and then let my eyes droop downward, determined not
+to help his presumptuous design to sit by me a single bit.
+
+"Thank you," says he, sitting down close to me, and chucking his satchel
+under the seat. "If there is a superior person in the car, I'm certain
+to have the luck and the honor to sit beside her. Some people prefer to
+look out of the window, but I would rather gaze on a sweet, pretty face,
+by a long shot--especially if it does not belong to a girl with airs."
+
+I felt myself blushing all over at this delicate compliment, and
+observed, with becoming diffidence and great originality, that "beauty
+was only skin-deep at the best, and not by any manner of means to be
+compared with Christian piety and high intellect."
+
+The man--he was a stalwart, handsome man; not pursey like Deacon
+Pettibone, nor slim to bean-poleishness like the circuit preachers that
+live about, and only pick up a little roundness at camp-meetings; but
+tall, and what young ladies call imposing. Well, the man gave me another
+long look at this, and says he:
+
+"But when all these things jibe in together so beautifully, who is to
+say which it is that captivates a man's fancy? Not I. It is my weakness
+to take lovely woman into the core of my heart as a whole; but, if there
+is one quality that I prize more than another, it is piety."
+
+I blushed with thrilling consciousness of the grace that has been in me
+so long that it has become a part of my being; but his praise did not
+satisfy me. One hates to take sweet things in driblets, with a spoon,
+when the soup-ladle is handy.
+
+"Piety is a thing to be had for praying, fasting, and unlimited
+devotion. Anybody can have it who grapples the horn of the altar in
+deadly earnest. In short, if there is anything that everybody on earth
+has a right to, it's religion. The only aristocracy there is about it,
+comes when one reaches the high point of perfect sanctification--a state
+that some people do reach, though it is sometimes so difficult to point
+out the particular person."
+
+"Ah, indeed!" said he. "But I have penetration, madam, great
+penetration. Do not torture your sensitive modesty by an attempt to
+conceal extraordinary perfection from one who can so fully appreciate
+it, and who grieves to say how uncommon it is."
+
+I said nothing, but dropped my eyes, and sat up straighter than ever.
+
+"Permit me," says my polite fellow-traveller, gently laying his hand on
+my satchel; "this is too heavy for the lap of a delicate female.
+Supposing we place it side by side with mine under the seat?"
+
+I held on to the satchel, afraid that he might mash one of the turn-over
+pies.
+
+"Do allow me. I really tremble to see a person so formed by nature borne
+down by such a weight," says my fellow-traveller, with great
+impressiveness. "It isn't to be thought of."
+
+"But--but I don't feel the weight so very much," says I, loosening my
+grip a trifle.
+
+"But, my dear madam, remember that the life and health of a person like
+you is of consequence to the whole universe. Remember the siotic nerve."
+
+"The what nerve?" says I.
+
+"Siotic," says he. "That nerve which is so tender in very pious people.
+They say that the Pope has been suffering agonies with it."
+
+"Dear me," says I, "is it anything mixed up with a heart disease?"
+
+"Not at all; it is a strain upon the great sensitive nerve that runs
+like a whip-cord from I don't know where down the back of the le--"
+
+Oh! sisters, he almost had that terrible word out, but I gave such a
+start and blushed so that he turned it right round on his tongue, and
+says he with great emphasis, "limb."
+
+"Oh!" says I, with a gasp of relief, "now you speak so that a modest New
+England woman can understand. So there is a nerve!"
+
+"Peculiarly susceptible in religious and intellectual persons," says he.
+
+"Running down the limb!" says I.
+
+"Both limbs," says he, "which a weight carried on the lap is sure to
+exasperate if it does not end in kinking up the siotic and crippling the
+l--limbs."
+
+"Are you a doctor?" says I.
+
+He smiled.
+
+"A sort of one," says he, and, without more words, he took my satchel
+and sat it down by his, under the seat, as sociable as could be.
+
+After that, he took hold of my hand, as if he was a-going to feel my
+pulse, looking sweetly anxious.
+
+"Is there a siotic there?" says I.
+
+He gave my hand a hard squeeze, and seemed to ruminate.
+
+"It takes a little time to discover," says he, half closing his eyes.
+"Be tranquil; there is no danger now. The arm has been in one position
+rather too long; change was necessary. But this is a change."
+
+Then he gave my hand another squeeze, and, leaning back, shut his eyes
+entirely.
+
+That minute the engine gave out a sharp yell that nearly scared me to
+death. The cars heaved a jerk and a jolt, the man on the platform sung
+out something, and before I could say Jack Robinson, my fellow-passenger
+made a dive under the seat, dragged out his satchel, and made for the
+door, bowing as he went, and hustling out something about its being his
+station.
+
+While I was a-staring after him with all the eyes in my head, the cars
+gave another jerk, and, splash-bang, away we went, so fast that the man
+scooting along that platform, waving his hand backwards, seemed to be
+swimming in fog.
+
+Sisters, I must say that a feeling of lonesomeness fell upon me after he
+went; his conversation had been so scientific and interesting that I
+felt the loss.
+
+Besides that, I felt a little hungry, and thought I'd take a bite of
+something to eat. So I stooped down, lifted the satchel to my lap, and
+tried to open it.
+
+The lock, it seemed to me, had got a stubborn twist, and wouldn't open;
+just then the conductor came along, and I gave him a pitiful look.
+
+"Please, sir, help me a little," says I; "it won't open all I can do."
+
+The conductor came forward, snatched hold of the satchel, and wrenched
+it open.
+
+"Thank you," says I, lifting my eyes to his gaze, and diving my hand
+down into the satchel, for I meant to give him a doughnut for his
+politeness; but instead of that luscious cake, my hands sank into a half
+peck of sawdust packed close in the satchel my fellow-passenger had left
+behind.
+
+"Look there," says I; "isn't it dreadful, and I an unprotected female?"
+
+"Was your money in the bag?" asks the conductor.
+
+"No," says I, putting one hand up to my bosom, to make sure it was safe.
+"I always keep my money where--no matter, the--the handsome upstart will
+have a splendid feast of turnovers and doughnuts, besides a lively drink
+of cider; but as for money, that is in a safe place."
+
+"And your ticket?"
+
+"That," says I, "not being private property, like money, is kept
+handier."
+
+With that, I took the ticket from inside of my glove and handed it to
+him.
+
+"All right," says he, "the scamp hasn't made so much of a haul as he
+expected."
+
+"But he'll have a sumptuous meal," says I, a little down in the mouth;
+for I was growing hungry, and not a bite left. Just then a boy came into
+the cars with a basketful of popped corn on his arm. It looked awfully
+tempting, for every kernel was turned wrong side out, white as snow. I
+bought a popped corn of the boy, and pacified myself with that till the
+cars stopped ten minutes, where there was a mean chance to get something
+more substantial to eat. I went in with the crowd, helter skelter;
+wrestled my way to a long counter, got a cup of tea which I swallowed
+scalding hot, and, after a hard struggle for it, carried a wedge of
+custard pie off with the palm of my hand for a plate, and skivered back
+to the cars, nibbling it as I ran; for the bell was ringing and the
+conductor yelling "all aboard!" so loud that half the passengers went
+back coughing and choking, and muttering some kind of wickedness as they
+went.
+
+Well, all the rest of my car ride was just like this, only once in a
+while a little more so, till I got onto the Sound. There a great large
+steamboat, a quarter of a mile long, took a part of us in, and carried
+us right out to sea.
+
+
+HELL GATE.
+
+I was just a little disappointed in that roaring element. The air that
+came above it was salty and light, and the waves sparkled beautifully,
+but they did not rage worth a cent. Still the shores away off on both
+sides looked dreamy, and we cut through the water so swift that it made
+me dizzy.
+
+Two or three stylish sort of men seemed as if they were hankering to
+speak to me as I sat there all alone on deck; but I didn't seem to see
+it, and they contented themselves with looking at me as if I was the
+most cruel creature on earth; which I meant to be. The loss of one
+satchel full of doughnuts and things is as much as I can afford on one
+trip.
+
+By and by that part of the ocean we travelled on kept growing narrower
+and narrower, till you could see houses on both shores, and
+splendiferous houses they were, with great meadows a-sloping down to the
+water; tall trees shading them, and bushes growing together in clumps.
+Some were of stone, some of wood, with pointed roofs and cupolas, and
+great wide stoops, in which you could see people sitting and moving
+about. Some with spy-glasses in their hands, a-watching us sweep by them
+like a house afire.
+
+I felt lonesome and almost homesick, but for all that the sight was
+exhilarating--very.
+
+"Haven't we got almost to New York," says I to the captain; "it seems to
+me as if the sea was shutting in."
+
+"Oh, we are almost there," says he, "close on to Hell Gate now."
+
+"To what?" says I, almost hopping from the stool I sat on.
+
+"Hell Gate," says he.
+
+"Oh, mercy! you don't tell me it is so bad as that? I knew York was an
+awful wicked place, but I didn't think an innocent missionary would have
+to go in it through that gate!"
+
+"It is a little dangerous for sail crafts," says he, smiling, I suppose,
+to comfort me; "but you are safe. We shall go through with a rush."
+
+I caught my breath.
+
+"But supposing _He_ were on the watch?"
+
+"_He!_ Who?"
+
+"Don't ask me; I'd rather not mention his name, being a female who
+abhors profanity."
+
+All at once the captain's eyes began to sparkle as if he were just
+longing for a tussle with the evil one.
+
+"Don't be afraid," says he, "I reckon we shall make the gate without
+much trouble. The blasting won't stop us yet awhile."
+
+"Blasting?"
+
+"Yes; they'll have the all-firedest upheave there, before long, that
+ever tore a hole in the bottom of the sea."
+
+"Blasting! with fire and brimstone?"
+
+"And nitro-glycerine," says he, as calm as skim milk.
+
+"And you mean to take this big steamboat right through it with me on
+board?"
+
+He laughed right there in my frightened and pale face.
+
+"I really don't know any other way to reach New York," says he.
+
+"Let me ashore," says I, a starting up, "me and my hair-trunk; I don't
+care for the produce; it may serve to cool their tongues down there. But
+put me and my hair trunk on any land. It is all I ask."
+
+"It's impossible," says he.
+
+"But I won't go through that in--that awful gate," says I.
+
+"Why, we are in it now; don't you see the whirl of the waters?"
+
+"In it now. Oh, mercy!"
+
+I fell down upon my seat, and buried my face in my shawl, shaking from
+head to foot.
+
+Sisters, that cruel man laughed. O, how hardened he must have got, going
+through that sulphurious gate.
+
+"I say, madam, there is no danger, we are almost through now."
+
+"Is _he_ there? Have you seen anything of his blasting hosts?" says I
+under my breath. "Do they mean to fire up just yet?"
+
+"No, no, we are all safe. Quite through--New York is in sight."
+
+I let my shawl drop a little, and peeped out. There was no sign of a
+gale; the water was a little bubbly and rough, as if it had been rushing
+through a race-way, but that was all. That captain of ours must have
+been on good terms with the old serpent that keeps the gate, or he never
+could have got through so easy. Now that it was over, I almost wished I
+had found grit enough to see how it was done. As it was, my eyes were
+hid, and I did not even see the awful old gate.
+
+Well, at last I rose up slowly and looked forward. There was New York
+City, right before me; just one pile of roofs and walls with cupolas,
+pointed fronts, and steeples; looking through the smoky haze acres and
+acres of houses, miles and miles--a whole island laid down with stone.
+All around it, just as far as I could see, the water was thick with
+ships, steamboats, and small boats, all flying up and down and across,
+like living things, each with an errand of its own. There, along the
+edges of the city, was what seemed to me like a forest of dead trees,
+without a leaf or a sign of greenness upon them.
+
+"Well," says the captain, "you see that we have run the gate. Never been
+here before, I reckon?"
+
+"No, never," says I, "and hope I never shall be again."
+
+"I thought things seemed a little green," says he.
+
+"From the Green Mountains," says I.
+
+"Exactly," says he. "Well, how do you like the looks of the city?"
+
+"Hazy," says I; "dry as tinder. All stone walls, and too many dead trees
+about for my notion."
+
+"Dead trees? I have never seen any," says he, a-looking around.
+
+"Must be awful short-sighted," says I. "Just look down there; it is like
+a burnt faller."
+
+He looked ahead where my finger was pointing, and laughed right out.
+
+"Why, that is the shipping," says he.
+
+"Shipping," says I. "Don't tell me that! I wasn't brought up in the
+woods not to know tree trunks when I see them, dead or alive."
+
+"But I assure you those are the masts of vessels. You can see the hulls
+now."
+
+I did see the hulls, and felt dreadfully; what would the captain think
+of me! At once I looked up.
+
+"Yes," says I. "There is no question about it. Those are the hulls of
+ships, and the others are masts; but I was right."
+
+He laughed: "But you said they were dead trees."
+
+"Just so. Isn't a mast made out of a tree?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"And isn't the tree dead before it can be made into a mast?"
+
+"Why, yes," says he, and now it was his turn to be down in the mouth.
+
+"Well, then, isn't the edge of the water there chuck full of dead
+trees?"
+
+At first the captain sort of choked a little; but the next minute he
+burst out a laughing.
+
+"Do you want to know my opinion?" says he.
+
+"Well, rather," says I.
+
+"Well, it's this: Green Mountain or not, if anybody buys a certain lady
+I know of for a fool, he'll get awfully taken in."
+
+"Shouldn't wonder," says I.
+
+With that, I picked up my umbrella, tied my bonnet a little tighter,
+took my bandbox in one hand, and followed the crowd across a plank
+bridge, and got into about the dirtiest road that my foot ever trod on.
+
+"Want a carriage? Want a carriage?" I never saw men more polite than the
+drivers with whips were. It seemed as if they couldn't do enough for me.
+It really was a strife which should take me in his carriage. Their
+attentions really were flattering. It was like a welcome in this strange
+place.
+
+It was like being in a little room all cushioned seats and windows when
+I got into the great double carriage so kindly offered me.
+
+The cushions were soft as down, and gave so, when I seated myself, that
+I couldn't help catching my breath. "Where to," says the driver,
+a-leaning through the window.
+
+"First," says I, "if it won't be too much trouble, I will go somewhere
+and buy a new satchel; I really don't feel at home without one. Then you
+may take me to a boarding-house in Bleecker Street. You'll know where it
+is by inquiring about a little. The name is Smith, and they come from
+Vermont. Their daughter married and settled on Sprucehill. Smith. You
+can't help but find them."
+
+"Have you got a number?" says the man.
+
+"No," answers I, "only one family."
+
+"But the house."
+
+"No," says I again. "I haven't got any house, but the old homestead on
+Sprucehill."
+
+"But Bleecker is a long street."
+
+"Is it?"
+
+"And I must have a number."
+
+"Why, isn't one street of a name enough?" says I, getting out of
+patience. "What on earth do you want?"
+
+"I want the name of the people."
+
+"Smith."
+
+"And the number of the house they live in."
+
+"Oh, then, houses go by numbers, not names, here in York, do they? Stop
+a minute!"
+
+Here I took a slip of paper from my pocket-book which Smith's daughter
+had written, and gave it to him.
+
+"All right," says he, hopping up the wheel, and going to his seat. Then
+away we rolled, genteel as could be.
+
+I bought the satchel at a store we drove by, and then we went on and on
+and on, till at last he stopped before a brick house with a good deal of
+iron about it.
+
+The driver jumped down, ran up the steps, pulled a rusty knob fastened
+to the door stone, and faced round towards his horses.
+
+A girl I should consider as hired help opened the door.
+
+"Is Mrs. Smith at home?" says I, a-putting my head out of the window.
+
+"Yes," says she.
+
+"I'll get out," says I.
+
+The driver unfolded a lot of steps that had been hid away under the
+windows. I went down them with a genteel trip. The man had been so
+polite, I stopped to thank him.
+
+"Three dollars," says he, a holding out his hand.
+
+"Three dollars? What for?" says I, all in a flutter.
+
+"For bringing you here," says he. "Stopping on the way, and so on."
+
+"But you invited me."
+
+The fellow grinned, and held out his hand harder than ever. The help on
+top of the steps giggled.
+
+"Come, look sharp, I can't wait all day," says he, as pert as a fox.
+
+"Well," says I; "being an unprotected female in a strange place, I can't
+help myself, I guess; but they do sell politeness awful dear in York. It
+must be scarce."
+
+I gave him three dollars without another word, feeling like a robbed
+princess as I did it. Then I took the bandbox and new satchel in my
+hand, and walked into Smith's boarding-house, about the homesickest
+creature that ever bore a cross.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+PHOEMIE'S FIRST VISIT.
+
+
+Sisters:--Some of you must remember my cousin Emily Elizabeth Frost,
+that married a Dempster ten years ago when most of us were little mites
+of things sewing our over-and-over seams. She was a smart creature
+enough, and as her mother was a proper, nice woman, it was reasonable to
+hope that she could be depended on to bring up her children; for her
+father was a deacon in the church, and her mother just the salt of the
+earth. Well, as soon as I got settled in my boarding-house, I took it
+into my head to go and see Cousin Elizabeth. She hadn't been to Vermont
+lately, and I'd rather lost track of her; so I gave one morning to
+hunting her up.
+
+Some useful things can be found in a great city like this. Now, I tell
+you, amongst them is a great, fat dictionary, crowded full of names,
+where everybody that keeps a decent house sets down the number, which is
+a convenience for strangers like me.
+
+I found the name of Cousin Elizabeth's husband, who keeps a bank
+somewhere down town, the book said, and got into the first street car
+that went towards the Central Park. After a while I got out and hunted
+up the number, feeling awfully anxious, for the houses about there were
+what the papers call palatial--a word we have not much use for in our
+parts. I just stopped on the other side of the street and took a general
+survey before I attempted to go in, feeling more and more fidgety every
+minute, for that house just took me down with its sumptuousness. Such
+great windows, with one monstrous pane in a sash, and lace and silk and
+tassels shining through! The front was four stories high and ended off
+with the steepest roof you ever saw, just sloping back a trifle, and
+flattening off at the top, with windows in it, and all sorts of colors
+in the shingles, which they call "tiles" here. Then the stone steps
+wound up to a platform with a heavy stone railing on each side, and a
+great shiny door, sunk deep into the wall, was wide open, and beyond it
+was one of glass, frosted over like our windows on a snapping cold
+morning, and under my feet was a checkered marble floor. I found the
+knob of a bell sunk into the door jamb, and pulled it a little, feeling
+half-scared to death. Then I just stepped in and waited in front of the
+glass door.
+
+A colored person of remarkably genteel appearance opened the door, and
+gave me a look from head to foot that riled the old Adam in my bosom;
+then he muttered something about the basement; but I put him down with
+just that one lift of my finger.
+
+"Is my cousin, Mrs. Dempster, at home?" says I.
+
+"I--I'll inquire," says he, as meek as Moses; "walk in."
+
+Walk in I did.
+
+"Have you a card?" says he.
+
+"No," says I; "as a general thing cards ain't desirable among relations,
+nor moral under any circumstances with religious friends. Say that Miss
+Frost is here--Miss Phoemie Frost, from the State of Vermont. No cards!"
+
+The fellow opened a door on one side of the hall, and I went through.
+Don't expect me to describe that room. It isn't in me to give the least
+idea of it. Great chunks of glass like the hub of a wheel, with crooked
+spokes of glass starting every way from it, and what seemed like
+hundreds of icicles falling from them, dropped down from the ceiling.
+When the negro opened the blinds and let in a drift of sunshine, they
+turned into a snarl of rainbows that fairly blinded me. Then there was a
+carpet soft as spring grass in a meadow, and bright as a flower-garden;
+chairs shining with gold and silk; marble women, white as milk, with not
+a thing on worth speaking of, and looking-glasses half as large as our
+spring ponds.
+
+I turned my looks away from the women without clothes, while that
+colored person was by; but gave them a skimpy peep or two the minute he
+was gone. Really, it was dreadful. I would not have believed such things
+of Cousin Elizabeth.
+
+Oh mercy on me! while I was looking, in came a gentleman, who bowed, and
+took a chair, and sat smiling on those creatures just as if he was used
+to it. Talk of blushing--my face was one blaze of fire.
+
+While I was wondering what I should do, a girl, or what ought to have
+been a little girl, came sidling into the room, gave me a look as if I'd
+been a dog in the wrong place, and went up to the gentleman.
+
+"Mamma will be down directly, and has sent me to entertain you," says
+she, shaking out her short skirts, and almost sitting down on the
+crimpy hair that half covered them behind. "Ah! I see you are admiring
+our crouching Venus. Lovely, isn't it? The curving lines are so perfect.
+The limbs--have you observed the foreshortening of that limb?"
+
+The foreshortening of that limb? Mercy on me, I couldn't stand it.
+Another minute and I should have boxed her ears, for all the blood that
+burned in my face went tingling down to my fingers. That was too much;
+so I up and said I would call again, and marched right out of the house.
+Girls indeed!
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+ABOUT GIRLS.
+
+
+Dear Sisters:--You ask a puzzling and painful question--What kind of
+girls do the children I write about make?
+
+My dear friends, girls--modest, rosy, bright-eyed school-girls, such as
+you are a-thinking of--are scarce as hen's teeth in this great city, and
+not to be found in profuseness anywhere. They went out with pink calico
+sun-bonnets, and ain't likely to come in again yet awhile, I tell you!
+Republican institutions can be carried to a great extent; and our young
+ones have found it out, and trample down all the good, wholesome old
+fashions before their little feet quite get out of baby shoes. At this
+moment I can't find a girl of twelve years old that don't know a
+thousand times more than her mother, and wouldn't attempt to teach law
+to her father if he was a judge in the Supreme Court. Yet, it's a
+shocking truth, the little upstarts don't know how to read like
+Christians, or spell half their words. The tip-top fashionable
+school-marms here are quite above teaching such common things as reading
+and spelling, and turn up their noses at any study that hasn't some
+"ology" or "phy" at the end of it.
+
+I should just like to have a string of the girls that walk in squads up
+and down the Fifth Avenue, with short dresses and hair streaming loose
+down their backs, in a district school-house, with no books but
+Webster's Spelling-book and the Columbian Reader. Wouldn't I astonish
+them with science? I guess they would understand the meaning of a
+spelling-class by the time I got through with 'em!
+
+As for arithmetic, they don't know what it is in these high-falutin
+seminaries; mathematics is the word; A B roots and squaring circles, as
+if circles ever would be square. Of course they can't, having been tried
+and kept round as an O all the time. But these A's and B's, and roots
+and such like, are considered as arithmetic for girls here; so the end
+of it is, they can, maybe, tell you how many square feet there are in a
+building lot, but couldn't add up ten shillings to save their lives; of
+course they forget how to estimate the square feet for want of having
+unlimited building lots to work on, while the washing bill and girl's
+wages and such things, come up every day all through their lives.
+
+What _do_ girls learn at the schools?
+
+Oh, a mighty deal that some good women pass half through a lifetime
+without knowing, and are just as likely as not all the better for it.
+Some of the lessons are paid for, and some are given free gratis for
+nothing by the scholars to each other, and what some of them don't know
+in the way of flirting, drooping the eyes, and things you never dreamed
+of, ain't worth keeping secret.
+
+"A little leaven leavens the whole lump." That passage has always
+relieved my feelings about the old patriarchs; for it's a proof that
+they and their families had raised bread in those old Bible times; and
+light bread, even if saleratus has to be used, is a blessing on the
+domestic hearth. For that reason, I'm astonished that bread-making is
+left to men-bakers here in York. But this passage sometimes puts you in
+mind of something beside turnpike emptins. I should like to promulgate
+some genuine old-fashioned ideas into these tip-top schools, where one
+bold, forward girl with unwholesome ideas in her head, would set them
+working like leaven in every innocent young soul in the seminary.
+Somehow, more or less, girls always do manage to give a good deal of
+knowledge that isn't set down in the bill, though that is generally long
+enough, goodness knows.
+
+I wish you could see one of these bills with the extras. Now in our
+district schools, there isn't much chance for the scholars to get over
+intimate. They don't sleep and eat and work together, like canary birds
+crowded in one cage and huddled together on one roost; the weak don't
+catch the faults of the strong, and if they did, the free breezes of our
+hills would sweep them away before the poison struck in. Flirtations do
+not become a science with them before they can spell "baker," and they
+don't often learn such things from their New England mothers, anyhow.
+
+Well, I would give a good deal to see a genuine girl who did not think
+herself a marvel of superior knowledge at twelve, or had not plunged
+into a heart disease at the sight of some hotel lounger at fourteen. I
+tell you, sisters, these young creatures have too much liberty; they
+have no wholesome growth either of body or mind. They know too much at
+fifteen, and will know a great deal too little at forty.
+
+The girl of twelve--which is about the age you are thinking of--has a
+great deal more assurance than some of our church members at fifty. Baby
+boys and girls haven't gone quite out of fashion, but they are getting
+scarcer every year, people tell me; and regular-built, wholesome
+children are as hard to find here as green gooseberries in October. I've
+seen plenty of little men and women, that couldn't speak plain to save
+their lives, dressed out like soldiers on a training day, with short
+frocks or tunics, and legs as bare as bare could be; but such boys and
+girls as we remember are not to be found anywhere nowadays, I tell you.
+
+What does all this mean? Just this: Mothers don't trust their young ones
+out of fashion long enough to grow. Besides, there isn't, only now and
+then, one who gets acquainted with her own child well enough to know
+what is good for it. Why, these city women would go crazy to see a
+little girl, six years old, swing upon a gate or riding horseback on a
+rusty old farm-horse, gripping the mane with both hands, and sending up
+shouts of fun if she happened to tumble off. Children, in the natural
+state, love water, like ducks and goslings. It used to be a sight to
+watch them, knee-deep in the brooks, with their tenty-tointy feet
+shining through the ripples, as they hunted for water-cresses and sweet
+flag-root; but catch one of your new-fangled young ones at anything with
+so much human nature in it. All the water they see is in the bottom of a
+bath-tub, rubbed on their skimpy limbs by an Irish girl's hands. Not the
+mother's. Oh, no! Care of one's own children is too much for a healthy
+young woman nowadays. Being a professor and member of a church, I want
+to speak accordingly, and just drop the mothers here. Christian language
+isn't up to the occasion.
+
+Well, as I was saying, the meanness of these mothers in hiving up their
+young ones and cheating 'em out of the very best years of life, is
+enough to make a saint mad. The rough-and-tumble season, which gives a
+child sound lungs, strong limbs, and a brain that thinks of nothing but
+high play, is just knocked out of their lives. It's an awful swindle on
+the poor little things, and I'm not afraid to say it openly and
+above-board here in my very first report.
+
+If I haven't a right to speak on this subject, I should like to know who
+has. That's all. I never had a child of my own, which is, perhaps,
+natural to a state of single blessedness, and so had plenty of time to
+make other people's children a speciality. Besides, haven't I kept
+district school, and boarded round enough to get an inside view of a
+good many family circles? Haven't I seen droves of young ones, in loose
+calico slips or cosey-fitting jackets and trousers, coming miles to
+school, only setting their dinner baskets down now and then to stone a
+squirrel, or climb up among the burrs of some great chestnut limb which
+offered to give them a ride to Boston or a trip to Canterbury.
+
+Dear me, I think I see them now running "like split," as they said, to
+catch up time, with such a lively color rushing through the tan on their
+faces, hats off, and sun-bonnets flying out by the strings.
+
+There, that's what I call childhood. You and I, sister, know something
+about it; now don't we? Do you remember that little red school-house
+where we learned our letters, and the old broken-limbed apple-tree
+behind it? No wonder the limbs got scraggly; they couldn't stand horse
+for a whole school, year after year, without some wear and tear, could
+they?
+
+Well, may be you and I owe to that old patriarch more than we know of.
+The apples were so sour the pigs wouldn't eat 'em, but they never hurt
+us. Then the limbs stretching out every which way--weren't they splendid
+to swing on, and in a hot day the shade was like a tent.
+
+You and I have been tough and hearty all our lives, just as like as not
+on account of that old tree and the long road home, and the pine woods
+it ran through, with the good wholesome samp and milk when we got there.
+There was generally a little red light in the sky from the sunset when
+we went to bed, and just a streak of rosy yellow when we got up, with
+dew enough on the grass to wash our faces in before breakfast.
+
+That's what I call life for a child; all out-doors for a playground,
+good, sound sleep, plenty of wholesome food, three times a day, and
+always hungry at that. Why, the few years after you begin to toddle, and
+before you learn to read, if you're properly let alone, are choke-full
+of happiness that ripples like a brook through your whole life. I say,
+once more, it's a sin and a shame to cheat a child out of that which is
+just God's portion of a human life.
+
+Now I ask you, isn't it probable, between you and I, that the Saviour
+picked out just such bright, happy little creatures as these, when He
+took 'em in His arms and blessed 'em, and said of such is the kingdom of
+heaven. If the apostles wanted to hunt up one of the kind now, they'd
+have to catch it in the cradle. Just think of bringing forward one of
+the little things we meet in the avenues here, to be held up as a
+monument--all flutings and lace, kid gaiters, pink and blue sashes, long
+white feathers, and parasols. Yes, believe it or not, I say parasols
+about the size of a poppy. Oh, don't mention it! The whole thing makes
+me sick. The children you meet here in York look like little barefooted
+scarecrows, or else like motto papers afloat.
+
+But are all the little folks you see painted like a dahlia, and pink as
+hollyhocks. You are asking this question in the Society. I know it.
+Well, I should rather think not. These whipper-snappers go tipping down
+the avenues, and ride with their mothers' lap-dogs in the Park,
+a-looking like their own French dolls, and are about as likely to make
+men and women.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+MORE ABOUT GIRLS.
+
+
+Sisters:--My cousin's little girl has just upset me. Remember she is my
+own flesh and blood; and genuine honest blood in Vermont is as pure as
+the sap in our maple-trees, and ought to keep sweet as the sugar we make
+from it, wherever it is found. Being my second cousin in her own right,
+I expected to find her a model of what the rising generation ought to
+be, and went to that house, exalting myself accordingly. I shall find,
+thought I, a genteel, modest, seemly little lady, polite, and cordially
+glad to see a relative that wants to love her and exalt her into a
+pattern and a monument of female promise. But instead of that, just
+read my last report, though it must fall short of giving you any idea
+how heavy my heart was, and how my brain burned with disappointment.
+
+_Has_ female modesty died out since you and I came into the world? or
+was it burnt over during the war, like the great prairies, where the hot
+flames parch up all the sweet green grass and the bright flowers,
+killing them root and blossom, snakes likewise? One thing is certain, my
+dear sisters in the cause, honesty among men and modesty among women go
+hand in hand all over the earth. When women degenerate, it is because
+the moral atmosphere which they breathe is tainted and unwholesome.
+Something has gone awfully wrong both with the men and women of America
+in these latter years. The fraud and demoralization of the thing they
+call "shoddy" has settled down upon our social life everywhere. I
+shudder to think of it! With a constitution made strong with fresh air
+from the Green Mountains, and morals consolidated in the oldest
+congregation of the State, I feel afraid of myself and almost weary of
+well-doing. It has become so miserably unfashionable to be honest, that
+people seem to think me crazy when I speak my mind.
+
+Do not start and say that Phoemie Frost is ready to give up her mission;
+because she isn't of that sort. Her hand is on the plough--they spell it
+_plow_ here, which takes away half the strength of that agricultural
+word--on the plough, is she, a female, to turn back because rocks and
+roots choke up the furrow? Not if Miss Frost knows anything of herself!
+
+Speaking of female modesty, between my little cousin and that marble
+girl, the poor naked creature seemed to have the most of it. She did
+scrouch down and try to hide herself behind herself, as if she was
+ashamed that the man who made her had forgot to cover her up a little.
+But the live girl did not seem to feel for her a mite; in fact, I think
+she enjoyed seeing her scrouch, because of the foreshortenings, you
+know.
+
+It's of no use denying it, I did feel down in the mouth about this girl;
+and seeing my duty clear, determined to do it or perish in the attempt.
+
+Once more I stood in front of that "palatial residence," and, with a
+hand made firm by a powerful sense of duty, pulled the silver knob in
+the jamb of the door. The same finified youngster came and asked me with
+his saucy eyes what I wanted there. This time I had written out a square
+piece of paper, on which he had the pleasure of reading: "Miss Phoemie
+Frost, Home Missionary and Special Plenipotentiary from the Society of
+Infinite Progress, Sprucehill, Vermont." "Think," says I, when I handed
+him the paper, "if this don't fetch them all down a notch or two,
+nothing will."
+
+And it did!
+
+Yes, I have the pleasure of saying pretension and pomposity do have a
+wonderful effect here in New York. I don't know whether it was the
+missionary or the plenipotentiary that brought my cousin to her oats,
+but rather think it was the latter--having a foreign twang to it, of
+course, it impressed her aristocratically.
+
+The waiter-man took me into the drawing-room, as he called it, but why,
+no human being could have told; for there wasn't a sign of drawing
+paper, pencil, nor painting things in sight. In fact, it was the
+self-same room that I went into the last time I was there. A little
+darker and more sunsetty, because the red curtains swept close, and
+blinds were rolled down under the lace. There was that marble girl, too,
+a-looking at me as if half-scared to death; but in that light she seemed
+dressed in a veil of pink gauze, and looked just lovely. There being no
+man by I really could have kissed her, she seemed so sweet, and so
+awfully ashamed of herself huddled down as if she longed to creep out of
+sight.
+
+The door opened, and that fellow came in simpering like a chessy cat,
+and asked if I would be so good as to walk up to the boudor.
+
+"To the what?" says I.
+
+"To the ladies' boudor," says he, a turning his head, and trying to
+choke off a laugh. "This way!"
+
+I took my satchel from a table all framed in gold, and checkered with
+precious stones, where I had laid it down. Then, bowing my head and
+lifting my forefinger, told that servile creature to proceed, with an
+air of command that quenched his saucy smile in no time.
+
+Up the stairs he went, and I followed after; treading a carpet that gave
+to the feet like a meadow in its first spring grass. Through an open
+door I saw my cousin lifting herself up from a sofa, covered with blue
+silk and open-worked lace. Then she dawdled towards me with one hand
+out, and the laziest smile you ever saw about her mouth.
+
+"Cousin Emily," says I, "how do you do?"
+
+"My dear Miss Frost," says she, "I'm happy to make your acquaintance."
+
+Happy to make my acquaintance, and I her first cousin. Did you ever?
+
+At first I _was_ taken aback, and felt as if I should choke. Hadn't I
+learned that great white creature her letters? Hadn't I spent dollars on
+her for slates and pencils, besides taking her to the maple camps when
+she was a little girl, and giving her no end of sweet sap to drink. Who
+was it but me that turned down her first over-and-over seam, and gave
+her a tentie-tointy silver thimble to take the stitches with. I wonder
+what she did with it? Now she was happy to make my acquaintance, and
+dragged a double winrow of worked flounces, topped off with a muslin
+skirt and scarlet training jacket, across the room to tell me so. Our
+mothers were sisters; pray remember that!
+
+"Take that seat," says she, a-dropping down to the sofa as a great white
+hen turkey settles onto its nest. "How long have you been in the city?
+Do you make anything of a visit? So thoughtful and kind of you to give
+me an early call."
+
+There I sat, straight as a sign-post, with my satchel in my lap, and
+both hands on that, riling up like an Irish girl's coffee, and feeling
+the wrath within me grow stronger and stronger while she settled back
+and half-shut her eyes, and seemed to be quite satisfied that she had
+done her best. I could see that her half-shut eyes were turned on my
+alpaca dress, which was a trifle dusty, and on my cotton gloves, that
+were clean and whole, at any rate. While she examined them, I took an
+observation of her. Mercy, how she has changed! Five times the hair she
+ever had before hung in great, heavy braided loops down her back. There
+must be some way of making the hair grow, 'specially here in York, that
+we never heard of. And her figure, which was slim and graceful as the
+droop of a willow when she married, has swelled out fearfully behind,
+which makes her seem to stoop, and gives one the most humpy idea of a
+camel in motion of anything I know, which, being Scriptural, is, I dare
+say, the only religious idea she has kept firm to.
+
+"You called the other day," says she. "I was so sorry not to have seen
+you; but I was dressing to go out. Still, you saw my little girl?"
+
+"Yes," says I, "I saw your little girl; and, to tell you the honest
+truth, that is what brings me here now. I haven't had a minute's rest
+since I was here. Why, Cousin Emily, I expected to see a child. Instead
+of that--"
+
+She roused up at this, opened her eyes wide, and interrupted me.
+
+"Instead of that," says she, turning a great gold bracelet on her arm,
+and smiling as if what she was saying swelled her out with
+pride--"instead of that, you found a finished young lady. No wonder you
+were surprised."
+
+"A finished young lady!" says I, riling into strength. "That is what no
+child ever can be; and let me tell you, the attempt to force one into
+such an unnatural creature is abominable. You can polish every bit of
+the modesty and innocence of childhood out of a little girl; but all
+that you can get for it is affectation and self-sufficient impertinence,
+becoming neither to the child nor the woman. Why, cousin, the little
+creature I saw in your parlor--sent there, as she said, to _entertain a
+gentleman_--was just an absurdity to him, and to me something dreadful.
+I asked myself what a child like that would become at forty years of
+age. Why, cousin, when she is at her meridian she will feel herself at
+least a hundred and fifty. You have cut off all the bloom and richness
+of a young life; you have made a dainty little monster of her--swept
+away all companionship with children, and made it presumption and
+impertinence when she attempts to force herself among her elders. I
+could not be so cruel to a dog as you have been to that child."
+
+Cousin Emily woke up now with a vengeance. Her sleepy eyes flashed
+lightning. "Cruel!" says she. "I cruel to my only daughter? Why, there
+is not a child in America who has had such care--such abundant chances
+for improvement. She has been to the most expensive schools."
+
+"Exactly," says I.
+
+"She has had masters at home--music, dancing, the languages--"
+
+"Exactly," says I.
+
+"Things that I never thought of learning she has mastered."
+
+"Just so," says I.
+
+"She had a French nurse before she could speak. No expense has been
+spared by her father. I never had such chances; and we are determined to
+give her a splendid education. In fact, she might come out this season,
+so far as that is concerned; but I have resolved to be rigid--not a day
+before she is seventeen. Then her education will be complete."
+
+"Her education complete at seventeen! Why, Cousin Emily, a woman's
+education is _never_ complete. At the best schools we get but a dreamy
+sort of idea of the things we must bring all the faculties of a
+well-regulated mind to understand in after years. A well-educated woman
+is one who studies and learns something every day of her life--who
+thinks about what she sees, and acts upon what she knows."
+
+Cousin Emily lifted up both hands, all covered with shining rings, as if
+to choke me off. I stopped. Far be it from Phoemie Frost to force the
+opinions of our Society upon unwilling ears; but I lifted my forefinger
+in solemn admonishment, and says I:
+
+"Oh, Cousin Emily, Cousin Emily, has it got so that you hold up both
+hands against common-sense!"
+
+"Not against common-sense," says she, "but against your uncommonly long
+sentences. Why, Miss Frost, it is like our old-fashioned country
+preaching."
+
+"Which has died out of your heart, I dare say. Oh, Emily, Emily, what
+would your sainted mother, my aunt, say?"
+
+This brought the misguided woman to her tears. She sat up on that
+lace-silk sofa, straight and listening, as I have seen her many a time
+on the a b c bench at school, when her little feet couldn't touch the
+floor.
+
+"Cousin Phoemie," says she, "I am trying to do what is right."
+
+"I hope so," says I, with tears of thankfulness in my eyes, for the
+"Cousin Phoemie" went straight to my heart. "But my mind isn't quite
+equal to more of this conversation this morning. The next time I come
+this way we shall both be more like our natural selves."
+
+With that I tightened my cotton gloves, took up my satchel, and left
+that house, feeling that I had paved the way to a good work hereafter.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+POOR CHILDREN.
+
+
+Are there no genuine children among the poor of New York?
+
+Beloved sisters, your question wrings the heart in my bosom. I asked it
+of myself this very morning, and resolved to investigate.
+
+I hadn't found a child that could be called a child outside a
+perambulator, which means a little carriage pushed by an Irish girl,
+with a cap on, along the avenues. So I took my mission down among the
+tenement-houses. There I found young ones on the sidewalks, the
+doorsteps, and in the gutters, thick as grasshoppers in a dry pasture
+lot, all hard at work, trying to play. But the play seemed more like
+fighting than fun. Two girls stopped me on the sidewalk, swinging the
+dirty end of a rope, while another tried to jump it, but only tripped
+up, and went at it again. Shaking her loose hair, and--yes, I say it
+with tears in my eyes--swearing at the other two.
+
+I laid my hand on her head, and gently expostulated. She was a little
+mite of a girl, with a sharp, knowing face. The first word she spoke
+made my nerves creep. Why, that little thing had the wickedness of an
+old sinner on her baby mouth, and couldn't speak it out plain yet.
+
+Oh! my dear sister, and you, my friend, in the great course of infinite
+progress and general perfection, had you been with me, almost
+broken-hearted among that rabble of children, who will never, never know
+what childhood is, the last pound of butter and dozen of eggs in our
+village would be freely given to support my mission here. Barefooted,
+bareheaded, barelegged, and, it seemed to be, bare of soul, these little
+wretches swarmed around me when I kindly asked the baby girls not to
+swear, all making faces at me. The boys, that sat with their feet in the
+gutters, flung away the oyster-shells and lobster claws they had just
+raked from an ash-barrel, and began to hoot at me. One little
+wretch--forgive me for calling names--not more than five years old, had
+a cigar in his mouth half as long as his own arm. When I stooped down to
+take it from him, he gave a great puff right into my eyes, and scampered
+off, with his dirty fingers twirling about his face like the handle of a
+coffee-mill.
+
+As a New England woman, whose duty, I take it, is to set everybody
+right, I wasn't to be put down by a boy like that, but caught him by the
+collar of his jacket, snatched the cigar from his lips, and flung it
+into the gutter, where it sizzled itself out. Then I lifted my
+forefinger as I do in Sunday-class, and began to admonish him. But
+instead of listening, he got the skirt of my alpaca dress between his
+teeth and ground a great hole in it, swearing like a trooper
+betweenwhiles.
+
+Oh, sister! that was a trying season! In less than three minutes the
+sidewalk was swarming with dirty-faced children. I might as well have
+been in a wasps' nest. The spiteful imps buzzed around me so--little
+girls, with lank hair falling over their eyes; lazy boys, swaggering
+like drunken men, and swearing like troopers; and a woman--the boy who
+smoked called her mother--who stood on a doorstep, with a hand on each
+hip, scolding like fury. I kept my finger up. They would not hear a word
+I said, but I felt it my duty to do that much, when a very gentlemanly
+man in blue regimentals touched my arm, and observed in the kindest way
+that things were getting so mixed and unpleasant perhaps I would permit
+him to escort me round the corner. You know, sister, I always had a
+power in the lift of my finger. It was wonderfully manifest just as this
+gentleman crossed the street, and must have astonished him, for the
+children hushed up at once, and huddled back to the doorstep like a
+flock of lambs, which was an evidence of moral suasion I take pride in
+reporting to the Society.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+HE HAS COME.
+
+
+Sisters:--As a representative of your august body, I ought now to have
+been in an atmosphere of royalty--Imperial royalty, which counts at A
+No. 1, as kings are put down. The young potentate of all the Russias,
+with all his ships and things, ought to have been on hand a week ago;
+but he still lingers on the "rolling sea and briny deep," a prey, it is
+dreadfully to be feared, to sea-sickness--which, they tell me, is
+heart-rending--and storms which are liable to aggravate the
+sea-sickness.
+
+I sympathize with that young man in all the depths of my feminine
+nature--which are getting bottomless from the great need of compassion
+which human life exhibits to the thinking mind. He ought to have been
+here when our enthusiasm was at its hottest point. Then he would have
+had the stormiest sort of a welcome. The soldiers were ready to file out
+any minute; the mouths of ever so many cannon were burning to let off
+fire; all the ships would have burst into a storm of flags at the first
+gun. People couldn't but just keep from shouting every time they met
+each other. But the young man didn't come. He hasn't come yet, and all
+the enthusiasm is burning down to cinders and ashes. When he does come,
+I'm afraid it'll be like putting a mess of apples into an oven after the
+pan of baked pork and beans has been drawn out--half roasted, and hard
+at the core when you cut 'em.
+
+This is a great country, my friends--in fact, very extensive--but you
+can't wake it up to an earthquake of enthusiasm about the same person
+more than once. That prince had better have struck when the iron was
+red-hot. He didn't, and so I can't tell you anything about him, except
+that he isn't more at sea than the rest of us. When he does come, depend
+upon it, there will be an uprising among the females of this great city;
+and foremost of her sex will be your representative, faithful to her
+trust, and ready, with a modest helping hand, to lead this young person
+into the paths of propriety.
+
+He has come at last, but the bitter-sweet of hope and fear has been
+given us as daily food for two weeks past, and the wormwood of ceaseless
+apprehension took the place of the yellow berries, and nightshade
+darkness settled down upon us. Lovely young girls cried over their
+ball-dresses of illusion, and wondered if _their_ hopes would thin off
+into the same slimpsy nothingness. Middle-aged ladies, whose hair needs
+no powder, and whose teeth never ache, began to falter in the dancing
+steps practised in the private recesses of their own palatial homes,
+and wondered if their joints were to be twisted and racked into new-born
+graces, only to settle down into rusty stiffness again without having
+fascinated the Russian soul out of that princely bosom.
+
+Of course it is right and proper that an opportunity to study the
+antiquities of a nation should be offered to every potentate and prince
+that honors our Republican shores by setting his high-born foot upon
+them, and it is highly proper that first-class specimens should be in
+readiness the moment he enters a ball-room. That is what people tell me
+has always been the custom at balls given to princes, and it isn't
+likely that new rules are to be laid down for the benefit of a lot of
+girls, anyhow. Governors and mayors are not often so young as they have
+been. As a general thing, their wives are not troubled with an epidemic
+of youth and beauty. It is an awful omission in the laws, but these
+dignified chaps can't get up young and dashing wives for the occasion,
+when a great high potentate from over seas shines down upon us in the
+dancing way. I haven't a doubt they would like to sacrifice themselves
+and astonish the world by so doing, but common people would be apt to
+call it bigamy. So they have to do the very best they can with such
+wives as they have got, and furbish them up with diamonds, laces,
+flounces, and a dancing-master, till they answer to begin with.
+
+I don't mean to be hard or sarcastical on this subject, but in these
+times, when it is so easy for a man to put away his wife, couldn't this
+official potentate get a temporary divorce just for the occasion,
+especially if the kingly visitor happens to be young and very fond of
+dancing. It would give us young girls a chance.
+
+Don't think that I am putting on airs, or that I don't feel reverential
+when age is mentioned, but Emperors' sons don't come to our free land of
+liberty every day, and girls are so plenty that old folks ought to stand
+back. Far be it from Phoemie Frost, on her own humble merits, to build
+upon opening that ball with the Imperial Duke of all the Russias; but a
+Society like ours has its social, moral, and scientific claims. As for
+literature, since my reports have been honored by publication, I must
+maintain the dignity of the position. If dignity and age is to lead in
+this grand ceremonial, I have kept school, and--well, yes--no, one could
+say that I--in fact, as to years, am I not competent to open the ball
+with any prince that can come across the ocean, be he boy or patriarch?
+There, that sentence is off my mind, and I can go on without a hitch of
+the pen.
+
+In other respects I have been silently but surely preparing myself. The
+Society has been liberal, and most of my savings were in the bank,
+rolling up interest beautifully, when I came from my childhood's home.
+Then there was a handsome profit on the donation of eggs and butter and
+maple-sugar which came in the freight train before I started. I attended
+to the sale myself at the market, and had nothing to do with that Mr.
+Middleman people talk so awfully about as a cheat and a general grabber.
+Well, I dickered the things off at a good price, as I was a-saying, and
+have got the money safe in my bosom--a hiding-place sacred to myself
+alone.
+
+Thus lifted above all mercenary anxieties, I gave my attention entirely
+to the self-improvement necessary to my appearance before his highness
+as a representative character on whom the eyes of all Sprucehill were
+fixed. I would say the world--only for the modest consciousness that
+comes over me when I think of myself as a genius.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+THE FRENCH DRESS-MAKER.
+
+
+Alpaca does make a first-class dress for our social gatherings and
+literary circles in Sprucehill, and when puffed out behind, and trimmed
+promiscuously with flutings, it sometimes has a sumptuous appearance
+elsewhere; but for a ball, in which one aims to dance with a great grand
+Archduke of all the Russias--excuse me for saying it, but alpaca is not
+quite the thing. Doubtful of my own imperfect judgment, I asked a
+fashionable dress-maker in the Third Avenue, who had "Madame" spelt with
+an E on her tin sign at the door, and she said: "It wasn't the thing for
+a lady entirely, by no manner of means," and her tongue had a rich roll
+to it, which satisfied me that Ireland had sympathized with France in
+her troubles, to the extent of getting the language a little mixed.
+
+"No," says she, a leaning both elbows on her counter, and a looking at
+me from head to foot. "Madame should have a _robe de_ silk, very
+complete, with flowers in her hair entirely, and an overskirt to the
+fore, garnitured with Limerick point."
+
+"An overskirt before," says I, lifting both hands, satchel and all.
+"Why, every skirt that I've seen in the street, or anywhere else, was
+puckered and bunched up behind," says I. "Excuse me, but I really
+couldn't think of wearing 'em in any other way."
+
+The French dress-maker--I know she was French by the letter E after
+Madam, and because the sign said she was from Paris. Well, she colored
+up, and looked every which way at first, but then she gave a skimping
+laugh, and said that I didn't understand French. I--I didn't understand
+French! I who had studied "French without a Master" as a speciality,
+with the most intelligent member of our circle, and conversed in the
+language as directed by that excellent book so fluently that the
+pronunciation sounded almost like English nipped off a little! This was
+too much.
+
+The clear grit, which lies at the bottom of every New England woman's
+heart, riled up in mine when that cherished accomplishment was cast into
+disrepute.
+
+"Madame," says I, putting a keen emphasis on that E, "I came here to
+inquire about the most fashionable way of making a dress, not to give or
+take a lesson in the languages. Permit me to say I never could submit to
+wear an overskirt in the way you speak of--wrong side before--why, it
+would look dreadfully."
+
+"But Madame does not understand; I speak English so much in this country
+that my own language gets knocked into smithereens. I beg pardon--into
+confusion. Madame must be very perfect herself to detect it."
+
+I felt a smile creeping over my lips. Really, sisters, I had been too
+hard on the poor woman. It was not her fault if my ear was so very
+correct that nothing but the purest accent could satisfy me. She saw
+this look dawning upon my face, and I knew that she felt relieved by the
+way her elbows settled down on the counter again.
+
+"If madame will take a chair--that is, repose herself. Madame--"
+
+"Excuse me," says I, benignly, for I didn't want to hurt her feelings
+again. "_Mademoiselle_, if you please."
+
+"Pardon me," says she, humbly.
+
+"Just so," says I, benignly. "Now supposing we go on about this
+ball-dress. How much silk will it take?"
+
+The woman sat and thought to herself ever so long. Then she counted her
+fingers over once or twice. Then she said she didn't exactly know how
+much, which is the way with dress-makers all over the world, I do
+believe.
+
+"But one won't buy a dress without knowing how much to ask for," says I.
+"Say twelve yards now?"
+
+The woman lifted herself right off from the counter, and sat staring at
+me.
+
+"Twelve!" says she, "eighteen at the least."
+
+I felt as if some one had struck me. Eighteen yards for a dress, and
+gored all to pieces at that!
+
+"Some of your dress-makers in Broadway would want more than that!" says
+she, "and send for more and more after that."
+
+I made no answer, but took up my satchel and walked straight out of the
+door.
+
+Eighteen yards of silk for a dress! The thought of it kept me awake all
+night.
+
+The next morning I went right up to the palatial residence of my cousin,
+Emily Elizabeth Dempster, feeling that she would expect me to enter on
+that subject about bringing up children, which was my duty; but I was so
+down in the mouth about that dress, that everything like a moral idea
+had just swamped itself in those eighteen yards of silk; and instead of
+giving advice, I went into that house to beg for it, feeling all the
+time as if somebody had dumped me down from a mighty high horse onto
+that stone doorstep, and left me to travel home afoot. In fact, I felt
+as if coming to that house to ask about ball-dresses, instead of giving
+instruction, was a mean sort of business. But the ambition of a great,
+worldly idea was burning in my bosom, and I resolved to press forward to
+the mark of the prize of the high calling.
+
+Mercy on me! it is a ball-dress, not a class-meeting, that I am writing
+about. Oh, my sisters! is it true that black angels and white angels
+ever do get to fighting in a human soul, just as they do down South? If
+so, they had a tussle in my bosom that morning, and the black fellow
+came out best, with a gorgeous silk dress a-floating and a-rustling out
+from his triumphant right hand, and the splendid shadow of a great Grand
+Duke following after.
+
+Cousin Emily Elizabeth was just coming downstairs, flounced and puffed
+and tucked up about the waist, till she was all over in a flutter of
+silk, and lace, and black beads, with a dashing bonnet on her head high
+enough for a trooper's training-cap, all shivery with lace and bows,
+with one long feather curling half way round it, and a white tuft
+sticking up straight on the top, looking so 'cute and saucy.
+
+Emily Elizabeth looked a little scared when she saw me coming in with my
+satchel; but when I told her what I wanted, her eyes brightened up, and
+she laughed as easy as a blackbird sings. "Oh, is that all!" says she.
+"I thought it was about the children. I'll give you a note to my
+dress-maker. Styles all French, and _so recherche_." Look in the
+dictionary, sisters, and you will discover that this means something
+first-class.
+
+She took out a pencil and a square piece of paper with her name printed
+on it, and wrote something French, with the number of a house, which I
+won't give, not wanting any of my friends to be talked out of a year's
+growth, as I was.
+
+"There," says she. "The cream-on-cream all go to her. She'll fit you out
+splendidly. Leave it all to her. Good-morning, cousin; I must go; but my
+daughter is in the drawing-room--she will entertain you."
+
+"Just so," says I, putting the card in my satchel, and making swift
+tracks for the out-door; "but I haven't time to be entertained."
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+THE GENUINE MADAME.
+
+
+Well, I went straight down to that dress-maker's house, and handed the
+square paper cousin had written on to a lady who was fluttering round
+among a lot of girls, all hard at work sewing, like bumble-bees in a
+rose-bush.
+
+She looked at the paper; then she gave my alpaca dress an overhauling
+with her scornful eyes. Then she began to talk; but, my goodness, her
+French was awful. I couldn't understand a word of it. Once in a while
+she would chuck an English word in, and rush on again like a mill-dam.
+
+When I tried to put in a word of genuine French or pure English, she
+lifted her hands, hitched up her shoulders, and seemed as if she was
+swearing at me one minute and wanted to kiss me the next. I couldn't
+stand that.
+
+"How much will you ask--how many yards will it take. _La pre la pre?_"
+says I, bursting into French.
+
+The woman looked around on her girls, spread her hands as if praying for
+help, and then, all red in the face, she burst into English. Then I knew
+she did not understand her own native tongue, and gave her a sarcastic
+smile.
+
+"I find everything. How many yards? Oh, that depends on the idea, the
+invention. I have it here growing in my brain. The price? Ah, I cannot
+tell. When the work is complete then we know. There will be crepe and
+point--"
+
+"But I don't want points," says I. "Talk in English if you don't
+understand your own language. The price, the price!"
+
+"Oh, very well, it shall be to your own satisfaction--perfect," says
+she, and then the creature shook out her hands as if she was shewing
+chickens from a corn-crib, and before I could say another word she
+shewed me on to the steps and shut the door.
+
+Well, I went back to my boarding-house, beat out and worried almost to
+death. Figures are satisfactory to the New England mind; but when you
+have only a whirlpool of broken words, ending with satisfaction, with a
+woman's hands spread out on her bosom, and nothing more, it is
+tantalizing. But I reckon the figures will come by and by, only I
+_should_ like to have an idea of what they will count up to.
+
+As I was saying in the beginning of my report, ten thousand anxious
+female bosoms thrilled with expectations every night, and existence
+dragged wofully in literary and fashionable circles until that
+auspicious moment arrived when the son of an Imperial Emperor cast
+refulgence on our Western Hemisphere. But the waiting of us young girls
+was lonesome, very.
+
+I had done my best. For the first time in my life I had twisted my
+front hair into little wire tongs they call crimping-pins; maybe it was
+their tightness that held my eyes so wide open last night. I was trying
+with all my strength to shut them, when the sound of a cannon, ever so
+far off, brought me up in the bed, with my hand clasped and the heart in
+my bosom trembling like a frightened chicken.
+
+"He has come," says I to myself. "Alexis has come. To-morrow we shall
+see him--handsome, young, filled with Imperial royalty from the crown of
+his noble head to the soles of his patent-leather boots. But will he
+wear his crown in the procession, or only keep it for the grand ball.
+What if he should rest that crown on the head of some distinguished
+American, selecting a literary lady?" This thought impressed me; both
+hands went up to my lofty brow. Alas! they only sent the crimping-pins
+ploughing across my head with a thorny sharpness that filled my throat
+with screeches.
+
+My dress has come home--I am stunned:
+
+    Thirty yards of silk, $10 per yard      $300.00
+    One piece French crape                    25.00
+    Ten yards Brussels point                 100.00
+    Linings                                   10.00
+    Making                                    50.00
+    Materials                                 35.00
+    Silk buttons                              12.00
+    Passementerie, etc.                       15.50
+                                            -------
+                                            $547.50
+
+I have just recovered from a long fainting fit. They have taken the
+crimping-pins out of my hair and deluged it with crystal water. I am
+lying on my couch faint and exhausted. Oh, my sisters, the paths of
+royalty are beautiful, but full of thorns. That bill has been enough to
+destroy all my pleasure in the visit of the Grand Duke Alexis.
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+READY TO LAND.
+
+
+The great Grand Duke of all the Russias has been thrown upon our shore
+by an upheaving of the mighty deep, and is now rocking at his ease in
+the iron-clad cradle of a great nation. Oh, he had a terrible time.
+Winds tossed him, storms pitched that noble vessel end foremost into the
+very bowels of the sea, then hove it up on great mountain waves, where
+it rocked and tottered and trembled, while the rain washed its
+decks--rendering mops useless--and the lightning got so tangled in the
+spars and rigging that you couldn't tell which was rope and which was
+fire.
+
+Out of all this danger the great Grand Duke was blown upon our shore,
+with a good deal less fuss than Jonah had when he took to his life-boat
+with fins and tail, and discharged cargo on a desert shore, without the
+first chance of an imperial reception, and nothing but an upstart guard
+to offer him the hospitalities of the country.
+
+Before daylight, Sunday morning, the vessel which bore that noble youth,
+all weather-beaten as a rusty potash kettle, but grand and majestic
+after its tussle with the storms, shot out her anchor in the lower
+bay--for New York has two bays, and two fine old rivers empty into them.
+The squadron--which means three or four other ships from Russia--had
+been waiting there till their great iron hearts nearly burst with fear
+that the imperial vessel had foundered; and when they saw it careering
+in amongst 'em, they set up a shout that made the very fishes in the bay
+rest on their fins and wonder what it could mean, for they had never
+heard Russians before, and it seemed as if the alphabet had been shaken
+ten thousand times over from as many pepper-boxes, and rained down on
+the water in one great shout.
+
+Nobody has told me yet how his imperial dukeship took this, and I
+haven't liked to inquire too closely. Supposing him asleep in the sweet
+privacy of his own upper berth, it wouldn't be quite proper, you know,
+but it must have been soul-stirring to hear those native syllables
+raining down blessings like tacks and brad-awls on his noble head.
+
+How our imperial guest spent the Sabbath-day is a mystery that Russia
+and the Russians only can solve. But I am credibly informed that ten
+thousand upper-crust females betook themselves to secret devotions in
+their own rooms, in crimping-pins and curl papers, the moment we got
+news that he was here.
+
+As for myself, I confess--no, our Society is not a confessional, and the
+secrets of a lady's get-up don't belong to a report for the public eye.
+So I say nothing on that point.
+
+Sunday night I couldn't sleep a wink; my heart was full of noble
+aspirations, and it seemed as if some wild Indian of the forest had got
+his grip in my hair and might scalp me any minute, everything was
+twisted so tight in that direction. In fact, to say nothing of sleeping,
+I couldn't have winked to save my life. But I bore it with Christian
+fortitude, determined to press forward to the mark of the prize. Oh,
+dear! will I ever remember that this report isn't a class-meeting
+confession? Well, the morning came, and oh, my sisters, it was pouring
+cats and dogs. When I heard this, I rose up in bed, covered my face with
+both hands, and just boo-hooed out a crying. I knew well enough that ten
+thousand other young girls were weeping like the skies; but that only
+made me feel worse and worse, for mine has always been a sympathetic
+heart, and I felt for them--I did indeed.
+
+I did not know what on earth to do. Cousin Emily Elizabeth Dempster had
+promised to come and take me down to the _Mary Powell_, a steamboat
+which the committee had engaged to take itself and all its wives and
+their friends, down to welcome the great Grand Duke, and bring him up to
+the city.
+
+Cousin Emily Elizabeth's husband was a head cockalorum in this
+committee, which being the _creme on creme_--excuse French, it will
+break in somehow in spite of me--well, which being the _creme on creme_
+that had skimmed itself off from all the common milk of New York
+society, puffed Cousin E. E. up like--like a ripe button-ball.
+
+Since my reports have appeared in what the newspapers call the world of
+letters--I say it modestly, but truth is truth--Cousin E. E. has been
+sweet as maple-sugar to me, I can tell you. She had her eye teeth cut in
+Vermont, and understood that Queen Victoria knew there was one notch
+above the crown when she took to writing books. I say nothing; but there
+is an aristocracy that cuts its own way through all social flummery,
+like an eagle among chippen birds. That is real live genius; and if New
+England hasn't got her share of that, I don't know where its
+head-quarters are.
+
+Well, I and the clouds shed tears together for a good while; then I
+started up. "What if it does pour?" says I to myself; "the Grand Duke
+has been in storms before this; he ain't sugar nor salt, to melt at
+anything less than the glance of a loving eye. What's the good of being
+down in the mouth about a little rain? I'll get up--I'll unskewer my
+hair--I'll put on _that dress_, if I die for it." I started out of bed;
+I stood before the looking-glass; I began to untwist, to unroll; I did
+the corkscrew movement; I jerked--I shook my hair out--ripple, ripple,
+ripple, it fell over my shoulders. Then I rested awhile, and winked my
+eyes with exquisite satisfaction--for freedom is sweet both to the head
+and heart.
+
+I felt like a new creature--a delicious looseness settled on my
+temples--a feeling of feminine triumph swelled my soul. Could he resist
+the fleecy softness of that hair--the thousand ripples breaking up the
+sunshine--only there wasn't any sunshine to break. Not a silver thread
+was visible; if there had been several the night before, it was nobody's
+business but my own. My arms were tired with continual undoing; but,
+sisters, am I one to faint by the way? No, no, a thousand times no.
+
+I began to roll, to braid, to puff; I planted hair-pins in my head as
+thick as bean-poles in a garden. Heavy braids--expensive but
+lovely--fell down the back of my head; fluff on fluff shaded my lofty
+forehead. I say nothing; but my literary success, great as it is, has
+not been more satisfactory than this.
+
+I put on that dress in a great hurry, for Cousin E. E. was at the door
+in her carriage. How it glistened in the glass! How it swept out on the
+carpet, a peacock's tail is a trifle compared to it! I tucked it up; I
+turned the lining inside out, pinned it, puckered it round the waist,
+and then put on my new bonnet, which looked like a black beehive with a
+bird perched on the top. Then, with a burning heart, that fairly turned
+against it, I put on my waterproof cloak and pulled the hood over my
+poor bonnet.
+
+I opened my cotton umbrella, and went down. Cousin E. E. was waiting,
+and a tall fellow in half regimentals held the door open. I jumped in as
+spry as a cricket, and away we went.
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+DOWN THE BAY.
+
+
+The _Mary Powell_ lay huddled up close to the wharf, with a great white
+flag crossed with blue stripes at one end, and the glorious old
+star-spangled banner at the other. In fact, she was all dressed out in
+flags. They were soaked through and through till their slimpsiness was
+distressing. In fact, the steamboat looked like a draggled rooster with
+no fence or cart to hide under.
+
+The committee were all there, with a whole swarm of ladies in waterproof
+cloaks, huddled together like chickens in a coop. There were generals,
+too, with gold epaulets on their shoulders: one that I'd heard of in the
+war, General McDowell, and some others, that lighted up the deck a
+little with their gold lace and sword-handles.
+
+She moved--I mean the _Mary Powell_. The sea was gray, the sky was
+black. Now and then I saw a flag fluttering by on some vessel, like a
+poor frightened bird searching for shelter, and pitied it. Then all at
+once bang went a gun. I hopped right up, and screamed out:
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"The salute," says a gentleman close by me. "A salute for the Grand
+Duke."
+
+I sat down astonished.
+
+"Sir," says I, "I can't believe it. I--I've been saluted myself before
+this, and I know what it is. No human lips could have made that noise."
+
+The man looked at me, and puckered up his lips a trifle, as if he were
+trying to choke back a laugh.
+
+"I'm speaking of guns," says he, "not the sweet little salutes in your
+mind."
+
+"Oh," says I, "that makes a difference, though I never heard firing off
+guns by that name before."
+
+"The Grand Duke will have twenty-two of 'em," says he.
+
+"Well, then, I'm glad it's only the guns," says I, and a great big sigh
+of relief came up from my jealous bosom.
+
+Then we all went on again, till I heard some one call out that we'd got
+to heave-to. This scared me dreadfully. I looked around. Which two of
+all these females did they mean to heave into the vasty deep? Not me for
+one. If Russia is barbarous enough to want that sort of cannibal
+hospitality, I'm counted out.
+
+Shivering with fear, I drew back into the crowd, but watched things like
+a cat. Drifting through the fog, I saw a little vessel coming close to
+us, as if she had something to do with this heathen ceremony. The ladies
+in their waterproofs crowded to the side of the steamboat, as if they
+rather panted for the glory of being drowned then and there for the
+pleasure of the great Grand Duke.
+
+I heard a splash, but could not see if any one had been flung over, and
+when I got up to look, there was a magnificent old fellow, with ribbons
+in his coat and brooches set thick with shining stones on his bosom,
+a-coming up the side of the boat. He looks so proud and puffy, that I
+should have took him for the great Grand Duke, only that he wasn't near
+young enough.
+
+"Who is it?" says I to the old gentleman.
+
+"Catacazy," says he.
+
+"Cat--what?" says I, categorically.
+
+"Catacazy, the Russian Minister," says he.
+
+"Minister," says I; "do they mean to get up a prayer-meeting on board?"
+
+The old gentleman simmered down the laugh that was on his lips into a
+smile, and said he thought not.
+
+This pacified me, and I sat still while we went down through the upper
+bay, which seemed wrapped in waterproofs too, and into the lower bay,
+which heaved and rolled as if it was half-choked up with sweltering wet
+blankets. Then we came in sight of the ships, and saw the flags
+a-battling with the storm; but no one on board seemed to care a
+continental cent whether New York sent out her _creme on creme_ or not.
+This silence made my heart sink.
+
+Then the minister went to the side of the vessel, leaned over, and swung
+his hat. By and by a boat came from the great Grand Duke's vessel, in
+which an imperial-looking man stood upright, like a high-born monarch,
+and lifted his cap as if it had been a crown.
+
+"It is--it is--oh, yes, it is the Duke!"
+
+This was on every lip but mine. I could not speak; exquisite emotion
+forbade it.
+
+No one came on board; but the minister with that catish name got into
+the boat, and then some of the committee, which skimmed itself again,
+and thickened up its cream considerably.
+
+There we waited and waited.
+
+They came back at last. That young gentleman was not the great Grand
+Duke. He wasn't coming till next day.
+
+Oh, how we wilted! Some of us almost burst out a-crying. I did not
+speak; I could not. Ever since we reached the lower bay, I had felt
+dreadfully discouraged; now a strange sinking of the heart seized upon
+me--a faint dizziness, an agony of disappointment seemed raging in my
+stomach. Oh, my sisters! these exquisite sensibilities are a proof of
+greatness, I know, but the sufferings they bring, no human being but the
+creature of genius can tell.
+
+I am better. The glorious sight which followed that stormy day has
+relieved me. I have seen ten thousand flags blazing along Broadway--I
+have seen three times ten thousand republican worshippers waving their
+hats and handkerchiefs in acclamations for the son of an imperial
+despot. I have heard the glorious music of an imperial serenade--I have
+seen HIM.
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+THE GRAND DUKE.
+
+
+Sisters:--I have seen him. This hand has been pressed--significantly
+pressed--by the soft, rosy palm of imperial royalty. If a tablet to my
+memory should ever be sunk in the walls of our meeting-house, I charge
+you, dear sisters in the cause, to have this honor cut in Roman capitals
+deep into the marble; for what is an exaltation to me is glory to the
+Society, and, in fact, to all Vermont.
+
+I have been on the same steamboat with the great Grand Duke; his
+splendid blue eyes have looked into mine, and in that glance we grappled
+each other, soul to soul. He has smiled upon me through the yellow glory
+of that silky mustache, under which his plump, red lips shone like
+cherries, ripe enough to swallow, stones and all. He speaks English;
+reveres genius, and knows that it can never grow old.
+
+I saw him in Broadway, when all the New York militia turned out, which
+was a training day worth looking at. A snow-storm of handkerchiefs
+burst out of the windows; ten thousand female hands waved him forward.
+Shouts rose from the multitude; little children were crowded back into
+the gutters; women were jammed together on doorsteps and curbstones. In
+fact, the skim milk of society was compelled to flow in awful narrow
+channels, while the _creme on creme_--excuse French once more--rolled
+smoothly through the city in carriages, with royalty leading the way, a
+regiment of trainers leading him, and a band of music leading the whole.
+
+I saw the whole glorious procession. From block to block I flitted, like
+some aspiring bird on the crest of a wave. My heart was full, my eyes
+fixed on one object--that tall, noble figure, with a blue watered silk
+scarf across his royal bosom, and a half-moon hat, with dipping points,
+gracefully lifted from his head. He must have been dazzled; he must have
+been impressed by this proof that republics scorn monarchies and trample
+them under foot.
+
+I flitted onward through the crowd, waving my handkerchief from a
+doorstep now and then. That handkerchief the idol of this august
+occasion seemed to follow eagerly with his eyes, as a sort of beacon
+light which kindred sympathy impelled him to recognize, for wherever I
+went he lifted that half-moon hat from his royal brow and smiled. I felt
+this compliment to the depths of my soul--it thrilled me.
+
+When I lifted myself out of the skim milk, and flowed in with the cream
+of cream on that stand in Union Square with my cousin and the _elite_ of
+society, he saw me again and recognized me once more, which irritated my
+cousin's jealousy a little, for she insisted that he lifted his black
+half-moon to the whole of us. But I know!
+
+I watched the carriage that bore him with a blushing cheek and a beating
+heart. There was General Dix, a real nice-looking old gentleman, sitting
+in front of him; there was Catacazy, the ambassador of all Russia, also
+a nice gentleman as you want to see, with _his_ hat off, a-bowing and
+a-bowing. We flung up our handkerchiefs--we clapped our hands.
+
+The Clarendon Hotel stands near one corner of the Union Square; it has a
+skimpy piazza in front made of iron, and I've seen bigger hotels anyhow.
+But it is considered tip-top, and is always brimming over with the cream
+of cream. That is why Mr. Catacazy took my Grand Duke there. There was
+such a crowd of folks and trainers that I lost sight of him. By and by
+out he came into the piazza, and stood right before our aristocratic
+stand, which was fringed round with red cloth, and over which the
+star-spangled banner waved itself meekly to the nest of black eagles
+that streamed out over that noble scion of all the Russias.
+
+I could not see _him_ plainly, as my heart panted to, so I borrowed my
+cousin's glass--a little spy-glass, understand--not specs, which I
+haven't come to by a long way. Well, I unscrewed the eye-glass, wound it
+up to the right notch, and brought him almost to my face; and there I
+stood, choke-full of heavenly satisfaction, all the while _he_ looked
+down on the general training of soldiers that marched stream on stream
+between him and me.
+
+While my soul was going out luminously through these eyes, Cousin Emma
+Elizabeth Dempster touched my elbow, and says she:
+
+"Miss Frost, if you've got through with my glass, I should like to try
+it a little."
+
+I gave it up. Not being long-sighted, the whole pageant was a blank to
+me after that cruel deprivation, for I could no longer see that imperial
+figure on the piazza.
+
+My reports are making a tremendous sensation, and I--well, being modest
+by nature, I say nothing, but a committee, skimmed daintily off from the
+cream of cream, called at my boarding-house, and wanted me, as a rising
+star in the literary hemisphere of writers, to invite the great Grand
+Duke to a private reception, or entertainment, or something, where some
+that hadn't been on the steamboat could shake hands with him, and others
+might just touch the extremity of his coat, which they gave me their
+honor they wouldn't pull--as some high-bred ladies did when he was going
+from the boat.
+
+I received this committee with dignity, and promised to take their
+request into mature consideration, as soon as I could learn personally
+from the great Grand Duke whether he should prefer to have this homage
+paid by my own sex to the extremities of his coat, or not. I felt for
+these young ladies. I had experienced the yearning desire that possessed
+them, and knew how truly irrepressible it was. Had it not inspired the
+whole committee of reception, their wives, and their children to the
+third generation? Had it not disturbed fashionable life to its very
+dregs, and given spice to our weekly literature? Yes, I felt for these
+young persons, and in a little speech, remarkable for its graceful
+elocution, gave them encouragement.
+
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+TICKETS FOR THE BALL.
+
+
+Tickets for the ball! Sent, no doubt, at the Grand Duke's request.
+Cousin Emily Elizabeth has got tickets too. We shall go together in the
+same carriage, and leaning on her husband's arm. Dempster is a handsome
+man, and really _distingue_ looking. Excuse French; an educated person
+will break into it now and then.
+
+The day has come. Cousin Emily has just sent me a bundle of things, with
+her compliments--a little box with a cake of lovely white chalk in it;
+another, smaller yet, filled with a pink powder that looks like ground
+rose-leaves, and a bottle with something liquid and dark in it, which
+does not seem as if it was good to drink. What on earth does Cousin E.
+E. expect me to do with these things?
+
+Ah! pinned to the bundle, I find a letter, beginning "Dear Cousin
+Phoemie," and asking me to excuse her, but she sends the things,
+thinking that I may want to rejuvenate, and perhaps dye, before I go to
+the ball.
+
+Rejuvenate! Does she mean to say that I'm not young enough? and if I
+wasn't, how are these things a-going to help me? I know that girls in
+school sometimes eat chalk and chew gum, but never heard that they got
+the younger for it. Then the pink powder--well, it's no use calculating
+about it, especially as she wants me to die after it. I wish Cousin E.
+E. would ever learn to spell. When a woman dies she does not do it with
+a "y" as a general thing.
+
+Now what _does_ all this mean?
+
+I was doing my hair at the looking-glass, when Cousin E. E. came in,
+looking like a queen; her blue silk dress was all spotted with gold
+flowers, and it streamed out half across my bedroom. Over that she wore
+a long white cloak, with tassels to it, and her hair was looped in with
+pink roses that were not redder than her cheeks, which would have
+satisfied me that her health was first-rate, if it hadn't been for the
+shadows that lay around her eyes, which had grown awfully dark since I
+saw her at home.
+
+"Oh!" says she, "I am just in time. Came early, thinking you might want
+help. Sit down; that will do. Now where is the you-know-what--those
+boxes--you understand?"
+
+Here E. E. flung off her cloak and came to the glass. I declare to you
+the creature's neck was white as any snow-drift but uncovered to an
+extent that frightened me out of a week's growth. Her arms, too, were
+the same, and bare as her neck. She had a narrow pink shoulder-strap,
+and some lace between them, and that was all; only a string of white
+stones, that shone like a rainbow now and then, was around her neck and
+one arm; two or three of the same kind of stones hung down from her
+ears, and shot out light from her hair.
+
+The whiteness of that neck astonished me, and made me look every which
+way.
+
+E. E. didn't seem to mind that, but took off her long white gloves and
+laid them on the table; then she snatched up one of the boxes, and began
+to rub a handkerchief that lay on the bureau in it.
+
+"There now; hold back your head a little," says she; "shut your eyes."
+
+Here she began to rub my face and neck and arms with the handkerchief
+till they looked white as her own. Then she changed boxes, and I could
+feel her making soft dabs at my cheeks, which tickled a little.
+
+"Now open your eyes," says she.
+
+I opened them wide, she astonished me so; and, as true as you live, she
+began to tickle them with a tenty-tointy brush. After that she titivated
+my hair a little, washed her hands with some Cologne water, and
+snatching up my pink silk dress, which lay across the bed, just buried
+me in it. I declare it was scrumptious to feel the silk a-rustling round
+me, and a-settling down on the floor, wave on wave. Well, the bill was a
+damper, but I couldn't help enjoying it for all that.
+
+"Now," says E. E., a-drawing on her long, white gloves, "just take a
+look, and let us be off--Dempster is waiting."
+
+I did take a look, right straight in the glass, and couldn't help doing
+it again and again, the lady I saw there seemed so much like a
+magnificent stranger to me--so white, so blooming--so--. Forgive me,
+sisters--I forgot that modesty is a tender blossom that should be
+encouraged--and I will say no more, only this, Cousin Dempster's neck
+had a good deal more of it than mine, and that French dress-maker had
+given me a little chance of sleeves, while her's left them out
+altogether.
+
+When she spread out my skirt, it half covered the room. All at once she
+saw just one little spot of rain on it, and held up both her hands.
+
+"Why, you haven't worn this before? Good gracious! no lady in our set
+ever wears the same dress twice. The idea!"
+
+I felt myself wilting, for she was sarcastic in her speech. Then I up
+and spoke for myself.
+
+"Yes, I wore it once," says I; "but it was tucked up under my
+waterproof cloak, with the lining turned inside out, and nobody saw
+it--especially the great Grand Duke, who didn't come out of his own
+vessel."
+
+"Oh," says she, "then it won't be an absolute disgrace to the family if
+you wear it. I began to be afraid to go with you. There, now, don't look
+pins and needles at me, but just put something round you, and let us be
+off, or _he_ will be there before us."
+
+That was enough. I huddled up that pink silk in my arms, and in less
+than two minutes Cousin Dempster's carriage was so choke full of his
+wife and me, that he took a seat with the driver.
+
+
+
+
+XIII.
+
+THE GRAND DUKE'S BALL.
+
+
+Oh, my! wasn't that ball-room a sight to see? Seats piled on seats, all
+cushioned with red velvet, and one end curving round like a great red
+horseshoe, with flags and flowers and shields running below the
+bottommost tier; a great swinging balloon of sparkling glass poured its
+light, like July sunshine, down on a crowd of people, that looked more
+like born angels than human creatures. It fairly made me dizzy to look
+at 'em from Cousin Dempster's box-seat, which was right in the end of
+the circle.
+
+After a while I got my senses back, and looked out for _him_. He wasn't
+there yet, and that gave me a chance to see things. Four more heaps of
+glass, that seemed as if they had caught fire, hung in the other end of
+the room, and beyond them was a fountain of water, a-sparkling and
+a-flashing and a-tinkling in a make-believe garden by moonlight, with
+live fish swimming in it, and live flowers blooming in piles and heaps
+around it, and make-believe trees. Half running round the room was a
+lot of marble posts, with white flower-pots running over with sweetness,
+and linked together with running vines, that made you feel yourself
+almost out of doors.
+
+All this was splendid; but there was one spot that everybody looked
+towards, and I most of all. Three boxes, cushioned with red velvet, were
+just chained together with great wreaths of flowers such as I never saw
+in a garden; but I knew they were genuine because of the scent, which
+was delicious. Banners set full of stars and stripes of red and white
+silk, all tangled in with flowers, hung over these boxes, and right in
+the centre streamed a white silk banner, on which our old bald eagle and
+the black eagles of all the Russias flocked together as sociable as
+robins in a nest.
+
+"There he is! There he is!"
+
+I started. I caught my breath, for back of the white flag _he_ stood
+with the light a-shining on his beautiful yellow hair, and a smile on
+his lips. Oh, how grand, how tall, how gorgeous! Everybody was a-looking
+at him. The girls around me--always forward, and _so_ silly--began
+twittering together, and looking that way as if he would ever think of
+dancing with them. They swarmed around me, as a representative person.
+They forgot their own trivialities, and rendered me such homage as
+genius commands from commonplace minds.
+
+"You are an author," said they. "You belong to the great aristocracy of
+the world. Speak for us. He cannot dance with all of us, but he can look
+this way through his opera-glass, and give us all a chance of being put
+in the papers as the beautiful young lady he admired so much. We appoint
+you a committee of one. Address him in our behalf. Get some memento of
+him that we may leave to future generations."
+
+The entreaties of these young creatures went to my heart. I raised my
+forefinger, which was like an oath to them, and says I:
+
+"Thanks for this honor. Like a Roman matron I will do my duty. Wait."
+
+I arose from my seat, and swept, with a dignity and grace that must
+have done the Society I represent great honor, around the gallery, and
+found my way into the private retiring-room of our illustrious guest. It
+was small but beautifully furnished. My pink silk, as it trailed in,
+seemed to fill the whole room. In the looking-glass I saw a figure,
+tall, commanding; I may say queenly--but enough of that.
+
+A person stood near the door and looked in. I lifted my finger; he
+approached.
+
+"Go," says I, "to the great Grand Duke of all the Russias, and tell him
+that Miss Phoemie Frost, a committee lady, awaits his presence here."
+
+He started--he smiled--he went.
+
+I drew back and stood against the wall opposite the door. _He_ entered,
+looking a little puzzled. I advanced one foot, then the other, three
+long paces, as queens do when they act on the stage. Then I sunk down in
+a profound curtsey, wound myself up again into a royal position, and
+held out my right hand.
+
+"Great Grand Duke Alexis," says I, "son of an illustrious father and an
+imperial mother, whom all women love to honor, welcome to our
+shores--welcome to the fashion, genius, and beauty embodied in the
+females of America."
+
+Before I could finish the address to which duty and ever-burning genius
+inspired me, the great Grand Duke quenched my ardor by a heavenly smile
+that danced in his blue eyes, and almost broke into a laugh on his red
+lips. His voice was like over-ripe strawberries when he spoke and said:
+"The ladies did him great honor; he had not English to express his
+pleasure, and no power to repay their kindness." This was my time.
+
+"Being the head of a committee of so many young ladies that it is
+impossible for your Imperial Majesty to dance with the whole, I--that
+is, these ladies--wish to be represented in the festive cotillon by a
+person worthy of the occasion. Not the wife of an American potentate,
+who may or may not have any claims of her own, but a potentate in
+herself. Not crowned with the shadow of a man's laurels, but wearing
+her own bay leaves as Tasso did."
+
+Here I felt my eyes a-drooping, and my tall figure bent like a weeping
+willow. The great Grand Duke saw my confusion, and his smile deepened
+audibly.
+
+"Say to the lovely committee of ladies," says he--
+
+But I interrupted him, and putting one hand on my heart, observed, with
+a gentle bow:
+
+"Embodied in me."
+
+Then he smiled out loud again, and says he:
+
+"If the Committee of Arrangement permit, I shall have much pleasure."
+
+With that he bowed and prepared to go out. I drew back toward the wall
+till the pink silk skirt began to tangle up my feet, and kept my eyes
+lifted to his face, which was still bathed in blushing smiles. Another
+step, a low curtsey, and I lifted myself up with dignity while he passed
+through the door.
+
+I was alone, with nothing but the looking-glass to gaze on my delight.
+The young ladies had begged of me for a memento of royalty. I looked
+around. An ivory-handled hair-brush lay on a marble shelf under the
+glass. I seized upon it, knowing that it had touched his head. I
+examined it. Imagine my joy--six bright yellow-brown hairs clung to the
+bristles! Carefully, daintily I picked them out, and, laying them in the
+palm of my white glove, formed a tiny tress of them--tiny, but oh! how
+exquisitely precious!
+
+With this treasure in my hand I went back to my constituency. They
+crowded round me; sparkling eyes gazed upon the glorious prize I had
+secured; cherry lips kissed it with gushing fervor, and pleaded with me
+for just a morsel. I secured one lovely hair for myself, and, cutting
+the rest into tiny bits, distributed them generously. Oh, sisters! this
+act endowed me with wonderful popularity among my young companions. We
+girls should be generous to each other. I was generous, and an orchard
+full of spring robins could not have chirped more happily than they did
+while flocking around me. But the dancing began. I stood ready, with my
+long pink silk skirt gathered half way from the floor. But all at once
+it dropped from my hand--_he_ was on the floor, and another lady clung
+to his arm. The jealousy of that committee of gentlemen had prevailed.
+He danced with the Governor's wife.
+
+Did I stand ready to play second fiddle to her? No, no! a thousand times
+no! Was I not a New England lady? Did I not feel that the literature of
+the country had its eyes upon me? _He_ couldn't help it; the deploring
+glance that he cast upon me was enough to satisfy me of that. Indeed,
+his feelings were so hurt that he really could not go through the
+figures of the cotillon, but kept dancing every which way, like a man
+torn with distractions. My heart ached for him. I could not bear to see
+his distress, and retired with dignity to my seat upstairs and looked
+on, while my proud New England heart burned with indignation. If I live,
+that committee of gentlemen shall hear from me again.
+
+
+
+
+XIV.
+
+THE NATURAL HISTORY PHILANTHROPIST.
+
+
+Sisters:--He has gone! The luminous star that has shone upon us with
+such refulgence for the last few weeks, has gone to our beloved "Hub of
+the Universe," where poets, governors, and other distinguished men of
+New England are now revolving around him like the spokes of a cart
+wheel. Mr. Holmes has written him some sweet verses; Mr. Longfellow has
+greeted him with welcomes. They have given him balls, dinners, and a
+cold in his face. In short, New England has been true to itself and its
+climate. When the hub turns on its axle, the spokes whirl and the tires
+revolve, giving a swift throb to the whole universe. As a New England
+woman--I beg pardon--young lady, I am proud of Boston, proud of the
+honor they are doing to _Him_. But after all, the Hub must imitate. We
+took the crown off.
+
+Before he left, a new and exquisite idea came into my head--some people
+may think it a little flighty, but you will understand all the poetry it
+contains. I have a canary bird--for I love birds with all the inborn
+intensity of genius--so old that his feathers are nothing more than a
+creamy white. In that particular he--I should say she--being a female,
+that never sings beyond a chirp, has the gift of silence peculiar to the
+sex. I got her cheaper on that account. Well, she is almost dove-like in
+color and in sweetness of disposition. No more lovely messenger from
+heart to heart could be found in the whole world.
+
+Well, sisters, I took this bird from its cage with my own hands, and I
+smothered it with kisses from my own lips, which quivered with intensity
+of emotion. Then I tied a blue ribbon about its neck, and attached to
+that a tenty-tointy note which contained these lines:
+
+    Farewell, noble prince, my fond heart is gushing
+      With thoughts that no language can ever reveal;
+    With the sweetest affection this warm cheek is blushing,
+      And hopes to my maidenly bosom will steal,
+    Of a time when our souls, with united expression,
+      Shall mingle with harmony more than divine;
+    And the priest--be he Greek, or of any profession--
+      Shall bless this poor hand as it clings unto thine.
+
+The paper was of an exquisite rose-color on which I indited this gem. I
+flatter myself that genius can sometimes write beautifully. It is not
+just the thing to particularize here, but if that Grand Duke _can_ read
+English he must have admired the sweet morsel which that lovely songster
+bore to him on the wings--well, of a canary.
+
+I would not send my bird in a cage, because handsome cages are
+expensive, and do not carry an idea of freedom with them, which our
+spread eagle might have led the great Grand Duke to expect. Neither
+would I trust her with a street boy whose hands might be dirty and
+unsafe. No, I put on my bonnet, locked the bird with his blue ribbon in
+a box covered with gilt paper, and walked straight down to the Clarendon
+Tavern, and asked for one of the committee-men.
+
+A tall, grave-looking gentleman came into the room, where I sat waiting,
+and said he was Mr. Bergh, one of the committee-men, and then stood a
+minute, as if he was waiting to know what I wanted.
+
+I had heard a great deal about the gentleman's goodness to the poor dumb
+beasts that are so abused and trampled on, and my heart rose right into
+my mouth.
+
+"Mr. Bergh," says I, reaching out my hand, "in the name of New England,
+permit me to shake hands, and thank you for the good you are a-doing to
+so many of God's own creatures."
+
+The gentleman smiled, and reached out his hand.
+
+"I am glad to hear," says I, "that some old bachelor has left a lot of
+money to your society. It is just what I would do myself if I hadn't a
+hope--that is, it may be possible that all the money I have will be
+needed for a special occasion--as no free-born New England woman would
+be beholden to a foreign nation for her setting out."
+
+Here Mr. Bergh smiled. You have no idea how much younger he looked when
+he did smile; the benevolence that made him a Natural History
+Philanthropist just shone out from his eyes, and beamed all over his
+face, till I longed to be--well, say a duck, or something of that
+sort--that he might save me from oppression.
+
+"Thank you," says he; "most men want some object in life. You ladies
+have done so much for humanity that we are content to leave it in your
+hands, but the poor animals have up to this time escaped compassion."
+
+"Not compassion, but assistance," says I. "Cruelty to animals is mostly
+confined to men."
+
+"Not exactly," says he. "I have sometimes seen kittens and pet dogs
+treated more unmercifully than omnibus-horses, and by innocent children
+too."
+
+I did not answer. How could I? The remembrance of a trout-brook, with
+birch-trees hanging over it, and great red-seeded brake-leaves growing
+thick on the bank, made me shudder. Hadn't I held ever so many kittens
+under water in that very spot, and shouted and laughed to the other
+girls--some of you, my sisters, among them--while the poor little things
+kicked and struggled for life, that was just as dear to them as it is to
+me? Hadn't I hunted up birds' nests, and driven the pretty creatures
+distracted by handling their eggs, till at last the nests were broken
+up? Then didn't I string the cold eggs into a chain, and hang them in
+triumph over the looking-glass in our keeping-room?
+
+You will tell me, out of the kindness of your hearts, that these were
+sins of ignorance. Just so; and it is this ignorance, which is sometimes
+cruel as the grave, that Mr. Bergh is trying his best to enlighten. No
+child would do a cruel thing if it were made to understand the pain it
+is giving. Yet, sticking pins through flies, and spearing wasps to the
+wall, are about the first thing a smart baby learns to do.
+
+Did you ever see a lot of boys going home from school, when a
+garter-snake, or any other harmless serpent, crosses their path? They
+know well enough that the poor things do no harm, and are as afraid as
+death of them; but see the great stones they heave upon the miserable
+reptile; the shouts they send up, as it writhes, and coils, and fills
+the air with feeble hisses, trying, poor thing, to save its bruised and
+broken life to the last.
+
+Does anybody tell the boys that this is brutal cruelty? No, even the
+Christian mother, who would not do an unkind thing to save her life,
+forgets that God makes snakes as well as ringdoves, and that pain is
+just as bitter to the snake as to the cooing bird.
+
+Sisters, we are all wrong in leaving these things to men only. If we did
+our duty, and taught little children that even thoughtless cruelty is a
+sin, and that the fun which comes out of pain to any of God's creatures
+is a crime, there would not be much for Mr. Bergh and his noble society
+to do. The cruel instincts of a child become ferocious in the man. With
+such, men can best deal. I thank God that one brave spirit is found
+ready and able to protect the dumb creatures that are given us for
+blessings, not for victims.
+
+While I am writing this, picture after picture comes up from my own past
+girlhood, and my heart stands still as I remember how ferocious a thirst
+for fun and ignorance can be in a child. How many sleepy-looking toads I
+have seen, with their backs all jewels, and their throats yellow gold,
+that asked nothing but a burdock leaf for shelter, and a few flies for
+food, crushed to death by boys who thought no harm, and only liked the
+sport of killing something.
+
+Since then, I have learned that these little creatures are a great help
+to gardeners, and that wise men foster them with kindness and care.
+
+Once, down by the trout-brook we know of, I saw a lot of children, busy
+as bees, doing something on the bank, where two or three boys were
+kneeling, and the rest looking on. Of course I went down to the brook,
+and, being a little mite of a creature, looked on, half frightened, half
+wondering.
+
+The boys had caught a great frog, green as grass. He was, I have no
+doubt, one of those hoarse old croakers, that make one timid about going
+by ponds and marshy ground in the night, up in our State. Well, they had
+him down in the grass, and one held him while the other ran a pin
+through both jaws and twisted it there. There was no fun in this. A lot
+of doctors cutting off an arm couldn't have been more gravely in
+earnest. Some of the boys were eight and ten years old; but not one of
+them seemed to feel that they were doing a hideous thing. I remember
+feeling very sorry for the poor frog, but it was not till years and
+years after that I understood the horrible, lingering death these
+ignorant boys had tortured him with. Since then I have never thought of
+that sparkling trout stream, without a pain at my heart.
+
+"Childish ignorance," I hear you say--for some of these boys were your
+own brothers, and meant no harm. But what right had they to be ignorant?
+They knew well enough that it was against the law to kill one another.
+Why were they not taught that the life that God gives to His meanest
+creature is as sacred as a good man's prayers; unless necessity calls
+for it, and then it must be taken with as little suffering as death can
+give?
+
+Sisters, I am in earnest; the missionary spirit is strong upon me. I
+wish our Society to take up this subject with interest. What Mr. Bergh
+has been doing among men, we must do among the children of this
+generation. When ignorance is an excuse for cruelty, you and I and every
+woman of the land are wretches if we allow a child to sin because it
+knows no better. There is no great study necessary to work out a reform
+here. The mother who knows what is right knows how to impress it on her
+children; and if they play at death and destruction, she is the person
+most to blame.
+
+Don't say that I am writing out one of my popular addresses before the
+Society--I never thought of such a thing; but when I saw the great
+Natural History Philanthropist, my heart and mind went right back to you
+and my duties as a missionary of universal progress, and I sat there in
+silence thinking over these things till I forgot that he was there.
+
+At last he spoke, and said, kindly enough, "Is there anything I can help
+you in?"
+
+I started and reached out my hand.
+
+"Mr. Bergh," says I, enthusiastically, "I can help you! All the world
+over we women work best in the primary department. You have begun a
+grand and a noble work among men. We will begin at the other end, and in
+that way cut your work down to nothing. I see a clear path before us.
+Henceforth I will belong to your Society, and you shall belong to mine.
+Is it agreed?"
+
+He sat down by me; his eyes grew bright; his earnestness of purpose
+inspired me to press forward to the mark of the prize--I beg pardon, the
+old prayer-meeting spirit will manifest itself in spite of me when my
+soul is full of a great purpose.
+
+After we had talked on the great subject satisfactorily, he said, all at
+once, "But you came for some purpose in which I may have the pleasure of
+serving you."
+
+Then I remembered my bird and its imperial object. Revealing my
+gold-paper box, I opened it carefully, fearing a sudden flight. Nothing
+moved. Trembling with dread, I put in my hand; it touched a soft fluff
+of feathers that did not stir.
+
+My heart sank like a lead weight in my bosom. I looked in; the poor
+little thing lay in the bottom of the box, with its wings spread out,
+and its head lying sideways. I touched it with my hand; it was limp and
+dead. While I had been talking with so much feeling about cruelty to
+animals, my own little songster--no, being a female she was not
+that--but my poor pet had been smothered to death in that gorgeous
+little receptacle.
+
+With my heart swelling like a puff-ball, I turned my shoulder on that
+good man, and closed my satchel solemnly, as if it had been a tomb.
+
+"Sir," says I, in a voice full of touching penitence, "I feel myself
+just at this minute wholly unworthy of the mark of the high calling to
+which I have offered myself. A young lady who puts herself forward to
+teach thoughtful kindness to the young, should be above reproach in that
+respect herself."
+
+The good gentleman looked awfully puzzled, for how would he guess at the
+crime I had locked up in that box?
+
+"Good-morning," says I, walking away; "the time may come when I shall
+feel a new exaltation, but just now--well, good-morning."
+
+I went away meek and humble as a pussy cat. When I looked down at the
+box in my hand it seemed as if I was carrying a coffin.
+
+Well, I buried my poor little pet in that identical box, with the blue
+ribbon about its neck; but the poem I forwarded to _him_ in Boston. I
+may be meek and humbly conscious of my own shortcomings, but the Grand
+Duke of all the Russias shall never go home with the idea that Vermont
+hasn't got poets as well as Boston, and that young ladies cannot put as
+much vim and likewise maple-sugar into their poetry as that smart
+fellow, Dr. Holmes, simmered down in his.
+
+Just read mine and his, that's all!
+
+I do think that nothing can equal the forwardness of some New York
+girls. Would you believe it, one stuck-up thing has just stolen my
+beautiful idea, and sent her card to the great Grand Duke tied round a
+bird's neck; but it was like stealing a fiddle and forgetting the
+fiddlestick. A card isn't poetry. There is no accounting for the vanity
+of some people; but the best proof of genius is imitation.
+
+
+
+
+XV.
+
+CHRISTMAS IN NEW YORK.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Thanksgiving is the great Yankee jubilee of New England.
+Then every living thing makes itself happy, except the turkeys, and
+geese, and chickens. They, poor martyrs, have been scared into the
+middle of next week by the yells, and shrieks, and awful cackling of the
+whole army of winged creatures that sit in ten thousand ovens, with
+their legs tied, their wings twisted, and the gravy a-dripping down
+their sides and bosoms, like rain from the eaves of a house. Of course,
+for that day, every barn-yard in New England goes into mourning. The
+poor hen is afraid to cackle when she lays an egg, for fear of having a
+gun cracked at her. Even the fat hogs look melancholy in their pens, for
+a smell of roasting spare-ribs comes over them, and they seem to
+ruminate mournfully on some means of saving their own bacon.
+
+Of course, there must be some unhappiness even on a New England
+Thanksgiving, or earth would forget itself and turn into heaven all at
+once. Besides, who thinks of the scared gobblers, when he has a plump
+turkey roasted brown as a berry, scenting the whole house with richness?
+I for one could not bring myself to the foul contemplation--excuse the
+wit--spontaneity is perhaps my fault.
+
+Well, what Thanksgiving is to New England, Christmas-day is to New York.
+Everybody goes to meeting in the morning, and everybody takes dinner
+with everybody else after that. For days before it comes the streets are
+full of covered wagons, and men and boys, loaded down with bundles,
+crowd against each other on every doorstep. In fact, half New York just
+throws itself away in presents on the other half, which pitches just as
+many back. Thus every street and house is a hubbub of gifts and a blaze
+of light, from Christmas Eve till after Christmas dinner.
+
+Christmas Eve, dear sisters, belongs to the children. What there is of
+'em in these parts, and the jubilation they have, rich and poor, black
+and white, is enough to warm the heart in one's bosom. There is a
+gorgeous old Dutch ghost that they think comes prowling over roofs and
+down chimneys in the night, to bring them presents. This comical old
+fellow sets up Christmas trees for the rich, and fills woollen stockings
+for the poor, and makes himself a magnificent old humbug that every
+child in the city worships and will believe in, though the little
+misguided souls know at the bottom of their hearts that, somehow or
+another, this Santa Claus and their own parents have a mysterious
+understanding and private moneyed transactions, that mix things
+terribly. Still, they really do believe in the old fellow, just as you
+and I believe in dreams. It is the last thing a little girl gives up,
+unless it is her dolls.
+
+Speaking of dolls, I wish you could see the scrumptious little ladies
+that have been sold here this week. You and I were awful proud if we
+could get a rag-baby, with drops of ink for eyes, and its cheeks
+reddened with a little pokeberry juice; but the dolls they sell here are
+such beauties!--yellow hair, frizzed around the face like thistle-down;
+rosy cheeks, and eyes that shut with such sweet laziness if you lay the
+little things down. I declare, it's enough to make one long to be a
+child again, to take one of these dainty creatures in your arms.
+
+The Saturday before Christmas I went out with Cousin E. E. Dempster, to
+buy presents. She came in her carriage, with the driver and another chap
+in regimentals on the front seat, outside, and a great white bear-skin
+inside that just swallowed us up to the waist, as if we had settled down
+in a snow-bank of fur. Under that was a muff for your feet, and some
+contrivance that must have been a foot-stove hid away, for it was as
+warm as toast.
+
+Well, sisters, such things may be extravagant, I know; but they are
+nice, if it wasn't for one's conscience.
+
+The carriage turned down Broadway, which is the street where the most
+splendid stores are found. It really was worth while to see how that
+driver--with his fur gloves that made his hands look like a bear's
+claw--guided them horses in and out, among the omnibus-stages, the
+carriages, and carts, that just turned the street into Bedlam. It fairly
+made me catch my breath to see how near the wheel would come to some
+other wheel, and then just miss it. Every stage that went lumbering by
+made me give a little scream, it came so near to running us down. But
+Cousin E. E. sat there buried in the white fur, as cosey as a goose on
+her nest. It aggravated me, and I asked her if she wasn't afraid nor
+nothing.
+
+"Oh no," says she, a-leaning back and half shutting her eyes; "it is the
+coachman's business. I should discharge him if anything happened."
+
+"But you couldn't discharge him after you were mashed to death under
+them great omnibus wheels," says I.
+
+E. E. smiled. What a calm, lazy smile she has!
+
+"No," says she; "but there would be a fuss, and my name would get into
+the paper. Everything has its compensation, Cousin Frost."
+
+Before I could answer, the carriage stopped in front of a large, high
+store, with great, tall windows, all one shiny sheet of glass on each
+side of the door, through which you could see lots on lots of silver and
+gold and precious stones, all in confusion, but, oh, how gorgeous!
+
+"This is Ball, Black & Co.'s," says she, a-going up to the door, which
+seemed to open of itself, and in we went.
+
+You have read the "Arabian Nights' Entertainment." I remember the time
+well, because we all got "kept in" after school for being caught at it.
+Well, that cave wasn't to be compared to what I saw in Messrs. Ball &
+Black's store. From floor to roof, all was one dazzle. Gold clocks, with
+silver horses tramping over 'em; colored men and women--reconstructed
+figures, I reckon; white stone women, a-standing, sitting down,
+scrouching themselves together, or riding lions a-horseback, bold as
+brass, filled one long room, like a regiment of military trainers. Then
+there were chandeliers of glass, in which no end of rainbows seemed to
+be tangled; dishes of sparkling glass, set in a frostwork of silver or
+gold, and--I may as well stop; no genius could give you an idea of the
+gorgeous things it was my privilege to see in those long rooms.
+
+When we had wandered upstairs and downstairs again, Cousin E. E. stopped
+at one of the counters, and wanted to look at some rings. As for me I
+wanted to look at everything. What was one ring compared to whole stars,
+and bands, and clusters of shiny, white stones, that seemed to have been
+dug out of a rainbow--all mixed up with other stones, red as blood,
+green as spring grass, blue as the sky, and white as snow-crust. Why,
+sisters, that counter was just one bed of burning sunshine. It dazzled
+my eyes so that I can hardly remember anything distinct enough to
+describe it to you.
+
+Well, Cousin E. E. bought her ring, which had a green stone set in it. I
+saw her hand a lot of money over the counter to pay for it, which riled
+my conscience a little; but I said nothing, the money being hers, not
+mine; still, how much good it might have done some missionary society.
+
+Well, out of this store of gorgeousness we went, and got into the
+carriage again.
+
+Cousin E. E. said she had bought so many things that this was about the
+last place she had to go to, and, as it was getting pretty near dark, I
+must go home with her and help fill up the Christmas tree. Cecilia would
+be dreadfully disappointed if it was not splendid, and they all thought
+so much of my taste.
+
+I made no objections; why should I? Christmas Day in a boarding-house
+isn't full of ravishing promises, so I just snuggled down into the white
+fur again, and let the fellow with bear-skin claws drive me where he had
+a mind to.
+
+
+
+
+XVI.
+
+THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS.
+
+
+Oh, sisters! there is something touching and splendid in a Christmas
+tree. Just fancy one of our mountain spruces, towering almost to the
+ceiling of a room, green as when it was cut from the woods. Think of
+this tree, hung all over with little wax candles, bunches of pale-green
+and purple grapes, teinty red apples, golden horns and baskets chuck
+full of sugar things. Stuffed humming-birds, looking chipper as life.
+Butterflies, that seem to be flying through the green of the trees, and
+a whole camp-meeting of dolls sitting around the roots, and then tell me
+if the Christmas time of a New York child isn't like living among the
+people of a fairy book.
+
+This was the sort of tree set up at Cousin Dempster's, Sunday night
+before this last Christmas day. Of course, we couldn't think of
+breaking the Sabbath, but the minute it was sundown, at it we went. Of
+course, we didn't want the little girl to know what we were a-doing; but
+the first we knew, in she hopped, as chipper as a humming-bird, and
+would keep interfering and changing things, in spite of all we could do.
+
+At last, her mother got her dander up and told her to march right off to
+bed, just as a woman born in Vermont ought to order her own child; but
+the tantalizing thing just hitched up her shoulder, and said, "She
+wouldn't go, nor touch to the tree was for her own self. The house was
+her par's, and she'd do just as she'd a mind to in it."
+
+With that, Cousin E. E. blazed into a passion, and took her child by the
+arm, with a jerk that sent her flying into the hall. Then I heard a
+screeching and a scrambling up the stairs, and it seemed to me a slap or
+two--I hope I wasn't mistaken about that--then a door slammed, and
+Cousin E. E. came downstairs like a house o' fire, with both eyes
+blazing, and one cheek red as flame. Could it be that the slap I heard
+was from the other side, or had it been a free fight?
+
+"That girl will be the death of me," says she, walking about like a lion
+in its cage. "I never knew a worse child."
+
+"I'm sure I never did," says I, with more than my usual spontaneity, for
+I felt it.
+
+"You never made a greater mistake," says E. E., fierce as a hen hawk.
+"It is because she has so much more brains--spirit--genius than any
+other children. A more splendid character never lived than my daughter
+Cecilia."
+
+I said nothing; maybe it would have been just as well if I had held my
+tongue before.
+
+"She is a favorite everywhere," E. E. went on, cooling down like a brick
+oven after the coals are hauled out.
+
+I said nothing.
+
+"Ahead of girls twice her age," E. E. went on. "She speaks French like a
+native."
+
+"Is there anything more to put on?" says I.
+
+"Yes," says she, "we will have the presents ready for the morning. I
+meant to have some of Cecelia's friends here to-morrow night, but she
+wanted the tree to herself."
+
+With this, E. E. brought an armful of boxes and things from the next
+room. The first thing she set up against the stem of the tree was a
+doll, dressed in a splendid silk ball-dress, with a long, sweeping
+train, and teinty rose-buds in her yellow curls. The blue eyes were
+natural as life, and her face was just lovely. Then she brought out a
+Saratoga trunk about as big as a foot-stool, which was crowded full of
+dolls' dresses, just such as a live young lady would be proud to wear.
+
+"Isn't it beautiful?" says E. E.
+
+"I should think so," says I; "how much did it cost?"
+
+"A hundred and twenty-five dollars," says she. "I sent to Paris for it."
+
+"A hundred and twenty-five dollars?" says I, lifting up both hands;
+"that would keep a poor family how long?"
+
+"I don't know," says she, short as pie-crust, "but a poor family
+wouldn't amuse my Cecilia, and these will."
+
+"Just so," says I; "what is this for?"
+
+"Oh, that is her father's present--pink coral--hang it across one of the
+limbs," says she.
+
+I hung the beads among the spruce leaves, and enjoyed the sight; they
+seemed like a string of rose-buds twisted in with the green.
+
+"There now, we will finish in the morning," says E. E. "I wish Cecilia
+had invited her little friends; it will seem rather lonesome."
+
+With this, Cousin E. E. gave a little sigh, and we went off to bed,
+telling me that I must be sure to get up in time for early service,
+which she wouldn't miss for anything.
+
+
+
+
+XVII.
+
+EARLY SERVICE.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Before daylight on Christmas morning, I went to early
+service at the highest church in New York city, which, after all, isn't
+anything to brag of in the way of steeple.
+
+There is a brick meeting-house on Murray Hill that beats it all to
+nothing, for that has just the longest and pointedest steeple that I
+ever set eyes on. Still, everybody allows that the little Episcopal
+church I went to, Christmas morning, is the very highest in all America;
+and, though in my heart I don't believe it, having eyes in my
+head--there is no chance for me to take a measurement, and what can I
+say against the word of everybody else? Still, to you in confidence, for
+I don't want to get into a schismatic controversy, I dare take an oath
+that the brick church on Murray Hill is twice as high, to say nothing of
+the sharp-pointedness of the steeple and the hilly ground.
+
+Cousin E. E. Dempster says she is high church from the crown of her head
+to the sole of her foot, which I didn't dispute, for she always had high
+notions. She gave me strict charge, when I went to bed, Christmas Eve
+night, not to sleep late, and be sure to be ready for an early start.
+
+Well, I went to bed feeling as if I had got to start by some swift
+railway train every hour of the night, and must be ready for them all.
+It was Sunday night, you know, and I woke up twice with a start, before
+it was next week; got up, felt for the matches I had laid handy, and
+went to bed again, and dreamed that I was trying to get into a steamboat
+with two steeples, which put off, and left me freezing on the dock.
+
+Like one of the wise virgins, I had brought a candle upstairs, and some
+matches, which was an improvement on their old lamps, I dare say; but I
+wasn't much afraid of the dark, and didn't keep it burning, only left
+everything ready.
+
+After that dream, I started up, struck a match, and found that I had
+been just fifteen minutes in getting that steam church under way. So I
+went on dreaming, starting up, and lighting matches all night, till at
+last I hadn't but one left, and with that I lighted the candle, and a
+gas-burner by the bureau, and began to dress myself.
+
+Before I got through, Cousin E. E. was at the door, with her beehive
+bonnet on, and wrapped up in fur.
+
+"Almost ready? I am so glad, for the day is just beginning to break, and
+I wouldn't have it broad light when we get there, for anything," says
+she. "Wrap up warm, for it has blown up awful cold in the night."
+
+I did wrap up warm; put on a veil, and tied my mink-skin victorine, with
+three tails on each tab, close around my neck.
+
+We went downstairs carefully, for only one burner was twinkling in the
+hall, and the whole house was dark and shivery.
+
+"Come in here," says Cousin E. E., opening the dining-room door.
+
+Under the glass globe, in which two or three chilly lights seemed
+longing to go out, the ghost of a table was spread, with a great deal of
+silver, and very little to eat.
+
+"Just a cup of coffee and a mouthful of toast before we start," says E.
+E., sitting down behind a great silver urn in her furs and her beehive;
+"for my own part, I could do without that."
+
+She poured me out a cup of coffee--it was half cold and awfully
+riley--and asked me to help myself to a piece of toast, which had black
+bars across it, as if it had been striped on a gridiron.
+
+"Things are getting cold," says E. E., "they have been standing so long.
+The cook has been out an hour; but she knows I consider this my
+penance."
+
+"Out where?" says I.
+
+"Oh, to early service."
+
+"An hour?" says I; "why I thought we were going to early service. It
+isn't daylight yet."
+
+"I know," says Cousin E. E., with a sigh, "but her church is a little
+higher than ours."
+
+"Higher," says I; "then there is some meeting-house a notch above
+yours?"
+
+"Yes, cousin," says she, mournfully, "but we are creeping up. Every year
+brings us a step nearer."
+
+"Just so," says I, wondering what she meant.
+
+"By and by we shall have confession," says she.
+
+"Oh," says I, "there isn't a meeting-house on Sprucehill that would take
+in a member till she had made a confession of religion."
+
+Cousin E. E. shook her head, and observed that I didn't understand,
+which riled me a little, having been a member--well, no matter how long.
+
+"Even now we have humiliation and penance."
+
+I was trying to swallow a mouthful of the bitter toast and riley coffee,
+and couldn't in my heart contradict her.
+
+"To that end we get up early, cast aside sleep, and, in all weather, go
+on foot to the altar. Each year the church is opened, and the candles
+lighted earlier and earlier, as souls more clearly see their way to the
+true faith."
+
+"Just so," says I; "by and by they will be good enough to light up, and
+open the day before, I suppose."
+
+The clock on the mantel-shelf struck. Cousin E. E. started up, and put
+both hands in her muff. I followed her out of the door, and into the
+street.
+
+Well, sisters, if there is a desolate spot on earth, it can be found in
+the streets of a great city after the lights have been put out, and
+while the sky is gray. To pass by houses in which thousands and
+thousands are sleeping, is like wandering through the lonesomeness of a
+graveyard. The morning was awful cold; before we got to Lexington Avenue
+the veil was stiff on my face. I felt the tears a-freezing on my cheeks,
+and my teeth chattered so that I couldn't speak. When we reached St.
+Albans--that is the name of Cousin E. E.'s church--two such shivery
+mortals you never saw. I say, sisters, there wouldn't have been much use
+in warming us against a good fire in any place just then. I don't mean
+to be satirical or irreverent, but when you go to early service at the
+break of day, and in the depths of winter, I think ice-water and
+snow-drifts might make a solemn impression on the sinful heart.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII.
+
+HIGH CHURCH.
+
+
+St. Albans may be a High Church, though I couldn't see it; but it
+certainly isn't very sizeable; and as for coldness, the very curls on my
+head shivered as if they grew there.
+
+Cold, yes; I should think that church was cold; but you never saw
+anything more beautiful than the picture it made when we went in. Right
+before us was a white altar--not a communion table like ours at home,
+but a little platform with steps to it, set thick with candles, and
+loaded down with wreaths of white flowers. I tell you, sisters, it
+seemed to me as if the angels must have been down overnight, and moulded
+those flowers out of the drifted snow, and breathed life into them, they
+looked so pure.
+
+On each side of this altar was a great, large candle, five feet high,
+and thick as a young tree, burning with a slow, steady fire, and some of
+the smaller candles twinkled like stars among the flowers.
+
+All overhead and down the walls of this little meeting-house were great
+wreaths of ground pine, ivy and hemlock, crowded with lights and
+sprinkled with flowers, and these flung shadows on the walls more lovely
+than the wreaths themselves.
+
+I was chilled through and through, but I don't think it was that which
+brought all these solemn feelings into my mind, for the tears that had
+frozen on my cheeks ran freely now, and my eyes kept filling again. I'm
+sure I can't tell the reason, only that everything was so still and
+beautiful.
+
+The pews in St. Albans have no cushions, and everybody can sit in them,
+only there is a placard on each, inviting the poor to sit down for
+nothing, but telling those that have money to give it, to support the
+church; which is just what our meeting-houses do, though they only chuck
+the plate at you, without a written warning.
+
+Cousin E. E. and I sat down in one of the pews, and slid our knees to a
+board running along in front, to kneel on, and covered up our faces a
+minute or two; then we looked up, and there, close by the altar, stood
+the minister; but, oh, goodness! how he was dressed out. He had on,
+first, a black silk gown, with great bishop-sleeves, then a white linen
+dress, that I should think was a night-gown, only it was on a man, and
+it isn't many women who would like to lend such things to be used in
+meeting-time. Over that he wore a white satin cape.
+
+Cousin E. E. pronounces it cope, but she does finefy her words so since
+she came to York.
+
+On that was worked a cross, in gold and silk, like a Free Mason's apron
+in some respects. He held a book open in his hand. I could see that he
+was shaking with chilliness, and the words rattled like icicles from his
+lips. Close by him stood a boy, dressed in a red frock, with a white one
+over it.
+
+I whispered and asked Cousin E. E. what his name was; she answered
+back--"Acolyte," which was a name I never heard before.
+
+After a while the congregation began to move out of the pews, a few at a
+time, and crowd up to the minister. Then they knelt down before him, and
+he gave them bread and wine close to the altar, instead of having it
+handed about as they do in our Presbyterian meeting-houses. Cousin E. E.
+went up with the rest, and wanted me to go with her, but I could not
+bring myself to partake of the Lord's Supper from a man in his
+shirt-sleeves, and with a silk cape on; so I shook my head and sat
+still, watching the altar.
+
+After they had done coming up to him, the minister knelt down and prayed
+awhile; then he got up, and the boy in red shirt and white frock handed
+him a black hat, with four corners, which he put on his head; then he
+took something from the altar and walked through a side door, still
+wearing his double-cocked hat. The boy followed him out, and then a man
+came round among the pews with a plate, in which Cousin E. E. dropped a
+gold piece with a ringing noise that made people look round. I followed
+up with five cents, and was astonished to see how little ring it had
+after the gold; nobody looked round at me.
+
+It was broad daylight when we came out of that little meeting-house, and
+not quite so cold as it had been; but still I was glad to keep my muff
+up to my face, and we walked toward home like a house afire.
+
+"Well, how did you like the service?" says Cousin E. E., as we shivered
+along--"impressive, isn't it?"
+
+"Very," says I; "only do tell me what it was all about. This getting up
+and sitting down and bowing at nothing is more than I can understand."
+
+"Oh," says she, "I ought to remember you came from a Congregational part
+of the country."
+
+"And Methodist--to say nothing of Baptists and Quakers," says I.
+
+"Yes, I mean all that," says she; "but the church, as a church, is but
+little understood among you."
+
+"Well, as you came from the same place, you ought to know," says I,
+rebuking her city airs in my most austere manner.
+
+"Well, yes," says she; "but one doesn't hear much of the true church so
+far in the mountains. Even you seemed puzzled by a good many things this
+morning."
+
+"Well, yes," says I--"the four-cornered cocked hat, for instance."
+
+"The four-cornered cocked hat!" says she, stopping short on the
+sidewalk. "What do you mean? That was the barette."
+
+"Oh," says I, "that is what they call it! Well, then, the four-cornered
+cocked barette--what does the minister wear that for? It isn't generally
+considered good manners for men to wear hats in meeting."
+
+"Oh, there is a clerical reason I can't quite explain, but it is a part
+of the ceremony."
+
+"Just so," says I--"and the night-gown."
+
+"Surplice, you mean," says E. E.; "oh, that is worn everywhere, in High
+and Low Church alike."
+
+"Well," says I, "there may be a reason for such things, but a
+respectable black coat is what I've been used to."
+
+"Yes, I know," says she; "but some people prefer the surplice and cope."
+
+"Now tell me," says I, "what on earth has a minister to do with a
+woman's satin _cape_, all crimlicued off with gold and silk work?" I put
+an emphasis on the word cape, to rebuke her finefied way of pronouncing
+it.
+
+"It is a part of the clerical paraphernalia, and gives richness to the
+vestments," says she. "But the altar--I felt sure that you would be
+pleased with that."
+
+"Yes," says I; "the white flowers, the candles, and the evergreens were
+beautiful. But the red and white boy was too much for me; then his
+name--Acolyte--I never heard anything like it."
+
+Just then we reached home, and shivered into the house to warm
+ourselves. Cousin Dempster was not up yet, and that child was sound
+asleep. It seemed to me as if we had been downstairs a week; but there
+was the Christmas tree, just loaded with presents; and there was the
+marble man and woman, looking cold as we were. And there we stood,
+hungry and shivering, for the help had all gone out to "early service,"
+and forgot to heap coal on the furnace; and the end was, we just got
+into our cold beds again, and shivered ourselves to sleep. I dreamed
+that a man, all in black and white, with a four-cornered hat on--one
+tassel hanging over his eyes, and another down his back--with something
+like a flash of fire about his neck, was burying me ten thousand feet
+deep in a snow-drift, and pounding me down with a candle as big round as
+my waist. Then it seemed to me that I got out, somehow, and was trying
+to warm my hands by the red frock of that boy, Acolyte, who faded into
+nothing before my eyes, and left me sound asleep as if I had never been
+to early service in my life.
+
+
+
+
+XIX.
+
+CHRISTMAS MORNING.
+
+
+We had a good long sleep after early service, and were all up bright as
+larks the next morning, wishing each other a merry Christmas, and
+waiting for that child to come down and see what Santa Claus had brought
+her. By and by we heard her coming. Mr. Dempster looked at his wife and
+smiled, as much as to say, "Won't our presents surprise her!" Cousin E.
+E. went to the door and opened it, looking pleased, and so like her old
+self that I could have kissed her.
+
+At last Cecilia came in, sour as vinegar, with her hair half combed, and
+her sash trailing.
+
+"Why, this is what I saw last night," says she, crossly.
+
+"Look at the foot of the tree!" says E. E., eagerly.
+
+Cecilia looked, and saw the doll and the open trunk. Her lips drooped at
+the corners, her right shoulder lifted itself.
+
+"A doll for me! The idea!" says she.
+
+Cousin E. E. turned away, I think, to hide the tears that swelled to her
+eyes. Mr. Dempster saw it, and says he:
+
+"Cecilia, your mother spent a great deal of money for the doll--don't be
+ungrateful."
+
+"Just as if I wanted her to do it. Baby things!"
+
+"Well," says Cousin E. E., trying to brighten up her face, "there is
+your father's present."
+
+Cecilia untwisted the string of coral, and looked at it.
+
+"Coral is for babies! That is worse yet! I just wish there hadn't been
+any Christmas at all," says she, a-flinging the beads in a lovely pink
+heap on the floor. "There now--I'll just go up-stairs and stay there!"
+
+"Wait a minute, my darling," says E. E.; "mother has got something
+else."
+
+Cecilia turned back a step, but scorned to let her sullen face brighten,
+though her eyes grew eager when Cousin E. E. took a little paper box
+from one of the baskets, and opened it.
+
+"See here!"
+
+Cecilia edged up to her mother, saw the emerald ring, and snatched at
+it.
+
+"I bought it for Cousin Phoemie," says E. E., a-looking sort of
+pleadingly at me; "but as you are so disappointed, I'm sure she won't
+care."
+
+"Cousin Phoemie! The idea!" Cecilia muttered to herself, as she tried
+the ring, first on one finger, then on another. "Of course she don't
+want it--old as the hills!"
+
+I did not say one word while that creature carried off the first
+Christmas present I ever had in my life; but it seemed as if I should
+choke. Isn't it hard that a spoiled child like that should have the
+power to destroy the happiness of three grown people? But she did it.
+
+The Christmas dinner was enough to make your mouths water, from this
+distance--the noblest sort of a turkey, stuffed with oysters, and
+everything to match--but none of us had much appetite for it. You can
+judge what my feelings amounted to, when I have lived one whole month in
+a boarding-house and couldn't get up an appetite--no, not even for the
+whitest meat of the breast! Old as the hills, indeed!
+
+
+
+
+XX.
+
+ABOUT LIONS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Cousin E. E. had invited a lot of her friends to a
+stupendous dinner-party on Christmas Day, and she wanted me there for a
+lion, she said, though what on earth a great roaring lion had to do at a
+dinner-table I couldn't begin to think. The idea made me fidgety; but I
+didn't think it consistent with the dignity of our Society to ask
+questions, or let any one know that I didn't understand everything just
+as well as folks that have lived in York all their lives. Still I
+couldn't help trying to circumvent Cousin E. E. into telling me what I
+wanted to know in a way that some people might call femininely
+surreptitious.
+
+"A lion!" says I. "Are such animals invited to a city dinner as a
+general thing?"
+
+"Oh! not at all," says she; "the most difficult thing in the world to
+get hold of is a real, genuine lion; that is, one the whole world knows
+about, and wants to see."
+
+"Why," says I, "if folks are so anxious about it, why don't they go up
+to the Rink and see Mr. Barnum's great monster animal. It don't cost
+much; besides, there are camels and monkeys, and lots and lots of
+things, thrown in."
+
+Cousin Emily Elizabeth laughed till tears come into her eyes.
+
+"Oh! Cousin Phoemie," says she, "you are so delightfully satirical."
+
+"Do you think so?" says I, awfully puzzled.
+
+"Yes," says she, "I do; but to me the eccentricities of genius are
+always interesting. To be an attractive lion one must say bright things,
+no matter how hard they cut."
+
+"I wasn't aware," says I, "that lions were given to much talking."
+
+"Oh!" says she, "that depends. There is your talkative lion, your
+learned lion, your silent lion--"
+
+"That is the sort that I've always seen," says I; "now and then a growl,
+but nothing beyond that."
+
+Cousin E. E. began to laugh again, till she had to hold one hand to her
+side.
+
+"Oh! cousin, paws, paws," says she; "you just kill me with laughing."
+
+"Yes," says I, "I don't deny that lions have paws, but it was speech we
+were talking about, and that I do deny."
+
+Cousin E. E. just shrieked out laughing, though for the life of me I
+couldn't tell what it was all about.
+
+"Now, don't you understand me--honest now--don't you?" says she.
+
+"Why, of course I do; only nothing could be more ridiculous than the
+idea of a great, big, magnificent wild beast, with a swinging walk, and
+a tuft on the end of his tail, being showed off at a dinner-table. I for
+one shouldn't have a mite of appetite with such a creature prowling
+round."
+
+"My dear, dear cousin, I'm speaking of human lions."
+
+"Human lions! I always thought the creatures were awfully inhuman," says
+I; "nothing but a jackal can be worse."
+
+"I mean great people--celebrated for something--bravery, literature, the
+arts, sciences," says she.
+
+"Well, what of them?" says I.
+
+"In society we sometimes call them lions."
+
+"O--oh!" says I, drawing the word out to give myself time. "So you
+really thought I didn't understand. Why, of course. Dear me! cousin, how
+easy it is to cheat you!"
+
+"Oh!" says she, "one must get up early to match you women of genius, I'm
+aware of that. What dry humor you have, now, looking so innocent and
+earnest, too!"
+
+I smiled benignly upon Cousin E. E.; if she could find any humor in what
+we'd been a-talking about, it was more than I could. Lions! Where does
+the joke come in, when human beings are called such names as that? Wild
+beasts, indeed!
+
+"How really modest you are!" says Cousin E. E. "Anybody else, who could
+write as you do, would have known that she was meant when I mentioned
+lions."
+
+I dropped my eyes, and folded both hands.
+
+"It will be the great feature of our party," says she. "Our friends will
+know that you are a blood relation, and that pleases Dempster; besides,
+you converse so beautifully, too."
+
+"Do I?" says I, folding one hand over the other, and back again.
+
+"And look so--so distinguished."
+
+I drew my figure upright, and looked into the glass opposite. My cousin
+had chosen her words well; there was something imposing in the bend of
+that head. I say nothing; but she was right. Indeed, so far as I am
+concerned, she generally is.
+
+Early in the morning I sent down for my pink silk dress. Cousin E. E.
+looked as if she was going to say something against it, at first; but,
+after a little, her face cleared up, and I heard her muttering:
+
+"This is the third time. Nothing on earth but a woman of genius could
+stand that; but she has got enough to carry it off."
+
+I said nothing, but thought of that bill, and just made a calculation of
+how much it would cost a woman to rig herself out if she went to many
+parties, and only wore a dress that cost five hundred dollars once.
+
+Well, sisters, Christmas Day came, and we were up by daylight, for
+Cousin Emily Elizabeth is, as I have told you, a High Church woman and
+an Episcopalian. We haven't got any meeting-house of that denomination
+in our neighborhood, and I don't exactly know what high and low church
+means, without it is that one set hold to meeting-houses with a belfry,
+and the others stand up for a high steeple--a thing that I told Cousin
+E. E. we common people didn't aspire to; at which she laughed again, as
+if I had said something awfully witty.
+
+Well, in another report I have given you an account of this daybreak
+meeting in the High Church, but just now I am taken up with the
+Christmas dinner.
+
+Now don't calculate, because we eat dinner punctually at noon in
+Vermont, that people here do the same thing, because it is nothing of
+the sort. Poor working people do that in this city, and nobody else. The
+more genteel and the richer you are, the later you eat your meals. Most
+of the well-to-do merchants eat dinner at six. Men that have got above
+earning their own living dine later yet, and some have got so
+disgustingly genteel and rich, that I don't suppose they dine till next
+day.
+
+Cousin Dempster attends to business yet, so he settled down on eight
+o'clock for his dinner, and a splendid affair it was.
+
+When Cousin E. E. and I came rustling downstairs with a cataract of silk
+rolling after us, I just screamed right out. The sight of that table was
+so exhilarating, glass a-shining--silver dishes and things
+a-sparkling--flowers heaped up in flower-pots and twisted in wreaths
+around the glass globe overhead, which flashed, and sparkled, and
+glittered as if it had been frozen up with ten thousand icicles that
+flung back all the light without melting a drop. The silk curtains were
+all let down. The carpet looked like a flower-bed, and the whole room
+was a sight to behold.
+
+Cousin E. E. shut the glass doors that looked as if a sharp frost had
+crept over 'em, and we sat down on the round sofa in the front room,
+ready for company, with nothing but those two marble folks to hear what
+we said.
+
+But peace and quietness will never come to a house that has a fast child
+like Miss Dempster, as the creature calls herself, in it. We had hardly
+sat down and got our trains spread, when in she came, all in a fluff of
+white muslin, and a flutteration of red ribbons, with her hair a flowing
+down her back, crinkle, crinkle, and her--well--limbs just strained into
+silk stockings and kid boots laced down ever so far below her frock, and
+looking so impudent. Down she sat on the round sofa, and begun to swing
+her heels against the silk cushions.
+
+"Why, daughter," says Cousin E. E., "what is the meaning of this?"
+
+The child laughed and flung back her head.
+
+"It means," says she, "that I'm not to be cheated into staying upstairs
+when a Christmas dinner is on hand. I'm ready for it, and I wish the
+company would come."
+
+"But, my child, you are too young."
+
+"If I'm too young, where do you find your old folks?" says the saucy
+thing, shaking out her ribbons.
+
+"Cousin E. E., I would not permit it," says I, for I couldn't help
+speaking to save my life. "She isn't of an age to go into company."
+
+"Well, you are old enough, and a good deal to spare," says the impudent
+thing. "No mistake about that!"
+
+I drew up the train of my pink silk dress, and walked across the room in
+a way that spoke my indignation, without words. When I turned to go back
+that creature was right behind me, with her head up, measuring off the
+carpet, step by step, with me.
+
+Sisters, I confess it, the strangling of that child would have done me a
+world of good; my fingers quivered to begin. But she just burst out
+a-laughing, and, would you believe it? her mother laughed too, but
+turned red as fire when I caught her at it.
+
+Before anything more could be said, Cousin Dempster came in, and the
+door-bell kept up such a ringing, that we were in a flutteration till,
+one after another, the company came in; ladies and gentlemen dressed up
+as if it had been a ball they were invited to.
+
+
+
+
+XXI.
+
+DINING IN THE DARK.
+
+
+Sisters, I'm afraid you would be taken aback by such dresses as filled
+Cousin Dempster's parlors that night. Such necks, such arms, no sleeves
+to speak of, nothing but a skimpy band across the shoulders; heads
+loaded down with braids and puffs, and great, long curls, which fell on
+those bare necks and covered them up into a little decency. Then the
+figures--mercy, how the dresses stood out behind; every lady seemed to
+be humpbacked below the waist. It takes time to get used to genteel
+society, I can tell you, and any amount of blushing has to be gone
+through.
+
+Well, when we had all got together, Cousin Dempster came up to me and
+crooked his elbow. I put my hand on his arm. The glass doors opened as
+if of themselves, and into the dining-room we went. The other ladies and
+gentlemen all locked arms, and followed us in good order. Cousin
+Dempster whispered to me as I went in,
+
+"The dinner is _given_ to you, remember."
+
+I said yes, I would remember. I hadn't even thought of paying for it,
+but I suppose he wanted to set my mind at rest on that point, which was
+kind, but unnecessary, as we never charge for meals in Vermont, except
+at taverns.
+
+"They were all invited to meet you," says he, at which I just turned
+round and made a low curtsey to the whole lot of 'em, before I took my
+seat, which was at Cousin Dempster's right hand.
+
+On the other side was a proper, pretty girl, with a neck like
+water-lilies, and cheeks like ever-blooming roses. She was a girl that
+laughed very low, when she did laugh, and looked at gentlemen sideways
+from under her eyelashes. One of those girls that speak as if ice cream
+would not melt in their mouths. An awful handsome young fellow came with
+her.
+
+Well, we all stood up waiting for Cousin E. E. to sit down, which she
+did. Then the rest of us rustled into our places, and half a dozen
+waiters went circumventing round us with little oysters, shells and all,
+on plates, which they set down before each of us, with a teinty silver
+pitchfork to eat 'em with. Then they brought plates with a few spoonfuls
+of soup in them, which they cleared away the minute we laid down our
+spoons. After that, came plate after plate, and the waiters kept filling
+the glasses that stood before us--pink, green, yellow, and white--with
+cider that bubbled and sparkled, and made the blood come faster and
+warmer into my face every time I tasted it.
+
+At first there hadn't been much talking; but now the ladies grew
+chipper, as so many canary birds, and the men followed suit.
+
+Such soft, low laughing, and such sweet voices I never heard at one
+table in my life.
+
+But while we were all enjoying ourselves so much, the lights in the
+glass balloon above us began to flash up and down, as if a high wind was
+rushing over them. Then all at once they quivered--winked furiously, as
+if they were joking with us--and went out, leaving us all in stone
+darkness.
+
+Then the ladies shrieked faintly, or laughed; some of them jumped up, I
+among the rest, wondering if the Day of Judgment had come.
+
+Cousin Dempster called out for the waiters to go and see what ailed the
+gas, and all was rustle and bustle and confusion.
+
+Perhaps I moved from my seat and dropped into some other without knowing
+it. I can't be certain about that or anything else; but all at once I
+felt an arm around my waist, and while I was holding my breath, with
+astonishment, some one kissed me.
+
+I gave a little scream, and pushed away that impudent arm with all my
+might.
+
+The arm wore a coat-sleeve--I can take my oath to that--and if I was
+used to such things I should say that there was a beard about the lips
+that touched my face.
+
+Sisters, it seemed to me for a minute as if Cousin E. E. really had got
+a roaring lion in her dining-room.
+
+While I sat there breathless and wondering if he would have the
+impudence to repeat that audacious conduct, a soft hand took hold of
+mine, and a sweet voice whispered in my ear:
+
+"Forgive me, dearest, I did not mean to be rude."
+
+I did not speak, but his penitence touched me with compassion. Softly I
+pressed the hand, in token of a relenting heart. How could I be hard on
+a man who meant no real harm, considering the temptation.
+
+He whispered something more, but I could not hear distinctly; for just
+then a waiter came in with a candle in his hand. Says he, "The gas works
+are blown up, and all Murray Hill, and more too, is in total darkness."
+
+Then there was a burst of voices; everybody laughed and everybody had
+something to say, which no one listened to.
+
+"Bring candles," Cousin Dempster sung out.
+
+"But the candlesticks--we have not got one in the house," says his wife.
+
+Then everybody laughed, and Cousin Dempster laughed loudest of all.
+
+"Find something," says he, "for we must have light."
+
+The waiter, says he, "Yes, sir, we'll do our best," and out he went.
+
+By and by he comes back, and all the rest of the waiters with him. Every
+one had a stone beer bottle in each hand, from which a tall white candle
+rose like a steeple to a church. There was not a smile on their faces.
+
+City waiters are never expected to smile, but each man set his two
+bottles down on the table, and drew back.
+
+Dempster burst out laughing; the rest burst out too; some giggled, some
+choked, some pealed out the fun that was in them like wedding bells.
+
+Everybody laughed except me and an elegant young gentleman, with blue
+eyes and a soft beard, that sat next me. He stared in my face, and I
+would have stared in his, only I couldn't bring myself to look in his
+eyes.
+
+Oh, sisters, it was dreadful! I had got into that young girl's place and
+she was in mine, and a teinty bit of court-plaster that I had put on the
+corner of my mouth, where the skin had been a trifle rubbed, was
+sticking right on the plumpest part of his under lip.
+
+Oh, sisters! I thought that I should have died with shame.
+
+He looked from me to the young lady, and she looked at him. I looked
+first at one, then at the other, from under my drooping lashes.
+
+She smiled, she touched her lip with one finger; he touched his, the
+mite of court-plaster stuck on his finger. Then she began to laugh, and
+so did he; the chairs shook under them. They made no noise, and the
+redness of their faces was lost in the shadow cast by the beer-bottles
+to every one but me.
+
+Cousin Dempster was busy trying to crowd an extra candle into one of the
+wine-bottles that had just been emptied, while he sat before the chair I
+ought to have been sitting in.
+
+"We must have a little more elegance at this end of the table," says he.
+
+"Wax candles and champagne bottles for this lady."
+
+He stooped down, expecting me to answer him; when he saw _her_ face all
+glowing with blushes.
+
+"Ah!" says he, laughing, "we have got a little mixed here, Cousin Frost.
+It will never answer to come between man and wife in this fashion,
+especially when they have been only three weeks married. Supposing we
+change round again?"
+
+I arose--she arose--we exchanged glances, then exchanged seats.
+
+The lights from these beer bottles were numerous, but not brilliant.
+Under the shadows we concealed the emotions which disturbed us.
+
+He looked funnily penitent, whenever his eyes caught mine, which was
+often, for somehow I could not keep looking on my plate all the time.
+
+As for that young creature, she seemed to be brimming over with fun.
+
+After a little, I began to feel myself smiling. It really was droll, but
+not so _very_ unpleasant.
+
+
+
+
+XXII.
+
+NEW YEAR'S DAY.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--After all, this city of New York is a wonderful
+institution. Vermont has its specialties, such as maple-sugar, pine
+shingles, and education; but in such things as style, fashion, and
+general gentilities, I must say this great Empire City isn't to be
+sneezed at, even by a Green Mountainer. Of course we are ahead in
+religion, morality, decorum, and a kind of politics that consolidates
+all these things into great moral ideas--as rusticoats, greenings and
+Spitzenbergen apples are ground down into one barrel of such sweet cider
+as we used to steal through the bunghole with a straw. You will
+recollect the straws--a Down-east invention, which these degenerated
+Yorkers have stolen, and are now using unblushingly for mint-juleps,
+sherry-cobblers, and such awful drinks as New England has put her foot
+down against with a stamp that makes inebriating individuals shake in
+their boots. But New York won't put her foot down, and the encroachment
+upon our patent-right for straws is just winked at.
+
+Dear me, how one thing does lead a person's mind into another! I took up
+my pen to write about New Year's Day in New York, and here I am, back in
+that old cider-mill behind our orchard, with heaps of red and yellow
+apples piled up in the grass, and the old blind horse moving round and
+round in the mill-ring, dragging along that great wooden wheel, under
+which we could hear the soft-gushing squelch of the apples, while all
+the air smelt rich and fruity with them.
+
+Do you remember the luscious juice dropping from the press, and the full
+barrels lying about, with the sweetness beginning to yeast through the
+bungholes? Then it was we pounced down upon them with our straws, and it
+was these straws that brought New Year's Day in New York and the old
+cider-mill at home into my mind at once. Thus it is, my sisters, with us
+children of genius; thought is born of thought, feeling springs out of
+feeling, till creation and re-creation become spontaneosities.
+
+Some people have said of Phoemie Frost that she lacks philosophy and
+that transcendental essence which becomes the highest female type in New
+England. If any such caviler should reach our Society, have the moral
+courage to point out that last paragraph, and see if the wretches have
+forgotten to blush for themselves.
+
+Christmas Day isn't anything very particular outside of the Episcopal
+Church, in our parts. Somehow the Pilgrim Fathers took a notion against
+it when they cut away from the old country, and built square
+meeting-houses all over New England. But they set up the same thing
+under a new-fangled name. Thanksgiving was just the same to them, and
+showed their independence; so they roasted and baked and stewed, and
+made pumpkin-pies a specialty--because the cavaliers in England couldn't
+get pumkins to compete with them--and went into their meeting-houses to
+thank God that they had good crops, instead of going down on their
+knees--which they didn't, because of standing up to pray--in solemn
+gratitude that the blessed Lord was born upon earth.
+
+Sisters, as a New England female, it would be against nature to say that
+the Pilgrim Fathers wasn't right in sinking Christmas in Thanksgiving,
+and thanking God for full crops, because the corn and potatoes were
+things they all could understand and accept with universal thankfulness;
+but about the birth of Christ, and its merciful object, no two sects
+that I ever heard of could agree, much less the Old Church and the New
+Covenanters.
+
+There it is again; my pen is getting demoralized. Christmas has come and
+gone. What more have I got to say about it? Why, just nothing. Wise
+people accept the past and look forward.
+
+Cousin Dempster insisted upon it, that I should come up and spend New
+Year's Day with them. Cousin E. E. was going to receive calls, and
+wanted some distinguished friend to help her entertain.
+
+I went.
+
+Early in the morning the empty carriage came down to my boarding-house,
+with those two regimental chaps on the out seat.
+
+I was all ready, with my pink silk dress on, and my front hair all in
+one lovely friz; but I just let the carriage wait that the boarders and
+people, with their faces against the window opposite, might have a good
+chance to look at it. Then I walked down the stairs with queenly
+slowness; the long skirt of my dress came a-rustling after, with a rich
+sound that must have penetrated to the boarding-house parlor, for the
+door was just a trifle open as I went by, and three faces, I could swear
+to, were peeping out as if they had never seen a long-trailed, pink silk
+dress before. Then I heard a scuttling toward the window, and, while I
+stood on the upper step, gathering up the back cataract of my dress,
+those same faces flattened themselves plump against the glass.
+
+Of course I did not hurry myself on that account, but took an
+observation up and down the street while I tightened the buttons of my
+glove, though one of the regimental chaps was a-standing there and
+holding the door wide open.
+
+"Why shouldn't I give the poor things just this one glimpse of the
+fashionable life to which genius has lifted me," says I to myself.
+
+Influenced by this idea, I paused, perhaps, half a minute, with my foot
+on the iron step, and asked the regimental chap, with the air of a queen
+giving directions, if it was very cold? and if Mrs. Dempster was quite
+well, that morning?
+
+He bowed when he answered both these questions, with the greatest
+respect; which was satisfactory, as the people on both sides must have
+seen him do it.
+
+Then I stepped gracefully into the carriage and sat down, buried to my
+knees in billows of pink silk. Over that I drew the robe of white fur,
+and waved my hand, as much as to say: I am seated; you can close the
+door. Which he did.
+
+One thing is curious about the streets of New York on New Year's Day.
+Not a woman or girl is to be seen on the sidewalks.
+
+The garden of Eden, before Adam went into the spare-rib business,
+wouldn't have been more completely given up to the desolation of
+manhood, unrefined by sweet female influence.
+
+But every man that I saw, going up or down, looked bright and smiling,
+as if he expected to find an Eve of his own before the day was over, and
+I shouldn't wonder if a good many of them did.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII.
+
+THE NEW YEAR'S RECEPTION.
+
+
+Cousin E. E. Dempster was all ready, and standing as large as life in
+one end of her long parlor, when I went in. The first sight of that room
+made me start back and scream right out. I had left daylight outside,
+but found night there. The blinds were shut close to every window. Over
+them fell a snow-storm of white lace, and over that a cataract of silk
+that seemed to have been dyed in wine, its redness was so rich and
+wavy.
+
+The two great glass balloons were just running over with brightness that
+scattered itself everywhere--on the chairs, the cushions, the carpet,
+and a great round sofa which stood, like a giant cheese, in the middle
+of the room, all covered with silk, and with a tall flower-pot standing
+up from the centre, running over with flowers, and vines, and things.
+
+This queer sofa, that seemed to have burst out into blossom for the
+occasion, was a New Year's present, Cousin E. E. said, and quite a
+surprise. "Then there is another," says she, a-pointing towards a marble
+man, dressed in a grape leaf, that seemed to have been firing something
+at the stone girl, and was watching to see if it had hit. "Of course you
+have seen the Apollo before?"
+
+I looked at the stone fellow sideways, then dropped my eyes.
+
+"I--I don't know," says I; "maybe I should know him better if he had his
+clothes on."
+
+"Look again. You must have seen him," says she.
+
+"No," says I, a-turning my head away; "I--I'd rather not till he goes
+out and fixes himself up a little."
+
+Cousin E. E. laughed till her face was red. While she was tittering like
+a chirping bird, that little creature Cecilia came tripping into the
+room, with a blue silk dress, ruffled over with white lace, just
+reaching to her knees, her yellow hair a-rippling over that, clear down
+behind, and a wreath of pink roses on her head. She looked at me from
+top to toe, gave her head a toss, and went up to her mother with the air
+of an injured princess.
+
+"That old pink silk again! What did you let her wear it for? New Year's
+Day, too. The idea!"
+
+I heard every word of it, for the stuck-up thing didn't trouble herself
+to speak low. My face had been hot enough before, but it burned like
+fire now, and my bosom heaved till it stormed against my dress and
+almost burst it.
+
+"Hush!" said Cousin E. E., looking scared; "she will hear."
+
+"Well, let her. As if I cared! The idea!"
+
+I stepped forward, with my finger lifted, and my dress sweeping. It must
+have been an imposing sight, for E. E. raised both hands, imploringly,
+and says she, "Cecilia, come and see your father's present."
+
+"Oh, isn't it gorgeous?" sang out the child, clasping her hands, and
+turning her back square on me while she went up to the stone fellow.
+"Such a splendid mate for Venus!"
+
+"Yes, I should think so," says I sarcastically; "only Miss Venus does
+seem ashamed of herself; but the fellow is bold as brass."
+
+The girl's lip curled like an opening rose-bud; she gave a nipping
+laugh, and I just heard "old fogy" break through it so saucily that my
+blood riled.
+
+"Did you apply that to me?" says I, a-lifting my finger.
+
+"No, no, nothing of the kind," says Cousin E. E., catching her breath.
+"You quite misunderstand Cecilia. Dear me, that is a carriage; people
+are beginning to call. Cecilia, my love, do try and make yourself
+agreeable."
+
+"Just as much as to say that I could be anything else," says the
+aggravating creature, a-hitching up her shoulders.
+
+Sure enough, some one was coming, and no three canary birds in a cage
+ever fluttered into their places quicker than we did. Cousin E. E.
+seated herself in a great cosey chair, all cushions, spread out her
+dress on the floor, and leaned a little sideways as if she was sitting
+to Brady for a picture. I gave my pink silk a wide swoop, and let it
+settle down on the carpet in ridges; then I leaned my elbow on the silk
+cushions of the great round sofa, and drooped my head a little as if
+breathing the scent of so many flowers had made me a trifle faint. That
+child ran to the glass, shook out her lace ruffles, and stepped back
+again to admire--well, her limbs--just as if she had been a stone girl,
+and was in love with herself. I swan to man she made me sick and faint,
+if the flowers didn't.
+
+There was a noise in the hall-way, and I caught a peep at a handsome
+young fellow prinking himself in the great looking-glass set in the
+hat-stand. Then he came in, tripping along with his hand held out to
+Cousin E. E., who went forward with her train following after, took his
+lilac glove in her hand, smiled up in his face, and said how glad she
+was to see him.
+
+Before he could answer, that forward child came up and held out _her_
+hand. She, too, was delighted; wondered he hadn't been there lately.
+Indeed, she began to think he was never coming again.
+
+The young fellow did seem to be taken aback a minute, for the forward
+creature had just cut her mother out; but he soon began to talk and
+laugh with her as chipper as could be, and only stopped to give me a nip
+of a bow when Cousin E. E. introduced him.
+
+Well, my opinion is I gave him as good as he sent; but short measure at
+that; for I just lifted my head as if taking a sniff at the flowers, and
+that was all. If that young man thought I was brought up in the woods to
+be scared by owls, he found out his mistake. He was standing with his
+back towards me when I heard E. E. say, in one of those whispers that
+cut to the ear keener than a scream:
+
+"It is Miss Phoemie Frost, the celebrated writer."
+
+"What," says he, "Miss Frost, the person on whom the Grand Duke levelled
+his eye-glass at the opera three times, and who was prevented opening
+the ball with him by the machinations of the committee?"
+
+"The same," says Cousin E. E.
+
+Before she could put in another word, that young gentleman had wheeled
+round in his patent leather boots, and was making me a bow that went so
+near the floor that his lilac gloves fell below his knees. Then he rose
+slowly, like a jack-knife that opens hard, and stood there a-smiling in
+my face as if I had just treated him to a quart of maple molasses fresh
+from the kettle.
+
+"Miss Frost," says he, "I'm happy to make your acquaintance; your
+writings have been my delight--in fact, a household word in our
+family--for years."
+
+"Years?" says I.
+
+"That is, ever since you began to honor the world with the emanations of
+your genius," says he, with an open wave of both hands.
+
+I bowed. I half rose from that round sofa. I knew by the soft, quivering
+sensation that smiles were creeping to my lips, and giving them a lovely
+redness.
+
+"Sir," says I, "you are complimentary. I am but a young beginner in the
+paths of literature--a timid worker in the great harvest field of
+thought."
+
+He smiled; he moved the billowy folds of my dress with infinite
+reverence, and seated himself timidly beside me. Then he talked books to
+me--broken and fragmentary, but exquisite. He could understand why the
+Grand Duke was so anxious to get back to New York. That poetry of mine
+must have lifted him right off from his feet. What a lovely talent
+poetry was!
+
+I sat upright, but looked downward, hiding the pleasure in my eyes by my
+drooping lashes. Faithful, heart and soul, to one noble being, I refused
+to look into the admiring eyes of another. His insidious praises of my
+genius made no impression. The image of a man six feet two, with a
+sky-blue scarf across his princely bosom, stood at the portal of my
+heart, and the young gentleman with curled hair and that light-colored
+mustache sighed, and sighed in vain.
+
+That forward little creature, Cecilia, saved me from temptation. Up she
+came, with her frock and her hair all in a flutter.
+
+"You haven't seen our new statue," says she, a-pulling at his hand.
+
+The young gentleman arose from my side with a look that went to my
+heart. As he stood before that pre-Adamite stone man, I got one good,
+long look at his face. As true as I live, he had found out some of
+Cousin E. E.'s ways of making herself beautiful! for his eyes had
+shadows under them, and his cheeks were like roses. Now, sisters, did
+you ever? Only think of a Green Mountain fellow doing that!
+
+But now another lot of men came in, dressed up to kill. Some had yellow
+kid gloves on, some lilac, and some gray. Their patent-leather boots
+shone like looking-glasses, and some of 'em tipped along as if they were
+treading over eggs and didn't mean to break 'em. Cousin E. E. introduced
+them all, and I had to rise, and bow, and make long, sweeping curtsies
+till my back ached, and my poor mouth felt dry with trying to look
+unconscious when so many of 'em told me I was a household word in their
+families.
+
+When the first lot of 'em were going out, Cousin E. E. just put back the
+red curtains at one end of the room, and behind 'em was a table all set
+off with silver, and glass, and flowers, and great, tall dishes crowded
+full of fruit and mottoes, all standing under the hot sunshine of one of
+those glass balloons, a-glittering and a-flashing like a house afire.
+
+I couldn't help giving a little scream, it was all so rich and
+beautiful--with two colored waiters in white gloves, ready to help
+everybody.
+
+Cousin E. E. stood at one end of the table--for it was a stand-up
+meal--and asked her visitors to take birds, and oysters, and terrapin.
+What the dickens is terrapin? Have you any idea, sisters? I ate some,
+and it had a stewy sort of taste, as if it had been kind of burnt in
+cooking.
+
+Well, one took one thing, and one another. Then each fellow wiped his
+mustaches, and the waiters came round with cider bottles, loaded over
+and chained up with silver, and the cider hissed and bubbled and
+sparkled as they poured it out into the glasses, that started narrow at
+the bottom, but spread out into dishes at the top, giving a chance for
+little whirlpools to the cider--which _was_ cider, I can tell you; it
+had vim enough in it to make your eyes snap.
+
+When the glasses were full we all took them up. The gentlemen muttered
+"Compliments of the season," and we answered "Compliments of the season"
+Cecilia and all--who just had the impudence to stand on tip-toe, and
+knock her glass against that of the fellow with lilac gloves and curly
+hair. Then we all drank and sipped, and, as that party went off,
+another came in--stream after stream--till night. It was the same thing
+over and over again, till ten o'clock at night, when Mr. Dempster came
+home, looking awfully tired out; then we just gave up. Sisters, this has
+been the hardest and most confusing day that I have known in New York.
+It seems as if my joints never would get limber again. But then I had a
+real good time, though the cider did begin to get into my head towards
+night. It couldn't have been made out of Vermont apples, I feel
+certain--they haven't got so much dizziness in 'em.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV.
+
+MIGNON: A NIGHT AT THE GRAND OPERA.
+
+
+Sisters, we went to the opera--that is, dear sisters in the cause, the
+Grand Duke and I were there; both of us seated on red cushions, and so
+near that we could exchange glances through our eye-glasses, which draw
+a beloved object close to you. They are a great invention which has not
+yet reached that portion of the country where prayer-meetings take the
+place of operas.
+
+I felt in my bones that he would meet me there; and when Cousin Emily
+Elizabeth sent me word that she had got a loge--which means a little
+square pen in the gallery, cushioned off like a first-class pew--and
+wanted me to go with her to hear the great primer-donner, I just got
+that dress out again, and set the frizzing-pins to work, and did myself
+up so scrumptiously that I don't believe that a creature on Sprucehill
+would have known me. Don't say this is extravagant, and flying in the
+face of Providence. If He don't want silk dresses worn by the elect,
+what on earth does He make silk-worms and mulberry-leaves for? That is a
+question that we'll have debated over in the Society some day. Until
+then, oblige me by not saying, openly, that I'm a free-thinker, because
+I'm nothing of the sort. Not that my taste, since coming to the opera,
+has not got a notch above Greenbank or Old Hundred, in the way of music;
+I am free to own that it has.
+
+Well, Cousin Emily Elizabeth had sent word that I mustn't wear a bonnet,
+or think of such a thing; and she sent me down a fur mantle, made of
+white kitten-skins, I reckon, with little black tails dropping all over
+it--just the tips, which needn't have hurt the black kittens much, if it
+_was_ all day to the white ones. So, when I come down, holding up my
+long skirts with one hand, and folding this fur across my innocent
+bosom, she just screamed out from the carriage that I looked gorgeous
+enough to turn the great Grand Duke's head, which I felt to be true--for
+women are not given to praising each other for nothing, anyhow.
+
+The opera-house in New York would take in our biggest meeting-house, and
+leave room for a wide strip of carpeting all round it. It has got three
+galleries, and ever so many places, that look like pulpits and deacon's
+seats, all cushioned and curtained off beautifully.
+
+We went up to the first gallery, and got into Cousin Dempster's
+loge-pew, which was just big enough for four people. This was fortunate,
+for our skirts and fur mantles took up every mite of room that Cousin D.
+did not want; but he put up with it beautifully, and just scrouched down
+behind us, with his head rising above our shoulders, which would have
+been rather uncovered if it had not been for the fur, which tickled mine
+a little; but I bore it with fortitude. You who know me will understand
+that.
+
+The opera-house was crowded full; every pew was crammed, and the benches
+down below couldn't be seen, the people were so thick. The pew loges
+were running over with handsome girls, and old ladies that tried their
+best to look like girls, and couldn't, not having the country freshness
+that some people bring with them from the mountains.
+
+But the three pulpits on the second gallery were empty yet--all empty,
+and gorgeously red, waiting for _him_.
+
+At last, a great green curtain that hung just beyond this sacred place
+rolled up. The lights in a great glittering balloon, all hung with ropes
+of shiny glass beads which fell down from the centre of the roof, blazed
+up, and when I dropped my head from looking at it, all the other end of
+the room was crowded with a gang of the queerest-looking people--men,
+women, children, and dogs--that ever you did see. That was the opera,
+Cousin E. E. said; though how an opera could have a house and a cart in
+it, beat me.
+
+Well, sisters, I give up. Roll every singing-school in Vermont into one
+crowd, and they couldn't begin to burst out like that; men, women, and
+girls, just went in for a splendid time, and they had it. First, a pew
+full of fiddlers, drummers, tromboners, and bas-violers, let themselves
+out in a storm of music that made the ten millions of beads on the glass
+balloons tremble like hailstones. Then the whole gang lifted up their
+voices, and the music rolled out just as I reckon the water does at
+Niagara Falls. Such a general training of music was enough to wake the
+dead out of a New England grave, where they sleep sound, I guess, if
+they do anywhere.
+
+By and by they rose up, and began to wander about, making their funny
+little white dogs play, and some of the girls began to dance about. It
+was a travelling-show, you see, and some of the upper-crust people came
+out of the house I spoke of, and listened. One was a lady, dressed out
+to kill in a striped skirt, black velvet, and yellow silk; another
+yellow skirt bunched over that, and then a blue dress puffed above both,
+and her hair just splendid. I tell you she was a dasher!
+
+But the people were all busy unloading the cart; they took out bundles
+and baskets and things. Finally a girl, that had been lying asleep on
+the load, jumped down, with her shoulders hitched up, and looking cross
+as fire at everybody that came near her. She was barefooted and
+bareheaded, and had nothing but an under night-gown and petticoat on,
+which seemed to aggravate her, for she looked scowling enough at the
+handsome young lady, and would not double-shuffle worth a cent, though
+all the men and women were trying to make her.
+
+The moment she jumped off from the cart, the folks in the seats just ran
+crazy, and began clapping their hands and stamping their feet like a
+house afire; I never saw people act so in my life. It was enough to
+frighten the poor thing half to death. Instead of that, it seemed to
+tickle her mightily, for she came forward, with her bare feet, and made
+a little mincing bow, and almost laughed.
+
+Then the strangest thing happened. First one, and then another, of the
+show-people, instead of reasoning with the wilful creature, just went to
+waving their arms and singing at her. I declare it was enough to have
+made a minister laugh when she turned, and began to sing back at them,
+sometimes spiteful, and then, again, with tears melting through her
+voice. An old man in gray clothes, that looked crazy as a coot, sung at
+her, sort of hoarse, and mournfully. Then a young fellow, in a green
+coat and high boots, dropped into the affair, and he sung at her. Then
+the handsome lady in blue and yellow burst out and sang at her too,
+filling the whole opera-house with music. By watching and listening, I
+found out this much. This girl was an orphan, picked up by the band of
+players, that made her dance and sing for her keeping. The fellow with
+the green coat and boots felt sorry for her, and bought her up, short
+gown and all, from the tribe of players. Then she put on the dress of a
+pretty boy, and waited on the handsome woman in yellow, who was one of
+them actress-women, and dead in love with the young fellow in boots. He
+was awfully in love with the actress woman too, which just aggravated
+that girl-boy out of her seven senses, poor thing! When she happened to
+watch them together, you should have seen her fling down her cap, and
+kick it about. There was some human nature in that, but singing love out
+before folks beats me. I couldn't bring myself to anything of the
+kind--not if the Grand Duke were standing before me with his arms out,
+shouting Old Hundred.
+
+Goodness gracious! that girl-boy had taken up my thoughts, so that I
+didn't know when the Grand Duke came into his pulpit loge. But there he
+was, standing up, and looking right toward me, so pleasant.
+
+I threw back my fur mantle a trifle, and taking Cousin E. E.'s fan,
+waved it gracefully, hoping thus to cool off the blushes that bathed my
+cheeks with a rosiness that I feared might not harmonize with the tints
+already there.
+
+Still he looked my way earnestly, and with the fire of admiration in his
+blue eyes. A young thing sitting in the loge-pew behind me began to turn
+away her head and hide behind her fan, as if she had anything to do with
+it. The conceit of some people is astonishing!
+
+Cousin E. E.'s little spy-glass lay in her lap. I took it up; I held it
+to my eyes, and devoured him with one burning glance. His heart seemed
+leaping to mine through the glass. I knew it. I felt it. Indeed he won't
+be the first of his noble race that has lost heart and soul to a country
+girl.
+
+The Prince sat down, and when there was a lull in the music, clapped his
+hands with joy. Oh, my sisters! it is something to have given such
+supreme pleasure to the Grand Ducal soul.
+
+He looked at the play; I looked too. Souls in sympathy have but one
+thought. I pitied that poor girl-boy with all my heart--my own happiness
+made me compassionate. How she suffered when that woman with the yellow
+skirts and the young fellow in boots were singing love to each other!
+Once she got wild, and dressed herself in a pink silk, and--well, she
+made one of those toilets that Cousin E. E. understands so well. I was
+sorry to see her exposing one or two little things that should be a
+secret with the sex. But she did, and the yellow lady caught her at it,
+and sung awfully provoking things at her.
+
+Well, she just tore off the dress, scattered the lace trimmings about,
+put on her old duds, and ran away.
+
+Then the house got on fire: the whole swarm of people come out
+helter-skelter, singing to the flames that didn't mind the music more
+than if it had been buckets full of water. Firemen came running with
+ladders that nobody climbed, and pails of water, that the firemen
+carried round and round, in and out, like crazy creatures. I am sure I
+saw one fellow, with a white pail, pitch through the same window into
+the red-hot flames fifty times. The poor girl-boy, being desperate, just
+pitched in, determined to burn herself, while the woman in yellow and
+the man in boots looked on.
+
+This went right to the cruel man's heart; he jumped in after her,
+carried her away from the devouring flames, and fell in love with her
+like a man. Of course, being a decent kind of a fellow, he couldn't keep
+on singing out his love to both girls at once with enthusiasm, and began
+to neglect the yellow girl in a way that brought tears into her voice
+whenever she came pleading to him under the window--which she did, not
+having the pride of all the Frost family in her veins.
+
+Of course this did no good; men never come back to women that whine. The
+girl--for she had given up boys' clothes--had got him safe; he didn't
+care a chestnut-burr for all the other's singing, but took to the little
+vagabondess with all his heart and soul.
+
+Now something else happened. The old man in gray got his mind again and
+turned out to be Mignon's father (have I told you that was her name?).
+He was a rich old fellow, with a house furnished with gilt chairs, and
+everything sumptuous--so, of course, the fellow in boots stuck to her
+more than ever.
+
+I don't know what became of the woman in yellow, but as for this other
+girl, she came out first best in every respect; especially at the end,
+when ever so many flowers and baskets and things were just poured down
+upon her. For my part, I thought the yellow girl ought to have had full
+half of these things, for I liked her quite as well, if not better than
+the vagabondess.
+
+Well, the green curtain went down for good, and the whole congregation
+got up to go out.
+
+"How do you like Nilsson?" says Cousin E. E., as she was fastening her
+fur mantle.
+
+"Nilsson!" says I, "I haven't seen her yet."
+
+"Why, yes you have--she just came out."
+
+"What!--that girl-boy?"
+
+"Yes, Mignon."
+
+"You don't say so," says I. "Who then was the girl in yellow?"
+
+"Oh! she is Duval."
+
+"Well, I like her at any rate, poor thing; it was a shame to treat her
+so."
+
+That moment I felt that the great Grand Duke was gone. Not one more
+glance. It was hard!
+
+
+
+
+XXV.
+
+THE BLACK CROOK.
+
+
+Sisters:--Since my intimacy with Imperial Royalty, Cousin Emily
+Elizabeth Dempster has been as proud as a peacock of our relationship,
+and speaks about the Court of all the Russias as if she expected to have
+an ice-palace built on the Neva for her, every winter, for the rest of
+her life. This may be natural--I dare say it is; but I'm afraid that
+Russia--being an awful despotism--wouldn't stand too many of one's
+relations crowding into the Imperial corn-crib, that being a free-born
+institution peculiar to high moral ideas which my great Grand Duke did
+not stay in Boston long enough to imbibe.
+
+Still, being a relation and born under the star-spangled banner, why
+shouldn't she have her own little hopes? I ask myself this and resolve
+to do my best for her. Being a first cousin she has her rights.
+
+This morning E. E. sent down a little straw-colored letter with a
+picture on the envelop just where it seals, and asked me to go with her
+and Dempster to see "The Black Crook," which she wrote was a spectacle
+worth looking at. They had got seats at Niblo's to see it after ever so
+much trouble, and were sure that I would be delighted.
+
+Delighted! What about! I never hankered much for eye-glass or
+spectacles. I wish cousin E. E. would be a little more particular about
+her spelling--that sometimes makes goose-pimples creep all over me--but
+a spectacle, singular, spelt with an "a," gives one just a tantalizing
+sense of growing old, more provoking than saying the thing right out. I
+can't see any more sense in one spectacle than in half a pair of
+scissors, but maybe she can. At any rate I don't mean to go gadding down
+to Mr. Niblo's theatre just to see that.
+
+But the "Black Crook," I'm beat to know what that has to do with
+spectacles or eye-glasses. I have read what our minister calls pastoral
+poetry, and almost always find it divided off into hill-side lots, where
+some stuck-up young creature in the farming line, is tending sheep, with
+a long crook-necked stick in her hand, with which she
+
+    Just trains the little bleating lambs,
+      "With fleece as white as snow,"
+    And points out with her crooked stick
+      Just where they ought to go.
+
+Excuse poetry, but, like a pent-up spring, it will break forth; nor must
+you suspect me of plagiarism. Remark--the second line has honest
+quotation-marks, which is doing full justice to Mary who owned the
+particular lamb which has become immortal from its whiteness and
+exceptional training.
+
+But all this does not bring us any nearer to what this Black Crook
+means. I have been studying this matter over. Of course a crook is a
+crook. Put the neck of a winter squash on the end of a bean pole, and
+you have it.
+
+But the Black Crook. Black? Ah, why didn't I think of that before? From
+the name, I suppose it is some reconstruction instrument for hooking-up
+taxes and bonds, left behind here in New York by some run-away Southern
+governor.
+
+Well, now, I _should_ like to see that--anything left behind by one of
+those fellows must be a curiosity.
+
+Yes, I made up my mind to accept Cousin E. E. D.'s invitation. The
+theatre would be something new anyhow, and it is the duty of my mission
+to see all things and hold fast to that which is good.
+
+Well, just before dark, I got out that pink silk dress and the two long
+braids, and shut myself in with the looking-glass over my bureau, which
+is always reflecting, but says nothing, or one might be afraid to trust
+it on some occasions.
+
+I was almost ready, when Cousin Emily E. come in so suddenly that I
+hopped up from my chair, and gave a scary scream. The face in the glass
+turned all sorts of colors, and seemed to scream too, and looked
+half-frightened to death. Cousin E. E. laughed, and shut the door.
+Holding up both hands, says she:
+
+"What, in that dress! My dear cousin, it is to a theatre we are going."
+
+"Well, I reckon your letter told me that," says I, a-spreading out the
+skirt of my dress along the floor.
+
+"But we do not dress like that for a theatre," says she, a-looking down
+at her black silk dress, which was all fluttered over with narrow
+ruffles. "No trains, dear Cousin Frost, no lace--a plain walking-dress
+and bonnet--nothing more?"
+
+I looked at the shiny waves of pink silk lying around my feet, and at
+that face in the glass, and was just ready to burst out a-crying. It was
+too bad.
+
+"You thought this just the thing when we went to hear that Miss Nilsson
+sing," says I, looking mournfully at that face in the glass, which was
+almost crying.
+
+"Yes; but that was the opera--this only a theatre. You see the
+difference," says she.
+
+"No, I don't," says I.
+
+"Well, you will," says she. "It's the fashion. You, who write about
+fashionable life so beautifully, ought to know that."
+
+"Just as if I didn't," says I; and the fire flashed into my eyes while I
+took off my pink dress; and put on my alpaca, which has got a new
+overskirt trimmed with flutings.
+
+"There," says I, flinging the pink silk down on the bed, "will that
+suit?"
+
+"Beautifully," says she. "Now get your shawl and bonnet."
+
+Which I did.
+
+The carriage held four of us this time, for Cousin E. E. had brought
+that little girl of hers, who sat huddled up in the back seat. When her
+mother told her to change places, "The idea," says she, giving her head
+a fling, and eying me like an angry poodle-dog; then she flounced down
+in the front seat, so huffish and sulky, that her father said, in a
+milk-and-waterish way:
+
+"My darling, don't be naughty."
+
+And his wife told him not to interfere between her and her child. She
+knew how to bring up a young lady, and he mustn't attempt to break her
+spirit; at which the heap of sulks in the corner muttered that it wasn't
+in him to do it.
+
+There isn't so very much difference between the Opera House and Mr.
+Niblo's theatre; only, one is piled up sky-high with cushioned
+galleries; and the theatre is considerably out-of-doors, especially in
+the lower story. We sat right in front, for Cousin E. E. said that the
+"Crook" could be seen best from there. I said nothing, but waited. Some
+people love to ask questions, but I would rather find out things for
+myself--it's a saving to one's feelings in the long run.
+
+Well, the theatre was jammed full of people, mostly with shawls, and
+cloaks, and bonnets on. Cousin E. E. was right. What is genteel in one
+place is vulgar in another--that is fashion.
+
+That child insisted on trying all the seats, to see which she liked
+best; but we got settled at last, and just then up went the
+picture-curtain with a rush. I screamed right out, for the very first
+sight took away my breath. Oh! sisters, I wish you could have seen it.
+Such trees, such loads of flowers, such clusters and streams of light!
+Oh my! if Eve ever had a paradise like that, she was just the greatest
+goose that ever lived to be turned out of it for the sake of one little
+knotty apple. I've no patience with her!
+
+While I was looking at this beautiful world, another scream burst from
+my lips, for, all in a moment, it was alive with women, so lovely, so
+graceful, so full of life, that they almost took away one's breath. At
+first, they all came whirling in, as figures do in a dream; but, after a
+minute, I just felt like sinking through the floor. Why, sisters, they
+might just as well have been dressed in flowers! In short, dress a
+full-grown girl in a double poppy, with fringed edges, and you have an
+idea of what I couldn't look at. I felt my cheeks glow with fire; my
+fingers tingled with shame. It seemed to me that every man in the house
+was looking straight into my eyes, to see how I bore it. I lifted my
+eyes, and cast one frightened look around me, ready to jump up and run
+from the first face turned to mine. Then I just covered my face with my
+open fan.
+
+There wasn't a face turned my way. Every soul--men, women, and
+children--were looking at those girls, who whirled, and moved, and
+tangled themselves up in some sort of a wild, wicked dance, that must
+have been the work of Old Nick himself, for nothing less could have made
+me look on. My whole heart rose right up against those beautiful
+creatures, but somehow they seemed to hold me to my seat. Really,
+sisters, you have no idea how very enticing a woman can be who puffs a
+lot of gauze around her waist, throws a wreath of flowers over her
+shoulders, and dances like a whirlwind.
+
+At first, I just covered my face with my fan, for I could not bring
+myself up to a straightforward look. Then, somehow, my fingers would get
+apart, and I found myself peeping through the slats just as shamed as
+could be, but yet I could not help peeping.
+
+Mercy on me, what a whirl and rush of light! What a flashing of gold;
+what a crowd of women dressed in nothing, and a little gauze thrown
+in--it made my head whirl like a top.
+
+I can't tell you just when my hand dropped into my lap, but before I
+knew it my eyes were fixed on that great whirling picture, and my sense
+of shame was lost in a storm of music. All these glittering women were
+standing in rows, regular as the pickets on a door-yard fence, while one
+girl, with a wreath of green leaves and red berries on her head, was
+whirling on one toe round and round, till she seemed to be a dozen girls
+whizzing round in a cloud of white muslin.
+
+By and by all the crowd of girls joined in and began dodging about among
+the trees and flowers, like--well I must say it,--like runaway angels
+determined to have a good time of it. Then a man, covered to his knees
+with silver scales like a fish, came in, and he had a dance with the
+girl in leaves and red berries. Such a dance--they backed, they
+advanced, they snapped their fingers at each other, they flung up their
+heels, they locked arms backwards, then broke apart, and began the most
+lively double-shuffle at each other that ever I dreamed of. It fairly
+took away my breath to see them.
+
+"That is a splendid can-can," says that child, taking the little
+spy-glass from her mother's lap, and levelling it at the dancers. "Don't
+you think so, Miss Phoemie?"
+
+I gave her a look; it was all I could spare just then, for some new
+people had come into the picture. A great tall fellow, with body
+supporters like bean poles, had come in with a lovely creature, who was
+considered a queen among the girls. Just as I was looking, he seemed to
+stretch himself out like a piece of india-rubber, and lifting one foot,
+swung it over her head without touching a curl.
+
+So this was the "Black Crook," not that I saw anything like a crook, but
+the burning pictures more than made up for that, and the dancing was,
+well--stupendous.
+
+Every once in a while a curtain would fall and shut out the pictures.
+Every time it was drawn up something more splendid than anything that
+had gone before came out. One picture was all in a veil of fog, through
+which the men and women roved like beautiful ghosts. In another, some of
+the cunningest little dogs you ever saw danced, and begged, and acted a
+play for themselves, just like human creatures. At last came a great
+fiery picture, all gold and glare, and flowers planted in fire, with
+trees that seemed to be dropping golden fruit, in which all the crowd of
+beautiful girls were lying on banks and under trees, and perched like
+splendid birds up in the air. Then the curtain came down with a thud,
+smothering up the fire, and hiding everything. The storm of music broke
+off with a crash, and the crowd began to shout and yell, and stamp their
+feet till the whole building shook.
+
+Sisters, this is all I can tell you about the "Black Crook." It is
+splendid, and wonderfully enticing; but you might as well expect me to
+give you a clear idea of a burning city. It is just one picture of
+gorgeous confusion and confused gorgeousness.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI.
+
+LIVING APART.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--There has been great tumult and trouble in New York since
+I wrote my last report. Something that relates to the honor of Vermont
+has thrilled the public mind to a fearful extent. A smart, genial,
+warm-hearted, dashing person, by the name of Fisk--Mr. James Fisk--born
+and brought up in our State, has been shot in the largest tavern in the
+city, where he died, I greatly fear, without a realizing sense that he
+was so soon to be called before his Maker.
+
+Many of you, my sisters, can remember this man--a great, handsome,
+good-natured-looking fellow, with sunshiny eyes, and a mustache that
+curled up like a pair of horns on each side of a mouth that always
+seemed ready to laugh at something. There wasn't a man that ever came to
+Sprucehill that everybody was so sure to remember. His great wagon,
+painted off like a circus, with four horses a-drawing it through the
+village, with a splash-dash noise of whips and wheels and hoofs, was
+enough to make the money spring right out of one's pocket. Mercy on me!
+Didn't he make the dry-goods fly! Everybody bought something of him, and
+I must say that everybody liked him. In the peddling line he was a sort
+of P. T. Barnum, only he didn't know how to stick to his trade as Barnum
+has. He drove his four horses; he made money like everything; he outgrew
+Brattleborough, which was his native place, and soon got above peddling,
+his native business.
+
+The next step towards his exaltation and ruin was that he left Vermont,
+a man who will do that of his own accord is sure to run wild. Well, he
+left his native State, and set up at the Hub of the Universe, which
+every one knows is Boston, where he began his education as a financier
+and a millionaire.
+
+Boston is a great city. I should like to hear any one dare to deny that;
+but, then, people here say that, in the way of financing, the Hub knows
+how to save, and skimp, and deposit, and get twice her share of offices
+out of the President of the United States; but, outside of that, she is
+nowhere, compared to New York. She has no idea of turning a sharp stock
+corner, couldn't get up a Black Friday to save her life; in fact, is
+only good at an old-fashioned tea-party. This is what Cousin Dempster
+says about Boston, and he ought to know, being a first-class broker in
+Wall Street, and New England born.
+
+Well, of course, it wasn't long before Mr. Fisk outgrew the Hub, which
+hadn't room for all the spokes which he wanted to carry to his wheel,
+and off he comes to New York, gets into the Erie Railroad, and, goodness
+knows how he did it! but before people knew who he was, he went smashing
+and crashing up that road, prowled through Wall Street like a roaring
+lion, or bear, or some other such animals as gore and claw each other in
+that neighborhood.
+
+Well, after he had sent a good many brokers sky-high with his horns, and
+knocked others down with his paws, for he tackled in with both, he goes
+kiting off to sea by way of the Sound.
+
+While people were wondering what he would do next, he had gone to work
+and fitted up great palatial steamboats, and invited the President to
+travel in them, which the President did, not dreaming that he was
+expected to build up a cattle-pen or a bear-garden in exchange for a
+little hospitality.
+
+Well, it's hard satisfying a Vermonter when he once breaks loose from
+his native mountains. After gobbling up railroads and putting steamboats
+afloat, Mr. Fisk just swung back into Wall Street one day, and upset
+things generally in less time than any man ever did before. No shootist
+ever brought down more birds at a shot, than he left men in that street
+rich in the morning, and ruined at night. Cousin Dempster says it was
+awful.
+
+Mr. Fisk didn't care, but wheeled out of the street just as he used to
+drive his pedler's wagon, with hoofs a-rattling and whips a-cracking,
+riding over ruined men everywhere in his track.
+
+Besides all this, Mr. Fisk had a great, grand, overpowering Opera House,
+and carried on a theatre, in which women danced, like Black-crookers,
+and sang like--well, I can't tell what they did sing like, not having a
+comparison handy--but it was awfully interesting, Cousin Dempster said;
+and I believe him, for E. E. says he used to go to that Opera House
+alone so often, that she began to be afraid that he was getting into
+some business with Mr. Fisk that must be transacted in the evening--a
+thing she didn't like, the man being considered so overpoweringly
+fascinating.
+
+I don't know whether Mr. Fisk belonged to the Woman's Righters or not,
+but there was a good deal of talk about him, such as would have
+compelled any religious society in Vermont to get up an investigation
+and some extra prayer-meetings, which he wouldn't have liked, being
+mostly given contrary-wise. But the one thing he hadn't done was to join
+a church, and, you see, nobody in particular had a right to call him to
+account but his wife, and she didn't.
+
+Some people were mean enough to hint that his system of married life
+wasn't just the thing for a couple brought up in the purifying
+atmosphere of a Vermont village, and went so far as to turn up their
+noses because he lived about the Opera House and she in Boston, close to
+the very heart of the Hub, as if any woman could get further away from
+original sin than that.
+
+But these slanderers knew as well as could be, that Mr. Fisk had a free
+pass on the telegraph and steam communication with his wife every day.
+Besides, didn't the newspapers give his most private actions to an
+admiring public, every few hours, and couldn't she read how blameless
+and self-sacrificing his life was.
+
+Besides being a great financier and seafaring man, our Vermont pedler
+took up social life as a specialty, and distinguished himself among the
+high fashionables. The moral ideas that he had brought from Down East,
+were just as dashing as his Wall-street corners. He still kept the
+telegraph wires quivering with conjugal messages, and when he took
+domestic ease and the fresh salt air on the Jersey sea-coast, at Long
+Branch, in a high-swung carriage, with four seats, and stable help in
+trainer's clothes, wasn't his wife at another watering-place, called
+Newport, with a high-swinging carriage of her own, all cushioned off
+with silk, and with her gold-mounted harness rattling over six horses,
+just as black and shiny as his?
+
+If that isn't conjugal sympathy, such as goes down among the upper crust
+of New York, I don't know what is.
+
+Just the same number of horses, just the same swing in her carriage,
+just the same people--no, I am a little out there. She had relations in
+the seats, and he hadn't always.
+
+But then, what is all that compared to a great many fashionable,
+married folks in New York--so extravagantly fond of each other, that
+they make the Atlantic Ocean for a connecting link, year after year, and
+correspond tenderly in bills of exchange.
+
+Our poor, dead pedler from Vermont wasn't the only man in New York who
+lived and loved by steam and telegraph.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII.
+
+MORE ABOUT FISK.
+
+
+When the New England mind, which is a little apt to be troubled about
+the marriage relations of its emigrants, asks you about my report, you
+can say that this New England couple were only following the upper-crust
+fashion with married people in our great cities, where men and their
+wives find the Atlantic Ocean more convenient than a divorce court.
+Being imbued with morality from the Hub, they only set an example of
+easy distances.
+
+It takes a good, solid foundation of religion for even a born Vermonter
+to stand against a sudden rush of money. This man seemed to start fair.
+He began his life with _us_. Next he went to Boston, the very spring and
+fountain of high moral ideas, where every law has a higher law to
+nullify it. He left his better half in the salubrious atmosphere, where
+she performed her domestic duties alone, while he was toiling down Erie
+railroad stock, and promulgating sweet sounds from the Grand Opera
+House. Bound together in conjugal sympathy, by ever-vibrating telegraph
+wires, what could have been more satisfactory and highly fashionable
+than these hymeneal relations?
+
+This is what Cousin Dempster has been saying to me with a queer smile on
+his lips, and something that seems almost sarcastic in his voice.
+
+Says he, "If this way of life is persisted in, and is held respectable
+in social circles, who has a right to find fault when sin and sorrow
+spring out of it? Who among the thousands who abandon honorable homes
+for personal pleasures shall dare to condemn him?
+
+"Look over the list of outgoing steamers any month in the year, and see
+how large a proportion of husbands and wives travel together. Society,
+so slanderous in other things, is wickedly tolerant here, and makes a
+thousand excuses for the separation of married people.
+
+"Children must be educated. Just as if a free-born American boy or girl
+can't learn all he or she is capable of knowing in his own native land!
+Just as if any woman, who loves her husband and means to be a good
+mother, would listen for a moment to the idea of taking her family into
+foreign parts while her husband is tied down to business at home.
+
+"Married people, who love each other, live together--temptations are
+serpent-like, but they seldom creep upon a hearthstone kept warm by
+domestic affection.
+
+"Parents who are willing to live apart for the sake of their children,
+and call it a sacrifice to duty, may not know that they are hypocrites,
+but other people know it. Scandal thrives upon such things, and where
+scandal thrives domestic happiness perishes.
+
+"The marriage relations are the soul of our social life; relax them,
+take away one grain of their holiness, and you blast the blossom from
+which wholesome fruit can spring. When love and truth dies out of
+marriage, its vitality is gone. God forgive the men and the women who
+dare to hold the most beautiful tie that links soul to soul, as a wisp
+of flax, to be rent or burned at the will of our most evil passions.
+
+"Can any human being make laws for himself and trample under foot those
+which have been for ages laid down by society, without meeting, sooner
+or later, with rebuke, and perhaps, ruin? Evil passions arouse evil
+passions. The profligacy and power of gold is sometimes most dangerous
+in a generous nature. In the hot sunshine of overwhelming good fortune,
+fiery passions are sure to thrive and tend to a poisonous growth. War is
+the mother of licentiousness. How much that men should avoid, and women
+shudder at, has sprung out of the civil war, which ebbs and flows even
+yet on the borders of our land! In that war men learned to be daring in
+other things than brave deeds, and women learned to be shameless, and
+glory in free speech, free actions, and free laws of their own devising.
+
+"These thoughts are forced from me by the violent death of a man who had
+the brain and the heart to be an honor to our State, whose capacity and
+cordial good-nature might have gained him the love of better men than he
+ever knew in his brief and fiery career, and who had the brain to
+accomplish great things in the future."
+
+I listened with breathless attention to what Cousin Dempster said. He
+spoke with feeling. I didn't think there was so much in the man. He got
+up from his chair and began to walk the room.
+
+"I cannot dwell upon this man's wildly brilliant career," says he,
+"without a feeling of melancholy. Here existed the capacities of a great
+man, perfect health, wonderful energy, struggling aspirations toward the
+right--which he might hereafter have reached--generous impulses running
+wild, strong affections, and overweaning ambition, all turbulent
+ostentations almost barbaric, and all hurled into nothingness by the
+blow of one bitter enemy.
+
+"As he had lived, so they carried him to his grave, arrayed gorgeously
+in his coffin, lying in high state, not by the sacred altar of a church,
+but in the Grand Opera House, which had so long been the centre of his
+magnificence. Buried in flowers snow-white, as if gathered for the tomb
+of a vestal, glittering with gold, with clouds of perfume floating over
+him--in all the pomp of a monarch he was taken from New York, and
+carried for a last resting-place to Vermont.
+
+"I wish it had been otherwise. Living as he did, dying as he did, with
+the ruin of so many lives involved in his fate, that last journey should
+have been taken in simplicity and quietness. The lesson his death
+conveys is too solemn for display, too mournful for anything but
+stillness. The elements of a great man left Vermont only a few years
+ago; New York has sent back the ruins. Let them rest in peace."
+
+Sisters, I did not think it possible that Cousin Dempster could get so
+fearfully earnest; his conversation has filled me with thoughts too
+solemn for careless utterance. In this man's death I hear a cry for
+merciful consideration--a solemn warning--a protest against the headlong
+speed with which this generation is trampling respectability under foot.
+This man's death is a subject of gossip now, when it should be a subject
+of mournful regret.
+
+I do not speak here of the man who killed him, or the cause of his
+death. One is a subject that no lady would care to discuss. The other is
+in the hands of the law, which should be a sanctuary for the accused.
+The evidence has been heard thoroughly, and a jury has decided on it,
+merciful or not, its verdict is final.
+
+But for Cousin Dempster, I should not have made this death the subject
+of a report, but some things that he has said startled me. Is it true
+that the alienation and separation of married people has become so easy
+and so fashionable? Can a husband and wife live apart months, years, and
+still keep up a pretence or the reality of affection, and be honored as
+respectable? I, for one, have no patience with such things. To me,
+marriage is a beautiful institution.
+
+Do not smile, sisters; I am not thinking of the great Grand Duke now. In
+fact I am not thinking of myself at all. Cousin Dempster's earnestness
+has impressed me with apprehension and melancholy; he places this
+subject before me in a new light.
+
+The man who is dead was in the full vigor of his life. The poor wept for
+him; he was good to them, and they believed that he had a kind heart.
+Sometimes that heart went back to the prayers of his mother. Had time
+been given him, something tender and good might have found a noble
+growth in his nature. We do not yet know, and never shall know, what he
+might have been.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII.
+
+SHE WOULD GO.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I have had a glorious and a refreshing season. I have
+felt, in the depths of my soul, that the eyes, of all Vermont were on me
+in a reflective way. As the moon is sometimes permitted to shine before
+the sun goes down, I have added the light of my little feminine luminary
+to the flood of public homage that surrounds the greatest and best man
+that our State ever gave to the world.
+
+Saturday night, February third, was Horace Greeley's birthday. A
+gentleman up-town, who thinks the world of that smartest of good men,
+just made a house-warming on the occasion, and invited so many artists
+and poets, and editors and statesmen, and people that Providence had
+labelled as something particular, that it is a wonder the roof wasn't
+blown off with the yeasting of so much genius.
+
+Of course the beauty and talent of old Vermont, wherever it could be
+found, was hunted up, and invited with unusual enthusiasm. Where beauty
+and talent could be found united in one person--modesty forbids me to
+point out an instance--of course an especial compliment was paid. My
+invitation had a picture of the man, whose birthday we went to
+celebrate, in the middle of the writing--a real good likeness, that I
+mean to put in a locket and wear round my neck in honor of this
+self-made man and of my own native State, which may have double cause to
+glorify herself when the sixty-first birthday of another person just
+standing in front of the Temple of Fame, with her foot on the
+threshold, shall come round. I say nothing, but in the female line
+Vermont has laid up oceans of future glory for herself.
+
+Well, the day came. Once more I drew forth my pink silk dress, and
+ironed out the flounces; one of them got a little scorched, but I looped
+up the spot with a bow and a bunch of roses, and found the scorch an
+artistic improvement. I twisted my hair in corkscrews over night, and
+slept with my eyes wide open, contented as a kitten, though the pull was
+tremendous. I frizzed up the other woman's hair, for which I had paid
+ten dollars in the Sixth Avenue, and made ready for the occasion over
+night in a general way.
+
+Of course Cousin Dempster and his wife were invited, being _my_ cousins,
+and so saturated with the family genius, that people are constantly
+expecting it to break out, which it hasn't yet, except in a general way.
+But Cousin D. made lots of money in the war, and money is thought almost
+as much of as talent by some people. Still, between ourselves, I don't
+think they would have been invited if they hadn't come from Sprucehill;
+which is taking a literary position next to the Hub since our Society
+has begun to publish my humble reports.
+
+Well, just at nine o'clock, if you had been in front of my
+boarding-house you might have seen a splendid carriage standing at the
+door, and that coachman, in his fur collar and cuffs, sitting high up on
+the driver's seat, and scrouching his head down while a storm of sleet
+and snow beat over him.
+
+If you had looked toward the house, three or four eager and curious
+faces might have been seen flat against every front window as a certain
+dignified and queenly person came slowly down the steps, with a white
+opera-cloak folded over her magnificent person, and a pink silk long
+train bunched up under it, lining-side out.
+
+The moment that carriage-door shut with an aristocratic bang you might
+have seen those faces turn from the window and look at each other--then
+noses turned up at sympathizing noses, giving out audible sniffs of that
+envy which the wonderful endowments of some persons are apt to engender
+in the inferior female mind.
+
+But if you had looked into that carriage you would have seen it packed
+comfortably as a robin's nest in blossom time. There was my pink dress
+floating round me in rosy billows; there was Cousin E. E.'s corn-colored
+moire antique swelling like a balloon on her side; and there was Cousin
+Dempster rising like a black exclamation point up from one corner, and
+_that child_ drumming her blue kid-boots against the seat in another
+corner, and snarling because a gust of sleet came in with me before the
+fellow outside could shut the door.
+
+When I saw her, my blood riled in a minute.
+
+"Why, Cousin Dempster," says I, "children were not invited."
+
+"Children, indeed!" says the child, giving her head a fling: "I suppose
+Cousin Frost thinks that nothing but old maids can be young ladies--the
+idea!"
+
+"Daughter!" almost shrieked Cousin Emily E., a-catching her breath, and
+giving a frightened look over my way.
+
+"My child, how can you be so rude?" says Cousin Dempster, stamping down
+among the fur robes, and mashing my foot under the sole of his boot.
+
+I said nothing, but sat in dignified silence, wishing those two persons
+to feel that it was impossible the creature could mean me, but I
+trembled all over with righteous indignation, and wondered why that
+Bible benefactor, King Herod, had limited himself to boys, when he had
+such a glorious chance to sweep creatures like that out of existence in
+the female line. Oh! if I had been a Bible potentate!
+
+"She was so anxious to go, being born in Vermont," says Cousin Emily
+Elizabeth; "it seems as if she knew Mr. Greeley."
+
+"Reads the _Tribune_ every day," chimes in Cousin Dempster, giving me a
+pleading look.
+
+"I'll thank you to take the heel of your boot off my foot, if you have
+held it there long enough," says I, with the firmness of a martyr and
+the dignity of an empress.
+
+This wilted the whole party into silence, and we drove on, with the hail
+pelting against the windows, and lowering clouds inside.
+
+All at once we got into a long line of carriages, and moved on as if we
+were going to a funeral instead of a birthday. Then the carriage
+stopped, the door was flung open, and we stepped under a long tent that
+stretched from the front door down a flight of stone steps and across
+the sidewalk. A carpet ran down the steps to the carriage, and we walked
+up that into the house; then through a hall, and upstairs, where we took
+off our cloaks and titivated up a little in a room half full of ladies,
+and blocked up with cloaks and things. I let down Cousin E. E.'s dress,
+and she let down mine; then we shook each other out, took an observation
+of each other from head to foot, tightened the buttons of our gloves,
+and went into the hall.
+
+There stood Cousin Dempster, with his white gloves on, and a white
+cravat with lace edges around his neck, looking _so_ gentlemanly. We
+went downstairs Indian file, for a stream of people were going down on
+one side all crimlicued off most gorgeously; and another stream was
+going up, with cloaks and hoods on, so there was no locking arms till we
+got into the lower hall. Then we just tackled in. I took one arm, E. E.
+took the other, and _that creature_ followed after, looking like an
+infantile Black Crook in her short muslin skirts and bunched-up sash.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX.
+
+MR. GREELEY'S BIRTHDAY PARTY.
+
+
+The parlors were large and light, and crowded full. Just beyond the door
+I saw a man standing, with both hands at work, shaking out welcomes to
+his friends, as a chestnut bough rattles down nuts after a rousing
+frost.
+
+There he stood--the honored son of our dear old State--looking benign as
+Mr. Benjamin Franklin, and sweet-tempered as if he had fed on native
+maple-sugar all his life. I looked eagerly for his "old white coat," but
+he had on a bran-new black one; his hair, long and snow-white, fell down
+almost to his shoulders, that were rather broad than otherwise, which is
+needful considering the burdens that have been piled on them. I really
+think any stranger, going in there, would have known that this man owned
+a birthday by his face, it was so radiant with good-nature.
+
+By and by we hustled our way to the door. A man that stood there
+whispered something to Cousin Dempster, who whispered back. Then the man
+sung out--
+
+"Mr. and Mrs. Dempster--Miss Phoemie Frost!"
+
+Mercy on me, wasn't there a fluttering when that name rang through the
+crowd, as if blown by the trumpet of Fame. I felt myself blushing from
+head to foot, my heart rose into my mouth. I clung with feminine
+reliance on my cousin's arm, and, thus supported, prepared to endure the
+hundreds of admiring eyes bent upon me.
+
+Mr. Greeley came forward. The moment he heard that name he seized the
+two whitely gloved hands that I held out to him.
+
+"Miss Frost, of Vermont," says he.
+
+I pressed his hands. I could not speak. A little address, full of
+poetry, that I had been thinking over in my mind, melted into chaos. I
+could only murmur something about birthdays and long lives. Then some
+new people crowded me away, and I felt myself alone long enough to take
+a look at the rooms. They were gorgeous with pictures and flowers;
+radiant with gas, which fell like August sunshine through a thicket of
+vines, and flowers woven in among the burners in the chandelier, and
+dropping down half way to the floor.
+
+The marble slabs under the looking-glass at each end of the rooms were
+matted over with flowers, and from the top streamed down long feathery
+vines which ended in little bunches of red roses that swung loose before
+the glass, and left another vine there. Over the doors and windows these
+vines and flowers trailed themselves everywhere. Some beautiful pictures
+were on the walls. The centre one was of Greeley himself--just like
+him--bland and serene, smiling down upon the crowd as if he longed to
+shake hands over again.
+
+This picture was just crowned with a mat of white flowers, in which the
+year our Greeley was born, and the present year, were woven with bright
+red flowers. Down each side the feathery vines trailed and quivered. I
+tell you, sisters, it was beautiful.
+
+Before I could take in a full view, people had found out where I stood,
+and came crowding round me so close that I had to take in a reef of my
+pink silk dress, and they kept Cousin Dempster busy as a bee introducing
+them. So many people had read my writings, so many people had been dying
+to see me, it was enough to bring blushes to my cheeks and tears to my
+eyes. This, said I, is fame--and all Vermont shall hear of it, not for
+my sake, but in behalf of the Society.
+
+The rooms had been full of music all the time, but now the toot horns
+and fiddles stopped, and I heard the tones of a pianoforte from the
+further end of the room, then a voice struck in--loud, clear, ringing.
+We pressed forward, people made way for us, and we got into the ring.
+
+A young lady was standing by the pianoforte, singing "Auld Lang Syne."
+Greeley stood by her, holding her bouquet in his hand. How smiling, how
+satisfied he looked as the heart-stirring old song rang over him! Close
+by stood his only sister, Mrs. Cleveland, a fair and real handsome
+woman, dressed in blue silk, with a white lace shawl a-shimmering over
+it. She looked happy as a blue jay on an apple-tree bough, and made
+everybody welcome over again when Mr. Greeley had done it once--just as
+a kind, warm-hearted woman ought to stand by a brother she is proud of,
+and looks like.
+
+Near by were her two daughters, just the nicest girls you ever saw. One
+of 'em in a pink satin dress with lace over it, and the other in blue
+satin with lace--just lovely!
+
+When the lady who did "Auld Lang Syne" went away from the pianoforte,
+every lady in the room began to clap hands, they seemed to be so glad
+that Mr. Greeley had found time to have a birthday. Then Miss Cleveland,
+in the blue dress, sat down, looking sweet and modest as a white dove;
+and she sang, too, real sweet; and then the people began to clap hands
+again. It seemed as if music just set them off into tantrums of delight
+because our great white-headed Vermonter had ever been born.
+
+I joined in with a vim; for if there is anybody I like and am proud of,
+it is the man who was standing there smiling among his friends, with
+that great, lovely bunch of flowers in his hands, and a little one in
+the button-hole of his coat.
+
+The wife and two daughters of our statesman and friend were over in
+England, so that his family connections didn't spread as if he had been
+President of the United States. But then he had a great many honest
+friends, and that made up for it considerably. There stood Mr. and Mrs.
+A. J. Johnson, who had carpeted their stone steps, set up a tent over
+their hospitable door, and turned their parlors into a blooming garden,
+just to show the respect they had for him; and they did it beautifully,
+making his friends theirs. At any rate, I can answer for one; for any
+person who does honor to a Vermont man who has glorified his State, can
+count on the faithful friendship of Phoemie Frost during his natural
+life.
+
+At eleven o'clock, exactly, we all crowded around Mr. Greeley, and shook
+hands with him over again. Then we shook hands with Mrs. Johnson, who
+looked sweet, and was nice as nice could be; and with Mr. Johnson, and
+so on. After that, we all flocked out, with cloaks and hoods on, feeling
+that an evening like that was a refreshing season which will not be
+forgotten by some of us, so long as we live.
+
+One thing I forgot to mention--and I do it now, with tears in my eyes.
+In the front parlor, on a line with Mr. Greeley's picture, was one that
+made the heart ache in my bosom, and which will bring tears into your
+eyes, one and all, I know. It was the picture of Alice Cary. You have
+read her poetry; you know how good she was from that poetry; but I have
+learned some things about her here, that, as a Society, you should hear
+about. But I respect her memory so much that it must be in a report by
+itself. She was a great friend of Mr. Greeley's, and her shadow seemed
+to smile on him as it hung upon the wall.
+
+
+
+
+XXX.
+
+LEAP YEAR.
+
+
+Do you know that this is Leap Year? Do you begin to feel the glorious
+flood of liberty which it lets in upon the female women of this country?
+As a society and as individuals, let us press forward to the mark of the
+prize--I beg pardon.
+
+This is not exactly a religious subject, though it does relate to the
+hymeneal altar, at which we have never yet been permitted to worship--a
+lasting and burning shame, which I, for one, begin to feel more deeply
+every day of my life.
+
+True, my own prospects are brightening and glorifying, but circumstances
+have brought them, for the present, to a dead halt. But for the burst
+of golden sunshine let into my sad destiny by this opening Leap Year, I
+should be growing pale with suspense--for you know the great Grand Duke,
+though courteous and devotional, did not speak out in a perfectly
+satisfactory manner. I knew he meant it; for no robin's nest in laying
+time was ever so full of warm and brooding love as those blue eyes of
+his. But a cruel fate took him hence before the thrilling word was
+spoken, and left me trembling with doubt, pining in loneliness.
+
+I know the reason of this now; there is not a doubt that he has been
+anxious, like myself, but imperial royalty has its impediments. My
+Prince must bow to the exactions of a lofty station. I took up a paper
+the other day, and read something that made the heart leap in my bosom
+as a trout jumps after a fly. The Emperor has heard of the great Grand
+Duke's admiration. All Russia has heard of it and me. It is even
+reported that he has married a lovely and talented female, without
+waiting for the Emperor to say yes or no. The description answers, you
+will perceive. I felt myself blush, like a rose in the sunset, when I
+read it. "Lovely and talented." Sisters, there can be no doubt about it!
+
+I felt my cheeks burn and my heart broaden with a sense of coming
+exaltation. Why should the Emperor refuse? Are we not all queens in this
+country, and is not a woman of genius an empress among queens?
+
+I'm afraid the Emperor of all the Russias does not yet comprehend the
+great social system of our country, where the fact of being a woman has
+infinite nobility in itself--to which peculiar privileges are attached;
+for instance, the privilege of carrying pistols and shooting down men in
+hallways and street cars in a promiscuous fashion.
+
+As I have said--to be a woman in America is to be everything. That is
+why I think it unreasonable that Imperial nobility should be forbidden
+to match itself here. Once we had aristocracy of money, but since the
+war, when people became rich in no time by selling shoddy and things,
+that has levelled down like a sand heap. But one aristocracy is left
+now, and that is the aristocracy of mind. Genius is the nobility of the
+mind. Now as long as the Prince unites himself with that, what has any
+one, even his august father, to say against it?
+
+But there is no doubt I have given the Imperial heart some anxiety.
+_His_ manner was so impressive; his spy-glass was levelled at my
+countenance so often, that it is not to be wondered at if the violence
+of his passionate admiration did get about and fly on the wings of the
+wind to his Imperial home. There it was sure to make an excitement.
+American ladies have married lords and marquises in England, counts and
+princes in other countries, and make first-rate lordesses and
+marchionesses and princesses too. In fact, just as good as the born
+nobility, and better too; but up to this time it is left to a lovely
+woman of genius to exalt America into the region of imperial highness.
+Money--for your lords, etc., etc., etc., generally want that with
+American beauty and grace--money has done its utmost. Now genius comes
+in, and modesty crowns itself.
+
+I am satisfied that the great Grand Duke is only waiting, from a feeling
+of doubt and modesty. My heart compassionates him. Up to the first of
+January, I could do no more. Female propriety forbade it, but now--now
+all is changed. Modesty is disenthralled.
+
+It is Leap Year. St. Valentine's Day approaches. The windows of every
+book-store are a-blazing with valentines, burning with love, eloquent of
+the tender passions, pictorial and poetical.
+
+The Queen of England offered herself to Prince Albert. It must have been
+a touching scene. How modestly she suggested the flame that was kindled
+in her youthful heart, and still lies smouldering in the ashes of that
+good man's grave. I don't think she waited for Leap Year--but I will. No
+one shall say that Phoemie Frost has forgotten what is due to her sex.
+
+St. Valentine's Day emancipates the womanly heart. I have bought a
+valentine, white satin, surrounded by a frost work of silver lace,
+sprinkled with gold stars. On the satin is a little boy with wings,
+hiding behind a rose-bush, firing arrows through it from a bow which he
+lifts up roguishly. These arrows are aimed at an Imperial figure mounted
+on a wild horse, and running down a buffalo--a unique and beautifully
+suggestive idea. This was the poem which gushed with spontaneosity from
+my disenthralled mind:
+
+    Come back, come back, from the buffalo raid!
+      Here is fairer game for you;
+    At thy feet the lovingest heart is laid
+      That ever a Grand Duke knew.
+    A lady rich in womanly pride,
+      Whose soul clings unto thine,
+    Is ready to be an Imperial bride--
+      Kneel with thee at Hymen's shrine.
+    Come back, come back, or thy haughty sire
+      Will command, and all is lost;
+    But he cannot extinguish this holy fire
+      In the bosom of----
+
+Sisters, I ask you now, isn't this a gem? It isn't just the thing to put
+your name to a valentine, they tell me, but this is something deeper and
+more poetic than such things usually are. It means mischief, as Cousin
+Dempster says. It is a proposal, buried in roses and veiled in sweet and
+modest verse, such as a lady might almost send at any time with a few
+blushes. It will reach him out in that vast wilderness of dead grass,
+where he has been deluded off by Mr. Sheridan, and has risked his
+precious life in a terrific manner, shooting great, monstrous buffaloes,
+which are animals, they tell me, something like an overgrown ox, only
+the hair is longer, and they are kind of hunched-up about the upper end
+of the back, just as if the last city fashions among ladies had got to
+be the rage out there.
+
+Imagine my feelings, sisters, when I heard that the Grand Duke was off
+with that fellow and a squad of wild Indians, all in war-paint and
+tomahawks, hunting these terrific creatures. It almost made me feel like
+a widow. There he was, brought up so tenderly, eating broiled buffalo
+hump, and drinking champagne and things out in the open lots, as big as
+all out-doors, and sleeping in a tent. Think of it! With his own right
+hand he shot down twenty-five of these humpbacked monsters, and means to
+carry their skins home with him to Russia. I suppose Mr. Philip Sheridan
+will be for studying the military tactics of Russia from St. Petersburg
+to Siberia as soon as the great Grand Duke gets back, for he isn't the
+sort of fellow, folks tell me, to give up a chance like that. Governor
+Palmer, of Illinois, has, at any rate, given him leave of absence from
+the Chicago fires, and there isn't anything much to keep him from
+hunting in Siberia if he wants to.
+
+Well, I got my valentine all ready; directed it to the Grand Duke in a
+delicate, ladylike way, and took it with my own hands down to the
+post-office.
+
+"Be very careful of this," says I to a young man who stood at the
+post-office window, "and see that it goes straight to his Royal
+Highness; I want it to reach him the first thing in the morning on
+Valentine's Day."
+
+He looked at the address, and muttered to himself:
+
+"For His Royal Highness the Grand Duke of all the Russias: care of
+Philip Sheridan and a wild Indian whose name a refined lady could not
+bring herself to pronounce; Buffalo Plains, America."
+
+"My dear madame," says he, all at once, "this is no address at all; it
+would never reach the Grand Duke."
+
+I caught my breath.
+
+"Not reach him?" says I.
+
+"No," says he; "the Grand Duke has gone beyond the reach of the mails."
+
+"Goodness gracious!" says I; "but no matter about that, if he hasn't got
+out of the reach of the females."
+
+"But he has."
+
+My heart sank in my bosom like a soggy apple-dumpling.
+
+"What--all females?" says I. "Won't that reach him, anyway? it is
+important--very. Great destinies depend upon it."
+
+"I can put it in," says he; "but ten chances to one it will get into the
+dead-letter office."
+
+My heart grew heavier and heavier, but what could I do?
+
+"Put it in," says I; "live or die, it must go!"
+
+He took my valentine and pitched it off into a heap of letters, just as
+if it had been a dead leaf. It fairly made me faint to see it handled
+so; but the fellow turned his back on me, and I went away heart-sick.
+
+One comfort I had in all this--if my valentine could not reach him, that
+of no other female could; and my offer is sure to be first, though I
+shouldn't wonder if that girl who sent him her card tied round a canary
+bird's neck might try. She's forward enough, anyway.
+
+Then, there is another comfort--Valentine's Day don't cover the whole
+Leap Year, and there are other men than the great Grand Duke in the
+world. We females have a whole twelvemonths to try our luck in. Of
+course any of us would aim high the first months; but after that, the
+game will grow smaller and wilder, as a general thing, and our chances
+less.
+
+For my part, I mean to be up and doing. One disappointment isn't going
+to break my heart; I've had too many for that; but if human energy and
+human genius can avail anything against an adverse destiny, my signature
+will be changed before this year closes.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI.
+
+A MAN THAT WOULDN'T TAKE MONEY.
+
+
+Cousin Dempster is real good to me; no mistake about that. A day or two
+ago, he says to his wife, says he:
+
+"Supposing we take Cousin Phoemie down to an oyster lunch at Fulton
+Market. That is one of the lions of the city."
+
+I fairly hopped up from my chair when he said this, just as cool and
+easy as if he had been talking of rabbits lapping milk. What on earth
+had I to do with city lions, and such animals? Wild beasts like these
+are in no part of my mission, now are they?
+
+Cousin E. E. saw the scare in my eyes, and smiled.
+
+"I know it seems strange to people from outside," says she; "and it
+really is a dirty place; but somehow ladies and gentlemen have made it
+the rage."
+
+"Do the creatures rage fiercely?" says I.
+
+Cousin E. E. looked puzzled a minute, then she answered:
+
+"Oh," says she, "fashion takes queer twists sometimes; in this case it
+really is unaccountable. The people crowding into those wooden dens--and
+the eating done there is wonderful."
+
+"Eating!" says I, feeling my eyes grow big as saucers. "Eating! Do they
+feed before folks, then?"
+
+"Oh, yes; every lady goes; you never saw anything like it. Such
+Rockaways and other bivalves are to be found nowhere else."
+
+"Rockaways and bivalves!" thinks I to myself; "what kind of animals are
+they? Never heard of bivalves before in my whole life, but the other
+puts me in mind of old Grandma Frost's splint-bottomed rocking-chair. No
+need of saying rock-away to her, for she was always on the teater. But
+she's dead now, and the last time I ever saw her Boston rocker it was
+away back of the chimney, at the old homestead, scrouged in between the
+stones and the clapboards, with one rocker torn off and an arm broken. I
+couldn't help asking Cousin E. E. if she remembered that chair.
+
+"Oh, yes," says she; "somebody hustled it off into the garret the moment
+she'd done with it. I saw it there a year after the funeral, with the
+patchwork cushion of red and blue cloth moth-eaten and gray with dust."
+
+Now, my father owned the old homestead while he lived, and I took this
+as a slur on our branch of the Frost family. This riled me internally,
+but I couldn't contradict her, and felt myself blushing hotly, rather
+ashamed of the Frost family. But the truth is, as a race, we are none of
+us given to much antiquity. No female of our family was ever known to
+get over forty-nine in her own person, though many of them have lived to
+a wonderful old age. This was curious, but a fact. Such unaccountable
+things do sometimes run in families. But these are facts that I
+sometimes choke down--I did it now.
+
+"We were talking of something else, and got on to chairs," says I.
+
+"No uncommon thing," says Cousin Dempster, laughing.
+
+I laughed too, but that child turned up her sniffy nose, and, looking at
+her father, said:
+
+"The idea!" which wilted him down at once.
+
+"But these bivalves and Rockaways--what do they do with them?"
+
+"Why, eat them, of course."
+
+"Eat them? How?"
+
+"Raw."
+
+"Mercy on me! Raw?"
+
+"Well, Cousin E. E., it shan't be said that you are related to a coward.
+I'll go down to see these city lions; but when?"
+
+"Well, to-day," says Cousin Dempster. "Just come down to the office
+about noon, and I'll go with you."
+
+"Just so," says I, feeling a little shivery.
+
+"Would you like to go, darling?" says he speaking to his little girl, as
+if half afraid.
+
+"Me, papa, down to that horrid place all meat and butter, and fish and
+things? The idea!"
+
+I was so grateful to the stuck-up thing, that I'm afraid Cousin E. E.
+saw it in my eyes, for she sort of clouded over and said:
+
+"That, after all, she didn't think she cared to go, but that needn't
+keep Cousin Phoemie at home. Mr. Dempster would take her."
+
+"Well, just as you please," says he, a-taking his hat, "I'm at your
+service--singly or in groups. Good-morning."
+
+Well, in the afternoon, I asked Cousin E. E., in a kind of natural way,
+if she meant to go to that feed. But that child called out:
+
+"No, no, mamma, don't go; I won't be left alone."
+
+So Cousin E. E. said she had a bad headache, and thought she wouldn't
+go, but that needn't keep me.
+
+Now, sisters, I wasn't brought up in the woods to be scared by owls, as
+we say in our parts--and if that little upstart thought she would keep
+me at home by domineering over her mother, she soon found out her
+mistake, for in less than two minutes a young lady, of about my size,
+came downstairs, with her beehive bonnet on, a satchel in one hand and
+an umbrella in the other.
+
+"You will find the way easy enough," says Cousin E. E. "The cars take
+you close to the office, and you will get splendid oysters at the
+market."
+
+Oysters! the very word made my mouth water, for if there is a thing on
+earth that I deliciously adore, it is oysters--such as you get here in
+York.
+
+"Oysters!" says I, "why didn't you tell me that before?"
+
+"We did," says she; "of course we did!"
+
+I was too polite to contradict her; but I'll take my Bible oath that not
+one word about shell-fish of any kind had been mentioned that
+morning--nothing but a great city lion, Rockaways, bivalves, and animals
+like them. Still I said nothing, but went out encouraged by the idea
+that I was to have something to eat as well as the lion.
+
+It was afternoon, and the street-car wasn't overfull, so I took a seat
+in one corner and began to think over a piece of poetry that I have got
+into my mind, which shortened the way to Dempster's office wonderfully.
+In less than no time I seemed to get there, but he had just stepped out.
+One of the clerks said that he thought he had gone to the market for
+lunch.
+
+Oh, mercy! I felt as if my oysters were all out to sea again. I was too
+late.
+
+"Which is the way to the market?" says I.
+
+"I will show you," says he--which he did--walking by my side till I got
+in sight of a long, low, broad-spreading building that seemed all roof,
+and stone floors opening everywhere right into the street.
+
+"Now," says the young gentleman, "you won't help finding your way, for
+there is Mr. Dempster himself."
+
+He lifted his hat and bowed so politely that I felt impressed with a
+desire to reward him. Taking out my pocket-book, I handed him a ten-cent
+stamp, with a grateful and most benevolent smile on my countenance. I am
+sure of that from the glow I felt. He blushed--he seemed to choke--he
+stepped back and put on his hat with a jerk, but he didn't reach out his
+hand with the grateful spontaneosity I expected. His modesty touched me.
+
+"Take it," says I, "it is no more than you deserve."
+
+"Excuse me," says he; and his face was as red as a fireman's jacket.
+
+"Good-afternoon;" and as true as you live he went off without taking the
+money. I never saw anything like it.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII.
+
+A DEMOCRATIC LUNCH.
+
+
+As soon as I could recover from the surprise any New England woman would
+feel at a thing like this, I saw Cousin Dempster coming toward me.
+
+"Come, hurry up," says he. "You were so late, I thought perhaps you had
+misunderstood, and come directly here. This way; be careful where you
+step; Fulton market is not the neatest place on earth."
+
+I was careful, and lifting the skirt of my alpaca dress between my thumb
+and finger, gave a nipping jump, and cleared a gutter that ran between
+Cousin D. and myself. Then we walked into the market, with a whole crowd
+of other people, and trained along between baskets and square wooden
+pens heaped up with oranges, and things called bananas--gold-colored,
+and bunched-up like sausages, but awful good to eat. Potatoes, apples,
+books, peanuts, chestnuts, pies, cakes, and no end of things, were
+heaped on high benches on each side of us wherever we turned, till at
+last we passed through an encampment of empty meat-stands, and from that
+into a wooden lane with open rooms on one hand, and piles on piles of
+oysters on each side the door.
+
+Every one of these rooms had a great rousing fire burning and roaring
+before it, and a lot of men diving in amongst the oysters, with sharp
+knives in their hands.
+
+"Let us go in here," says Cousin Dempster, turning toward one of the
+rooms that looked cheerful and neat as a pin. The floor was sprinkled
+with white sand, and the tables had marble tops, white as tombstones,
+but more cheerful by half. As we went in, a man by the door called out,
+"Tuw stews!" Then again, "One roast--one raw on half-shell!"
+
+Another man began firing pots and pans at the heap of blazing coals
+before him the moment this fellow stopped for breath. All this made me
+so hungry that I really felt as if I couldn't wait; but I kind of
+started back when I saw ever so many gentlemen and ladies in the room,
+sitting by the tables and feeding deliciously. Some of the men had their
+hats on, which did not strike me as over-genteel. But, after this one
+halt, I entered with dignity, placed my satchel in a corner, and took an
+upright position on one of the wooden chairs. Cousin Dempster sat down,
+too. He took his hat off, which I felt as complimentary, and a touch of
+the aristocratic.
+
+"Now, what shall we have?" says he.
+
+"A stew," says I, with a feeling of thanksgiving in my mouth.
+
+Cousin D. said something in a low voice to the young man, who went to
+the door, and called out:
+
+"One roast! one stew--Saddlerock!"
+
+I started up and caught that young man by the arm, a-feeling as if I had
+got hold of a cannibal. Saddlerocks, indeed!
+
+"Young man," says I, "you have mistaken your party; we didn't ask for
+stewed grindstones--only oysters."
+
+He looked at me, at first, wild as a night-hawk, and seemed as if he
+wanted to run away.
+
+"Don't be scared," says I; "no harm is intended; it is an oyster stew
+that we want--nothing more. I'm not fond of hard meat. If you don't know
+how to cook them--which is natural, being a man--I can tell you. Now be
+particular--put in half milk, a considerable chunk of butter, not too
+much pepper, and just let them come to a boil--no more. I do hate
+oysters stewed to death. You understand?" says I, counting over the
+ingredients on my fingers--"now go and do your duty."
+
+"Yes'm," says he, and goes right to the door, and sings out: "One
+stew!--one roast!" so loud that it made me jump. Then he came back into
+the room, while I retired, with dignity, to my seat by the table.
+
+It seemed to me that Cousin Dempster didn't quite like what I had done,
+for his face was red as fire when I sat down again, and I heard him
+mutter something about the eccentricities of genius. Indeed, I'm afraid
+a profane word came with it, though I pretended not to hear.
+
+By and by, in came the waiter-man, with two plates of cabbage cut fine,
+and chucked a vinegar cruet down before me; then he clapped salt and
+pepper before Cousin D., with a plate of little crackers. Then he went
+away again, and came back with two plates full of great, pussy oysters,
+steaming hot, and so appetizing, that a hungry person might have made a
+luscious meal on the steam.
+
+Oh, Sisters! you never will know what good eating is till you've been
+down to the Fulton Market, and feasted on oysters there; you can't get
+'em first-rate in any other place. Try it, and you'll find 'em weak as
+weakness compared to these. Hot, plump, delicious! The very memory of
+them is enough to keep a reasonable person from being hungry a week.
+Talk of Delmonico's! I never was there; but if it beats this room in the
+Fulton Market in the way of shell-fish, I'll give up all my chances this
+Leap Year.
+
+Well, when we'd done eating, two pewter mugs were set on the table, and
+Cousin Dempster handed one to me. I've heard of these mugs as belonging
+to bar-rooms and over intimate with ale and beer--things that I wouldn't
+touch for anything on earth, maple-sap being my native drink--so I
+pushed the cup away, really ashamed of Cousin D.; but he pushed it back
+a-kind of laughing, and says he:
+
+"Just taste it."
+
+"Beer?" says I. "Never."
+
+Cousin D. lifted his mug to his lip, and drank as if it tasted good. I
+was awful thirsty, and this was tantalizing.
+
+"Try it," says he, fixing his bright eyes on me. "How do you know it is
+beer till you've tasted it?"
+
+"Just so," says I; "I didn't think of that?"
+
+I took up the mug, and sipped a cautious sip. Beer, indeed! That pewter
+cup was brimming over with champagne-cider, that flashed and sparkled up
+to my lips like kisses let loose. Then I bent my head to Cousin
+Dempster, and just nodded.
+
+Never think you have drank champagne-cider till you've taken it flashing
+from a pewter mug, after oysters, in Fulton Market; till then, Sisters,
+you will never know how thoroughly good-natured and full of fun a lone
+female can become. Some people might think champagne-cider like
+maple-sap with a sparkle in it, for the color is just the same; but it
+is considerably livelier, and a good deal more so, especially when one
+drinks it out of a pewter cup, and hasn't any way of measuring.
+
+Bold! I should think I was, after that. Bold as brass.
+
+"Come," says I, taking up my satchel, "I'm ready to see that city lion,
+the Rockaways, and the bivalves fed. They have no terrors for me now.
+I've got over that. Where is their dens, or cages, and how often do they
+feed?
+
+Cousin Dempster set down his pewter mug, and just stared at me with all
+his eyes.
+
+"What is it? What do you mean?" says he.
+
+"What! the lion, to be sure! Didn't you say that I would see one of the
+city lions when I came to Fulton Market?"
+
+That man must have been possessed. He leaned back in his chair, he
+stooped forward, his face turned red, and, oh! my how he did laugh!
+
+"What possesses you, Cousin D.," says I, riling up.
+
+"Oh, nothing," says he, wiping the tears from his eyes, and trying to
+stop laughing, though he couldn't; "only--only this isn't a menagerie,
+but a market. Did you really think there were wild beasts on exhibition?
+It was the market we meant."
+
+Then I remembered that E. E. had called me a lion once. Now it was the
+market, and there wasn't a sign of the wild beast in either case. There
+_he_ sat laughing till he cried, because I couldn't understand that
+ladies and markets were not wild animals. Says I to myself, "I'll make
+you laugh out of the other side of your mouth,"--so I turned to him as
+cool as a cucumber:
+
+"What on earth are you te-he-ing about? I only want to walk around the
+market and see what's going on. Isn't that what we came for?"
+
+Cousin D. stopped laughing, and began to look sheepish enough.
+
+"Is that it?" says he.
+
+"What else?" says I. "You didn't think I expected this great, big,
+low-roofed market to have paws and growl, did you," says I. "I would
+growl if the city were to set me down in the mud of this pestiferous
+place. So you thought I really meant it. Well, the easy way in which
+some men are taken in is astonishing. They never can understand
+metaphor," says I. "But the bivalves and Rockaways. What of them?" says
+I.
+
+"Swallowed them," says he. Sisters, the dizziness in my stomach was
+awful.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII.
+
+DEMPSTER PROPOSES A TRIP.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I have been in Washington. The great city of a great
+nation. I have seen the Capitol in all its splendid magnificence, its
+pictures, its marbled floor, its fruit tables, and its underground
+eating-rooms. I have seen the White House, and have had a bird's-eye
+view of the President of these United States.
+
+I will tell you how it happened. I was getting anxious and down in the
+mouth; my valentine had been given to the winds of heaven--no, _they_
+would have carried it safely through ten thousand herds of buffalo
+cattle--but it had been given to the mails, and they are _so_ uncertain,
+spell the word which way you will. Day after day I waited and watched,
+and sent down to the post-office to be sure there was no mistake in that
+department; but nothing came of it; no answer reached me. I became
+peaked and down-hearted, so much so, dear sisters, that Cousin Dempster
+got anxious about me, and one day asked me, in the kindest manner, if I
+would like to run on to Washington with him.
+
+"Run on to Washington," says I; "how far is it, cousin?"
+
+"Why," says he, "about two hundred and thirty miles, I should say."
+
+"Two hundred and thirty miles," says I, almost screaming. "Why, Cousin
+D., I couldn't do it to save my life."
+
+"Oh!" says he, "it isn't a very tedious ride."
+
+"Ride," says I. "Why, didn't you ask me just now to run on with you? How
+can I do both?"
+
+Cousin D. laughed, and began to rock up and down till he almost bent
+double; though what it was about I couldn't begin to tell.
+
+"Well," says he, "just get your trunk or carpet-bag packed, and I'll
+call for you in the morning. Emily Elizabeth can't leave home just now,
+and it will be a great pleasure to me if I can have you along."
+
+"If you'd just as lief," says I, "I'll speak to Cousin E. E. about it;
+under present circumstances, a young girl like me can't be too
+particular. I'm told that a good many married men have got a habit of
+travelling toward Washington in what seems like a single state, and it's
+wonderful how many of them have unprotected females put under their
+charge--sometimes, both ways. If E. E. has no objection, I'll be on hand
+bright and early."
+
+Dempster kept on laughing, and I went upstairs wondering what had set
+him off so, but when I asked Cousin E. E. if she had any objection to my
+travelling to Washington with her husband, she began to laugh too, as if
+it was the best sort of a joke that a York lady should be expected to
+care about her husband's travelling off with other feminine women.
+
+"Why," says she, a-wiping the fun and tears from her eyes with a lace
+handkerchief, "what do you think I care! We don't keep our husbands shut
+up in band-boxes here in the great metropolis."
+
+"No," says I to myself, "nor do you get much chance to shut 'em up at
+home, according to my thinking."
+
+"Besides," says she, with comicality in her eyes, looking at me from
+head to foot: "I should never think of being jealous of you, Cousin
+Phoemie."
+
+Here, that child looked up from a novel she was a-reading.
+
+"The idea," says she, which was exasperating; especially as Cousin E. E.
+kept laughing.
+
+"That is as much as to say you don't think I'm good-looking enough to be
+afraid of," says I, feeling as if a cold frost was creeping over my
+face. "Thank you."
+
+Cousin E. E. started up from her lounge, which is a cushioned bench
+rounded off at one end, and a high-backed easy-chair at the other; and
+says she:
+
+"I didn't mean that, cousin; there is no one for whom I have so much
+respect. It was on account of your high religious principle and
+beautiful morality that I was so willing to trust you with my husband."
+
+"With papa. The idea!" chimed in that child, giving her head a toss.
+"They'll think it's his mother."
+
+"My daughter!" shrieked E. E., holding up both her hands, and falling
+back into the scoop of her couch.
+
+"Oh, let her speak!" says I, feeling the goose pimples a-creeping up my
+arms. "I'm used to forward children. In our parts they slap them with a
+slipper, if nothing else is handy."
+
+"A slipper; the idea!" snapped that child.
+
+I didn't seem to mind her, but went on talking to her mother.
+
+"But here, in York, the most careful mothers wear button boots, and keep
+special help to put them on and off, so the poor little wretches have no
+check on their impudence."
+
+"Mamma," snapped the creature, "I won't stand this; I won't stay in the
+same room with that hateful old maid. I hope she will go to Washington
+and be smashed up in ten thousand railroads. That's the idea!"
+
+With this the spiteful thing walked out of the room with her head thrown
+back, and her nose in the air.
+
+"Let her go," says E. E., sinking back on her couch as red as fire. "The
+child has got her share of the old Frost temper. Now let us talk about
+Washington. Do you mean to go _incog._?"
+
+"Incog! Oh, no," says I, beginning to cool down. "We mean to go in the
+railroad cars."
+
+Another glow of fun came into Cousin E. E.'s eyes--she really is a
+good-natured creature; some people might have got mad about what I said
+to that child, but she didn't seem to care, for the laugh all came back
+to her eyes.
+
+"Of course," says she, "but do you mean to go in your own character?"
+
+"Why," says I, "don't people take their characters with them when they
+go to Washington?"
+
+"They sometimes leave them there," says she, laughing, "but this is what
+I mean; if I were you I'd take this trip quietly, and look about a
+little without letting people know how great a genius they had among
+them. By and by we will all go and take the city by storm."
+
+"Just so," says I, delighted with the plan, which has a touch of
+diplomacy in it--and I am anxious to study diplomacy under the
+circumstances, you know; "creep before you walk--that is what you mean."
+
+"Just pass as Miss Frost--nothing more--and make your own observations,"
+says E. E.
+
+"I will," says I. "It's a good idea. I don't think the people in
+Washington were over polite to my great Grand Duke, and I mean to pay
+them off, some day."
+
+"That's settled," says E. E. "Now you have no more than time to get
+ready."
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV.
+
+IN WASHINGTON.
+
+
+I hurried back to my boarding-house, packed up that pink silk dress and
+things, put on my alpaca dress, tied a thick brown veil over my beehive,
+and packed my satchel till it rounded out like an apple dumpling.
+
+We started that night. Cousin D. wanted me to go into a long car where
+people slept, he said; but I saw a good many men with carpet-bags going
+in there, which looked strange, and though I have great faith in the
+integrity of Cousin Dempster, a young lady in my peculiar circumstances
+cannot be too particular; I declined to go into that curtained, long
+car, and sat up in a high-backed chair all night, wide awake as a
+whip-poor-will, for Cousin Dempster was on the next seat sleeping like a
+mole, and his head more than once came down so close to my shoulder
+that it made me shudder for fear that people might not know that he was
+my cousin's husband, and snap up my character before I got to
+Washington.
+
+Well, at last we got out of that train, I stood with both feet in the
+heart of the nation, and a great, flat, straggling heart it is.
+
+"There it is--there is the Capitol," says Cousin Dempster. "Look how
+beautifully the sunshine bathes the dome and the white marble walls."
+
+I looked upward--there, rising up over a lot of tall trees and long,
+green embankments, rose a great building, white as snow, and large as
+all out-doors. The sun was just up, and had set all its windows on fire,
+and a great, stout woman perched on the top of a thing they call the
+dome--which is like a mammoth wash-bowl turned wrong side up--looked as
+if she was tired out with carrying so much on her head, and longed to
+jump down and have a good time with the other bronze-colored girls that
+show themselves off, just like white folks inside the building.
+
+Well, later that day, I went right up to that heap of marble, which in
+its length and breadth and depth filled my soul with pride and patriotic
+glory. I really don't believe there is another building like it on the
+face of the earth. Freedom, honesty, and greatness _ought_ to preside
+there.
+
+Why, sisters, there are whole rooms here of clouded marble, ceiling,
+floor, walls--everything polished like the agate stone in your brooch,
+and I do think that the hottest sun can hardly force a beam of warmth
+through.
+
+Down in the great wandering cellars you come upon staircases of
+beautiful marble, fenced in with railings of iron and gold and brass all
+melted together and called bronze, up which deer, as big as young lambs,
+are jumping, and branches of trees are twisted. There are ever so many
+of these staircases, and they cost one hundred thousand dollars apiece.
+Think of that! and mostly where it is so dark that you can't but just
+see them.
+
+"I hadn't only one day and night to look about in, so I went up there
+before Congress got to work, as I wanted to see things without having
+people know that I was there. But by and by a lot of men came swarming
+in, and I felt like making myself scarce.
+
+I went back to the hotel and got a little sleep.
+
+It was dinner time, and near candle-light when I woke up; and when we
+got through dinner, Cousin D. told me to hurry up, and we would take a
+look at the White House.
+
+"Shall I get out my pink silk?" says I. "Does the President expect me?"
+
+"Oh, no," says he; "no one is aware that we are here. We will drive to
+the White House, see all that is to be seen, and start home bright and
+early to-morrow morning."
+
+"Then the alpaca will do," says I.
+
+"Of course," says he; "anything."
+
+I wasn't sorry. This travelling all night is apt to take the ambition
+out of the most energetic character. The difference between pink silk
+and alpaca was nothing to me now.
+
+Well, in an hour after, the carriage we rode in stopped under a great
+square roof, set on marble pillars, which spreads out from the steps of
+the White House to keep people sheltered from the storm and sun when
+they get out of the carriages. It was dark now, and two great
+street-lamps were in brilliant combustion each side of the steps.
+
+Between us, sisters, that White House that we hear so much about is no
+great shakes of a building. Compared to the Capitol, it is just nowhere.
+
+Cousin D. rang the knob, which was silver, and a man opened the door.
+
+"We should like to see the House," says Cousin D.
+
+"Certainly," says the man. "Walk in."
+
+We did walk into a large room, with a few chairs and two or three
+pictures in it; nothing particular, I can tell you.
+
+"This way," says the man.
+
+We went that way, into a great room, long and wide as a meeting-house,
+choke full of long windows, and with three awful large glass balloons,
+blazing with lights, a-hanging from the roof.
+
+The carpet was thick and soft as a sandy shore, and had its colors all
+trampled in together, as if some one had stamped down the leaves of a
+maple camp into the grass as they fell last year.
+
+"The chairs and sofas and looking-glasses were bought when General
+Washington was President," says the man.
+
+"Mercy on me! you don't say so," says I. "They look rather skimpy for
+these times, don't they?" says I; but then his way of buying things and
+spending money was a little skimpy compared to the way Presidents spend
+money now; but, of course, we grow more deserving as we grow older.
+"Now, those red silk curtains that almost hide the lace ones, did they
+belong to Washington?"
+
+"Them? Oh, no; we change them every four years."
+
+"Then they go out with the President," says I.
+
+"We don't think that he will go out yet awhile," says the man, looking a
+little wrathy.
+
+"Well, I hope he won't, for great men are scarce in these times," says
+I, wanting to mollify him. He said nothing, and I followed him through a
+door into a smaller room, so full of green that it seemed like stepping
+out of a blazing sun into a fern hollow. The walls were green; the
+carpet was green as meadow grass; the sofas and chairs were cushioned
+with green satin. The glass balloon seemed to have a sea-green tinge in
+it, though it was blazing like a bonfire.
+
+Not a soul was in the room, and we went on to the next which was long,
+rounded off at the ends like a lemon, and blue as the sky. Down the tall
+windows came curtains of blue silk, sweeping over white lace. The chairs
+seemed framed in solid gold; their cushions were blue silk.
+
+"This is the celebrated blue room," says the man.
+
+"I've heard about it," says I.
+
+"And this," says he, "is the red room. The President has given a
+dinner-party to General Sickles this evening, and they are now at the
+table. Would you like to look in?"
+
+Before I could answer, we were standing in the red room, and looking
+through at a table crowded round with gentlemen and ladies, dressed like
+queens and princes, some of them looking handsome as angels.
+
+"That is General Sickles," says he, "a-sitting by Mr. Grant."
+
+I looked in, but could only see a face, not over young, turned towards a
+lady who was listening to him, as if every word he dropped was a ripe
+cherry. She had a good, honest face, and I liked her.
+
+"That is Mrs. Sickles, sitting by the President," says the man.
+
+"What, that girl! you don't say so. Why, he might be her father."
+
+It was the truth--a young, black-eyed thing, rather pretty and childish,
+sat there by General Grant--I knew it was Grant by his features--talking
+to him as if he had been her brother. Her dress was high up in the neck,
+but most of the ladies there wore them so low that I felt like turning
+my eyes away; but Cousin D. says that low-necked dresses always rage as
+a chronic epidemic in Washington, so I mustn't be surprised.
+
+"That is General Sheridan," says the man.
+
+"That little cast-iron image, General Sheridan!" says I, a-starting
+back. "The fellow that cured a whole tribe of Indian women of small-pox
+with bayonets and bullets! I don't want to see anything more! Just let
+us go away, cousin; I haven't been vaccinated, and he might break out
+again."
+
+"Hush! hush! he isn't dangerous," says Cousin D.
+
+"Dangerous!" says I, "just ask the Governor of Illinois. Wasn't it
+General Sheridan who dragged off the Grand Duke among the Indians and
+buffaloes? I tell you again I won't stay another minute in the house
+with that man!"
+
+Sisters, I kept my word. We departed at once.
+
+
+
+
+XXXV.
+
+GETTING INFORMATION.
+
+
+My dear sisters:--I made what people here call a flying visit to
+Washington, which means, I suppose, that the railroad cars go about as
+swift as a bird flies, which they do, if one is allowed to choose the
+bird--a white bantam, for instance, with clipped wings. Well, I really
+don't know much about the speed, only I was awful tired when we got out
+of the cars at Jersey City, and we had the lonesomest drive home just
+before daylight that two tired mortals ever undertook. The whole city
+was still as a graveyard, and put one in mind of those cities over the
+sea, dug out of the ashes in which they have been buried hundreds on
+hundreds of years.
+
+To me, sisters, nothing is more dreary than a great city shut up and
+full of sleeping people. Only think of it! half a million of human
+beings all lying in darkness, unconscious of both happiness or misery,
+just as if sleeping in their tombs, only that the first glow of sunshine
+brings them to life again. Did you ever think of it?
+
+Now, in the country the stillness is not so mournful--there is a sense
+of out-door freedom there. The leaves stir with life on the trees. The
+brooks murmur and gurgle and laugh by night as they do by day. The birds
+flutter now and then, and the winds whistle and whisper, filling the
+night with a stir of life. But here--here in a great city, a ghost-like
+policeman, or a poor straggling wretch who has no home but the street,
+is all that you see. Indeed, coming home before daybreak isn't a thing I
+hanker to do over again.
+
+Well, after pulling at the bell-knob till I'm afraid Cousin Dempster
+swore internally, we got into the house, and had a good long sleep
+before breakfast.
+
+"I'm so glad you've come," says Cousin E. E., "for the Liederkranz comes
+off to-night, and I was afraid we should lose it. Of course you'll go,
+Cousin Frost?"
+
+"Well," says I, "perhaps I can tell better when I know what the thing
+is. It's a crabbled sort of a word, that might belong to an aligator or
+kangaroo; and I don't care overmuch for wild-beast shows, any way."
+Cousin E. E. laughed.
+
+"Well," says she, "in some sense you are right. There will be a show of
+wild animals such as never roamed in field or forest, but none of them
+are dangerous; at any rate, in that form."
+
+"Are they in a circus, and is there a clown with a chalky face and red
+patches?" says I.
+
+"The circus!" says she, a-holding up both hands. "Why, it is to be in
+the Academy of Music, and the first people in the city are going."
+
+"To see them feed?" says I.
+
+"Well, that may be a part of it, but the principal thing is the parade."
+
+"But where do they feed the animals--not in the boxes with red velvet
+cushions, I calculate?"
+
+"Oh, how funny you are! Of course not; the supper is set out in Nilsson
+Hall, and is served _a la carte_."
+
+"What!" says I; "do they bring in fodder by the cartload for the
+creatures? Now, really, Cousin E. E., there is nothing astonishing about
+that to a person born and bred in the country. You and I have ridden on
+a load of hay, piled up so high that we had to bend down our heads to
+keep from bumping them against the top of the barn door, when the hay
+went in to be put on the mow; so we need not see the same thing meached
+over here in York."
+
+"Dear me!" said my cousin; "you are just the brightest and stupidest
+woman----"
+
+"Young lady, if you please," says I.
+
+"Well, young lady--that I ever set eyes on--can't you comprehend that it
+is a ball we are speaking of?"
+
+"A ball?" says I; "then what did you call it a Liederkranz for?"
+
+"The Liederkranz ball. It's a German word."
+
+"But I don't speak Dutch. How should I, not being an old settler of York
+Island," says I.
+
+"Well, never mind that. The Liederkranz is a masked ball."
+
+"A masked ball! Now what do you mean? I've heard of masked batteries,
+but they went out with the war."
+
+"There it is again; you won't take time to understand," says Cousin E.
+E., a-lifting both her hands in the air. "This is a ball where people go
+in character."
+
+I arose at once, burning with indignation.
+
+"Cousin E. E.," says I, "do you mean to insult me? What have you seen in
+my conduct to lead you into supposing that I would go to any ball that
+was out of character?"
+
+"Do sit down," says she.
+
+"Not in this house," says I. "It isn't my own dignity alone that I have
+got to maintain, but the whole Society of Infinite Progress is
+represented in my humble person."
+
+"But you are mistaken. Was ever anything so absurd! Do speak to her, Mr.
+Dempster. You know how far it is from my mind to give offence to Cousin
+Phoemie."
+
+Cousin Dempster, who had been rubbing his hands and enjoying himself
+mightily, now smoothed down his face, and spoke.
+
+"A masked ball, Cousin Phoemie, is an entertainment, you understand."
+
+"Just so," says I.
+
+"In which each person takes some character not his own."
+
+"All slanderers, are they?" says I.
+
+"No, no; they assume a character."
+
+"Oh!" says I, a-drawing out a long breath; "make believe have one?"
+
+"They dress the character, and act it."
+
+"Well?" says I, completely beat out.
+
+"Some dress themselves up as beasts and birds."
+
+"What?"
+
+"And some as tame animals."
+
+"You don't say so!"
+
+"The ladies put masks on their faces."
+
+"Masks! now what are they?"
+
+"Pieces of silk, or gold and silver cloth, with holes for the eyes, and
+a fringe over the mouth. Then over the dress they put on a great
+circular cloak, with a hood to it, and loose sleeves that hide the
+shape, so that a man don't know his own wife."
+
+"Oh, it's a hide-and-seek ball; but ain't some of the ladies in danger
+of losing themselves," says I.
+
+Cousin Dempster laughed, and his wife turned red as fire.
+
+"People who lose themselves at the Liederkranz, generally get found out
+in the end," says he.
+
+"But I must hurry down town. Will you go? Everybody will be there. It is
+the place to meet a prince in disguise."
+
+As Dempster uttered these words, my heart gave a great, wild bound, and
+my breath stopped. What if _he_ were to be at the ball in disguise,
+seeking a safe and private interview.
+
+"Yes, yes, I will go," says I, "but I don't know either! The mask and
+cloak!"
+
+"Never mind about them," says E. E.; "I have a couple ready, feeling
+sure that you would go."
+
+"Then it is settled," says Dempster, snatching up his hat. "I will be on
+hand. So good-morning!"
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI.
+
+THE LIEDERKRANZ BALL.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--That night about ten o'clock, three of the
+funniest-looking people you ever set eyes on might have been seen
+creeping--like black, and pink, and yellow ghosts--down Cousin
+Dempster's front steps.
+
+I had on a long yellow cloak, trimmed with black velvet, that just swept
+down to my feet and covered them up. Then over my face was a black
+velvet mask, with gold fringe, that swept down to my bosom like an old
+man's beard, and over that my hood was pulled so close that not a lock
+of my hair could be seen.
+
+Cousin E. E. wore a pink cloak, trimmed with white swan's-down, and her
+mask shone like silver.
+
+Dear sisters, you wouldn't have known me from the Queen of Sheba.
+
+Dempster was black all over--mask, cloak, and boots. It seemed as if
+half a dozen funerals had been rolled into one, and hung on him.
+
+Well, we crowded into the carriage and drove off. It seemed as if we
+never should get untangled from the drove of carriages that swarmed
+around the Academy of Music, and when we got in, and found ourselves
+struggling with the crowd, we almost wished ourselves back again.
+
+I looked around everywhere, as I went, for that tall and princely form;
+but the crowd was so thick, and the dresses so queer, that it seemed
+next to impossible to find out anything or know anybody. The lights from
+the great glass balloons poured down rainbows on the crowd, that moved
+and chatted and laughed till the noise was confusing as the dresses.
+
+"Step back, step back!" says Cousin Dempster, all at once, "the
+procession is coming."
+
+We did step back, and tried our best to see the procession; but the
+floor was pretty much on a level, and, though I stood on tiptoe, all
+that I could see was, now and then, the head of an eagle, or a bear, or
+a giraffe, rising above the crowd, while the music rang out in thunders
+of sweet sounds, and the people swarmed in and out of the little square
+pews in the galleries, like bees hiving on a hot summer day.
+
+Of course, I knew well enough that all this moving circus was
+make-believe, and that every wild animal had a man in him, just as every
+man has the shadow of some animal in his nature. But I couldn't help
+stepping back and shuddering a little, when a great big lumbering
+elephant rolled by, with his trunk curled up in the air, and almost trod
+on me.
+
+"Oh, mercy!" says I, with a little scream. "He's enough to frighten one
+out of a year's growth!"
+
+"Don't be terrified," says a voice behind me, and I felt an arm
+a-stealing around my waist; "I am here to protect you."
+
+I looked up. My heart stopped beating. The stranger was tall, majestic,
+and the eyes that shone through his mask were blue as robin's eggs. He
+had on a black cloak, and the mask covered his whole face; but how could
+I mistake the princely bend of that head, the breadth of those majestic
+shoulders.
+
+He drew me back from the crowd. I forgot Cousin Dempster, E. E., and
+everything else, in the ecstasy of that sweet surprise.
+
+"You have forgotten the roses," he whispered, with a look of loving
+reproach.
+
+I felt for the bouquet Cousin Dempster had given me--it was gone.
+
+"I must have dropped them as I got out of the carriage," says I. "But
+when did you come?" I added, in a whisper, tremulous with bliss.
+
+"Oh, I came an hour ago, and in the usual way," was his sweet answer;
+"but, not seeing the flowers, I doubted."
+
+"Ah! how I prayed that you would grow weary of that miserable buffalo
+hunt, and return!" says I.
+
+He seemed just a little puzzled, but at last broke out:
+
+"Oh, it's all a grotesque farce. Why should wise men turn themselves
+into wild animals, if it is only in sport? I never enjoy such parties
+for themselves."
+
+"I am glad to hear you say that," says I; "and more glad that you have
+left off hunting with Phil Sheridan; he might have led you into some
+Indian camp filled with Modocs, who would have shot you for sport."
+
+"Sheridan," says he. "Oh, he doesn't stay in one place long enough to do
+much harm."
+
+"Exactly," says I; "but he works quickly. Still, you are here, safe and
+sound; why should we waste time over him?"
+
+"True enough," says he; "so take my arm, and let us promenade."
+
+I took his arm, and clasping both hands over it after a fashion I have
+seen prevalent among young girls when they walk out with their lovers by
+moonlight, moved proudly through that throng--very proudly--for I knew
+that long cloak covered imperial greatness that would have astonished
+that assembly, had they known as much as I fondly suspected.
+
+"Tell me," says I, in a soft whisper, "did you receive a valentine?"
+
+"Did I receive a valentine?" says he. "Why do you ask?"
+
+"Ah!" says I, "do not question me."
+
+"But I must. Tell me something about it."
+
+"It was original. It was poetry," says I.
+
+"Poetry--and yours! How can you doubt its effect?"
+
+"I do not doubt. Are you not by my side?" I whispered.
+
+He drew my hand under his loose sleeve, and pressed it tenderly--so
+tenderly, that I did not know when the handkerchief it held escaped from
+my grasp to his; but, directly after, I saw him thrust something white
+into his bosom. It was my very best handkerchief, embroidered with my
+name; but I said nothing--how could I?
+
+We walked on. The crowd swarmed and hummed like bees in a clover-field.
+Now and then a great gray eagle flapped by, or a bear prowled along;
+but, after all, it was a clumsy make-believe, and didn't scare anybody
+much.
+
+By and by a lady came along dressed just like me--yellow and black all
+over. She stared at me, and I stared at her--just my height--just my
+air--modest, but queenly. There was a trifling difference--she wore a
+bunch of red roses on her bosom.
+
+After staring at me awhile, she drew softly round to the other side, and
+it seemed as if she was saying something to _him_. I can't tell you what
+happened next; for just then four great big gilt candlesticks walked
+into the middle of the room, and began to dance, in a way that fairly
+took me off my feet. It really was too funny. The style in which they
+hopped up and down, crossed over, and stalked about, was enough to make
+a priest laugh.
+
+"Isn't it awful queer!" says I, a-turning to the man who had come so far
+to tell me of his love.
+
+He was gone. I stood there alone in the crowd, my limbs shook, my heart
+sunk like lead. How had I lost him?
+
+Wild with a sense of widowhood, I wandered to and fro over that
+ball-room. Many people spoke to me; some gentlemen in disguise wanted to
+walk with me; but I evaded them all. Some I answered; to some I gave
+nothing but sighs. At last I felt tears stealing down under my mask, my
+strength gave way, I sat down on a cushioned bench in a fit of
+despondency. The cup of bliss had sparkled at my lips, and been dashed
+aside.
+
+What did I care for the men and women who were whirling, talking, and
+dancing around me!
+
+"Cousin, are you almost ready to go home?"
+
+It was Cousin Dempster who spoke; he had been searching for me high and
+low, and was shocked to find me sitting there alone. I said nothing,
+but, like that Spartan boy, gathered the yellow waves of my cloak over
+the vulture that knawed at my poor heart, and followed my cousin out of
+the crowd--still looking eagerly for that one noble figure, but looking
+in vain.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVII.
+
+HOW DID THE PAPERS KNOW?
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Would you believe it? Cousin Dempster had hardly got down
+to his business after the ball, when a telegram--I think that is the
+name of the thing that he said came flying over the wires--called him to
+Washington again. Cousin E. E. made up her mind to go with him this
+time, and nothing would satisfy her but that I must join in and cut a
+dash with them. After the strange way in which that majestic man in the
+black cloak had gone off with the yellowhammer of a female, I had felt
+so down in the mouth that nothing seemed to pacify me. If it really was
+the great Grand Duke, his conduct was just abominable. I wouldn't have
+believed it of him; taking off a lady's handkerchief in his bosom, and
+that the best one she had in the world, and not bringing it back again.
+Such conduct may be imperial, but it isn't polite, that I must say,
+though it wrings my heart to find fault with him. If he had brought it
+back the next day, of course it would have been different; but he
+didn't, and there I sat and sat, waiting like patience on a--on a stone
+wall, smiling, but wanting to cry all the time.
+
+"It'll do you good, and cheer you up," says Cousin E. E.
+
+"Maybe it will," says I, drawing a heavy breath, "but I don't seem to
+expect much. February is gone, and no answer to--"
+
+I bit my tongue, and cut off what it was going to say about that
+valentine, for that was a secret breathed only to you, as a Society, in
+the strictest confidence.
+
+"This time," says Cousin E. E., "there shall be no secrecy. The whole
+world shall know that the rising genius of the age is with us. The day
+we start, all the morning papers will announce that Mr. and Mrs.
+Dempster, of ----, have gone to Washington, accompanied by that
+celebrated authoress, Miss Phoemie Frost, who cannot fail to meet
+with every attention from the statesmen and high fashion of the
+Capital."
+
+"But how are the papers going to know?" says I.
+
+E. E. laughed.
+
+"Oh, Dempster will manage that; he's hand-and-glove with ever so many
+city editors," says she.
+
+"Oh!" says I.
+
+"There are some things that even genius itself don't know how to
+manage," says E. E., nodding her head, and smiling slyly; "but they can
+be done. As soon as we get to Washington, all the papers there will
+catch fire from New York, and the Senate will get up another committee,
+and vote you a seat in the diplomatic gallery by ballot. We'll break
+right into the Japanese furore, and carry off the palm," says she,
+kindling up like a heap of pine shavings when a match touches it.
+
+I began to feel the proud Frosty blood melting in my bosom.
+
+"The woman who writes is more than equal to the man who votes," says
+she.
+
+"There is no comparison," says I. "Women are women and men are
+men--nobody thinks of comparing rose-bushes and oak-trees--one makes
+timber and the other perfume; we shelter the roses, and let the oaks
+battle for themselves. So it ought to be with men and women--"
+
+Cousin E. E. cut me short.
+
+"That is beautifully expressed," says she, "but save it for one of your
+reports or literary conversations; my head is full of Washington."
+
+"And my heart is full of sadness," says I, beginning to droop again.
+
+"Nonsense, you will be happy as a bird when we once get a-going," says
+she.
+
+Cousin E. E. isn't a woman of great depth, but she knows a thing or two
+about fashionable life.
+
+The York papers _did_ announce to the world that a distinguished party
+had gone on to the seat of government, and, singular enough, it was done
+exactly in E. E.'s own words--a circumstance that rather puzzled me.
+What was more--the very day we got to Washington all the papers there
+did the same thing, which set us at the top of the heap at once.
+
+I hadn't the least idea of interfering with the Japanese that came to us
+from California, and in that way seem to be turning the world the other
+side about from what it used to be; but when genius takes the bit
+between its teeth, it's apt to scatter things right and left. I suppose
+it was the newspapers did it, but I hadn't been a day at the hotel when
+a letter come to us from the President's mansion, which invited us to
+come to the White House and see the Japanese presentation--in full
+dress.
+
+I declare I felt myself blushing all over when I read that. Did any one
+suppose that we were a-coming to meet those outside potentates half
+dressed? Some of them, perhaps, unmarried men.
+
+"The idea!" as that child would say. I showed the card to Cousin E. E.,
+who seemed to think it all right, so I said nothing, though the whole
+thing had riled me so it seemed as if I never should stop blushing.
+
+"What does it mean," says I.
+
+"We must go, Dick or Lottie," says she.
+
+"Go--how?" says I. "Haven't they got horses and carriages in this great
+city, that we must go in an outlandish thing like that?"
+
+Here E. E. broke into one of her aggravating titters; but when I gave
+her a look she choked off, and says she:
+
+"It means low necks and short sleeves."
+
+"Low necks and short sleeves! Why didn't they say so, then? What has any
+Dick or Lottie got to do with it? But it's no use; I won't wear anything
+of the kind. Those who want to have a shoulder-strap for a sleeve, and
+their dresses too short at one end and too long at the other, can; I
+won't--there!"
+
+"Oh! you are privileged; genius always is," says E. E.
+
+"That is, genius is privileged to be decent in Washington. Well, I'm
+glad of that," says I. "Some young ladies may like to go about with
+bare arms and shoulders--let them. I won't!"
+
+
+
+
+XXXVIII.
+
+RECEPTION OF THE JAPANESE.
+
+
+Well, sisters, that afternoon the distinguished party mentioned in the
+papers got out of a carriage, under that square roof in front of the
+White House steps, and walked with slow, stately steps into the
+ante-room that I told you of. One of them--a tall, imperial-looking
+person--was robed in a flowing pink silk, just a little open at the
+throat, where it was finished off with white lace with a snow-flake
+figure on it. A long curl fell down this lady's left shoulder, and there
+was a good deal of frizzing about the lofty forehead, and any amount of
+puffs back of that.
+
+The other lady--who naturally kept a little in the background--wore
+white satin, cut to order about the neck and shoulders, and a lot of
+white stones on her bosom and in her hair, that shone like fire in a
+dark night.
+
+The man at the door seemed to know us, for he said; "If it's Miss P.
+Frost and her friends, walk this way."
+
+We did walk that way, and drew up in that lemon-shaped room, which is so
+blue and white that you seem to think yourself in the clouds when you go
+in. Right in the centre of the room is a great big round ring of seats,
+cushioned all over with blue silk; and right up from the middle of it
+rose a splendid flower-pot, crowded full of flowers--white, pink, and
+all sorts of colors--with great long green leaves a-streaming over the
+edges, and broad, white lilies, that seemed cut out of ragged snow,
+a-spreading themselves among the green leaves.
+
+A hive of ladies, all in long-trained dresses, and necks according to
+order, were sitting or standing or moving across the room, looking as
+proud and grand as peacocks on a sunshiny day. Among them was the
+President's wife--a real nice, sociable lady--who looked just as she
+ought to in a black velvet, long-trained dress. In fact, of all the
+women in that room, I liked her the best, she is so sweet and kind in
+her manners. The minute we came in she turned round and gave us a warm,
+honest smile, which was about the only downright honest thing I've seen
+in Washington, as yet.
+
+"Miss Frost," says she, "I'm delighted to see you and your relations. My
+friend Senator Edmunds has told me about you!"
+
+"Thank you," says I. "No one need want a better recommendation than he
+can give. We think the world of him in our State."
+
+"I'm glad to hear that," says she. "We think a great deal of him too; in
+fact, Vermont honors herself in the Senate. But you are looking at the
+flowers; they are all Japanese, in honor of the Embassy."
+
+"You don't say so," says I; "did the Japanese bring the flowers along
+with them from Japan?"
+
+She laughed a sweet, good-natured little laugh, and says she:
+
+"Oh, no; we raise them in the hot-houses."
+
+Just then there was a bustle in the ante-room, and I saw a slow line of
+queer-looking little folks filing along toward the east room. Mrs. Grant
+had turned to talk to Cousin E. E., and I just slid out into the
+green-room, and stood inside the door to see what all the fuss was
+about.
+
+Standing against the great window, nearly opposite to me, I saw the
+President of these United States, with a lot of men around him in black
+clothes, and farther on stood another lot with their coats all covered
+over with gold and stars of precious stones a-hanging one after another
+on their bosoms, and some wore swords, and some didn't; but I tell you
+there was such a blaze of colors and flash of gold that it seemed to
+light up the great long room like sunshine, which was convenient, for
+there wasn't enough in the sky that day to light a family to bed.
+
+While I was wondering what all this magnificence and glory meant, Cousin
+Dempster happened to see me, and came up to the door.
+
+"What on earth does all that signify in a free country," says I. "It
+looks like a circus. Do they mean to ride in there? I don't see no
+horses; and it seems to me their hoofs will spoil the carpet when they
+come in. Are the Japanese people fond of horses?"
+
+"I don't know about that; the President is," whispers Cousin Dempster.
+"But never you mind that; he keeps 'em in his stables, and they're not
+likely to come here."
+
+"Then these fellows in the gold coats will only do rough-and-tumble, I
+suppose," says I.
+
+"Hush!" says Cousin D., looking round to be sure that no one heard me.
+"The rough-and-tumble has been pretty much done up in the Senate this
+winter."
+
+"Oh!" says I.
+
+"There will be a good deal of it in Philadelphia and Cincinnati, and all
+over the country, I'm afraid, for I don't think General Grant cares much
+about that sort of gymnastics."
+
+"Jim what?" says I.
+
+"Turning over and over from one side to the other!" says he.
+
+"I think he's right," says I. "A circus can't be much without horses and
+hoops, and that fellow with the painted face; but why don't the show
+begin, such as it is? What do they stand there for, looking lonesome as
+a cider-press in winter?"
+
+"My dear cousin," says he, looking at me sort of pitiful, "do remember
+it is the ambassadors of all Europe, to say nothing of South America,
+that you are speaking of."
+
+"Ambassadors," says I; "so you call them by that name here, do you?"
+
+"They represent governments, kings, and queens."
+
+"I've seen that done in the theatre beautifully. You remember when we
+went to see 'Julius Caesar,' who wanted to be King of Rome; but I didn't
+know as they ever did such high-mightiness off on horseback, or through
+a hoop," says I.
+
+"But, Phoemie, these men are genuine. For instance, that gentleman
+with so much red and gold about him represents Queen Victoria."
+
+"What, in such clothes--hat, coat, and all the rest? I don't believe
+it," says I. "You won't impose upon me to that extent."
+
+"Not her person," says he, a-getting out of patience, "but her
+Government."
+
+
+
+
+XXXIX.
+
+THE JAPANESE.
+
+
+Well, sisters, that minute there was a commotion in the room. Those who
+had been leaning against the wall stood up, and the strange-looking men
+Cousin D. called ambassadors straightened up and fluttered a little, as
+peacocks spread their feathers when the sun breaks out.
+
+Before I could speak, in came the highest cockalorum among the Japanese,
+which wasn't very high after all.
+
+"Good gracious!" says I to Cousin D. "The man out there told me the
+ladies must all go into the blue room. Here I've been hiding behind the
+door, so as not to be seen, and the first Japanese stranger that comes
+in is a female woman! Goodness gracious! and so are all the rest!"
+
+"No, no," says Cousin D., "it's a man--they're all men."
+
+"With those Dolly Vardens on?" says I. "Do you think I was brought up in
+the woods, to take doves for night-hawks?"
+
+"It's the Japanese fashion," says he.
+
+"For men to dress in--well, skirts?"
+
+"Certainly. Don't you see that the lower skirt is formed into loose
+trousers that two or three of 'em wear?"
+
+I did look, and saw that the black silk underskirt some of these heathen
+Japanese wore was puckered up a little around the ankles, just enough to
+show off two peaked shoes, that must have been lovely wearing for a foot
+that was all great toe, but awkward for one that wasn't. In fact, I
+began to be awfully puzzled about the dress of the first one that came
+along, for above the skirt of purple silk was a Dolly Varden, all but
+the puffing out, of black silk, spotted over with white needlework. To
+top off all, this Japanee wore the funniest sort of a thing on the head,
+like a shiny black wash-bowl, with a hole in it, from which a stumpy
+black ball stuck up in the air--about the pertest-looking thing you ever
+saw. Around the edge was a white binding, all curlicued off with queer
+black figures, and a lot of stiff black stuff streamed down from behind,
+like a crow's tail.
+
+This dress was tied round the waist with a silk scarf, and to that hung
+a long, black sword, sideways, with the point sticking out behind,
+furious as could be.
+
+Only two of the Japanese were dressed in these frocks, figured off with
+white, with purple--well--skirts, under. Three others had thin
+purple--well--skirts, puckered up into baggy trousers, which showed off
+their peaked, hawk-bill shoes beautifully. These five high Japanese came
+marching one after another--Indian file--looking as solemn as eight-day
+clocks. Then came five more with black Dolly's, bound with purple, and
+with purple figures worked on the backs, and the underskirts puckered up
+into trousers. Every one of them had swords, and they all marched
+straight up to the President with them dangling by their sides.
+
+"There, do you see that," whispered Cousin Dempster. "Are you satisfied
+now? Women do not, as a general thing, wear swords."
+
+"They may be strong-minded," says I.
+
+Before Cousin Dempster had time to speak, the little Japanee that they
+called Iwakura had got right before the President. There he made a low
+bow, and, as if jerked by the same string, the whole row, one behind
+the other, bowed to each other's backs. Then Mr. Fish, a tall,
+fine-looking gentleman, they called Secretary of State, came forward and
+introduced the head Japanee to the President. Then came another bow, and
+another, and another, till the whole ten got into a row near the
+President. Then General Grant and Japanee Iwakura made beautiful
+speeches at each other. Then there came more bows--low, slow, and
+delightfully graceful--and then I gathered up the skirt of my pink silk
+and fled, like a bird, into the blue room, where the ladies were waiting
+like pigeons anxious for corn.
+
+After all, I think those Japanese must have been men. The ladies got
+into such a flutter as they came in, and took so much pains to make
+themselves agreeable, which it isn't likely they would have done if
+those scull caps and swords hadn't meant something masculine. Then there
+was more low bows, and we ladies swept back our trains, took steps and
+curtsied just as easy and graceful as they did, and Mrs. Grant talked a
+little with a Japanee. He told what she said to the others, and what she
+did say was just sweet and natural, which was a proof that she didn't
+consider the Japanese as strong-minded females in the least. So after we
+came out I told Cousin Dempster that I was satisfied that they were as
+great men as little fellows, five feet and under, could be, and I asked
+him, in confidence, if any of them were so unfortunate as to be
+unmarried?
+
+
+
+
+XL.
+
+THAT DIPLOMATIC STAG PARTY.
+
+
+It is wonderful, dear sisters, how one thing grows out of another in
+this world. When it got about that I had been invited to help the Mrs.
+President to entertain the Japanese dignitaries, every lady in
+Washington that was going to give a party sent me and my Cousin Dempster
+an invite, till we began to think no more of square letters, with
+monographs on them, than you care for chestnut burrs when the nuts have
+dropped out.
+
+But there was one of these documents that we rather jumped at, because
+it came from a man that was almost as good as born in Vermont. Maine is,
+after all, something of a New England State, and Mr. Brooks, member of
+Congress from New York, the man I spoke of, came from there, and had a
+seat in the Legislature of that State when he was only just of age. So
+we all rather took to him, as New England people will take to each other
+when they scatter off into other States, and do honor to the one they
+come from.
+
+The minute his square document came, Cousin Dempster said at once that
+he would accept, and I, who had done honors with Mrs. President, made up
+my mind there, right on the nail, to do just as much for the Brooks
+family.
+
+Well, I never took off my pink silk after we came from the White House,
+only bunched it up a little more behind when we went down to dinner, and
+after that screwed up my hair for a new friz, while I took a nap in the
+great puffy easy-chair that stood in my room; for this doing honors hour
+after hour is tiresome to the--well--ankles.
+
+Having my dress on, I took something of a nap, and seemed to be dragged
+out of my sleep by the hair, when E. E. came to call me, which was,
+maybe, owing to the tightness of the crimping wires that caught on the
+cushion when I jumped up, and gave me an awful jerk. But I soon got
+over that, and gave my hair an extra frizzle before I went out, which
+was improving to my general appearance, and very relieving to the head.
+
+Cousin E. E. had put on a span-new dress, observing, modestly, that a
+genius could appear in anything, but she hadn't the position which would
+stand wearing the same dress twice.
+
+"For the sake of New England," says she, "I mean to do my best," which
+she did, in silk, like a ripe cherry, with wave over wave of black lace
+over it, and a bunch of white stones on her bosom, burning like a
+furnace when the light struck them.
+
+Well, once again we packed ourselves into a carriage, and then, huddled
+up in waves of red silk, rolled off to Mr. Brooks's house, which isn't
+far from the President's homestead.
+
+"There don't seem to be many here yet," says I, as we got out of the
+carriage, and went up the high steps, holding our dresses with both
+hands.
+
+Before Cousin D. could answer, the door was opened, and the man inside
+waved his hand, which had a span-clean white glove on it, and told us to
+walk upstairs, which we did, dropping our dresses as we went, till they
+trailed half way down the steps in waves that the fellow with white
+gloves on must have thought sumptuous.
+
+Two or three young ladies were in the dressing-room, and that was all. I
+shook out my dress before the glass, gave my hair an extra fluff, and
+went into the hall, where Cousin Dempster was standing.
+
+"There don't seem to be many ladies here," says I; "in fact, none to
+speak of."
+
+"Oh," says he, "they're not expected. You and my wife are exceptions."
+
+"Just so," says I.
+
+"This is a stag party," says he.
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A stag party, where ladies sometimes manage to see and listen. You will
+have a chance from the back windows, I dare say; only sit low and keep
+still, the flags will conceal you."
+
+"Oh! it's a stag party at the table, and crouching dears all around,"
+says I, "is it?"
+
+Cousin Dempster laughed till he nearly choked.
+
+"That's capital," says he. "You are getting too bright for anything."
+
+I couldn't quite make out what I'd said that set him off so, but I
+suppose he did, for he kept on laughing all the way downstairs, and the
+fun hadn't left his face when he introduced me to Mr. Brooks, who was in
+the room we entered, talking with some ladies that had come to look on
+and help his daughter to talk to the Japaneses, who don't understand a
+word of English.
+
+Sisters, I really think we New England people ought to be proud of Mr.
+Brooks, for he's not only tall and large, and real handsome, but he's a
+self-made man, having worked out his own education by the hardest toil.
+He edited a daily paper before he was twenty years old; was a member of
+the Maine legislature when he was twenty-three; and travelled all over
+Europe on foot before he was twenty-five. He has been in Congress, off
+and on, twelve years, besides travelling all round the world between
+whiles, which brought him hand-and-glove with the Japanese, the heathen
+Chinee, and all the other outlandish people that we send missionaries
+to, and convert a dozen or so once in fifty years.
+
+Well, Mr. Brooks seemed real glad to see us, and was polite as could be;
+so was his daughter and all the other ladies, when they found out who it
+was they had among them. He'd been in Vermont, of course, before going
+round what was left of the world, and his praise of the Old Mountain
+State was something worth hearing. He asked about Sprucehill, and said
+that he had pleasant reminiscences of that place, having kept a school
+in one just like it in his vacations in college. Particularly he
+recollected a sugar camp where he used to drink maple sap, and eat sugar
+till it had been a sweet remembrance to him all his life.
+
+While we were talking in this satisfactory manner, the fellow in gloves
+sung out a name that got so tangled up in his mouth that it set my teeth
+on edge. Then came another, and another that I didn't listen to; for
+that minute I saw a pair of peaked shoes coming through the door, and
+above them Mr. Iwakura, with that glazed punch-bowl on his head, and his
+black and purple dress hanging limp around him. He bowed low and softly.
+Mr. Brooks bowed back; then this Japanee turned to bow again and again,
+till I began to tremble for his neck, but he went through it all like a
+man; and when the whole lot had been bowed to, Mr. Brooks introduced
+them to me and the other ladies.
+
+Mr. Iwakura seemed to remember that he'd seen me a-doing honors at the
+White House, for he bowed clear down till I thought his glazed
+punch-bowl would fall off, and his black veil stuck right out straight;
+but he rose again as if his joints had been oiled, and said something
+that sounded soft as cream, and sweet as maple-sugar, but what it all
+meant goodness only knows.
+
+Then another heathen Japanee stepped forward, and says he:
+
+"The Embassador wishes to say he is delighted to see a lady author, who
+is an honor to her country."
+
+Here I laid one hand on my heart, and bent my head a little, not exactly
+knowing what else to do; and I said, with what I hope was becoming
+modesty:
+
+"Oh! your Highness--is it Highness--Excellency, or High Cockolorum?" I
+whispered to the lady who stood next me.
+
+"Excellency," whispered she back again.
+
+"Oh, your High Excellency," says I; for, being by nature a conservative,
+I took what seemed best out of each. "You are too complimentary."
+
+With that I made him a curtsey that over-matched his bow, for there was
+more of it a good deal, on account of his smallness, and my height, in
+which we were both a little peculiar.
+
+The Embassador looked as if he hadn't time to answer; for he was busy
+bowing to the other ladies, and the rest of the Japanese all came up,
+and there was such a slow bending time among 'em that it was ten minutes
+before there was anything else done. Then we got a little mixed, and
+seemed to be ladies altogether, only those who were going in to dinner
+seemed to carry their own punch-bowls on their heads; as for dresses and
+so on, we were pretty much alike, and the master of the house in his
+black coat, and so forth, seemed the only man among us.
+
+By and by Mr. Iwakura came back to where I was standing, and the young
+man came with him to do up the talking.
+
+"I have never before seen a lady that wrote books," says he, in the
+sweetest manner; which the other repeated in English that wasn't half so
+musical.
+
+There was an inward struggle in my mind; the compliment was sweet, and I
+longed to keep it; but truth is truth. My foot is on the threshold; I
+have looked into the Temple of Fame, but am not yet what I hope to be;
+but the truth is, I haven't written any books, _as_ books, yet. It
+wounded me to say so, but truth is a jewel that I have resolved shall
+shine, like a railroad man's diamond, in my bosom, forever.
+
+"Your High Excellency," says I, with brave self-control, "my humble
+efforts have not yet been bound in covers, but they will soon increase
+to that extent. Have you no female authors in that Japanee country of
+yours?"
+
+When the young man expounded these questions to Mr. Iwakura, the eyes of
+his High Excellency began to sparkle from one sharp corner to the other,
+and he smiled blandly--
+
+"Oh yes! we have ladies who write in Japan; but not lines of wisdom,
+like yourself; they write poems."
+
+"Love poems?" says I.
+
+"Mostly," says he; and his little eyes lighted up from corner to
+corner--"love poems, home poems, and such things as ladies understand by
+heart."
+
+"The Japanese language is so sweet," says I, "the ladies cannot be very
+strong-minded that write it."
+
+"Strong-minded--what is that?" says he.
+
+"Manly, strong; sometimes fierce," says I.
+
+"His Highness does not quite comprehend," says the young man.
+
+"Then I must illustrate," says I. "For instance, if an American woman
+were to dress as near like a man as--well, I beg pardon--as his High
+Excellency and his friends dress like women, we should call them
+high-minded."
+
+"But do they? Shall we see any ladies like that?"
+
+"You will no doubt see females like that," says I, with dignity.
+
+
+
+
+XLI.
+
+THE DINNER.
+
+
+There was no more conversing just then, for the tall fellow in gloves
+was so busy, opening and shutting the out-doors, and gentlemen came
+pouring in so thick and fast that we all had to attend to them. I was
+sorry for this, as the conversation was taking a turn that would have
+been of interest to us as a Society. I was just going to ask about the
+marriage relations among the Japanese, and intended to enter into a
+delicate investigation regarding the present company. But a smart,
+handsome, bright-looking gentleman came in, dressed up to the nines; and
+before I could say another word to Mr. Iwakura, this gentleman was
+bowing to me, and I was making my best curtsey to him. I was just
+delighted, for he looks a soldier, every inch of him, standing up
+straight as an arrow, but bowing so graceful and easy.
+
+Then others came pouring in, and we ladies were busy as bees doing the
+honors.
+
+There was no end of generals that bowed to me that night. There was
+General Farnsworth, from Illinois State, about the tallest and most
+manly gentleman among them. The long, sweeping beard that fell over his
+bosom was something splendid. If that man wasn't born in New England,
+he ought to have been--that's all.
+
+But I haven't room nor time, in a short report, to give particulars
+about a hundred or so gentlemen. They were all men that you've heard of
+over and over again, for in his invitations Mr. Brooks had just skimmed
+the cream off from Congress, and it was something beautiful to see it
+pour itself through the parlors into the great dining-room, built on
+purpose for "that night only."
+
+It didn't take long for the parlors to empty themselves into that room
+when a whisper went round that dinner was ready. In less than five
+minutes after, another fellow in white gloves came sliding into the
+room, and spoke low to Mr. Brooks,--we ladies were left alone, looking
+at one another, like babes in the woods.
+
+A cat may look on a king, and ladies do sometimes look in upon stag
+parties. Well, I got a little restless, and began to wonder how the cat
+got a good look, and how I could get a peep at the feeding stags.
+
+While the rest were talking, I slid off to one of the back windows,
+which opened upon the great banqueting hall--you have seen that term in
+novels--and, hid under a cataract of stars and stripes, I saw and heard
+all that was going on, and a splendiferous sight it was.
+
+The great hall was hung every which way with flags. They rolled over the
+ceiling in waves, fell down the wall in festoons and curtains, striped,
+starred, mooned, crossed, tangled in gas lamps, looped up with flowers.
+
+Rings of gaslights dropped half way down from the roof, and from them
+baskets of flowers swung over the great, long tables that were just one
+glitter of silver and glass, flowers and fruit, at which a hundred or
+more gentlemen were seated.
+
+Great candlesticks, spreading out with branches of gold and snow-white
+candles, stood half way down each table, and rising up above them were
+tall pyramids of flowers, crowded in with pineapples, grapes, pears,
+oranges, and sugar things enough to feed all the children in Washington
+for a month. Smaller flower-pots, crowded in with fruit, were scattered
+every once in a while along the tables.
+
+Back of Mr. Brooks's chair was a banner with a lot of lions rampaging
+over it, and a harp worked in one corner of it. Over that was another
+banner, with a full moon and a baby moon blazing away on it, and all
+around them was a whole hail-storm of stars that seemed to catch fire
+from the gas, and burn of themselves.
+
+The whole room was light as morning, and gorgeous as a sunset. Sisters,
+believe me, the way those men were enjoying themselves was enough to
+make a genuine woman grind her teeth. The popping of corks as they flew
+from the bottles was loud and swift as the guns fired on a Down East
+training day, and the gurgle of wine as it foamed into the glasses was
+mellow and constant as the flow of that brook through the hemlock back
+of our old school-house.
+
+Then the talking, the laughing, the hail-good-fellow way in which
+everything was done, just aggravated me out of a year's growth.
+
+By and by Mr. Brooks got up and made a speech, welcoming the Japanee
+guests and praising Japan beautifully. Then he asked General Farnsworth
+to do the same thing over again, which he did in the most splendid way.
+
+Then Mr. Iwakura got up and poured out a soft, slow flood of words, that
+seemed sweet as new cider, with which the whole company was charmed
+almost to death, though there wasn't a soul that knew what it was all
+about, any more than I did.
+
+Then Mr. Iwakura sat down and gathered his purple frock over his knees,
+satisfied that he had done his duty, whether the rest understood it or
+not.
+
+Then they all drank wine till there was no let up to that sound of
+militia firing and of running brooks, except when somebody was melting
+soft-solder over somebody else, which they tell me, here in Washington,
+is the high privilege of a stag party.
+
+My opinion is that they are ashamed to compliment each other so broadly
+when ladies are by, knowing that no crowd of females could be brought to
+the pitch of glorifying each other after that fashion, or would stand it
+to hear so much flattery wasted on a lot of men when they were by.
+
+
+
+
+XLII.
+
+IN THE BASEMENT OF THE CAPITOL.
+
+
+Well, sisters, that chunky woman on the top of the great iron wash-bowl,
+that some giant seems to have turned upside down on the roof of the
+Capitol, has more to do than any other female I'm acquainted with, if
+she can keep the flock of men they call Congress in any kind of order.
+No wonder she has the look of the kitchen about her, and seem to be
+carrying a bundle of soiled clothes on her head for a wash in the
+clouds! for, of all the sloppy places I ever heard of, this great marble
+building seems to be the beatomest. Congressmen seem to be always
+getting out dirty clothes here, beside whitewashing every now and then,
+raking each other over the coals, and doing all sorts of kitchen and
+garden work.
+
+Cousin Dempster told me all this before I went up to see exactly what
+Congress was, and it certainly upset me, you may just believe. That
+great building, which might be cut up into half a dozen palaces for
+kings to live in, turned into a wash-house and national laundry! The
+very thought made me creep all over.
+
+I always like to investigate matters from the foundation, so the first
+thing I did was to go into the basement story of the building, and see
+what the kitchen arrangements amounted to. Of course Cousin D. could be
+of no use to me, and Cousin E. E. declined the subterranean raid, as she
+nippingly called it, which ended in my going into the underground
+department alone.
+
+Well, the first thing that struck me was the duskiness of the place; it
+was like travelling through a sunset that had no color in it. The whole
+building seemed to have put on a gray mantle and gone to sleep. I went
+upstairs and downstairs, travelled over miles of stone floors, and
+through forests of great stone posts that looked strong enough to have a
+world built atop of them. Once in a while I caught sight of a man
+scooting along in the dusk before me like a black ghost; and once I
+heard noises like the rush of a steamboat down below me, and began to
+suspect that the wash-house and lime-slacking department was lower down
+yet. I opened two or three doors, and looked into a good many dark and
+deserted rooms piled up with books and crowded full of all sorts of
+things. Once or twice I saw the head of a man popping up between piles
+of books, but no sign of washing, as yet.
+
+Well, I wandered on and on, till at last I came to a great kitchen that
+looked lively enough. Lots of men were moving about, fires were burning,
+and there was a lovely scent of roast chickens and boiled garden-sass--I
+beg pardon, vegetables. I would have gone in and asked some questions
+about the wash-tubs, but not a female woman was to be seen--and I hope I
+know what is due to my sex too well for any attempt to draw the
+attention of men in the service of their country by the presence of
+attractions that--well, I was going to say that the charm of high female
+society might have seemed a little out of place so low down in that
+stone wilderness. So I took a new turn, and came out in a grand eating
+department, crowded full of tables, where ever so many gentlemen and
+ladies were eating, talking, laughing, and drinking bottled cider till
+their eyes sparkled.
+
+I went into the room with that quiet dignity which some people have said
+was the greatest charm of your missionary, and spreading out my skirts a
+little, sat down by one of the tables. A very genteel young man came up
+to me that minute, as hospitable as could be, and asked with a bow what
+I would please to have.
+
+"Oh, almost anything that isn't too much trouble," says I.
+
+Says he, "There is everything on the cart."
+
+He pronounced "cart" with a drawl that riled me, for, if there is
+anything I hate, it is the stuck-up way some people have of twistifying
+common words: but I didn't want to rebuke the fellow too much, and
+answered in the bland and Christian way you have so often praised, my
+dear sisters, that I did not wish to stay long enough for them to unload
+a cart, but if he had just as lief as not, would take some baked pork
+and beans--that is, if there was any handy.
+
+The fellow shook his head.
+
+"No pork and beans!" says I; "do you call this national house-keeping?"
+
+That brought the fellow up to a sense of duty in no time. He snatched up
+a little thin book that lay on the table, read it a minute, and then
+went off. By and by he came back with a dish in his hand, on which were
+a few beans, all brown and crisped to death, with a skimpy slice of pork
+lying across the top.
+
+I took the dish in my hands, and examined it up and down, right and
+left, with an air that must have cut that fellow to the soul, if he had
+one.
+
+"You call that pork and beans?" says I, a-lifting my forefinger, and
+almost shaking it at him. "Why, young man, it looks more like a handful
+of gravel-stones."
+
+The young man spread his hands a little, and looked so confused that I
+began to feel sorry for him.
+
+"Never mind," says I; "no doubt you have had the awful misfortune of
+being born out of New England, and that is punishment enough. It is the
+fault of our Congressmen if the great New England mystery of baked beans
+has not been explained and elucidated in the national kitchen," says I,
+"most people do degenerate so when they once get out of the pure
+mountain air. But then our statesmen may consider this a woman's
+mission. Perhaps it is. There was a time when females understood such
+things, but we have got to hankering after offices and votes and
+rostrums, till such things have become nostrums--excuse the rhyme, if
+you don't happen to be a poetical young man," says I; "it isn't
+extraordinary that such things are neglected, and that the great New
+English dish introduced by the Pilgrim Fathers has degenerated into
+this."
+
+Here I pointed sarcastically at the pebble-stones, and, with killing
+irony, asked him to send me something to eat.
+
+He took up the dish, and seemed glad to go--no wonder, my words had cut
+him to the soul. By and by he came back, and handed me that thin book
+which hadn't half a dozen leaves in it, and, says he:
+
+"Will madam make her choice?"
+
+I opened the book, and tried to see what it was all about; but there was
+nothing to read. A lot of English words twisted out of all shape and
+meaning, with some figures cut up in short rows, were scattered over the
+pages as if they had been shook out of a pepper-box. The only thing I
+could make out that seemed to have a sensible meaning, was--beef. This I
+read out loud--glad to find one good wholesome word to light on.
+
+"Roast beef," says the fellow, and away he went.
+
+There was no use trying to get anything like reading out of that ghost
+of a book; so I sat still and looked on, wondering what brought so many
+ladies into the Capitol, as they are not considered Congressmen yet.
+
+
+
+
+XLIII.
+
+PHOEMIE DINES WITH A SENATOR.
+
+
+Dear sisters: I had moved my chair back a little, for it seemed rather
+lonesome sitting there with nothing but a table-cloth spread before me,
+and a castor on it, when a gentleman came in and sat down on the other
+side of the table, just as if I hadn't been there.
+
+He took up the skimpy book, and began to read, as if he understood every
+word of it--figures and all. By and by a young fellow came up to him.
+They whispered together a minute, and the gentleman kept pointing at the
+book.
+
+Just then, the young man that I had been so sociable with, came up with
+some dishes in his hand, which he set down on the table, then spread his
+hands a little, as much as to say, politely: "Set to, ma'am, and help
+yourself;" which I did.
+
+Sisters, the national kitchens want renovating. There is female
+missionary work here enough to keep half our Society busy for a year.
+That beef was never roasted by a fire. I'll take my oath of that. It
+never swung on an iron skewer, inside of a tin oven before a
+hickory-wood fire, since it was a born calf. There's no cheating me in
+such things. Why, this beef had a taste of chickens, and oysters, and
+baked pork about it, so strong that you couldn't at first tell which it
+was, or if its birthplace was a barn-yard, a hen-coop, or the salt sea
+ocean.
+
+Yes, there _is_ mission work in these subterranean kitchens. Still, if
+members of Congress know how to wash and whitewash so well, they might
+take the cooking in hand too. Perhaps they have, though.
+
+When men try a hand at woman's work, or women take up the business of
+men, it's apt to mix things up till you don't know which is which. I
+rather think the members have been down here, while the women were
+lecturing on politics upstairs. It looks like it, in both places.
+
+Well, I didn't want to find too much fault. Human nature could not stand
+the pork and beans, but I tried my best to put up with the beef, and
+make believe it was delicious.
+
+Just as I took up my knife the other young fellow came to the table, and
+set some dishes down before the gentleman. Then he took a knife and
+hacked away at a long-necked bottle till he got the cork loose, and let
+the whole affair, foaming and sparkling, into a glass. The sight fairly
+made my eyes sparkle, for I was awful thirsty, and the rich gurgle made
+me more so.
+
+"Sir," says I, a-holding out my glass to the young man, "if that's
+Vermont cider, and I seem to feel as if it is, I'll thank you for a
+glass."
+
+The gentleman looked up quickly; turned to the young man with a funny
+sort of a smile, and nodded his head, just as if it was anything to him.
+
+I'm not quite certain about it, but if that foaming stuff was cider, it
+must have been made from russet apples, for it brightened me up all over
+till every drop of blood in me seemed to sparkle.
+
+"It would be near about impossible to drink that through a straw, it
+bubbles so," says I, feeling it my duty to be sociable, and make the
+gentleman feel quite at home at the national table. "I think the cider
+is about the only thing that don't degenerate when it leaves New
+England."
+
+"The cider," says he, opening his eyes wide.
+
+"Yes," says I, holding out my glass again, "that keeps its own vim, and
+a little more so. Take another glass yourself, sir!"
+
+I thought as I was first at the table, and a lady, that he would expect
+a little extra attention, and gave it with my usual bland politeness.
+
+He smiled, and his eyes began to sparkle under the gold glasses he wore.
+
+"Certainly," says he, "you are very kind; from Vermont I think you
+said."
+
+"Just so," says I. "Sprucehill. Let me help you to a little of this
+roast beef, if I may call it so."
+
+"Thank you," says he, and that funny smile crinkled his lips again, "I
+am well served."
+
+It struck me as rather singular, that he, being a gentleman, didn't
+offer me any of the dishes on his side of the table; but he didn't, and,
+as a gentle rebuke, I said to the young man who stood behind him:
+
+"Please to pass some of those dishes this way!"
+
+The fellow blushed and hesitated, and looked at the gentleman in gold
+spectacles, who blushed a little, too, but said to the young fellow:
+
+"Certainly; why don't you pass them over to the lady?"
+
+There was something in a dish that looked a little like mashed potatoes.
+I helped myself with a spoon, and tasted it.
+
+"What is this?" says I. "Your potatoes taste awful cheesey."
+
+"It is not potatoes, but calf's brains au gratin," says he.
+
+"Calf's brains, a grating," says I; "calf's brains, and I eating them.
+Young man, I'll have you investigated for this! Calf's brains, indeed!
+do you think I'm a cannibal. Take the heathenish dish out of my sight."
+
+The gentleman laughed, and says he:
+
+"I will relieve you of it."
+
+Then he drew it over his way and began to eat.
+
+I declare, sisters, I couldn't bear to see that man finishing up the
+dish as if he liked it. He seemed to have brains enough of his own,
+without wanting to rob a spring calf of what little belongs to it. But
+he finished the dish and got up to go, making me a real polite bow as he
+went away from the table.
+
+When he was gone I beckoned to the young man.
+
+"Is that man from the Sandwich Islands, or where?" says I.
+
+"That gentleman! Oh, he's a Senator from the West," says he. "The
+whitewashing committee hate him like poison. He gives them enough to do,
+I can tell you. Awful in that direction."
+
+"You don't say so," says I. "Is that the man who has raised the price of
+lime and whiting to such an extent?"
+
+"That's the very man."
+
+"Dear me! and he eats brains--cheesey at that. I never saw anything like
+it."
+
+"Oh, that is a very popular dish, ma'am."
+
+"With Congressmen?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am, with Congressmen."
+
+"Especially?"
+
+"Especially."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder," says I.
+
+When I hitched my chair back, and took up my satchel, the man put a bit
+of stiff paper in my hands, with some figures on it. I thanked him and
+went out, feeling a little lighter than I had done, on account of the
+cider. The young man followed me a step or two, and seemed as if he
+wanted to say something; but that was a familiarity I had no idea of
+encouraging; so I passed on, determined to find the other kitchen
+departments, and set up a private investigation of my own. But at the
+foot of a flight of stairs, all made of spotted marble, I met Cousin
+Dempster, who was looking for me.
+
+"Oh, here you are at last! Where on earth have you been?"
+
+"In the kitchen and dining-room, so far," says I.
+
+"Kitchen--dining-room!" says he. "Oh! you have been into the
+restaurant--not alone, I hope."
+
+"Oh, yes," says I; "there was plenty of company; but the cooking is
+enough to try a person."
+
+"Why, did you order refreshments?"
+
+"Refreshments were offered to me," says I, "and I accepted them, as a
+free-born American woman has a right to do at her country's table."
+
+"What are you talking about?" says Cousin Dempster, almost angry. "What
+is that in your hand?"
+
+"A bit of paper that the young man gave me as I came out," says I.
+
+"But you should have given this up," says he, turning red.
+
+"What for?" says I.
+
+"Did you pay nothing?"
+
+"Pay! of course not. Who ever thinks of paying anything to the
+Government?"
+
+"You do not understand."
+
+"What?"
+
+"You have been into a restaurant," says he.
+
+"That's more than I know of, never having been in one in my born days."
+
+"And have come away with this!"
+
+"Look a-here, Cousin Dempster," says I; "does this great nation keep a
+boarding-house, or a tavern, in its Capitol? That's what I want to know.
+Do you think I mean to insult the country I was born in?"
+
+"It keeps a restaurant for the accommodation of members," says he, "and
+you've been in it. Just give me that check; the country don't feed its
+statesmen--at any rate, directly."
+
+I gave him the square bit of paper, and, when he left me alone, just sat
+down on those marble steps and waited.
+
+I don't wonder these investigating committees want to shirk their
+duties. I, being only a committee of one, and self-constituted, feel as
+if I'd had quite enough of exploring downstairs. But what on earth
+Cousin Dempster is making such a fuss about, I have no idea. One would
+think there was something dreadful on that square piece of paper by the
+way he acted; but he's like everybody else, I suppose, when he gets to
+Washington, and can't make himself more than half understood on any
+subject.
+
+
+
+
+XLIV.
+
+MARBLE HALLS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--In my last report I gave you a dim account of the
+underground department of Congress. In fact, it was so dim down there,
+that I couldn't see anything clearly. I hope this report will have a
+little more brightness in it; but of that I am not at all certain, for a
+downright honest look at anything here in Washington is like snatching
+at a handful of fog.
+
+After wandering over all that town of cellars and basements, in search
+of the whitewashing department and the washing-room, I came away without
+seeing a sign of them. It seems to me that the cooking and eating is all
+that one finds done openly here. About that, too, there is something
+that riles the New England blood in my veins. No wonder I couldn't make
+out half that those waiter chaps said to me.
+
+There, in the great kitchen of the first nation on the face of the
+earth, free-born American citizens sit down contentedly and eat French
+dishes, with bull-frogs in them, I dare say, and eat them, too, on the
+European plan. The European plan! as if the fine old fashion set by the
+Pilgrim Fathers was not good enough for their descendants! It's enough
+to curdle the blood in one's veins to see what our country is coming to,
+with a plan of broken-down old Europe in the very basement of our
+Capitol. Do our members of Congress remember the time when their fathers
+ate samp and milk on a table set against the wall, with one leaf spread?
+Sometimes the richest of them in our State got a little maple molasses
+with the samp, but oftener it was skim milk, and nothing else. But men
+were men in those days; I--that is, I have heard my mother say so--of
+course, I wasn't old enough to know exactly at what time samp and milk
+got out of fashion as a first-class domestic meal. I can't help but
+think, sisters, that the male sex began to degenerate while we were
+children, or we should never have been left in our native village to
+form a society, which seems destined to enlighten this generation,
+without increasing it.
+
+Well, sisters, Cousin Dempster found me sitting on those hard, beautiful
+marble steps, thinking over these things in a saddening way. He insisted
+on it that I should leave off my subterraneous investigations, as he
+called my travels in the basement, and see Congress meet.
+
+I declare, it's a Sabbath day's journey from one end of that great long
+marble building to the other. The marble stairs I had been resting on
+came up near the Senate chamber. Cousin Dempster said, "But perhaps we
+had better go over to the House first."
+
+"Whose house?" says I, getting out of patience; "I thought we had come
+to see Congress."
+
+"So we have," says he; "it will assemble in a few minutes, so we must
+hurry and get into the House."
+
+"Why don't Congress assemble in this building?" says I.
+
+"Of course it does, at the other end," says he.
+
+"Then what on earth do you want to take me into any other house for? I
+want to see Congress! As for the houses in Washington, they are no great
+shakes, after all. New York wouldn't take the best of 'em as a gift."
+
+"Cousin Phoemie," says Dempster, sort of impatient, "you are the most
+extraordinary combination of a woman I ever saw."
+
+I stopped short and made him a curtsey to the ground--slow, graceful,
+and infinitely sarcastic. He seemed to feel it keenly.
+
+"Judges, a little more competent than you are, have said as much
+before," I observed, scathing him through and through with my eyes.
+
+"I mean no offence," says he, "but really you are the brightest,
+and--and stupidest woman!"
+
+"Girl, if you please," says I.
+
+"Well, girl. In some things a child could teach you; in others, you
+fairly dazzle the brightest of us."
+
+"Thank you," says I; "just crown me with bitter-sweet, and have done
+with it. If there is anything that riles me more than another, it is a
+double and twisted compliment."
+
+"There, there! do be reasonable, and hurry along," says Dempster,
+a-trying to shuffle out of the whole thing; "don't you see the members
+crowding into the House?"
+
+"I haven't seen the house yet," says I, not half pacified.
+
+"Of course not--how can you, till we get there?"
+
+Cousin Dempster walked on, and, of course, I had to follow.
+
+"Wait one minute," says I, "while I look at this great round picture
+overhead. What on earth is it all about? The women up there look mighty
+unsafe. Now, what room is this, with its roof in the sky, and its floor
+solid stone?"
+
+"It is the rotunda," says he; "the national pictures are all around you,
+but we haven't time to look at them now--some other day."
+
+I couldn't help looking back, for such a room I never saw in my born
+days. It was like a stone park roofed in so high up that the pictured
+women overhead seemed perched among the clouds. Over them the light came
+pouring like water down a cataract, filling the broad space below as if
+it had been all out of doors.
+
+But I had no time to see more, for Cousin Dempster led me through a
+hallway and into another round room, except at one end, where a gallery
+ran straight across and then curved around the whole room, hooping it in
+like a horseshoe. In front of the straight gallery ran a row of stone
+pillars--tall, large, and shiny as glass--spotted, too, like the
+leopards in a show, and towering up like the pillars in Solomon's
+Temple, which the Queen of Sheba travelled so far to examine. The idea
+that she took all that trouble to get acquainted with Solomon, is just
+ridiculous. Why, it would have taken the hymeneal monarch a whole
+lifetime to have introduced her to his family in a decorous way.
+Besides, if he provided for his own household out of the government,
+only think how busy he must have been in finding places for the
+relations of all his wives! No doubt he let the Queen of Sheba see his
+Temple, and left her to be entertained by two or three hundred of his
+wives. Not being a ladies' man, what more could he do?
+
+Well, as Cousin Dempster says, I do sometimes let my pen run away with
+me; but when it turns toward the Scriptural history of my sex, I let it
+run.
+
+
+
+
+XLV.
+
+RANDOLPH ROGERS' BRONZE DOORS.
+
+
+"Well," says I to Cousin D., "what room do you call this?"
+
+"Oh, this is the old House," says he.
+
+The old house! Sisters, there are times when I think Dempster is beside
+himself. I did not deign to answer him, except with a look that would
+have stopped the sap running from a young maple in the brightest April
+day you ever saw. He didn't seem to mind it, though, but went on as if I
+hadn't pierced him with my eyes.
+
+"These doors," says he, swinging back the half of a door that seemed to
+be made of brass and gold and powdered green-stone pounded together, and
+cut into the most lovely pictures that you ever set eyes on--"these
+doors open to the new House. They are by Rogers, and cost thirty
+thousand dollars."
+
+"Thirty thousand dollars for these two doors, Cousin Dempster! I have
+just been a-wondering if you were crazy, and now I know you are."
+
+"Upon my word," says he, "that is just what they cost."
+
+"What! thirty thousand dollars?"
+
+"Thirty thousand dollars."
+
+I bent forward, and looked at the door--close. It was sunk deep into
+squares, and each square had a picture of men and women that seemed to
+be busy at something.
+
+"What is it all about?" says I.
+
+"Every picture is taken from something connected with the history of our
+country," says he.
+
+"You don't say so," says I. "Who did you say made them all?"
+
+"Mr. Rogers, a sculptor from Ohio. One of the great geniuses of the age,
+and one of the finest fellows that ever breathed."
+
+"Do you know him?" says I.
+
+"Yes," says he. "I got acquainted with him in Florence, years ago, when
+Elizabeth and I went to Europe on our wedding trip. He was then a rising
+man, hard at work on the art that he has since done much to ennoble. I
+am glad to see his great genius embodied here, where it will live as
+long as the marble on the walls. The country has honored itself in this
+almost as much as it has disgraced itself in placing some of the vilest
+attempts that ever parodied art in conspicuous places here."
+
+Cousin Dempster's face turned red as he spoke--red with shame, I could
+see.
+
+"It is enough to make an American, who understands what real art is,
+ashamed of his country," says he.
+
+"But what do they do it for?" says I.
+
+"Because two-thirds of the members sent here do not know a picture from
+a handsaw! but impudence can persuade, and ignorance can vote. Why, I
+once heard a Member of Congress speak of the statues in the Vatican as
+coarse and clumsy compared with the attempts of a female woman who could
+not, out of her own talent, have moulded an apple-dumpling into
+roundness."
+
+Cousin Dempster had got into dead earnest now. He knew what he was
+talking about, and I couldn't help feeling for him.
+
+"Some day, Cousin Phoemie," says he, "I will take you round and show
+you the abominations which have been set up in this building--a disgrace
+both to the taste and integrity of the nation. You will understand the
+impudent pretension for which our people have been taxed in order that
+the National Capitol may be made a laughing-stock for foreigners, and
+those Americans who are compelled to blush for what they cannot help."
+
+"Cousin Dempster," says I, "why don't the press take these things up and
+expose them?"
+
+"That is exactly what I want," says he. "It is for that very purpose I
+want you to go around among these distorted marbles and things. Your
+Reports may do some good."
+
+"But I don't quite understand them myself," says I, blushing a little.
+
+"Trust genius to discover genius," says he. "You could not fail to see
+faults or merits where they existed. All the arts are kindred. Poetry,
+painting, sculpture, go hand-in-hand. You understood the beauty that
+lies in these doors at a glance."
+
+"One must be blind not to see that," says I.
+
+"Of course; well, cousin, we will give a day to these things before we
+go home; but now, hurry forward, or we shall be too late to see the
+House open."
+
+"Just as if there was a house in all Washington that wouldn't open for
+us if we chose to knock or ring," I thought to myself, but said nothing,
+for Dempster was walking off like a steam-engine, and I followed down
+one long hall, and up another--all paved with bright-colored
+stones--till it seemed as if I were walking over a rock carpet.
+
+
+
+
+XLVI.
+
+WAS IT A MEETING-HOUSE?
+
+
+Dear sisters:--At last we came to some wide marble stairs, with a twist
+in the middle, and they led us into another long hall with a stone
+carpet, out of which some doors covered with cloth were opening and
+shutting all the time for folks to go through.
+
+Cousin Dempster swung one open for me, and I went into what looked like
+a meeting-house gallery, with long seats a-running all around it,
+cushioned off with red velvet, or something. Right over what seemed to
+be the pulpit, was a square gallery by itself, which I took for the
+singers' seats, but it was full of men--not a female among them--and
+they all seemed busy as bees laying out their music for use.
+
+Cousin E. E. was sitting near this gallery. She beckoned to me, so I
+went in. I sat down by her and whispered:
+
+"I didn't know we were coming to a meeting. Dempster never said a word
+about it."
+
+"Hush!" says she. "The chaplain is going to pray."
+
+I did hush, and saw the congregation come in and walk down the aisles
+and take their seats. Some brought books that seemed like Bibles under
+their arms; and all of them took off their hats, as was proper.
+
+One thing struck me as peculiar: no ladies came into any place but the
+galleries, and up there they whispered and laughed in a way that made my
+blood run cold.
+
+By and by a man came in, walked down the broad aisle, and went up into
+the pulpit.
+
+Two or three men were sitting in the deacons' seat,--which ran along
+below the pulpit, and they began to whisper together--a thing I didn't
+like in the deacons of a church.
+
+The minister put his hands together beautifully. The congregation stood
+up, as good Presbyterians ought to do, and I stood up too, with my arms
+folded, and bending my head a little, while a solemn prayerfulness crept
+over me; but the next minute I dropped both arms and opened both eyes
+wide.
+
+The minister was coming down the pulpit stairs. The congregation sat
+down. The deacons each took up a pen--so did the singers, who hadn't
+sung a note yet.
+
+"What _does_ this mean?" I whispered to Cousin E. E.
+
+"The prayer is over," says she.
+
+"Over!" says I. "Why, the minister hadn't begun to tell the Lord what
+sinners we all are."
+
+"Oh!" says she, almost laughing out in meeting, "that would be too heavy
+work for one man. Only think how much of it there is to represent in
+this place."
+
+"Cousin," says I, "your levity in this sacred place shocks me."
+
+"Sacred place," says she. "Oh, Phoemie, you will be the death of me."
+
+"Have you no regard for your own soul?" says I, in an austere whisper
+that ought to have riled up the depths of her conscience.
+
+"My soul, indeed!" says she, with her eyes and her lips all a-quivering
+with fun; "as if people ever thought of such things here."
+
+I dropped into my seat--her sinful levity took away my breath.
+
+The woman absolutely began to talk out loud, and didn't even stop when a
+man got up in the congregation and began to exhort. In the distress her
+conduct gave me I did not hear just what he said, but at last he held
+out a paper. A handsome little boy came up and carried it toward the
+pulpit and gave it to one of the deacons.
+
+Up to this time I had thought the congregation Presbyterians, but the
+boy puzzled me. I remembered the little fellow in red at that High
+Church service, and thought perhaps the good old New England stand-by
+meeting had got some of these new-fangled additions to their board of
+deacons. The thought troubled me, but not so much as the conduct of
+that congregation. The ladies in the gallery behaved shamefully--I must
+say it. They whispered, they laughed, they flirted their fans and
+flirted with their lips and eyes. Sometimes they turned their backs on
+the congregation downstairs. They kept moving about from one seat to
+another. In fact, I cannot describe the actions of these females. The
+idea of piety never entered one of their heads--I am sure of that.
+
+There must have been a good many notices and publishments to give out;
+more than I ever heard of in our meeting-house, for ever so many papers
+were sent up to the pulpit, where another minister sat now ready to
+begin his sermon.
+
+I must own it, there was some confusion among the congregation in the
+body of the church. The members moved about more than was decorous, and
+there was whispering a-going on there as well.
+
+In Vermont the minister would have rebuked his congregation--especially
+the flighty females around me.
+
+I was saying this to Cousin E. E. when that man in the pulpit took up a
+little wooden hammer that lay on the desk before him, and struck it down
+with a force that hushed the whole congregation into decency at once.
+
+I was glad of it, and in my innermost heart said "Amen!"
+
+By and by a man got up to exhort. He must have been brought up as a
+clerk in some thread-needle store, I should think, by the way he
+measured off his long, rolling sentences, that seemed to come through
+the bung-hole of an empty cider barrel; and his arms went spreading out
+with each sentence, as if he were measuring tape, and meant to give
+enough of it.
+
+"Who is that?" says I, whispering to Cousin E. E.
+
+"That," says she, "is a gentleman from ----."
+
+"No doubt he's a member," says I; "how earnest he seeks for protection!"
+
+"Of course he is a member or they wouldn't let him speak," whispers she.
+
+"I know that," says I. "The Presbyterians don't allow any but members
+to speak in their meeting, of course; but it seems to me they do a great
+deal more talking than praying here, or singing either."
+
+"Oh, I don't believe any one but the chaplain ever thinks of praying
+here, and he cuts it short as pie-crust."
+
+"Don't be irreverent," says I.
+
+Cousin E. E. got up from her seat; so did Dempster.
+
+"Come," he said, "I am tired of hearing about salt."
+
+"Especially if the salt has lost its savor," says I, hoping to draw both
+their thoughts to the Scriptures, and get them in a proper frame of mind
+for the occasion.
+
+"The tax is what I want it to lose," says he, and I saw by his manner
+that thoughts of humility and prayer were far from him; so, rather than
+join in this mockery of holy things, I followed him out of that
+beautiful and sacred edifice, softened, and, I hope, made better by the
+service in which my soul had joined.
+
+"Well," says Cousin Dempster, when we stood once more on the stone
+carpet of the hall, "how did you like the House?"
+
+"What house?" says I.
+
+"The House of Representatives, to be sure," says he.
+
+"When I have seen it, I can tell you better," says I.
+
+"Oh, nonsense! you have seen it," says he, "in full session, too."
+
+"Look a-here, cousin," says I; "all this morning you've been talking
+about old houses and new houses, as if this heap of marble was a green,
+with buildings all round it. I've seen the place you call a
+rotunda--halls, with scrumptious stone carpets on them, and as fine a
+meeting-house as Solomon need have wanted. Now, if you want to show me
+that house where the Representatives meet, do it, and no more
+parsonizing about it."
+
+"But, cousin, I do assure you, we have just come from it. You have heard
+the members speaking."
+
+"I have seen a meeting-house, and worshipped in it," says I.
+
+"Are you really in earnest?" says he.
+
+"Would I, the member of a church, trifle on a sacred subject?" says I.
+
+"Oh!" says Cousin Dempster, a-leaning his back against the marble
+wall--"oh! hold me, or I shall laugh myself to death."
+
+I wish he had. There!
+
+
+
+
+XLVII.
+
+EASTER.
+
+
+My dear sisters:--Christmas isn't a New England institution, and High
+Churches are not indigenous to the Down East soil. The Pilgrim Fathers
+took a notion against that species of holidays, and their descendants
+were forbidden by law to make mince-pies and such like, in celebration
+of that particular day. In fact, Christmas was turned out of meeting,
+and Thanksgiving adopted in its place. As for High Churches, in the good
+old times there wasn't a steeple to be seen. The meeting-houses were
+spread out on the ground, roofed in like barns, and quartered off inside
+into square pews, like a cake of gingerbread. The only thing that looked
+like a steeple in those days was the minister, when he stood up to pray.
+Sometimes he leaned a trifle backward to let the congregation see that
+there was no chance that he would ever bow down to that old English
+Church, against which the dust from his feet had been shaken.
+
+The deacons ranged in that long seat under the pulpit, with iron-clad
+faces and hearts, that had grown rocky in their uprightness, were such
+men as you don't meet often nowadays. They not only shook the dust from
+their feet against the Church of England, but scattered a good deal on
+the Quakers and other sects that crept in from the Old World, with an
+idea that they might have a sneaking notion of their own where trees
+were so thick and men so upright; but you and I know they found out
+their mistake.
+
+Our blessed old forefathers sought Christian toleration for themselves
+when they came into the wilderness, not for anybody else. They knew
+exactly which was the shortest way to Heaven, and meant that other
+people should follow it straight up.
+
+Having cast off the old Church of England, and sang Thanksgiving hymns
+on Plymouth Rock--which after all, sisters, wasn't much of a rock to
+brag of as to size--of course our forefathers weren't likely to drag any
+of the worn-out institutions along with them, so, as I have said, they
+dropped Christmas, set their faces against steeples, turned their altars
+into cherry-wood communion tables, clad their souls in iron, and New
+England was purified from the dross of the Old World.
+
+This is why Christmas amounts to nothing among us.
+
+New England has always been an independent part of the United States.
+The footprints of the Puritans are not quite worn out yet, and in
+turning our back on saints and such, we have nigh about forgotten that
+our part of the country had anything to be thankful for, except a fine
+grain harvest and abounding hay crop.
+
+Well, not knowing much about Christmas, sisters, you will be glad to
+hear something about Easter, which comes at the end of Lent, and is a
+time of rejoicing in this city, I can tell you. Let me explain:
+
+Lent is a wonderful still time among the church people who are given to
+fish and eggs, and morning service for weeks and weeks while it lasts.
+But the last three days are what I want to tell you about; for during
+the time when hard-boiled eggs are so much the fashion, Cousin E. E. and
+myself were in Washington, where people rest a little from parties, and
+eat a good many oysters in a serious way, but could no more get up a
+regular Easter jubilee than they could tell where the money goes to that
+ought to build up the Washington monument, but don't.
+
+No; Cousin E. E., who keeps getting higher and higher in her church
+notions, was determined to spend her Easter at home.
+
+"Easter! what does that mean?" I seem to hear you say. "Is it a woman,
+or was it named after one? Is it--"
+
+Stop, sisters, that question is too much for me; I don't know. Wasn't
+there a handsome woman of the Jewish persuasion who put on her good
+clothes and came round the king, her husband, when her relations were
+all kept out of office, or something of that kind? Perhaps this Easter
+is named after her; but then it seems to me as if the names weren't just
+the same. Anyway, the three days they call Easter mean a solemn thing
+that we haven't thought enough of in our parts, up to this time.
+
+It means those three days when our Lord lay in the tomb. The first day,
+sisters, is held in remembrance of a death that was meant to make men
+holy. That was suffered for you and me. It is called Good Friday, and a
+great many people in these parts hold it as the most solemn day of all
+the year. I think it is. My own heart bows itself in dumb reverence as
+the thought of all it means settles down upon me. I wonder that so many
+years of my life have gone by without giving the day a thought. Surely,
+sisters, Christ did not die for the Catholics and Episcopalians alone.
+
+Well, sisters, I did not mean to preach or exhort out of season, but my
+heart has been touched, and out of its fulness I have spoken.
+
+"Are we a-going to your High Church?" says I to Cousin E. E. when she
+came to my room Friday morning, and asked if I was ready.
+
+"No," says she; "even that does not reach my ideas of what is due to the
+occasion. We will go still higher--to St. Stephen's."
+
+"Catholic, isn't it?" says I.
+
+"Yes," says she, with a sigh, "the Mother Church. You will, at least, be
+interested."
+
+"I never was in a Catholic meeting-house," says I, "but to-day I feel
+like worshipping anywhere, cold as it is."
+
+"Not so cold as our Lord's tomb," says she, shivering a little.
+
+I, too, felt cold chills a-creeping over me.
+
+"Come," she says, "it is time."
+
+
+
+
+XLVIII.
+
+A CHURCH HIGHER YET.
+
+
+Sisters, we never spoke a word all the way to St. Stephen's Church,
+which is not a mite higher, and not near so handsome as a good many
+other meeting-houses we had to pass. A crowd of people were going in,
+and we followed into the darkness; for the whole space was full of
+gloom, like a foggy sunset. Here and there lights shone out like stars
+in a cloud, just enough to make the gloom strike home. The church was
+shaped like a cross, and had more than one altar in it. That which stood
+at the head of the broad aisle had just lights enough around it to make
+its whiteness ghostly, and to tremble over a great picture back of it,
+where figures in some harrowing scene seemed to come and go in the foggy
+air.
+
+Yes, the air was foggy and thick, with sweet-smelling smoke, that came
+from some brass lamps a couple of little boys were a swinging back and
+forth by chains linked to them; and there, standing right in front of
+the altar, was a man all draped out in black robes, and a white
+overdress, praying. Sisters, it was awful solemn; I couldn't but just
+keep from sobbing right out.
+
+"Look!" says E. E.; "isn't the chapel of the Virgin beautiful?"
+
+I did look; and there at my left stood an altar covered with flowers,
+and blazing with lights starting up like a crown of glory through the
+darkness.
+
+"Why is that altar so bright, while all the rest of the meeting-house is
+almost dark?" I whispers to E. E.
+
+"That is the chapel of the Virgin, and there lies the body of Christ."
+
+"The body of Christ!" says I, with a start.
+
+"Yes," says she, bowing her head. "You cannot see it, for the flowers
+cover it, as we strew them over the graves of those we love; but the
+holy body of our Lord is there, waiting for the resurrection."
+
+"Waiting for the resurrection!" says I. "How can you say that, E. E.,
+when our Lord was resurrected almost nineteen hundred years ago?"
+
+"Oh!" says she, shaking her head and whispering, "that was so; but the
+body of Christ is there this minute, under the flowers."
+
+"Cousin E. E., are you crazy? Do you believe that in earnest?"
+
+"I do," says she a-folding her hands and dropping down her head.
+
+"But how--how can it be?"
+
+"I cannot explain, dear cousin; but it is so. It is, indeed."
+
+"E. E., are you a Roman Catholic?--do they believe that?"
+
+"Every one of 'em."
+
+"And are you a Roman Catholic?"
+
+"Not yet," says she; "you know well enough that I belong to the
+Episcopal Church; but my pilgrimage is not ended."
+
+Cousin E. E. bent her head and spoke low. I felt the old Pilgrim blood
+rile in me; but just as I was a-going to speak again, a low, mournful
+noise went a-rolling through the meetinging-house, that chilled me down
+like ice-water. It came from behind the great white altar, which looked
+to me like a big tombstone with night-fog floating over it. Through the
+fog I saw two rows of wooden seats, with high backs; and in them sat
+men, all in black and white clothes, singing dismally. No--it wasn't
+singing, and it wasn't reading; but a long, rolling drawl, in which a
+few tones of music seemed buried and were pleading to get out. With this
+dreary sound, came the sobs and mournful shivers of the cold wind
+outside, which made my blood creep.
+
+It was too much; I could not bear it. Tears came into my eyes like drops
+of ice; I felt preceding shivers creeping up my arms.
+
+"Do let's go home--I feel dreadfully," says I, catching hold of Cousin
+E. E.'s dress.
+
+"Wait," says she, "till they have done chanting the Psalms."
+
+I couldn't help it; but sunk down on my knees, covered my face with both
+hands, and let that awful music roll over me. It seemed like a call to
+the Day of Judgment.
+
+At last the sound died off; the wind outside took it up dolefully, and
+seemed to call us out into the cold air. We went, feeling like ghosts,
+and never spoke a word all the way home. How could we, with that awful
+feeling creeping over us?
+
+
+
+
+XLIX.
+
+EASTER SUNDAY.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--It seemed to me as if I never could go into that Catholic
+meeting-house again; but when Sunday came, E. E. got up so cherk and
+bright, that I couldn't say "No" when she wanted me to start with her to
+St. Stephen's meeting-house.
+
+"You will hear no more crying and sobbing," says she, "everything will
+be bright and beautiful; no more penitential psalms; no more darkness.
+Christ has risen!"
+
+My heart rose and swelled, like a frozen apple thrown into hot water,
+when I got into the meeting. It was raining like fury out of doors, but
+inside everything blazed with glory. The great white altar flashed and
+flamed with snow-white candles, bunched like stars in tall candlesticks,
+branched off with gold. Two great candles, as thick as your waist,
+burned like pillars of snow afire inside, on each side of the steps. Up
+amongst the golden candlesticks were two square Maltese crosses--like
+the cross we are used to, only one end is cut off short to match the
+others--all of white flowers, with just a little red at the tips, as if
+a few drops of innocent blood had stained them. Then there were
+beautiful half-moons made of milk-white flowers lying on beds of purple
+flowers, but there was no other color on that altar.
+
+On an altar which I had not seen in the darkness, when I was there
+before, a lamb--as large as life, made out of flowers so white that it
+seemed as if they must have grown in heaven itself--stood among the
+lights that shone, like crowded stars, out from behind it. Across its
+shoulders this lamb carried a cross so blood-red, that it chilled me
+through and through.
+
+Above this altar hung a great cross six feet high, which seemed to float
+in the air. It was made of gas-drops that quivered into each other, and
+struck out colors that the fire seemed to have drank up from the
+flowers, and turned into light that was glorious.
+
+Over this cross floated a crown of fire, that seemed to tremble and
+shake with every gust of air, as if it had just floated down from
+heaven, and, meeting the cross, hovered over it.
+
+I had but just time enough to see all this, when from the other side of
+the great altar, came a lot of boys, walking two and two, with white
+shoes on their feet, and white dresses--I should have called them frocks
+if it had been girls that wore them--all fastened with crimson buttons,
+and crimson silk scarfs were thrown across their shoulders. Then came a
+lot more, dressed in scarlet frocks and white shoes; and after them
+another class in white, with purple scarfs across their shoulders.
+
+These boys--they were real handsome little fellows--stood themselves
+around the altar. Then came two men, all in black and white, and after
+them four others, dressed like kings and princes, all in scarlet and
+gold, and lace and precious stones.
+
+These men knelt down on the steps of the altar. Then everybody in the
+meeting-house knelt too. After a few minutes they got up, and out from
+somewhere in the meeting-house, a low roar of music burst over us, and
+with it came a rush of voices singing out, "Lord, have mercy on us!
+Lord, have mercy on us."
+
+Then there was a lull, and after that a whole torrent of gushing music,
+with an undertone of rolling sounds, and out of the noise came these
+words that seemed to catch up one's heart and fly away with it:
+
+"Glory to God on high, peace and good-will to men!"
+
+Oh, how this rush of sound rose and swelled, and glorified itself! It
+seemed as if you could see Christ rising from the sepulchre, and all the
+angels of heaven rejoicing over it.
+
+Then came more music. I cannot tell you what it was like, only it made
+my heart stir and throb, as if it wanted to break loose and mount
+upwards, singing as it went.
+
+At last a low voice sung, all alone, clear and high as a bird in the
+air. After that, deep, deep silence settled on the whole congregation,
+and everybody dropped down on their knees. Then one of the men in
+scarlet and gold went a step higher on the altar, and took from it a
+gold cup, which he held high up in one hand. Out of this cup he lifted a
+round thing that looked more like a cracker than anything else, and held
+it up between his thumb and finger. I was going to ask E. E. what it was
+all about, but she was bending forward, with her face almost on the
+floor, and everybody around us was taking an extra kneel, which I did
+not understand. Everything kept still, the congregation bent close to
+the floor, and everybody seemed to be thinking to themselves for as much
+as ten minutes. Then the whole congregation lifted its head. The boys
+in red and white frocks swung the brass lamps, which sent clouds of
+sweet, white smoke up amongst the flowers, and out came another burst of
+music, louder, sweeter, and more triumphant than anything I had heard
+yet. It just carried me right off from my feet.
+
+After this, one of the crimson and gold men on the altar turned round,
+and spread out his arms. Two others caught hold of his dress, and held
+it out on each side, and dropped it again. The boys in white and scarlet
+and purple made themselves into double lines, and walked out of the door
+they came in by. The leading scarlet and gold man took the gold cup in
+his hands, and followed after, and the other men in their sparkling
+dresses--with those two in black and white--walked beside and behind him
+while he carried it out.
+
+There was a little stir in the congregation after this, but by and by
+the man who had stood on the steps of the altar and carried out the cup,
+came back in another dress, and went up into a little cubby-house of a
+pulpit, where he preached a beautiful sermon, which I didn't understand
+a word of, and then Easter was over in that church.
+
+When we got out of church I felt like a bird with its wings spread out
+wide. It was raining like Jehu, but I didn't care for that; the music,
+the flowers, the bursts of light had made me feel like another creature.
+Even the stormy sky looked splendid. But when we got home, I began to
+think over what I had seen and heard, and as soon as Cousin E. E. seemed
+to feel like talking, I put a few questions to her.
+
+"Cousin," says I, "who were the men that came out there, all glistening
+with gold and things, and stood on the steps of the altar?"
+
+"Them? Why, they were the priests."
+
+"Oh! And the one who held that cup in his hand--wasn't he something a
+little more particular than the rest?"
+
+"He was the arch-priest."
+
+"You don't say so! But what was that round thing he lifted out of the
+cup?"
+
+"That? Why, Phoemie, that was the Host!"
+
+"There was a host of people on the floor, of course; but I mean the
+little thing he held up between his thumb and finger?"
+
+"That?" says Cousin E. E., a-lifting up both hands, as if I'd done
+something dreadful. "That is the holy wafer."
+
+"The what, Cousin E. E.?"
+
+"The body of our Saviour."
+
+"Oh, cousin, how can you?" says I, a-feeling myself grow cold all over.
+
+"It is so, Phoemie. As yet you may not understand the mystery, but in
+time you will see it."
+
+I couldn't answer her, she was in such solemn earnest; but then and
+there I made up my mind that we should have to talk over that matter in
+earnest before long, for I felt the Pilgrim blood riling up in my bosom.
+
+"Do Episcopalians believe that?" says I.
+
+"Those that take a high stand do," says she.
+
+"Well," says I, "we won't talk that over just now. But whose boys were
+those that swung the lamps and stood round the altar?"
+
+"Oh, those were the acolytes."
+
+"Any relations to the boys we saw at morning service?" says I.
+
+"Oh, they are all the same."
+
+"Mercy on me!" says I; "what a large family of boys--and so near of an
+age, too!"
+
+E. E. lifted her head and gave me the ghost of a smile--that was all. I
+believe she felt that talking was a sin just then, and I felt a little
+that way myself.
+
+"That music was splendid," says I, "and the flowers. I don't think I
+ever was in any meeting-house that seemed so close to heaven. But then I
+always had a hankering after such things. And why not? If God gives us
+music and flowers, light and sweet odors, can it be wrong to render them
+back to him? Cousin, I never knew what power there was in such things
+till now."
+
+"Phoemie," says she--and a queer smile came over her face--"I
+shouldn't wonder if you go back, at last, a High Church woman. Then what
+would the Society say?"
+
+I felt myself turning red--as if I, Phoemie Frost, could change in the
+religion of my forefathers!
+
+"No," says I; "there I am firm as a rock; but with firmness, I hope,
+cousin, that I join toleration. It seems to me that our Pilgrim Fathers
+made a mistake when they expected all mankind to think with them, and
+another mistake when they put aside the holiest and most solemnly
+beautiful days of all the year--those upon which our blessed Lord was
+born, suffered, and ascended into heaven.
+
+
+
+
+L.
+
+THAT MAN WITH THE LANTERN.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I am back in Washington. So is Cousin E. E. and Dempster,
+who has got a case before Congress; and when a man has that he just
+makes up his mind to take permanent lodgings in a sleeping-car, and make
+his home by daytime in a railroad section.
+
+You never saw anything like the hurry in which such men live. As for the
+married ones, their wives scarcely see them at all unless they catch 'em
+flying with a railroad ticket in one hand, and a carpet-bag, swelled out
+like an apple-dumpling, in the other.
+
+To us women this kind of life is tantalizing--very.
+
+When Cousin D. came up from Wall Street, all in a fume, and says he:
+"Come, ladies, if you've a mind to go to Washington, just pack up and
+get your things," we both rushed into the street like crazy creatures,
+and came back with our pockets crammed, and our hands full of hair-pins,
+bits of ribbon, lengths of lace, and so on. These we huddled into our
+trunks the last thing, drew a deep breath, and said we're ready, half
+scared to death with fear that D. might cut short the hour he has been
+kind enough to give us, and start off alone--a thing he was just as like
+to do as not, being a man.
+
+It's astonishing how much can really be done in an hour. When our time
+was up we had five minutes to spare, and sat with our satchels in our
+laps, waiting for Cousin D.
+
+This time, being with E. E., I just said nothing, but let things drift,
+which, after all, is about the easiest way to get along. Instead of
+going in among the easy-chairs, as we did before, they took me into the
+sleeping-car, which is a great long affair, with what we call bunks, in
+our parts, made lengthwise on each side, with a narrow hall running
+between. The bunks had curtains, and looked ship-shape when they were
+once made up; but it was funny enough to see great tall men spreading
+sheets and patting down pillows for female women to sleep on.
+
+Cousin E. E. and I had a little mahogany pen, with two bunks in it,
+which is considered extra genteel, and we went to bed, first one and
+then the other, not having room enough for more than one to undress at a
+time. When our clothes were hung up, and we inside the bunks, the pen
+was choke full, and off we rattled, with a jounce now and then that made
+you catch your breath. It was like sleeping in a cradle, with some great
+hard-footed nurse rocking you in a broken trot.
+
+I had just begun to get to sleep, when what do you think happened?
+
+The door was pushed open, and a man looked in. I started up, riled to
+the depths of my woman's soul. Never before, since I was a nursing baby,
+had any man looked on my face after it was laid on my pillow.
+
+What did the creature mean?
+
+I scrouched down in the bunk, pulling the sheet over my head, and peeped
+through an opening, half scared to death.
+
+That man had a lantern in his hand, a dark lantern, with the fire all on
+one side. It glared into my bed like a wicked eye.
+
+"What, oh, what _do_ you want?" says I. "Remember, we are two innocent
+females that seem to be unprotected, but we have a gentleman outside--a
+strong, tall, powerful man. Advance another step and I scream."
+
+The man opened his mouth to speak; his one-eyed lantern glared upon me;
+he smiled as if overflowing with good intentions.
+
+"Go away," says I, speaking in a tone of command from under the
+bedclothes, "or if it is my purse you want, take it; but take that evil
+eye from my countenance."
+
+The man took the little pocket-book from my trembling hand; he opened it
+with cold-blooded slowness, took out a long strip of printed paper
+Cousin Dempster had told me to take care of, and tore it in two before
+my face. Then he put one of the pieces back, while I lay shaking and
+being shook till the teeth chattered in my head.
+
+"Spare me," says I, with the plaintive wail of a heroine. "Take all I
+have, pocket-book and all, but, oh, spare me; spare me!"
+
+He held my pocket-book towards me. I shivered, I shrunk; my hand crept
+forth like a poor timid mouse, and darted back again.
+
+The man--this stealthy railway burglar--seemed touched with compassion.
+My helpless innocence had evidently made an impression even on his
+hardened nature; he laid the pocket-book gently on the pillow, and
+modestly turned his one-eyed lantern away, pitying my confusion, and
+feeling, as any man with a heart in his bosom must, that I was scared
+out of a week's growth.
+
+I breathed again. My heart swelled with thankfulness that a great danger
+was passed. I pushed back the blankets, and looked out while a timid
+shudder crept over me.
+
+The man was there yet, stooping down to Cousin E. E.'s bunk. I heard
+paper rustle. Had he spared me to rob her? Why didn't she scream? Why
+didn't she command the creature to leave her presence?
+
+Robbery was nothing, but that cool way of breaking in upon two sleeping
+females had the ferocity of a wild beast in it. Was he killing my
+cousin--smothering her with pillows so that she could not scream out?
+The thought drove me frantic. My arms were goose-pimpled like a grater.
+
+"Why don't you order him out? Why don't you scream for Dempster?" says
+I, feeling a thrill of hysterics creeping over me. "If you don't, I
+must.
+
+"All right," says the burglarious wretch, giving us the dark side of his
+lantern, and slamming the door. Then all was mournfully still. I half
+rose and leaned over my bunk, pale, breathless.
+
+"Oh, cousin! speak to me if you are alive," I pleaded.
+
+"What is it; what is the matter, Phoemie?" says a sleepy voice from
+below.
+
+"Ah, thank Heaven, you are alive!" I cried, a-clasping my hands in a
+sweet ecstasy of gratitude. "Did he attempt to strangle you?"
+
+"He. Who?"
+
+"Why, that man. That prowling monster, with the one-eyed lantern!"
+
+"Oh, he only wanted my ticket; he meant no harm," says she, more than
+half asleep.
+
+I drew back into my bunk, and let her go to sleep. Ignorance _is_ bliss.
+She felt safe, and I left her. Why should I disturb her innocent rest
+with the knowledge that a railroad she trusted in was infested through
+and through with brigandation. If she knew the truth, I was certain that
+E. E. would never be coaxed or reasoned into travelling again, so I
+determined to keep a still tongue, and never mention this attempt at
+burglary again to any human creature.
+
+I have made up my mind to one thing, though. Phoemie Frost will never
+travel again without a pistol under her pillow. What good object can any
+man have in smashing into the midnight dreams of two innocent females,
+and wanting to examine their pocket-books? I tremble to think what the
+feelings of the great Grand Duke would be if he had heard of the
+terrible danger I have been in.
+
+Of course I never closed my eyes again till the long train of cars crept
+like a great trailing snake into the depot at Washington.
+
+
+
+
+LI.
+
+MRS. GRANT'S RECEPTION.
+
+
+Sisters, Washington is splendid just now. In New York the winter seems
+to have frozen up all the sap in the trees; not a bud on the limbs, not
+a tinge of green even on the willows, which are the trees of all others
+that give out their greenness first in the spring, and keep it latest in
+the fall. The trees that grow in the Park were brown and naked when we
+left the city.
+
+Here the buds are a-swelling. The willow-trees are feathered over with
+leaves as soft and pale as the down on a gosling's breast. The
+beech-trees are covered over with soft, downy buds, that float on the
+air like full-grown caterpillars. Even the ragged old button-balls are
+shooting out leaves like sixty, and the young trees at the Smithsonian
+Institution, and the old ones below the Capitol of the nation, are
+bursting into greenness, while the grass seems to spring up fresh in
+your path as you walk along.
+
+I declare it is a satisfaction to breathe the air which is kissing so
+many buds and flowers open; and I feel sort of guilty in doing it, when
+I know that the hollows around Sprucehill are choked up with dead
+leaves, if not with drifted snow, and it will be weeks yet before the
+maple-sap will take to running.
+
+Nature is an institution that I hope I shall always be fond of and
+appreciate; but men and women are, after all, the noblest work of a
+beneficent Creator, and, from the delicate greenness and the soft airs
+of spring, I turn to them.
+
+At two o'clock, yesterday, Mrs. President Grant had a grand reception at
+the White House. There hasn't been the ghost of one while Lent kept
+people down to a fish diet and morning meetings; but now, when the
+flowers of Easter-Sunday have all withered up, people begin to visit one
+another again, and this grand reception at the White House sort of opens
+the way and sets the fashions a-going once more.
+
+Well, when the time came, Cousin E. E. and I were on hand. My pink silk
+dress was a little rumpled; but I shook it out and smoothed it down.
+
+Cousin E. E. came out like a princess, in pale lilac-colored silk, with
+a whole snow-storm of lace crinkling over it. I declare, sisters, she
+looked fresh and sweet as the first lilac that blows! I was really proud
+to introduce her as my relation.
+
+Cousin Dempster, having a claim, had to go to the Capitol; so E. E. and
+I went together--no gentlemen being absolutely necessary to a daytime
+reception, you know.
+
+Well, we got out of the carriage as light and chipper as two birds. The
+driver held out his arm to keep our dresses from touching the wheel, as
+they streamed out after us; and I must say Vermont didn't suffer much as
+to ladies when we walked, with the slow dignity befitting persons with
+the eye of a State upon them, into the blue room, where Mrs. President
+Grant recepted. Well, I reckon the ladies were two to one against the
+men in that blue room, and it just looked lovely!
+
+In the centre of the room stood the round, blue silk sofa, I have told
+you about, cut up into seats, and rising to a point in the middle, as if
+a silk funnel had been turned bottom-side up there. On the nozzle end of
+this point a great white flower-pot stood, a-running over with pink and
+white flowers, rising in great clusters one above another, till they
+brightened the whole room with a glow like early morning.
+
+In front of this ring sofa the Mrs. President stood, looking just as
+smiling and sweet as a bank of roses. She had on a pink dress--no, not
+exactly what we call pink--but the color was soft and rosy as a cloud;
+snowflaky lace floated around her arms, and shaded her neck, which was
+plump, and white, and pretty as any girl's. She hadn't a sign of a
+flower, or anything on her head; but the soft, crinkly hair curled down
+to her forehead sweetly, and she seemed almost like a young girl.
+Everybody there said that they never had seen her look so handsome.
+
+Well, there she stood, with a nice little lady on one side, helping her
+recept; and she did it sweetly, which was likely, she being the wife of
+Senator Morton, of Indiana, one of General Grant's biggest sort of guns.
+You have heard of Senator Morton, of course. He was a first-rate fellow
+during the war, when he just buckled to and raised a half a million of
+dollars on his own account for the Government, which was grand in
+itself, and accounts for the way the people in Indiana almost worship
+him.
+
+Well, this lady was his wife. She looked young, and was dressed
+nicely--not just like a girl, but as if she had her husband's dignity to
+take care of, as well as her own good looks.
+
+When we got to the door of this room, a gentleman came up, and, after
+making a bow, wanted us to tell our names. Cousin E. E. answered:
+
+"Mrs. Dempster, of New York, and Miss Phoemie Frost, of Vermont."
+
+He didn't seem to hear distinctly, but bent his head; and says he:
+
+"Miss, did you say?"
+
+I flushed rosy-red, and my eyelids drooped, for I was thinking of the
+Grand Duke.
+
+"At present," says I.
+
+Then the gentleman called out so loud that everybody could hear him:
+
+"Mrs. Dempster--Miss Phoemie Frost."
+
+I say, sisters, did you ever see a cage full of canary-birds flutter
+when a cat was looking through the wires? If you have, that can give you
+some idea of the buzz, hum, and rustle that was going on when we came up
+to the front of that round sofa, and gave Mrs. Grant and Mrs. Morton one
+of those sliding curtsies that set off a long-trailed dress so well.
+
+Mrs. President Grant smiled sweetly, and held our her hand. I took that
+hand, I pressed it kindly--for I like that woman, whom poverty could not
+daunt, and sudden prosperity could not spoil. She's a good, motherly,
+nice woman, and my heart warmed to her as I took her hand in mine.
+
+"Miss Frost, I am delighted to see you back in Washington," says she;
+"especially as the weather promises to be so pleasant."
+
+"In some places we are apt to forget the weather, finding everything
+bright and pleasant without regard to it," says I.
+
+When I spoke, the ladies around crowded up to listen, and looked at each
+other, smiling. One or two gentlemen came up, too, and when I bowed my
+head and walked on, giving common people a chance, one of them came up
+to me, and says he:
+
+"Miss Frost, I think I have the pleasure of claiming you as a
+constituent," says he.
+
+"A what?" says I.
+
+"A constituent," says he, a-smiling softly.
+
+"No," says I; "I don't remember being connected with any family of that
+name."
+
+"But you are from Vermont?"
+
+"I am proud to say 'Yes,'" says I, a-bowing my best, in honor of the old
+State.
+
+"Then I have some claim on your acquaintance," says he. "My name is
+----."
+
+I reached out my hand. The fire flashed into my eyes. "Our United States
+Senator?" says I.
+
+"I believe the people have given me that honor," says he.
+
+"And honored themselves in the doing of it," says I.
+
+I declare the man blushed, showing that high parts and extraordinary
+knowledge haven't made him conceited. But I hadn't said a word more than
+the truth. Vermont, of all the States of the Union, I do think, has done
+herself credit in her choice of Senators. There isn't in all the Senate
+a man that either of 'em cannot hold his own with, and I don't believe a
+rough or ungentlemanly word or action has ever been on record against
+either of them."
+
+Before he could answer, a gentleman came and spoke low to him. Then he
+said, with a pleased look:
+
+"This is Mr. ----, our other Senator, Miss Frost, who is, I am sure, as
+glad to welcome you here as I am."
+
+I turned, and saw a tall, spare man, with the kindest, mildest, and most
+speaking face I ever set eyes on. His voice, too, when he spoke, was
+just benign. I gave him my hand. If I looked half as glad as I felt, he
+must have seen the warmest sort of a welcome in my eyes. I felt honored
+by an introduction to these men. Not because they happened to be my own
+Senators, but because they are men of heart and brains, capable of
+understanding what the people want, and both honest and strong enough to
+maintain what they understand. I write this without hesitation, knowing
+that there isn't a society or household in Vermont that will not agree
+with my way of thinking about them.
+
+I don't think much of beauty in a man, but there's no dreadful harm in
+being good-looking, and in that respect our Senators pull about an even
+yoke with each other, and can't be overmatched by many States in the
+Union.
+
+Well, we walked about the room, and had a good deal to say concerning
+the Old Mountain State, while the crowd went in and out down the east
+room, through the parlors, and into a great, long greenhouse, blazing
+out with flowers that grew so thick and smelled so sweet that I longed
+to stay there forever. But by the time I was ready to leave, the company
+had thinned off, and Cousin E. E. was waiting for me, a little out of
+sorts, for somehow I had lost her in the crowd; but she soon came to,
+and when I told her our Senators were going to call on us at the hotel,
+she chirked up. After all, Cousin E. E. _is_ a good-hearted creature as
+ever lived.
+
+
+
+
+LII.
+
+REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--My ambitious longings are satisfied. I have stood before
+the Mrs. President of these United States, and in that august situation
+sustained the honor and dignity of our Society in a manner that I hope
+will meet with your united and individual sanction. Mrs. Grant has had a
+great many ladies of one kind and another standing by her side as
+honored guests of the nation, but I do think the literary strata of the
+Union has never been fully represented before. I do not say this
+vaingloriously--far be it from me to claim anything on my own
+merits--but when the reputation of our Society is concerned, I am ready
+to stand up among the best, and hold my own even in the national White
+House.
+
+That I have done according to the best of my abilities, and, I trust, to
+the satisfaction of the Society, but I claim no credit for it. Any of us
+young girls can bow and smile, and give out words that melt into a vain
+man's heart like lumps of maple-sugar, and that is about all that is
+expected from the female women who perform Society in Washington, and
+real pretty, smart women most of them are; but after all, they are only
+accidental females, and get there just because their husbands happen to
+be elected to a place, and wouldn't even be heard of if some smart man
+hadn't given them his name--more than as like as not--before he knew
+himself how much it was worth.
+
+Now you will understand, sisters, that no man, though he should happen
+to be smart as a steel trap, and pleasant as a willow whistle, can give
+extra brains or sweet manners to a wife who hasn't got 'em in her own
+right. So there is a chance that some short comings in the female line
+are not very uncommon.
+
+The senators and judges and cabinet people are, as a general thing, the
+picked men of the nation, but they choose their own wives, and some of
+them haven't half so much taste in the fine arts, to which many of this
+generation of women belong, as they have knowledge about politics.
+Still, these ladies are what they call representative women, and,
+nationally considered, are the cream on cream of American society. That
+is a fact, too, as far as they represent their own husbands. By marrying
+great men, or those who are merely fortunate, they are only lifted more
+clearly into the public view, where their virtues and their faults are
+held up for general examination. Still, it is wonderful how popular some
+of them get to be, and how soon they learn the duties of their places.
+
+Sometimes a first-rate woman happens to marry a first-rate man, and
+takes her place by his side naturally. A good many such women have
+earned a place for themselves in society quite equal to any their
+husbands have been chosen to hold by the people.
+
+Mrs. Madison, Mrs. Polk and Miss Lane were among these, and, as a
+perfect lady, well known for years and years in Washington, Mrs.
+Crittendon, the widow of Senator Crittendon--formerly Mrs. Ashley--is
+always mentioned side by side with her husband, and stood quite as high
+among women as he did among men. In my opinion, there is a senator's
+wife from Minnesota that can hold her own with the handsomest and
+highest of those that have gone before; but as she is extra modest too,
+I give no names.
+
+Then there is another, I will say it, who has done honor to her position
+and credit to her husband, and that is Mrs. Ulysses Grant. She is just a
+good, honest, motherly woman, pleasant to look at and pleasant to speak
+to. She acts out what she pretends to, and pretends to be just what she
+is. If this woman hasn't pulled an even yoke with her husband, both in
+the war and after the war, no female of my acquaintance ever did. It's
+of no use talking, I like that woman.
+
+But I am a-going at a rate that wants pulling up, so I tighten the
+bridle and take a new turn.
+
+What I began to write about was, a reception at Mr. Horatio King's,
+which always takes off the first skimming of cream from Washington
+society.
+
+Mr. King is a New England man, and was born and brought up in Maine,
+which lifts him almost to a level with us of Vermont.
+
+In fact, in the way of statesmen and authors, I am bound to say that
+Maine pulls an even yoke with the Green Mountain State. So far as
+authors are concerned, I'm afraid she goes a little ahead of us.
+
+The city of Portland was just a nest of authors before they took wing
+and settled down in other places.
+
+John Neal, one of the most splendid men and brilliant writers that ever
+put an American pen to paper, was born there, and has spent most of his
+life in his native place.
+
+N. P. Willis was born in Portland; so was Sebe Smith, who called himself
+Jack Downing in his letters.
+
+Longfellow's family was rooted in that town long before he honored it by
+being born.
+
+James Brooks, who was for years a pillar of strength in Congress, and
+who started the first newspaper correspondence ever thought of, in the
+_Portland Advertiser_, which he edited before he was twenty years old,
+was a native of Portland, which city he represented in the legislature,
+then travelled all over Europe on foot, and settled down in New York
+before he was twenty-six. After this he spent twelve or fifteen years in
+Congress--earned a place, second to no man there, as a statesman,
+travelled over Europe three times, visited Egypt and the Holy Land, and
+finished his travels by a trip round the world, taken between the
+sessions of Congress. Beside this, he never ceased to be the leading
+editor of the New York _Express_, and his book about Japan, China, and
+so on, which Mr. Appleton, of New York, has published, is one of the
+best books of travel extant.
+
+Beside all these, Mr. King made his first literary start in Portland,
+where, as a young man, he edited a weekly paper. But he has lived most
+of his after-life in Washington, generally holding a high position
+there. During a portion of Mr. Buchanan's administration, he was
+Postmaster-General of these United States, and at all times he has been
+considered a man worth knowing.
+
+
+
+
+LIII.
+
+A LITERARY PARTY.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Of course I, being a young girl of New England, felt
+myself at home in Mrs. King's house the minute I entered it. There is
+something in the air of a dwelling like that, pure and breezy, like the
+morning winds on the Green Mountains. I felt myself growing frank and
+cheerful as I got into the hall. The parlors were crowded full--three of
+them--with people that one liked to look at, and longed to know; for
+every face had an idea in it, and, beyond that, a good many were right
+down beautiful.
+
+But beauty by itself isn't enough to get an invitation here, and good
+clothes count for just nothing, though there was plenty of them, and I
+didn't feel as if my pink silk was too much. Something a little more
+austere, in the velvet or alpaca line, might have been more appropriate
+to the occasion. Still, there was a rosy brightness about my silk that
+had a tendency to give a glow of youthful thoughtlessness to
+intelligence, and combine an idea of high fashion with genius.
+
+Mr. King, and his daughter, a proper, pretty stylish lady, stood near
+the door when I went in, with the train of my dress streaming back into
+the hall, and some natural rose-geranium leaves circling my brow in a
+way that was calculated to remind an observing person of Miss Corinne
+when she was crowned in the Capitol at Rome.
+
+Mr. King come forward to meet me with his hand held out. He is a thin,
+spare man, with the sweetest and kindest look in his face that you ever
+saw. I had intended to just touch his hand, and make a sweeping salute,
+half bow, half curtsey, that would take in the whole admiring crowd; but
+his frank, smiling welcome just took me right off from my feet, and I
+gave his hand a good, hearty New England shake that made him feel to
+home in a minute.
+
+Mr. King led me into the parlor, and gave me a soft seat among the
+cushions of a sofa in the middle room, just as Solomon must have waited
+on the Queen of Sheba. Then, feeling that the eyes of more States than
+Vermont were upon me, I spread out my skirts, leaned one arm on the sofa
+cushion, and settled myself just as Mr. Brady had done it when I sat to
+him for a picture; thus adding an artistic feature to the fashionable
+and intellectual embodiment of my first appearance. Thus, with downcast
+eyes and a modest demeanor, which must have been attractive, I waited
+for the literary programme that lay before us.
+
+It commenced beautifully. Mr. King took his place under the chandelier
+of the middle room, and welcomed his friends with a very poetic and
+touching little speech, which ended in a farewell which almost brought
+tears into my eyes. This was his last reunion for the year, and he
+seemed to feel the breaking-up a good deal, and his kind voice shook
+when he mentioned the possibility that death might carry off some of the
+friends who had brightened his home, before they all met again.
+
+When Mr. King sat down there was dumb silence for a little while; for
+the whole crowd seemed to feel all he had been saying, deep in their
+hearts. But this soon changed into smiles and a soft rustle of dresses,
+for a nice elderly gentleman got up and made a delightful speech, full
+of cheerfulness and nice friendly feeling, which brightened the whole
+crowd up like spring winds in a flower-garden.
+
+After this, another pleasant gentleman arose with a written poem in his
+hand, which he read under the gaslight, filling the whole room with the
+sound of his friendly voice.
+
+The poem was written to Mr. King. It was full of sweet thoughts and
+grateful thanks for all he had done to make his friends happy. But he
+blushed like a girl, for its praises seemed to take him by surprise,
+and, like all men of real talent, he is modest as can be.
+
+The lady who wrote this sweet poem was Mrs. Neeley, who has been writing
+to the Washington papers ever so long, in a way, too, that any woman
+might be proud of. She sat directly behind the gentleman who read her
+poem, and looked real nice in her crimson velvet dress.
+
+After this a lady got up and read something mournful about three curls
+of hair that a man had taken from his wife's head--golden when she was a
+child, brown when she was a bride, and snow-white when she lay dead.
+
+There was a sort of sob went through all the rooms when this poem died
+out. Then, after a little, every lady began to cheer up and laugh; for
+the same lady was reading a poem, half Dutch, half English, about a dog
+howling, which was so funny that I almost forgot my dignity as the
+representative of your Society, and near about clapped my hands--a thing
+I should have regretted to the day of my death.
+
+This dog poem set everybody into a state of high gleefulness and some
+music struck up in the front room, which could be heard a little now and
+then above the hum and rush of conversation that set in with the crowd,
+where artists, authors, and statesmen, and scientifics mingled in, and
+chatted promiscuously, saying such bright and wise and witty things,
+that they fairly made my eyes snap. I cut in, too.
+
+What is the use of being the emissary of a literary, scientific, and
+moral institution, if one can't hold up her end of the yoke in
+conversation? I did my best, sisters. An artist stood near me; I talked
+with him about pictures till, I do believe, he thought that I had been
+born in Rome, and cradled with Michael Angelo--an old fellow, that both
+painted and made marble men in Italy years ago. Then I had something to
+say about flowers to an agricultural bureau scientific, and about the
+chemistry of something to a savant or savan, or a word like that, of the
+Smithsonian Institution. I tell you, sisters, it was sharp work; but I
+flatter myself you were not in any way disgraced.
+
+By and by I was introduced to the Chief Justice of the Court of
+Claims--about as smart a lawyer, and clear headed a judge, as can be
+found in these parts, I can tell you. He was not long ago United States
+Senator from Missouri, and has left his mark among the statesmen there;
+but his genius lay as much in expounding the laws as in making them. He
+has written some capital law-books, too, and could mate with any judge,
+statesman, or author that came across his track. His wife joined in a
+little now and then, as only a right down sensible and handsome woman
+could. It does one's heart good to see a great man and most lovely woman
+mated so for once.
+
+That was just what I did in Mr. King's parlors, and, when we stopped
+talking, it struck me that the gentleman knew a great deal more of
+literature than your missionary has yet learned of statesmanship or law.
+In fact, an evening in Mr. King's parlors does teach one humility, and I
+begin to discover that a person may be capable of writing poetry, and
+making a fair report, without being able to teach science to a
+professor, jurisprudence--I hope I have got the word right--to a judge,
+or high statesmanship to a senator. In fact, in the present state of
+society, it seems to me that the best of us have got to live and
+learn--live and learn.
+
+
+
+
+LIV.
+
+DRESSING FOR A PARTY.
+
+
+My dear sisters:--You have no idea how many kinds of parties there are
+in Washington. Some are called receptions, because they take place in
+the daytime, in houses where every mite of sunshine is shut out, and the
+gas set to blazing as if it were midnight. That is, night isn't turned
+into day here one bit oftener than day is turned into night.
+
+Then there are ladies' lunch parties, where the daylight is allowed to
+shine in; and picnics, where one gets a little too much of it, besides
+being tired to death, and nothing to show for it.
+
+Besides these, there are political parties, where men get up
+entertainments that are called caucuses, which no lady is allowed to
+join in. Besides dinners and breakfasts, and so on, without end, which
+makes life in this city just one rush and tumult--to say nothing of
+Congress, which is just that, and a good deal more so.
+
+Last week, Cousin E. E. and I had so many invitations that we didn't
+know what to do with them. We should have had to go out to three
+breakfasts, two dinners, and six parties a night, if we had attempted to
+do more than read them all. For since Mr. King's literary reunion, the
+popularity of your missionary has increased like a rolling snowball, and
+her invitations came by the peck and half bushel.
+
+Well, out of this heap, there was one or two places that I felt like
+honoring with my presence. So E. E. and I sat down and wrote a little
+note--all ladies write _little_ notes nowadays--and relieved the intense
+anxiety of the people who had invited us, by saying, in the most polite
+way, that we would come.
+
+This act of kindness had its reward in the feeling that we had relieved
+more than one anxious host, and given certainty of a brilliant success
+to parties that must necessarily have been in doubt until certain of our
+coming. With my usual modesty, I say "our," wishing to give E. E. her
+little chance, you know.
+
+The invitation we resolved to honor was from one of the foreign
+ministers. Of course I expected that there would be a good many
+religious people there, and, as I hadn't mingled much with persons who
+were over pious for some time, I anticipated a refreshing season; for a
+foreign minister must have a noble missionary spirit, and, no doubt,
+came to Washington on purpose to reform the members of Congress, which
+is a work of Christian mercy, if ever there was one.
+
+For this reason, my spiritual nature was aroused, and I was burning with
+desire to help in the noble cause, and let foreign nations know that we
+had women in this country that could be at once brilliant and devout,
+celebrated and conscientious; in fact, women who could gracefully
+combine two characters, hitherto supposed to be opposite.
+
+Yes, I was resolved to go to this ministerial reunion. Had I not been at
+Mr. King's literary gathering, which lifted me, as it were, out of a
+frivolous, fashionable life into the purely intellectual, and now,
+should I refuse to bathe my soul in the purer element of high Christian
+fervor? No, a thousand times no!
+
+On a religious occasion like this, I felt that a modest dress--simple
+black alpaca, for instance, with a pink bow at the neck--would be about
+the thing; but Cousin E. E. got almost huffy about it.
+
+"Why," says she, "at the Foreign Minister's a full toilet is expected,
+always. It is but proper respect."
+
+"Cousin," says I, "no one can have more respect for the ministerial
+functions than I have; no one ever attended meeting more faithfully. Am
+I not a missionary myself? Do you think I would or could fall short of
+the mark of the prize of the high calling? If alpaca isn't the thing, I
+am open to reason and pink silk."
+
+"That will do," says she, a-brightening up, "looped up with black velvet
+and bows, and _decollette_."
+
+"Dic o' nonsense?" says I, riling a little.
+
+"Well, low neck and short sleeves," says she.
+
+"At a meeting of ministers?" says I. "Cousin E. E., are you crazy?"
+
+"Well, do as you please," says she, "only I tell you it will be
+expected. I intend to be very low, with a strap for a sleeve, and all my
+jewels."
+
+"I shall be content with the jewels of the soul," says I, with an
+austere rebuke in my voice; for if there is anything that riles me up
+more than another, it is flashy dressing where one's mind should be
+given up to solemn thoughts. "Cousin E. E., there are times when levity
+of dress and lightness of speech are to be excused, but this isn't one
+of them. Put a bridle on your tongue, and something more than a strap
+over your shoulder."
+
+E. E. colored up, and gave her head a toss.
+
+"Phoemie," says she, "you are past finding out. Do as you please, and
+just let me do as I please."
+
+I lifted my forefinger in gentle warning; for, with all her fashionable
+crotchets, E. E. is a good soul as ever lived, and I don't want to be
+hard on her, feeling that great minds should be forbearing, especially
+in religious matters. So we parted good friends, and I went into my room
+to get ready for the solemn occasion.
+
+I took out my pink silk dress--for the alpaca was a little rusty--and
+laid it out on the bed. Then I ripped some black velvet ribbon from
+another old dress, and tied it up into bows that looked scrumptious as
+new. After that I brushed my hair out straight, and braided it in an
+austere fashion appropriate to the occasion. Not a friz or a curl was to
+be seen; for this once I threw aside the other woman's hair, and was
+from head to foot myself again.
+
+"Neat, yet genteel," says I to myself, when my dress was on and the
+black bows in place. "Nothing flash or frivolous, though everything
+refinedly elegant. No minister, be he ever so strict a disciplinarian,
+can find fault with me. I suppose the critics of all the religious
+papers will be there. Well, let them draw my portrait; I am ready for
+the ordeal."
+
+With these high thoughts in my mind I went downstairs; but the sight of
+my cousin made me step back with both hands thrown up. She was just on
+fire with jewelry and precious stones. They flamed out on her neck,
+twinkled in her ears, and shot fiery arrows through her hair. Her cheeks
+were rosy red, and her eyes had shadows about them that had come since
+she went down to dinner. Perhaps she had taken a nap in a dark room,
+though. The dress she wore was soft and white and floating, like a cloud
+in the sky; and there was black lace mixed with it, and roses tangled up
+with that. I declare to you, sisters, if that woman had been going to a
+worldly party, she couldn't have been titivated off more than she was.
+It riled me to look at her.
+
+Advice scorned isn't to be offered again. I said nothing, but let E. E.
+go on in her frivolous career.
+
+
+
+
+LV.
+
+FOREIGN MINISTERS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--We entered the carriage, where Dempster took the front
+seat, just buried up in his wife's dress, and sat there like an
+exclamation-point gone astray. As for me, I sat upright and thoughtful,
+resolved to do my duty in spite of their shortcomings.
+
+We reached a large brick house; before it a line of carriages kept
+moving like a city funeral, only people were all the time a-getting out
+and walking under a long tent that sloped down from the front door.
+
+"There will be a full Conference," says I, in my heart, for I was too
+much riled up by E. E.'s dress for any observation to her.
+
+One thing struck me as peculiar. None of the ladies wore their bonnets,
+and a good many had white cloaks on, huddled up around them as if they
+had been going to a party.
+
+If I hadn't known the house belonged to foreign ministers, I really
+should have thought from the look of things that we had lost our way,
+and got into somebody's common reception. As it was I got out of the
+carriage, and went up the steps with my bonnet on, and holding up the
+train of my pink silk, feeling that so much appendage was out of place.
+
+A colored person in white gloves opened the door, and waving his hand
+like a Grand Duke--oh, how that word goes to my heart--said:
+
+"Front door, second story."
+
+Another time I should have known that this meant that I could take off
+my things there. But now I felt almost certain that the ministers were
+holding a prayer-meeting, or conference, or something in "the front
+room, second story," so I went upstairs with a slow and solemn tread,
+feeling that the rustle of my pink silk was almost sacrilege.
+
+I went into the room and looked around. It was full of women,
+wonderfully dressed women, all in low necks and short sleeves, and white
+shoes--laughing, giggling women, who looked over each others naked
+shoulders into a great broad looking-glass crowded full of faces that
+couldn't seem to admire themselves enough.
+
+I stopped at the door. I scarcely breathed. What could all those
+rosy-cheeked, bare-armed ladies be doing in that house?
+
+I asked this question, of course, of Cousin Dempster, who came into the
+hall a-pulling his white gloves on.
+
+"Dempster," says I, in a low voice, "what does this mean? Where are the
+ministers?"
+
+"Oh, they are in the back room. You didn't expect them to be turned in
+with the ladies, did you?"
+
+"Well," says I, "it is customary in our State now, though it was not
+formerly, when the men sat on one side at prayer-meetings, and the girls
+on the other, but I didn't think that notion had got to foreign parts."
+
+I don't think Dempster heard me clearly, for that minute his wife came
+out of the room, blazing like the whole milky-way of stars.
+
+"Why, Phoemie," says she, a-holding up both the white kid gloves she
+had just buttoned on, "you don't mean to go down with that bonnet on?"
+
+"I should think you would be ashamed to go into a conference or a
+prayer-meeting with it off," says I, severely.
+
+E. E. stared at Dempster, and he stared at her. Then he hitched up his
+shoulders, and she gave her hands a little toss in the air.
+
+I didn't seem to notice their antics, but went with them downstairs,
+where I heard the sound of music, which didn't strike me as so sacred as
+it ought to be. Besides, there was a buzz and a hum like a hive of bees
+swarming, which was puzzling.
+
+When we went into the great, long room, that seemed running over with
+light, the crowded state of the congregation astonished me. There wasn't
+seats enough for one quarter of the worshippers.
+
+Sisters, I was the only one present who had studied the sacred decencies
+of a bonnet and shawl. The rest were dressed--well, they weren't dressed
+at all about the arms and shoulders, which shocked me dreadfully; the
+mere presence of a lot of ministers ought to have made women more
+decorous.
+
+Would you believe it, the people round the doors stared at me as if they
+had never seen a beehive bonnet, with feathers floating over it, before.
+
+Some people might have felt shocked at so many eyes turned on them, but
+I was in the straight and narrow path of duty, and their looks passed by
+me like the idle wind. If they didn't understand the solemnity of the
+occasion, I did.
+
+"There is the Minister," says Dempster, "let us pay our respects."
+
+"Why," says I, "there don't seem to be either a reading desk or pulpit
+here!"
+
+I don't think Dempster heard me, for he began to edge our way through
+the crowd, till we got clear into the room, which was so full of flowers
+and lights and music that I began to think the foreign ministers were
+keeping up Easter-Sunday yet.
+
+A gentleman was standing near the door with some ladies around him.
+Dempster took us straight up to him.
+
+"Your Excellency," says he, "Miss Frost. Miss Phoemie Frost, of
+Vermont."
+
+I didn't think that exactly a proper place to be introducing people in,
+and measured off my bow accordingly, and passed on without troubling
+myself about the ladies around him, who seemed to wonder at it. As if I
+wanted to know them!
+
+When we got into the crowd again, I whispered to Dempster:
+
+"Do tell me where the foreign ministers are!"
+
+"The Ministers! Why you have just been presented to the very highest of
+them," says Dempster.
+
+"What, that man," says I, "with precious stones a-twinkling on his
+shirt-bosom, and a bit of red ribbon in his button-hole, who seems to
+have cut up his words with a chopping knife? You couldn't make me
+believe that, Dempster!"
+
+"But it is, upon my honor, Phoemie; and those gentlemen standing
+around him are all Ministers, or persons sent out with them. Almost
+every civilized nation is represented here to-night."
+
+I looked around at the persons Dempster pointed out--some were young,
+some old, some you could understand, others you couldn't; most of them
+were talking and laughing with the ladies around them. I didn't see a
+downright serious face in the whole crowd.
+
+"Them ministers!" I said, scorning Dempster's attempt to deceive me.
+
+"Every one of them is a Minister now, or means to be."
+
+"Dempster, I don't believe you."
+
+"Well, ask some one else whom you can believe," says he, a-turning red.
+"Here is Miss ----, she can tell you."
+
+I didn't hear the name clear, but Dempster introduced me to a young lady
+that had just sat down by me.
+
+"Are those men who are chatting and laughing so, really ministers?" says
+I to her.
+
+"Most of them are; the rest are connected with the Legation," says she.
+"Elegant, don't you think so?"
+
+Before I could ask her what newfangled society had been got up under the
+name of Legation, a young gentleman with a round gold glass screwed into
+one eye, came out from the hive of ministers, and walked toward us,
+moving along slow and lazy, as if walking were too much for him.
+
+The girl was all in a flutter when she saw him a-coming our way. She
+looked at me as if I had a seat that she wanted for some one else, but I
+didn't move; and after shaking out her dress as a cross hen flutters its
+feathers, she pretended to look the other way, as if she didn't care a
+mite whether the young minister came up or not.
+
+Oh, the airs some of these school-girls put on is disgusting.
+
+The young divinity student came up with a sort of half-dancing step.
+
+"Miss," says he, a-bowing and chewing up his words as if he'd a piece of
+sweet flag-root in his mouth, "delighted to--aw--aw--have the honor of
+seeing you here--am, indeed."
+
+She bowed, she prismed up her mouth, waved her fan a trifle, and says
+she--
+
+"Of course you ought to have expected me. I am a little exclusive, but
+always make a point of coming here."
+
+The young--no, he wasn't over young, but did his best to look so. Well,
+this foreign student just turned his glass on me, his impudent little
+eye stared right through at my bonnet. Then he looked at that finefied
+girl, and they both smiled at each other.
+
+This riled me.
+
+Then a couple of young ladies crowded by us, laughing a little. The
+divinity student turned his glass--eye and all--upon them, then he
+turned to the young creature by my side, and says he, curling up his
+wisp of a mustache:
+
+"Now, really, miss, what is the reason all the American young ladies
+have the manners of chambermaids?"
+
+I felt my Yankee heart spring straight up into my New England mouth; but
+the foreign snipe wasn't speaking to me, so I sat still and listened for
+what that young creature would say.
+
+"The manners of chambermaids!" says she, "did you mean that?"
+
+"Really--yes--I think they have, you know."
+
+"Well, I will not contradict you, for you generally are right," says
+she, as meek as Moses--yes, Moses in the bulrushes, "but not quite all,
+I hope."
+
+The mean thing couldn't keep from trying to wring a compliment for
+herself out of this insult to the general American female.
+
+The fellow had sense enough to see what she wanted, and he gave it to
+her.
+
+"Aw--aw--of course there are a few lovely exceptions, you know," says
+he, a-bowing so low that his eye-glass dropped out of his poor little
+eye that looked like a green gooseberry without it. "I speak of American
+women, generally, as having the manners of chambermaids."
+
+I couldn't hold in one minute more. No coffee-grounds, twice soaked,
+ever riled up like my temper.
+
+"If _you_ find American ladies acting like chambermaids," says I, "it's
+because they feel compelled to adapt themselves to the company they are
+in."
+
+Here I bent my head with a low, dignified bow, and waved my fan with a
+calm but decided motion.
+
+That little humbug of a young lady looked half scared to death. The
+divinity student ground his glass into his eye, looked at me from head
+to foot, and says he:
+
+"Aw, aw!" and walked away.
+
+The girl looked after him as if she wanted to cry, but just then a great
+whirl of music burst from the next room, and I thought the meeting was
+about to organize, when a tall fellow, with his mustache quirled up like
+an ox-horn, came tetering up to the young female by my side.
+
+"May I have the honor?" says he.
+
+The girl turned her head sideways, and rolled up her eyes like a pullet
+drinking.
+
+"It is a quadrille, Count," says she, "and I never join in one."
+
+"A quadrille, pardonne! You are right. When you daunce--if you
+daunce--why, of course, you daunce a round daunce."
+
+The fellow flung out his white hands, making a little dive forward with
+each word; then he saw my face, which must have spoken volumes, and
+slacked off his antics. I don't think he liked the cut of my smile, for,
+crooking up his elbow, he leaned forward, and says he:
+
+"May I be honored with a promenade?"
+
+She took his arm, and the two fluttered off into the crowd, which was
+pouring off into a large room beyond the one we were in.
+
+"The meeting is going to commence now in good earnest," I thought. "I'll
+try and get a seat where I can hear."
+
+Cousin Dempster and E. E. came up, and I joined in. The lecture-room was
+long, and lighted up beautifully. Right in front of the door was the
+singers' gallery, hung round with red cloth, and over that hung great
+wreaths of flowers, but I saw neither pulpit nor reading-desk.
+
+"Where will the minister be?" I whispered to Cousin Dempster.
+
+"Oh, he will open the ball."
+
+"Open the ball! What _do_ you mean?" says I. "A minister dancing! I
+won't believe it."
+
+"Why, they all do," says he, innocent as a lamb. "No better dancers in
+Washington."
+
+Sisters, what _do_ you think of that? Was I to blame when I insisted on
+leaving that house at once? Would you have had me sit by and witness
+this degradation? "No," says I to Cousin Dempster, "I won't stay. If
+ministers of the Gospel will do such things, I, as a New England
+woman--girl I mean--would be committing a sin to look on."
+
+"But you do not understand. They are Foreign Ministers, sent here by
+other nations, which they represent."
+
+"So much the worse--how dare they set such examples?" says I.
+
+"Ambassadors! can't you understand?"
+
+"Of course I understand. All ministers are ambassadors from the Lord;
+but I never heard of their dancing, except that Shaking Quakers do now
+and then, which is a part of their religion, and they are only elders,
+anyhow."
+
+"But there is no religion in these things!"
+
+"I should rather think not," says I, a-walking resolutely toward the
+door. "Now it's of no use explaining and apologizing to me. Dancing
+ministers ain't of my sort. I'm going right straight home."
+
+Sisters, I went.
+
+
+
+
+LVI.
+
+GOOD CLOTHES.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I told you in my last Report that there were three or
+four invitations that I had made up my mind to accept, for I have got so
+now, that it is my privilege to pick and choose who I will honor and who
+I will not.
+
+Well, the person I distinguished this time was just one of the
+handsomest and nicest ladies that you ever sot eyes on. Everybody that
+knows her says that. No bird pluming itself on an apple-tree limb full
+of blossoms was ever more graceful; no church member could be more
+kind-hearted. She is just a sumptuous young woman who worshipped a
+true-hearted, high-minded father with all her might and honored him in
+all her acts. It is a great pity she wasn't born in Vermont, but that
+cannot be helped now. I wish it could.
+
+Of course I felt it a privilege to represent your Society before a lady
+like this; for it seems to me as if she were born to be an ornament to
+this great nation. I say this because I really think she is good as good
+can be. Miss Kate Chase, though she did marry a United States Senator,
+will always be best known to the country as Chief Justice Chase's
+daughter, and a compliment to her is a compliment to him, which I, as a
+distinguished wom--I beg pardon, young girl--could pay, and still
+preserve that reputation for correct deportment which, I am proud to
+say, follows me wherever I go.
+
+Well, not wanting to keep Mrs. Sprague in suspense, and feeling that she
+might be pining for my autograph to lie uppermost in the great dish, all
+gold and stone pictures, which she keeps full of letters and cards and
+things, I wrote her a sweet little letter, in my finest hand, with a
+green and red "P. F." twisted together on the straw-colored envelope,
+saying that I would come.
+
+After that I felt calm and content, knowing how much happiness I had
+given.
+
+Cousin Dempster and E. E. had an invite too. I really hope they have
+sense enough to know the source from which all these attentions come,
+but sometimes I doubt it. Still, they do look up to me.
+
+The night came, and found me ready. E. E. had told me that when Mrs.
+Sprague gave a party, her guests almost always came out in span-new
+dresses. Her entertainments were _the_ entertainments of the season.
+Nobody had yet been able to come up to her, let them try ever so much,
+and people dressed accordingly.
+
+Of course I wasn't going to be behindhand on a fashionable occasion like
+that, where a certain person was sure to be an object of special
+admiration and envious criticism, so I went to work at once, and turned
+my pink silk wrong side out with my own hands.
+
+Then I took an hour or so of solitary shopping, and had the things I
+bought carried straight into my own room, for I had given out that I had
+a sick headache, and wanted to sleep--a fib so delicate, that it seemed
+almost conscientious, besides being worth forgiving on account of its
+originality.
+
+Well, I worked away like everything, determined to show the world, for
+my own private enjoyment, that genius wasn't limited to writing, but
+would sometimes break out in silks and laces and flowers, with
+astonishing effects. So my heart rose, and my fingers flew.
+
+That headache of mine lasted three days, without intermission. During
+this season of affliction, my meals were brought up on a hotel tray, and
+I took care to order them myself--the toast and tea, which cousin sent
+up at first, not being quite satisfactory as a persistent diet.
+
+At last my dress was ready. E. E. said _she_ had ordered hers from
+Worth, ever so long ago, expecting that something super-elegant might
+turn up, like Mrs. Sprague's party. I didn't ask who Worth was, not
+thinking a masculine mantua-maker worth inquiring about; but I kept a
+close mouth about my own toilet--that word needs explaining, sisters.
+With us it means a half-moon table, curtained down, and ruffled over
+with spotted muslin, and set under a looking-glass. But here it means
+your whole dress-frock, boots, everything that you wear from top to toe.
+This is why the word "toilet" comes in so naturally in my Report. But
+understand, it does _not_ mean a table--quite the contrary.
+
+You should have seen me when I came out of my room that evening. Up to
+this I had been harmonious in my dress, but newness was the thing here,
+so I had studied the grandly poetical harmony of contrasts. My aim had
+been something poetical and striking.
+
+My pink silk had turned beautifully. It looked good as new, if not more
+so; the fresh lining hunched it out behind, till a good-sized baby could
+have sat on it, as such little fellows billow themselves among the
+clouds in an old picture. Contrast, I have told you, was my
+idea--novelty my object. Pink and white roses I had worn, black velvet,
+too, and natural geranium-leaves, which are given to wilting fearfully;
+so I cast these things all aside, and looped up my dress with pond
+lilies, of a rich orange color.
+
+Sisters, the effect was wonderful. The broad green leaves on the pink
+ground, the yellow flowers clustering amongst them. The lilies of red
+gold entwining my head was a picture in itself--to say nothing of the
+tall and elegant young person who, as I may write, carried off the
+dress.
+
+You should have seen Cousin E. E. when I swept into the room, where she
+stood ready, my pink silk rustling, my golden lilies on the high quiver,
+my hair crinkled in front, curled behind, and looped up with those
+yellow flowers. Sisters, her surprise was really a tribute.
+
+I did not deign to ask her how she liked my dress. The look that
+followed her first surprise was clouded with the envy she did not dare
+to speak. I was seized with a desire to punish such malice, and swept up
+and down the room, looking back on my train, as a peacock spreads his
+tail-feathers in the sun.
+
+E. E. looked ready to burst. She saw that her own dress was nowhere, and
+resented it in angry silence. So I kept on walking slowly up and down,
+in order to bring her into a reasonable state of mind, which Christian
+exertion, I am sorry to say, failed.
+
+Dempster came in, and he, too, was struck dumb with admiring surprise.
+He looked at me, then at E. E., but said nothing. Still the comparison
+must have been humiliating to a man who really does take some pride in
+his wife.
+
+
+
+
+LVII.
+
+THE PARTY OF THE SEASON.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--The carriage was full to overflowment; E. E. and I filled
+it with the sumptuosity of our garments. Dempster was nowhere. Now and
+then the carriage jolted his head into sight--that was all.
+
+Mrs. Sprague lives in a great, square corner-house that looks rich and
+respectable--two things that do not always come together in these days,
+when people creep into society, and build themselves up there on the
+property that should belong to the Government. It has some wide, jutting
+windows, and plenty of room inside.
+
+The hall-way was crowded full of ladies, and so was the stairs. Some
+were going up, and some were coming down. The first in shawls and
+cloaks, the others with their arms and necks uncovered, or with just a
+shadow of lace on them, nothing more.
+
+The great square chamber that we went into was as full as a bee-hive.
+Silks swept and rustled against each other like oak-leaves when the wind
+shakes them. The great looking-glasses were full also--you saw a crowd
+of handsome faces coming and going in them all the time. Each glass was
+like a picture always changing.
+
+The bed was covered over with cloaks and shawls, but you could see that
+the bedstead was beautifully carved, and the pillow-cases were ruffled
+all round and edged with lace. On a table near the door was a case of
+shiny black wood, curlicued with gold, and lined with velvet. In it was
+a lot of gold things, essence bottles, knives, scissors with gold
+handles, and glass cases with gold lids. It lay open, and anybody could
+use the things that wanted to; I didn't, but had a good look while E. E.
+was titivating in the crowd before the glass.
+
+My dress must have carried out the grand idea in my mind when I made
+it, for all the ladies stopped, and gave me a good, long look before
+they went out, and I could see smiles of approbation dancing about their
+mouths. My triumph commenced, sisters, even in the dressing-room.
+
+Dempster was waiting for us, and we followed him downstairs into the
+largest and handsomest room I've seen in Washington City.
+
+It was just afire with lights. The great curving window was crowded full
+of flowers; every table in the room blazed out with them. Two
+folding-doors, like those we have in a Vermont meeting-house, opened
+into another great room, just as rainbowish with light, and smelling
+just as sweet with flowers--I never saw anything like it.
+
+A crowd went in with us, and we had to wait till they let us go up to
+Judge Chase and Mrs. Sprague, who stood in the front room.
+
+Goodness gracious, what a female woman that is! No willow tree was ever
+half so graceful, and, as for manners, the nicest woman I ever saw is
+nowhere to her. Her dress--well, I really cannot say that it didn't pull
+an even yoke with mine--at any rate the contrast between us was
+striking, nothing could have been more so. But I can say, without
+vanity, the crowd as it came in stopped to look at mine quite as much as
+it did at hers. Original taste, you know, sisters, is everything; then
+literary genius united with taste isn't easily matched. Still, Mrs.
+Sprague's dress was well worth noticing.
+
+"What did she wear?" I hear you say.
+
+Sisters, your wishes are laws to me.
+
+This lady, for she _is_ a lady, every inch of her, as I have said, was a
+complete contrast to your missionary. Her dress had three colors; blue
+satin in front, wreathed across with a wreath of rosebuds and leaves
+over each flounce. Running up each side were other wreaths, fastening
+down the edges of a long train of white silk, that was fastened in a
+wide box-plait at the back of the neck, and swept away to the carpet,
+where it fell and floated like a snow-drift scattered over with roses,
+for they were done in needle work all over the white robe, and seemed to
+grow there. The dress was cut square about the neck, and filled in with
+lace. She had half-sleeves, too, a thing I was glad to see, for some of
+the stuck-up persons who came there with no sleeves, and their dresses
+cut short about the neck, might have taken it for a rebuke. Thank
+goodness, I didn't.
+
+Mrs. Sprague wore some jewelry. A wreath of blue stones with white ones
+that shone like rain-drops in the sunshine, was fastened in her hair,
+and hung quivering in her ears. She had gold bands, full of fiery
+stones, on her arms, and some gold thing fell down to her bosom, set
+with something that looked to me like half-ripe cherries. Pink coral, E.
+E. said it was.
+
+There now, you have Mrs. Sprague's dress, and you have mine. I say
+nothing. Certainly hers was handsome. I am not the person to draw
+comparisons, but, from the notice given to mine, I had no reason to be
+dissatisfied.
+
+Chief Justice Chase stood by his daughter, and shook hands with me in
+the most friendly manner--he was quite impressed, I can assure you. He
+was large and tall--in fact, grand in his appearance. His smile was
+enough to make any one long to know more of him. It reminded me a little
+of the great Grand Duke's, which made my heart beat a little sadly.
+
+We moved into the crowd. There I saw a lot of those foreign ministers.
+One of them bowed to me. I gave him a dignified bend of the head. This
+messing-up of divinity and parties goes against my ideas of propriety.
+
+A Vermont minister would be turned out of his pulpit if he ventured to
+show himself in a worldly gathering like that.
+
+"What are you so dignified about, Cousin Phoemie?" says Dempster.
+"Didn't you see the minister bowing to us?"
+
+"Yes," says I, "but I don't mean to encourage backsliding and worldly
+amusements in Christian leaders. They have no business here."
+
+"But they are not particularly Christians," says he.
+
+"I should think not," says I; "and the Churches that sent them here
+ought to know how they are going on."
+
+"But the Churches did not send that gentleman. It was the Queen."
+
+"Exactly," said I; "and isn't she the head of the Church. No, no,
+cousin, you can't make excuses for them."
+
+"But their mission is political," says he.
+
+"Of course," says I. Church and State--I understood."
+
+A whole lot of candles, white as snow, were burning over the wide doors.
+That opened into another long room where a great picture, worked with a
+needle, years and years ago, hung on the wall, and crowds of people were
+moving about. Then came a storm of music, and I saw one of the ministers
+teetering off with a lady as if he were going to dance again.
+
+"I declare I won't look on," says I to Dempster; "take me somewhere
+else."
+
+He did take me into a little room full of books, and there--standing
+round a table on which a great giant of a china bowl stood, filled to
+the brim with punch, on which slices of lemon floated temptingly--we
+found some more of them ministers, each one with a full glass in his
+hand.
+
+Sisters, I stood there like a monument, and saw them drink that punch
+with my own eyes--more than one glass apiece, too. Ministers, indeed!
+
+While we stood watching them in one door, they went out by another, and
+then Dempster took us in.
+
+E. E. sat down on a sofa; so did I. Dempster went up to the great bowl,
+and began to dip out the punch with a big silver ladle as if it had been
+soup. He filled two glasses. A slice of lemon floated on each one; they
+looked deliciously cool, and I was thirsty. Sisters, I took that glass,
+and I drank of the punch. After that I began to feel more charitable
+toward the foreign ministers. In fact, I rather think a sweeter and more
+benevolent feeling came over me in all respects, for a soft mistiness
+settled on the crowd, and the dancers were peculiarly mazy. I felt
+myself smiling blandly, and, in fact, glided into a state of dreamy
+enjoyment that was pleasant.
+
+The music stopped; the dancers locked arms, and moved toward an open
+door through which a fresh flood of light was pouring. We followed into
+a great tent, hung all round with damask linen. Two long tables, loaded
+down with great vases full of fruit and flowers; steeples, and towers,
+and baskets, made out of candy, and running over with sugar things;
+peaches, and grapes, and all sorts of fruit, natural as life, but candy
+to the core--all delicious and gorgeous and--well, I haven't language to
+express it; but the whole thing was sumptuous.
+
+All down and around these two long tables great wreaths of flowers and
+leaves, half buried in moss, made a border of bloom, and over them the
+light came pouring, while the music sounded nearer and nearer, and the
+crowd poured in.
+
+Really, sisters, I can say no more. That whole scene was more than I can
+describe. It just sent me home dizzy with bewilderment.
+
+
+
+
+LVIII.
+
+DOWN THE POTOMAC.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--The Father of our Country was a great man--no doubt on
+that subject. He conducted a war on small means and with few men, which
+gave us a country that will be a crowning glory of all ages, if we don't
+melt down and go to nothing under the hot sunshine of our own
+prosperity. He was a great man and a good boy, not because he cut down
+the cherry-tree and wouldn't lie about it, for good boys and great men
+are not made out of one action, but a harmonious character which
+produces many good actions.
+
+Then again, I am not so certain that the action was what it is cracked
+up to be, anyway. In the first place, good little boys don't cut down
+their father's fruit-trees. Generally, they like to climb them a great
+deal better, especially when the cherries are ripe. I know that--being a
+girl, who could have borrowed a hatchet and made myself immortal by
+chopping instead of climbing to pick half-green cherries, which I did,
+and tore my frock, besides getting a pain in the--well, heart, which two
+things betrayed me just as the little hatchet betrayed George.
+
+Now, when my mother asked me what the mischief I'd been about, I didn't
+think of saying I couldn't lie, because I could, and longed to do it;
+but I knew that New England women would find me out and give me double
+"jessie" if I piled a whopper on top of the green cherries and torn
+frock, so I told her I didn't know, being conservative--took my whipping
+like a man and a trooper, scorning to cover up two sins under one pious
+truth.
+
+I didn't follow George Washington's example, for two reasons. First, I
+had never heard of the hatchet; and again, the story don't wash to a
+degree that is expected of high-priced morality. When the youthful boy,
+Father of our Country, said he _couldn't_ lie, he was a-doing it that
+very minute. What boy ever lived that couldn't lie? Lying is born in
+'em, and they take to it as naturally as a kitten laps milk.
+
+The fellow that wrote that story was a botch. Why didn't he make little
+George say, "Father, I won't tell a lie; so there--I cut down the
+cherry-tree with my little hatchet."
+
+There would have been something heroic and above-board about that--a
+struggle against temptation foreshadowed, and a brave determination to
+stand up to the rack, fodder or no fodder, worthy of a boy that meant to
+be father of the man, who in his turn was the father of his country,
+thus doing up all his paternity in a wholesale way. But to say he
+couldn't was so sneakingly good that I don't believe it of him. In fact,
+I don't believe one word of the story.
+
+Put that down on the records of your Society.
+
+Of course, one never thinks of George Washington, that a nice boy,
+showing a hatchet, does not come in as the first picture.
+
+The reason I happened to think of it was an invitation to go in a
+Government steamboat down to Mount Vernon, Washington's old homestead,
+and see the tomb where he was buried.
+
+Of course I wanted to go. When the President of these United States gets
+out a Government steamboat on purpose to carry a distinguished New
+England female down to the tomb of her country's forefathers, it's an
+honor she's bound to accept.
+
+I did accept it with enthusiasm, and at once invited Cousin Dempster and
+E. E. to go with me, for it always gives me pleasure to act as a sun to
+their moon.
+
+The Japanese were invited to join me on the boat, and as many as two
+hundred other people were allowed to go down, which I was rather glad
+of--they being amongst the best--and my nature being social, as you
+know.
+
+Well, between nine and ten in the morning, we drove up to the Navy
+Yard--a place where the Government builds the ships that are always
+being altered, and mended, and made worse than they were before. It's
+like a village on the water, is this Navy Yard, with a high wall around
+it, and a gate big enough for our carriage to go through, which it did,
+taking us down to the water in fine style.
+
+"Do you want to go on board the 'Tallapoosa'?" says a man on the wharf.
+
+"The 'Tallapoosa'!" says I to Dempster. "What outlandish thing is that?"
+
+"The steamboat," says he.
+
+"Well, why don't they call it a steamboat?" says I; "such airs!"
+
+With that, I jumped out of the carriage, taking a neat dancing step as I
+touched the ground, and spread my parasol.
+
+Just then another carriage drove up, choke full of little dark men.
+
+"It is the Japanese," says Dempster.
+
+"The Japanese! How can you say so?" says I. "Where are their punch-bowl
+hats and stiff veils?"
+
+"Oh," says Dempster, "they have given those things up, and dress just as
+we do now."
+
+"Dear me!" says I, a-looking into the carriage from under a slope of my
+parasol. "How funny they look with stovepipe hats, and boots, too--oh
+my!"
+
+The Japanese were getting out of their carriage, but they seemed as if
+afraid of straining too hard on their clothes, and stepped on the ground
+as if it was paved with eggs.
+
+Bang!
+
+"Oh, goodness gracious!"
+
+It was I that screamed out these words, and I hopped up at least half a
+yard from the ground, for somewhere, close by, a great gun went
+off--roaring over the water, like thunder.
+
+"What does that mean? Does anybody want to murder us?" says I, shaking
+like a poplar-leaf.
+
+"No, no," says he, "they are only saluting us."
+
+"Saluting _me_?" says I. "How dare they? Of course they knew I should
+jump and scream. So loud, too! No young girl would stand it."
+
+With that, I lifted my parasol, and walked across the plank on to the
+deck of that steamboat, and sat down.
+
+Them Japanese came after, and sat down close to me. Mr. Iwakura looked
+at me, and I looked at him. He smiled, and I smiled. This Japanee knows
+how to smile with his eyes, and that's more than a good many other men
+can do.
+
+Then I felt it my duty to talk a little, as these Japanese had been
+invited on my account; so, thinking that he would expect something
+original from me, I said:
+
+"I think we shall have a pleasant day, Mr. Iwakura."
+
+"Yes," says he, in real cunning English, looking as if he appreciated my
+little speech.
+
+"I really hope," says I, "that you and your friends will feel quite at
+home."
+
+He said "Yes," again, and smiled.
+
+That smile was catching.
+
+"I wonder if Mr. I. left a wife behind to languish for that peculiar
+expression? If not--"
+
+I checked these roving thoughts as incompatible with former ideas.
+
+The steamboat was puffing and blowing, and giving a scream now and then.
+It began to tremble--it veered and made a slow plunge down the river.
+The decks were crowded with ladies and gentlemen--all smiling
+happy--that seeming to be overjoyed to have the pleasure of coming with
+me.
+
+The Potomac River is just lovely. All the trees along its banks were
+budding and feathering out with greenness. We passed by a town. Then a
+great round heap of stone walls, that they called the Fort. The grass
+was green around it, and some soldiers came out on the walls to look at
+us as we swept by.
+
+It was pleasant; I felt the occasion to be something like that on which
+that Egyptian woman went down the River Nile in a row boat; so I lowered
+my parasol as we passed the Fort.
+
+At last the steamboat made a dead stop in the river. We were right
+opposite Mount Vernon. I looked at the sacred old place from the water.
+It was lovely in itself, standing there on a high knoll, carpeted with
+soft spring grass, and with tall trees a-bending over it. The sunshine
+lay on the water and the shore, but that old house was a good deal in
+shadow, and all the more pleasant for that.
+
+Some smaller boats came up to the steamboat. We got into them and went
+ashore.
+
+
+
+
+LIX.
+
+MOUNT VERNON.
+
+
+Mount Vernon had looked lonesome enough till now; but when we all landed
+it was like a picture. We wandered about; we broke up into little
+crowds, and the whole place was alive with happy people.
+
+Mr. Iwakura and the rest of the Japanese walked slowly up the road.
+Dempster, E. E., and I went with them till we came to a tomb dug into
+the bank, with an iron fence before it.
+
+Iwakura took off his stove-pipe hat and held it, just as if he had been
+at a funeral. The rest did the same, looking sad and touchingly solemn.
+
+I dropped my parasol low, to hide the tears that came gushing up to my
+eyes, without warning. Cousin E. E. began to sob.
+
+I turned away, longing to creep off into some dark corner, and have a
+good cry all by myself.
+
+A good many of the people had gone up to the old homestead which is
+spread out low on the ground, and has a stoop with pillars running all
+along the front. From this stoop you can see the bend of the river and
+the blue of its water through the trees. There was a well near by that
+put me in mind of home; a lot of girls were drinking from the bucket,
+and chirruping together like birds around a spring.
+
+I didn't like the sound just then, and went into the hall-way of the old
+homestead. There was nothing worth while in it but a great, big, heavy
+key, covered with rust, and big enough to knock a man down with.
+
+"This," says a gentleman, a-standing close by me, "is the key of the
+Bastille."
+
+I jumped back.
+
+"What!" says I--"that old prison in Paris, where men were buried alive,
+without trial?"
+
+"The same," says he. "Lafayette gave it to General Washington."
+
+I felt myself shuddering, but said nothing. The subject struck me dumb.
+We went upstairs into the chamber where Washington died. It was not over
+large, and low in the joints; but the windows looked out on the trees
+and the river, which took away some of its gloominess. Nothing but a
+bedstead, with high, spindling posts, was there.
+
+"Did he die on that?" says I to a gentleman near me.
+
+"No," says he, "but on a bedstead just like it."
+
+I turned away. What business had a sham bedstead in that room? The idea
+of it riled up something besides sympathy in my bosom. I had rather see
+bare walls than a bedstead _like_ the one he died on. Why don't they
+take it down?
+
+We went into the parlor. It isn't over-large, and looks cheery. An old,
+coffin-shaped piano was there, with broken wires; some old china plates
+and dishes were piled together. That was about all.
+
+I couldn't stand it. The tomb had sunshine about it, and wasn't half so
+gloomy. The hall-door was open, and I went out. A little way from the
+house was Washington's flower-garden, where a few jonquills and crocuses
+were spotting the earth with yellow. Near that was a large brick house,
+long and low, crowded full of plants which had flowers on them.
+
+This wasn't Washington's greenhouse, but a brand new one, which looked
+like a spring bonnet worn with a ten-year old dress. This riled me too.
+It seemed to me that the old homestead should be kept just as Washington
+left it. Newfangled improvements are an aggravation.
+
+Before I came away from Washington there was a good deal of talk about
+the lady who lives here and takes charge, but I couldn't for the life of
+me find out anything that seemed extravagant or wrong about her. The
+truth is, the ladies of this country have spent years collecting money
+to buy Mount Vernon, and make it a place sacred to the nation, but they
+failed in obtaining a fund large enough to maintain it with honor.
+
+The society give this lady no remunerative salary, and nothing but a
+pure missionary spirit could keep her in that dull and mournful place.
+If she raises money enough to keep the homestead in repair, it is all
+any one ought to ask, and all the nation wants. But for my part, I scorn
+this quiddling way of making money. There is a meanness about it that
+disgraces the nation.
+
+The thing that should be done is this: put the whole concern into the
+hands of Congress. It ought to belong to the nation. Washington was not
+the saviour of a lot of women only, but of the whole country. Let the
+country have possession of his old home, and appropriate all the money
+needed to keep it in perfect order, as Washington left it. If the women
+of America raised money enough to buy the estate for no better purpose
+than to peddle out a sight of Washington's tomb for twenty-five cents a
+sight, and keep flowers to sell, they have sent their patriotism to a
+mighty small retail market.
+
+Well, in the afternoon we all went on board the steamboat again, and had
+a good time running up and down the river, which is just one of the
+things I should like to do every day; for the day was bright enough to
+keep one out-doors forever, if it would only have lasted so long.
+
+When we had got out of sight of Mount Vernon, a band of music came on
+deck, and played like anything, while we went down into the cabin, one
+party at a time, and ate dinner, which tasted delicious, I can tell
+you--to say nothing of the bottled cider, and such like, that kept the
+corks a-flying about like bullets.
+
+It is wonderful what smartness that cider gives to a person. It sparkles
+through one like the first spring sap in a maple-tree.
+
+When I went on deck again, my limbs felt springy as a steel trap, and I
+couldn't help dancing along, for a band of fiddlers and toot-horns was
+a-pouring out music, that, joined to the cider, was enough to make one
+want to dance with her own grandfather.
+
+They did dance, sisters--I own it, with shame and contrition. I joined
+in with the other young girls, and flatter myself they know by this time
+what a genuine Virginia reel is.
+
+Forgive me, I know it wasn't just the thing for a church member to do,
+especially while returning from that tomb; but bottled cider and
+fiddlers must be a stronger power in the hands of the Evil One than
+anything I have tried yet; and more church members, and ever so much
+older persons than me, just made that deck shake with their dancing,
+half the way up that beautiful river.
+
+Still, my head aches this morning, and I have a sort of backsliding
+feeling. The truth is, Tombs and Virginia reels don't seem to gibe in
+together.
+
+
+
+
+LX.
+
+MR. GREELEY'S NOMINATION.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--What do you think of the dear old Mountain State now?
+Have you reason to be proud of her, or have you not? Do you understand
+what she has done lately in the way of literature--in the female line, I
+mean--and now, only think of it, the next President of the United States
+is expected from that sacred and hilly soil.
+
+I know that Vermont will be almost tickled to death about this. It will
+be a crown of glory to her mountains, and a song of rejoicing in her
+valleys. The sap in her maple-trees will start earlier, run brighter,
+and sugar off more gloriously than it has ever done before. Up to this
+time, Vermont has never had her share of honors at the national Capitol,
+but now her time has come.
+
+I am so glad I went to Mr. Greeley's birthday party, and I haven't a
+doubt that a great many other persons feel pretty much as I do about
+it. When I shook hands with him there, and saw him standing in the midst
+of his friends, with his kind face looking smooth and enticing as a
+sweet baked apple, I little thought it might be the next President of
+these United States that was enjoying himself over a birthday. But
+things do get tangled and untangled dreadfully in this world of
+ours--don't they? and the most uncertain thing on this side of sundown
+is any man's destiny. The most certain thing is the popularity of
+success. It seems to me now as if I think considerable more of this
+great Vermonter than I did last week, but what has he done to make
+me?--that's what I should like to know. He's just the same man; has just
+as many faults--no great new supply of virtues. In fact, what has he
+done this week more than he did last, that I should feel a sort of honor
+and glory in being his friend?
+
+I have been putting these questions to myself, and the answer makes me
+feel a little meachen. I am the missionary of one of the most august
+bodies that can be found in this or any other country. I represent a
+body of blameless, heroic ladies, whose glory it is to be above
+prejudice, and capable of self-judgment--ladies that are ladies, and
+wish to set an example of Christian womanliness to their own sex and the
+rest of mankind, feeling that "the eyes of all Vermont are upon them."
+
+I am all this, yet I feel the humiliation of thinking all the better of
+a man because a great hullabaloo of other men have declared before the
+world that they want him for President of these United States. This is
+weak, but natural--natural, but awfully weak. Why should we let crowds
+of men we never saw judge for us? But then, how are we to judge for
+ourselves?
+
+After all, this self-government is a difficult thing to carry out. What
+man really does govern himself?--either through his brain, or heart,
+some one else governs him. He gives himself up by the wholesale to a
+crowd, or by retail to his own family.
+
+In the parlor of our hotel last night there was nothing but confusion
+and commotion. I went down there with Cousin E. E., for we all felt the
+glory that had settled down on us in a reflected way, and longed to
+enjoy it before folks. So down we went, trying to look as if nothing was
+the matter, but feeling the smiles quivering and playing about our lips
+like lady-bugs about an open rose.
+
+The parlors were full. Everybody had something to say. Some were
+smiling, some looked ready to cry, and others looked grim as gunlocks;
+but most of the faces we saw were beaming like a harvest moon.
+
+As for me, I felt--yes, as the poet says, "I felt--I felt like a morning
+star."
+
+"Well, Miss Frost, how do you like it?" says a little mite of a woman,
+with pink ribbons spreading out on her bosom. "What do you think of the
+nomination?"
+
+"Think?" says I. "Why, this is what I think--the sun will rise and set
+on the top of the Green Mountains like a crown of glory, after this."
+
+"Will Vermont go for him?" says another, cutting in.
+
+"Will the mountains stand on their old rocky base?" says I. "What a
+question!"
+
+"Then you think it will?"
+
+"Think! I know it will. When did that glorious old State neglect one of
+her own sons?"
+
+"But it's so strange!" snivelled the little woman.
+
+"Strange!" says I; "what is strange?"
+
+"Why, that Mr. Greeley should be nominated."
+
+"Well," says I, with cutting irony, "do you think it strange that the
+people of this country should choose an honest man once in a while?
+ain't we always ready to reward merit? Haven't we done it in the
+military way with General Grant? Haven't we a right to go into a new
+field? First the sword, now the pen."
+
+"Oh! not that; but--but--"
+
+"Well, but what?"
+
+"He's so--so peculiar."
+
+"Yes, he is," says I, "if integrity, simple good faith, and sound sense
+is peculiar--and I begin to think it is."
+
+"Do you know him, Miss Frost?"
+
+I drew myself up, and that feeling I have spoken of came over me. It was
+a temptation, and--well, I and Mrs. Eve are a little alike in our
+feminine weaknesses; I'm glad I have Bible support in the disposition to
+fib a little that comes over me.
+
+"Do I know him?" said I. "Yes, intimately."
+
+"Ah!" says she.
+
+"You can judge how intimately," says I, smitten with compunction, and
+craw-fishing down into a deceiving truth, "when I tell you that I was an
+honored guest at his birthday party."
+
+"You don't say so!" says she.
+
+I didn't feel bound to remind her that I had said so, and only drew
+myself up a trifle, and waved my fan back and forth with a dignified
+movement.
+
+"And you really think well of him? But, then, he is an editor, and
+authors always have a sort of affinity for gentlemen of the press," says
+a pert young creature, twisting her head on one side, and coming up to
+me.
+
+"I think well of him," says I, "because he is a man that has worked his
+way up in the world by the hardest; studied wisdom from the type he was
+setting, when he had no time for books; worked like a Trojan to support
+himself days, then sat up half the night to improve his mind. Mr.
+Greeley is in all respects a self-made man. This nomination is but the
+proper and natural crown of a busy life like his, of integrity like his,
+and of wisdom like his."
+
+"You talk earnestly," says a gentleman, coming up into the little crowd
+that grew thick around me.
+
+"Because I feel earnestly," says I, a-doubling up my fan, and laying
+down the law with it. "I don't pretend to know a great deal about
+politics, but I do know something about the history of my country, and
+it has never been better governed than when self-made men have ruled
+over it; but here is something more--the editor of a great daily journal
+is gathering up knowledge and wisdom every day of his life. He has
+opportunities for watching events and judging of actions that prepare
+his own mind for the exercise of power when it comes. "Why," says I,
+warming up, "the greatest statesmen that you have are editors and
+self-made men. The fact is, men who have worked their own way in the
+world, haven't time to be rogues, and very seldom are even grasping. It
+is your lazy fellow, who lives by the cunning that he calls wits, who is
+not to be trusted. For my part, as two candidates have to be in the
+field to have a good run, I am glad that those Cincinnati folks had the
+sense to take a man right out of the bosom of the people to govern the
+people. Brought up so close to the public heart, he'll know how it
+beats. Having been a working man, he'll know how to feel for toilers
+like himself, just as General Grant now feels for the soldiers."
+
+"You talk like a book," says the young lady, a-twisting her head the
+other way.
+
+"I didn't know till you told me, miss, that books did talk," says I,
+opening my fan again.
+
+"Oh, yes, they do," says she, giggling.
+
+"Bound to talk, I suppose," says I, a-smiling in my usual bland way.
+
+They all laughed at this, but the girl looked around as if she wondered
+what it was all about.
+
+I just made a little inclination of the head, and went on:
+
+"We were speaking of self-made men, I think," says I; "such men have
+drifted away from New England, like shooting stars. Wherever they may
+shine, New England is proud of them, and claims them as her own; for
+this reason; and because I love my country, I am glad Horace Greeley is
+on the highway to be its next President. With him and Grant running neck
+to neck, I shan't care much which beats."
+
+
+
+
+LXI.
+
+WOMEN AND THINGS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I wish you could have seen that stuck-up thing, with all
+the color taken out of her hair, perking herself up for an argument with
+me. All the people in the room had crowded round us, which set her all
+in a flutter.
+
+"Oh, pray excuse me," says she, a-shaking her curls, "we are broaching
+into politics, and I assure you," says she, a-primming herself up, "I
+know nothing about such subjects."
+
+"Why," says I, "you speak as if ignorance were something to be proud
+of."
+
+"I--I do not pretend to know anything of politics, at any rate," says
+she, a-coloring up with inward madness.
+
+"Indeed, what is politics," says I. "The history of the present? Why
+should the most refined lady on earth be ignorant of one period of
+history more than another?"
+
+"Politics are things going on at the present time, and no real lady is
+expected to take interest in them," says she.
+
+"What is the present time? The breath we are drawing--nothing more. That
+very breath has now gone into the past, which is history. All the rest
+is guess-work and prophecy," says I.
+
+"Dear me, how strong-minded you are," says she, giving her curls a toss;
+"I suppose you would be splendidly eloquent on Woman's Rights too."
+
+"No," said I, "all my life I have had more rights than I have known how
+to use, so I leave that question to persons who have no better field of
+ambition. Mine happens to be of a different kind. I want to make women
+wise, good, generous, faithful to duties that come down to them from
+their mothers. I want to improve women, miss, not turn them into
+contemptible men."
+
+"By talking politics?" says she, as saucy as a sour apple; "what is the
+good of that if you don't go in for voting?"
+
+"What is the good of any knowledge which may be turned into blessings by
+woman's influence?" says I, blandly.
+
+"Then you believe that women ought to have influence in politics," says
+she.
+
+"I think that women should have influence everywhere," said I, "but only
+as women. We are governed through the heart, and those finer portions of
+the intellect that people call taste. Men plant the grain and timber of
+every-day life with their strong hands, which God made for that very
+purpose. We women fill in the hollows and crevices and swelling banks
+with flowers and ferns and delicate shade-trees, which make the vigorous
+work of their strong hands beautiful."
+
+Sisters, I said this to that stuck-up girl because I wanted to express
+an opinion on this subject--first, because it was my opinion, and again,
+because I know that it is yours, going as you do for it in a spirit of
+feminine spontaneosity. I don't want the nature of our Society
+misunderstood. We are not Woman's Righters, nor Woman's Wrongers, but
+straight out women, wanting nothing better on this earth than to be just
+as God made us, with a full, free, and generous development of all the
+femininities that belong to the sex.
+
+For my part, I don't want to be a man; his work is too rough and hard
+for me. His thoughts have too heavy and coarse a grain. His clothes
+wouldn't fit me any better than his thoughts and duties.
+
+We being women, according to a beneficent God's intention, have got
+enough to occupy a whole life in the same path that our good old New
+England mothers trod. We don't want to get out of that path into any
+other, and we don't mean to entice the children that are growing up
+amongst us into an idea that pure-thinking, hard-working womanliness
+isn't the highest and best destiny that God has yet given to his
+creatures.
+
+I have no patience with women who scorn their own sex so much that they
+would rather turn into weak, meddlesome men than work, study, bring up
+children, and live as high-souled, loving women should. As for voting
+and all that, it's just turning gold into brass, and getting nothing but
+the baser metal for change.
+
+Why, influence is a thousand times sweeter and more certain than legal
+power, and that is given to every woman who loves and is beloved.
+
+As for my part, I should be ashamed if I couldn't persuade ever so many
+men to do any right thing I wanted. Shouldn't I be a fool to swap off
+that influence for the rights that only one man owns for himself?
+
+If women want power, let them be sweet, good, and persuasive, wise
+enough to have their opinions command respect, and bright enough to
+enforce them pleasantly. That is the way to move nations, if the mind of
+woman ever can do it. At any rate, it is the way to govern families and
+make them respectable in the next generation; and out of families
+nations are made.
+
+"Have you ever noticed one thing?" says I to the people about me.
+"Whenever women get dissatisfied with themselves and hanker after the
+rights of men, the very foundations of life seem to be breaking up all
+around us. Marriage ties fall into ashes like fire in hatcheled flax,
+morals are burned up, families torn to pieces, and society falls into
+revolt against law and religion. When women begin to hanker after votes,
+they hanker after divorces too, and, while they want unlimited power
+with men, throw away the noblest of all power over men--that of honest
+respect and a sacred consciousness of protecting."
+
+If women will break through all the delicate safeguards and childlike
+purity which keeps them so much above men, that they are aspired after
+and worshipped, let them take the consequences. To be hustled in
+conventions, hissed off from platforms, and received with hidden sneers
+by three-fourths of mankind, doesn't seem to me half so pleasant and
+respectable as the friendship of one's neighbors, and the love of one's
+own family; but, if they like it better, I haven't the least mite of an
+objection. Only such things force an honest woman into awful bad
+company once in a while, and it sometimes happens that ambition leads
+them to shake hands with persons that sweet charity itself could never
+persuade the best of them to touch with a ten-foot pole.
+
+"Don't think," says I, "that I go against female progress, or would stop
+its infinite capabilities--far from it. There are questions mixed up
+with this subject that ought to have our warmest sympathy and most
+ardent help. Female labor is one of them, and in that lies the greatest
+moral question of these times.
+
+"When a woman finds herself doing the work nature carved out for her,
+with a man crowding her out, doing no more, yet getting double pay, only
+because he happens to be a man, it is a burning shame and disgrace to
+both sexes. If that injustice can't be swept away by fair means, I go in
+for trying any that a female woman can handle without bringing herself
+down to a level with the males who seem to be as sick of being men as
+some of our sex are of being women.
+
+"Still, it seems to me that the best way of doing this is by such
+appeals for justice as have brought the women of New York State more
+freedom than they know what to do with. At this day there is no legal
+slavery for any woman in the great Empire State. The fact is, the women
+there have got their feet on the necks of the men. But this don't
+satisfy them, and they are all the time crying out for more, as the
+Scripture says, like the leeches--which is a passage of Scripture that I
+never have quite understood, because leeches in our day suck your
+_blood_ without asking, and I never yet heard of one who went farther
+than a bite in the way of crying out.
+
+"Excuse me," says I, drawing breath, "if I sometimes digress, and turn
+down a Scripture path in search of scientific truth or illustration. I
+was saying that a woman in New York State is to all intents and purposes
+master of herself--herself and husband too. If she has money when a poor
+fellow marries her, it is all her own to do with as she has a mind to,
+just as much as if she had never been married at all. But he has to
+support her, anyway, keep up the house, pay all the bills, settle her
+debts, if she is mean enough to make them, and she can be hoarding up
+her own money all the time, while he has no more right to touch a cent
+of it than the man in the moon.
+
+"More than this; when he dies, she comes in for a full third of his real
+estate for life, and has half his personal property, to sell, give away,
+or do with as she pleases. If _she_ dies, he cannot touch a red cent.
+Then, again, she can sell all the real estate that belongs to her,
+without so much as asking his advice, but he cannot sell an acre or a
+wood-shed, and give a clear title, without her written name to the deed.
+Then, again, if he earns money, the law makes him support her; if she
+earns money, he has no right to a cent of it.
+
+"Poor, downtrodden creatures are these women of New York State--don't
+you think so," says I. "Is it a wonder they get dissatisfied with their
+hardships, and hanker after more power, more freedom, and less work?
+When marriage is so profitable, is it strange that some of them want a
+great deal of it, and go through the divorce courts three or four times
+with a rush, picking up scraps of alimony and leaving scraps of
+reputation along the way.
+
+"If it wasn't that I mean to stand by my own sex through thick and thin,
+I should say that the laws lean a trifle over on the woman's side in
+York State; but, being a woman, I keep a lively thinking, while the
+other poor, downtrodden souls rush to the women's rights meetings, and
+wring their hands in desperation over the wrongs I have just explained."
+
+"But what has this to do with your Society?" says Cousin E. E.
+
+"Everything. We are in for Infinite Progress. We want women to be all
+that God intended them to be--the full companions and helpmates of men.
+We want them to cultivate all the Christian and kindly virtues, not only
+because they make women lovely and beloved, but because men are
+humanized, softened, and made better by such help and such
+companionship. When men seek peace, rest, the inspirations of prayer,
+they turn at once to us for tender guidance and sympathy. Would they do
+that if we elbowed them at the polls, or held knock-down arguments at
+the primary elections? No, no! If we can soften human misery, strengthen
+weakness, make women wiser and men better, it is all that the best woman
+among us can ask."
+
+Sisters, I had got too much in earnest. I felt the blood come like a
+dash of wine into my face. It seemed to me as if I were on a platform,
+lecturing, and the thought covered me with confusion, like a crimson
+garment. I bent my head slightly, and went away dreadfully ashamed of
+myself.
+
+
+
+
+LXII.
+
+A TRIP TO ANNAPOLIS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Another of those pleasant excursional entertainments
+which this nation gives to genius in the female line has been offered to
+me, and I accepted. For my part, I think the country ought to be
+encouraged in giving these little testimonials to her favored children.
+She hasn't done much of that in former years, but has practised a good
+deal more on foreigners than she has ever thought of doing where
+home-made writers are concerned.
+
+Them Japanee potentials always seem to go along when an entertainment is
+got up for me, and, if that didn't rather mix things up, I should be
+glad of it; for Mr. Iwakura is just splendid in his black coat and
+stovepipe hat, and talks beautifully with his little black eyes; I feel
+it in my bones he has not left a heathenish impediment behind, or
+anything that ought to stand between him and a wife who might carry
+fresh missionary spirit into his benighted land.
+
+Of course, all the other Japanees were on hand, and seemed to feel proud
+and chipper, as if the party had been made for them instead of me; but I
+didn't mind that a bit. Even if they did think so, what harm? There is
+so much happiness in delusions, that I wouldn't rob those nice-looking
+heathens of one for the world.
+
+Besides the Japanees, a very distinguished party had been invited to go
+with me, and I couldn't help but feel the whole thing a triumph.
+
+There was Postmaster-General Creswell, with a head of hair and a beard
+that warmed you, it was so silky and bright. There was his wife, too, a
+real pretty creature, with manners as sweet as her face; and Mrs. Fish,
+almost a mate for a lady I will not name for queenliness; and Governor
+Cook with his wife. Besides these, there were lots of young people, and
+old people, and middle-aged people, filling car after car, till we had a
+whole train all to ourselves. The party was large, but so is a genuine
+New England heart, and I managed to make them all welcome in an
+off-handed, queenly way, which I hope was understood. It certainly was
+by Mr. Iwakura, who lifted his stovepipe hat and bowed like a native
+Vermonter before he sat down.
+
+Sisters, I do think there is a meaning in that--a Japanee isn't likely
+to study the elegancies of our manners for nothing. Still, I wish he
+wasn't a heathen. The Greek Church of Russia sat heavy on my conscience,
+but a heathen! I shall have to meet all this politeness with the icy
+chill of Christian reserve, unless--the thing is possible, for, to love,
+all things are so--that heathen should adopt our religion with the
+stovepipe hat.
+
+There was a thing that troubled me a good deal before I came away from
+the hotel that morning. I have been told that Mr. Grant and our Vermont
+statesman have got up a little spirit of rivalry about being
+President--a thing I never dreamed of, they seemed such good friends,
+and, till now, I thought Mr. Grant had kind of half invited his old
+friend to take the chair. But it isn't so by any manner of means, and
+I'm afraid there may be some little dispute about it in the end, which
+will be unpleasant to those who like them both.
+
+Now, sisters, here comes in the benefit of being a female, which is
+great in such perplexing cases. Female women are not expected to be
+consistent, and they're not expected to take sides for any great length
+of time. They can just climb any fence that comes handy, and sit on it
+with the dignity of hen turkeys at sundown if they have a mind to, and
+no one has a right to scare them up. But, considering myself as an
+exceptional female, whose duty it is to have ideas, I scorn the fence,
+and come right up to the crib, corn or no corn.
+
+It is a duty I owe to the State, and from that I shall never turn aside.
+Besides--I own it boldly--in this case duty and a hilarious state of
+pleasure unite and make me jubilant as a Fourth of July salute. I like
+Greeley because he is first-rate as an author, an editor, and a man. I
+admire Grant as a brave soldier and as a man too, but then, the old
+State! I don't care who knows it--from this day out, white is my color.
+
+But, feeling this in my very bones, how could I accept the great
+national compliment of a special train filled with admiring friends from
+the Government, which is General Grant?
+
+I spoke of this to Cousin Dempster, and, says he:
+
+"This makes no difference in the world. Take all you can from the
+Government. That is high patriotism."
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"Cousin," says I, "it kind of seems to me that this special train is a
+sort of a trap. How can I, a free-born Vermonter--national in some
+respects, and brimming over with first-class patriotism, but Vermont to
+the back-bone--first and foremost, lead off a party like this, one car
+choke full of Mr. Grant's cabinet people. Now, if Mr. Greeley and Mr.
+Grant should rile up against each other--which I hope they won't--don't
+you see that I am in an awful mixed position?--the National Government
+on one side with that stupendous soldier at the head, and that great
+white-hatted Vermonter on the other?"
+
+"That is, you want to be neutral," says Dempster.
+
+"Well, yes--kind of neutral," says I, "and a little for both."
+
+"Not exactly on the fence, but cautious," says he; "keep your boat in
+harbor till the tide rises and the wind blows, then hoist sail and catch
+up with the old craft that has been tugging on in shallow water?"
+
+"No," says I, feeling the old Puritan blood beginning to boil up. "That
+may answer for some people, but not for me. An idea has just struck me;
+a woman's political ideas should be suggested, not proclaimed."
+
+Without speaking another word, I put on my things, went right down to
+Pennsylvania Avenue, and bought a soft white hat, a little broad in the
+brim, which I turned up on one side. Then I went into a milliner's
+store, carrying it in my hand, and made a woman curl a long white
+feather over the crown, which gave the whole affair a touch of the
+beehive, stamping it with beautiful femininity.
+
+With this hat on my head, and a double-breasted white jacket over my
+black alpaca, I took my honored place in the cars that day.
+
+Of course I sat in the cabinet car, feeling myself the sole
+representative of Vermont in that august company. The ladies looked at
+me sidewise when I came in; some of the cabinet men half winked at each
+other and tried to smile. But that white hat was no laughing matter, and
+they wilted down before it.
+
+
+
+
+LXIII.
+
+AMONG THE CADETS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--The train started, and there I sat in my glory till we
+got to Annapolis, just the sleepiest town, crowded full of the oldest
+houses and the slowest people that I ever saw in my born days. Some
+colored persons were dawdling around the depot, and a few lazy white
+folks passing down the street, stopped to look at us as we got out of
+the cars. Especially my white hat and double-breasted jacket seemed to
+take them.
+
+Once I heard something that sounded like the beginning of a cheer, but
+the voices were so lazy that they couldn't carry it out, so it muttered
+itself to death, and that was the end of it.
+
+Twenty of the Japanees were with me when I alighted from the car and
+spread my white parasol, which hovered like a dove over us, for I made
+it flutter beautifully as we passed along.
+
+The cabinet people followed after, and just as we were forming to go
+down street, like a military training, my white hat and feather leading
+them on, a gentleman came up to us and began to shake hands all round.
+He was a tall, genteel sort of a person, with light hair and a beard
+soft and silky as corn tassels; but all under his eyes, blue powder
+marks were scattered, as if he'd spent half his life firing off Fourth
+of July powder salutes, and had burst up on some of them.
+
+While I was wondering who it could be, Mr. Robeson, who has some
+dealings with navy yards and shipping, come up to where I stood, and
+says he:
+
+"Miss Frost, allow me to present Commodore Worden, the gentleman who
+distinguished himself on the first Monitor."
+
+Sisters, that minute the powder marks on Worden's handsome face were
+glorified in my eyes. I reached out my hands. I pressed his, my beaming
+eyes covered him with particular admiration. Feeling as if I were the
+colonel of that company, I longed to lift my white hat and give him a
+military salute. What I did say was significant.
+
+"Worden," says I, "when certain events come about--I say nothing, but
+this hat and jacket are typical of what I mean--when these great and
+luminous events fill the hemisphere your glorious bravery on that iron
+flat-boat shall have its full record. I will myself send your picture to
+the great Grand Duke of all the Russias, and if there is a higher notch
+in the public shipping than you have, I know nothing of the friend whose
+colors I wear if anybody stands before you. I have seen the picture of
+your Monitor. To my eye it looks like a flat-iron, with the handle in
+the water; but it did good work, and so did you. Grant knows it. My own
+immortal statesman will appreciate it."
+
+Commodore Worden bowed, and smiled, and squoze my hand so long that I
+began to feel anxious about my white gloves. But he dropped it at last,
+and we all moved on, my white feather waving in front, just like that
+which King Henry of Navarre wore in battles. Only mine was a peaceful
+emblem, dyed in the milk of human kindness, and curled up in the
+sunshine of prosperity.
+
+We marched through dull streets and round deserted corners, cutting in
+and out every which way till we came to a large gate, which shut the
+Navy Yard out from the rest of mankind.
+
+Then we filed through into a beautiful meadow, with the grass cut short,
+sprinkled over with trees, and cut into footpaths. Part of it was
+bounded by water, the rest by rows of handsome houses and great
+buildings that looked like factories shut up for want of work.
+
+The minute I and Mr. Iwakura walked through the gate, bang! went a
+cannon; bang, bang, bang! seventeen times.
+
+"What on earth is that?" says I, turning to Dempster, who was just
+behind me.
+
+"It is a salute for us," says he.
+
+"Us!" says I, with accents of disdain that put him in his place at once.
+
+"For you, then," says he, smiling in a way I didn't like, for, having no
+envy in my own disposition, I cannot endure it in others.
+
+Mr. Iwakura and I walked on slowly. He looked at me and smiled as the
+guns kept going off, till I counted seventeen; then they stopped and I
+was glad of it, for I remembered that our meeting-house bell tolls once
+for every year, when a person dies, and I felt a little anxious about
+the number of guns they might pile on to live folks. But they stopped
+short at seventeen, which is an age no girl need be ashamed to own, and
+which showed how young some persons can look in spite of hard literary
+toil.
+
+Well, first we went into Commodore Worden's house, where Mr. Iwakura and
+I were introduced to Mrs. Worden and some other ladies. Then the rest
+came in for a little notice, and we filed off into the grounds again,
+where there was a general training of boys in blue jackets, with buttons
+and things, all armed with guns, which they handled like old militia
+men. Sometimes, when they poked their guns right at us, I kind of got
+behind Mr. Iwakura, who, being small, wasn't much of a shelter, but
+better than nothing. In fact, I was rather glad when this part of the
+fun died out.
+
+After this, we went into one of the big houses where the blue boys live,
+and a whole lot of little, make-believe ships were shown to us, and two
+Japanee boys told Mr. I. how they were worked--which would have been
+interesting, only we didn't know a word of that language, nor much about
+the baby-house of ships, and didn't listen to what was said in English.
+
+Then the boys in blue and buttons went into the meadow again, and got
+out a lot of small cannon, and banged, and ran in lines and squads down
+to the river, as if they were awful mad with the water and meant to dam
+it--dam it up, I wish you to understand, for even indirect profanity
+isn't in my nature.
+
+After this, we all went down to a great, lumbering old ship, which is
+all the home these blue boys have the first year they come to the
+Annapolis school, which, being a sailor institution, gives them a taste
+for creeping into holes and sleeping on a yard or two of rope swung to
+the ship's beams--which may be pleasant fun, but doesn't look like it.
+
+Sisters, it was getting along in the day, and, though in a certain sense
+spiritualized by genius, I was hungry. Mr. Iwakura, too, had a pitiful
+look in his black eyes; but a storm of music called us from hankering
+thoughts, and we all streamed, at a faster double-quick than the boys
+could show, into the great dining-room of one of the big houses. A
+splendid table was set out there, which we gathered round like a
+half-starved regiment on training-day. Then began such a practice in
+cider bottles, flying corks, and cider foaming and fizzing into glasses,
+as beat all the cannon and howitzer blazings of the day--for that ended
+in something, and the rest didn't.
+
+It is astonishing what effect eating and drinking has on the feet; I
+could hardly keep from dancing all the way from that dining-hall to the
+other building, which is kept especially for dancing. Well, we did
+dance, for the music just took one right into the midst of it, want to
+or not. Besides, we hadn't been to a tomb, and nobody had been killed,
+so we just went in for it. My alpaca dress isn't over long, and I wasn't
+afraid of showing my feet when there was no train to tangle them up. We
+danced with our bonnets and hats on--we ladies, I mean--and the way my
+white feather rose and fell and fluttered over the rest was enough to
+wake up the American heart in every bosom present.
+
+
+
+
+LXIV.
+
+AMERICAN AUTHORS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--You have heard of Mr. Shakespeare, a writer of old
+England, who died, years and years ago, in a little country place in
+England. He was celebrated for several things besides writing. Going to
+sleep under trees is one of them; shooting deer that belonged to
+somebody else--who took him up and made an awful time about it before a
+justice of the peace, who fined him, or something--is another. Then,
+again, he married an elderly girl, and forgot to live with her ever so
+long. While she stayed at home, he went up to London, and wrote plays
+and played them before her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, who ought to have
+reminded him of his married elderly girl, being her own royal self of
+that class, only not married. There is no reason to think she did have
+much influence in that direction though, for that particular queen was
+more celebrated for keeping husbands away from their wives than bringing
+them cosily together.
+
+The truth is, from the very first--when she got up a series of romping
+platonics with Lord Seymour, her step-mother's husband, to her last,
+gray-headed old flirtation with the young Essex--her taste ran against
+the practical idea of husbands living with their own wives. That
+non-matrimonial creature may have tried her power on Shakespeare--who
+knows?
+
+Sisters, there is one part of this man's life and character that may
+shock your religious feelings. _He wrote plays_; _he acted plays too_;
+and that female queen encouraged him in it. Now, ever since I went to
+see the "Black Crook," I scorn myself for ever having one mite of
+charity for such things, and I haven't the conscience to say one word in
+their favor to you, as a Society. Still, this Mr. Shakespeare did write
+some things that might have sounded tolerably well in a lecture or a
+sermon that wasn't too strictly doctrinal.
+
+Last night I was talking with a lawyer from away "Out West," who spoke
+real kindly about Mr. Shakespeare's writings, and seemed to think if he
+had put off being born until now, and settled "Out West," where he could
+have given him a hint now and then, he might have made a first-rate
+literary man. "Even as it is," says he, "I do my best to make him
+popular, for he wrote some very readable things--very readable, indeed.
+For instance, not long since, in an exciting slander case, I quoted
+these lines, with a burning eloquence that lifted the judge right off
+from his bench:
+
+    "'He,' says I, 'that steals my purse, steals stuff;
+    'Twas something, t'aint nothing, t'was mine,
+    'Tis hisen, and has been slave to thousands;
+    But he that hooketh from me my good name,
+    Grabs that which don't do him no good,
+    But makes me feel very bad indeed.'"
+
+"Is that the genuine old English that Mr. Shakespeare wrote in?" says I.
+
+"Oh, that is the beauty of it," says he. "Shakspeare was no doubt a very
+respectable writer, but perfection is the watch-word of modern progress.
+Of course one doesn't introduce a quotation of his without all the
+modern improvements. Shakespeare--"
+
+"_Mr_. Shakspeare," says I, determined to keep up the dignity of
+authorship with my last breath.
+
+"Well, Mr. Shakspeare would have made a very superior writer if he had
+lived in this country and been fostered by an American Congress."
+
+"An American Congress," says I. "What on earth did that ever do for
+writers?"
+
+"Why, don't it publish books for the members to give away. Isn't that
+encouraging literature?"
+
+I said nothing, never having read one of the books in my life, and never
+having seen any one that had.
+
+"Then," says he, "hasn't every man that can write the life of a
+President of these United States before his election, been made an
+ambassador, or counsel, or something? Didn't Pierce send Hawthorne to
+Liverpool, not because of his transcendant genius, but for the reason
+that he had written a paltry life of himself?"
+
+"_Mr._ Hawthorne," says I, with expressive emphasis.
+
+"And didn't General Grant send Colonel Badeau to London, after his life
+was taken by that young man?"
+
+"I give in," says I; "the literature of this country has been fostered
+beautifully. Hawthorne was rewarded for degrading the finest genius this
+country has ever known, by writing a commonplace life of a ordinary man;
+and Adam Badeau was made a colonel, and is now figuring in London,
+because all the talent he ever had was crowded into such a book. Yes, I
+give in. But one thing is to be relied on, each of the Presidents
+struggling to rule over this country next, has brains enough to write
+his own life. Grant has written his out with a sword, and Greeley can
+handle his own pen. He won't have any debts of that kind to pay off, and
+I'm awfully mistaken if the authors of this country won't stand almost
+as high with him as corporals in the army do now. In his time bayonets
+will be stacked, and pens have their day. During the next four years I
+shouldn't wonder if Mr. Shakspeare might have a little chance if he were
+alive."
+
+"That puts me in mind," says the Western gentleman, "that a statue of
+Shakspeare is going to be unveiled in the New York Central Park
+to-morrow."
+
+"To-morrow?" says I; "then I'm off to New York to see it done. By and
+by, when we have put all the British authors in marble, some one born in
+America may get a chance."
+
+"But Shakespeare belongs to the world," says Cousin Dempster, who was
+sitting near me.
+
+"All men or women of genius belong to the world," says I, "just as far
+as the world knows them; but the country in which a great man or woman
+was born, and has lived and written, is the place where he should be
+first honored. Have we done anything of that kind yet? I'm not saying
+one word against Mr. Shakespeare; his monument ought to be in the most
+beautiful spot we have; but let the next statue be that of some
+first-class American. Mr. Shakespeare belongs to us as much as he did to
+England, because when he lived England was our country, and he belongs
+to us now. But since then we have cut loose from the Old World, and
+built up a powerful nation, where great authors, both men and women,
+have worked out their own birthright of genius, with no help but the
+power God has given them--worked it out, too, with not half the
+recognition that our Government and our people, to their shame be it
+spoken, have given to coarser and weaker intellects from over the sea."
+
+"Why, Phoemie," says Cousin Dempster, "don't get so excited; do you
+know that you are talking like a book?"
+
+"It must be an English book if any American takes much notice of it,"
+says I; "but rile me up on this subject, and I don't know or care how I
+talk. In our part of the country we are Americans to the backbone, and
+we mean to keep so."
+
+"Well, but this statue of Shakespeare was first thought of by the actors
+who have been living over his plays years and years--Booth, Wallack,
+Wheatley, and your dead and gone Halleck, set it a-going.
+
+"What Shakespeare did for theatres, theatre people know how to
+acknowledge. They have some spirit; but what author ever comes forward
+and asks a place for his fellow-author? How can they expect the country
+to be generous to them when they do nothing for each other?"
+
+It kind of took me down when Cousin Dempster said this, and not having
+anything to observe, I said nothing, but got right up, and says I:
+
+"If we mean to start for New York, it's time to be getting ready."
+
+
+
+
+LXV.
+
+THE STATUE OF SHAKESPEARE.
+
+
+Well, sisters, we got to New York in time, and went right up to Central
+Park, which was just one garden of flowers, all in full bloom. The
+trees, too, were of a bright, lovely green, and the little lakes blue as
+a baby's eye, sparkled and rippled wherever the sun shone and the wind
+swept over them. A wide green circle, with lots of trees shading it, and
+great heaps of bushes heavy with pink and white flowers everywhere
+around it, was just alive with men and women. They were all in their
+Sunday go-to-meeting best, some on the grass, some in carriages, and all
+chatting, laughing, and enjoying themselves mightily, but crowding
+toward one spot.
+
+Under these trees, where the grass was greenest, and the flowers
+brightest, there was a sort of pyramid, covered over with star-spangled
+banners of bright silk. Sweeping round that, like a ring cut in two,
+were platforms with rows on rows of seats, built against flag-poles,
+from which ever so many flags were a-streaming out on the wind. These
+seats were crammed and crowded full of people. The centre platform was
+roofed in, and just running over with men holding fiddles, drums,
+twisted horns, trumpets, great puffy bass viols, and everything else
+that could turn music into thunder, and thunder back into music.
+
+There was an inside circle nearer to the pyramid, and our tickets took
+us there, among the greatest people of the country, which was an honor I
+felt in behalf of the society. This was the penetralia, which, I
+suppose, from the first syllable, was got up especially for authors. I
+took my seat in that honored place, and, spreading my white parasol,
+looked about me, feeling the exaltation of my position in a modest way,
+but willing that others should make their little mark even if I was
+there.
+
+Well, the first thing that came was a crash that made me hop right up,
+and near about break my parasol. No wonder; for more than a hundred men
+were just flooding the air with music, that rose and fell and fluttered
+till the trees and bushes shook under it. I do believe the sweetness and
+the thundering outbursts would have inspired me to break into some good
+old tune myself, if there hadn't been so much rustling and talking and
+flirting all around me. As it was, there arose a clatter of confusing
+sounds that gave one's nerves a jerky feeling that I for one haven't got
+over yet. I do wonder why city people have no better manners. I should
+just as soon think of speaking out in meeting, as of chattering when
+others wanted to listen to music.
+
+Well, after a hard tussle between the people and the music, the people
+came out first-best--more shame to 'em. Then a gentleman they call Judge
+Daly--a real nice-looking person--got out and reached out his arms
+toward the pyramid, wrapped up in flags.
+
+The minute he did this all the people began to stamp and clap their
+hands, and fling out their handkerchiefs as if they had gone crazy. The
+more he tried to speak, the more they stamped and clapped and shouted;
+and he kept a-bowing real graceful, till by and by they stopped and let
+him speak.
+
+Then he went right on and told them all about the statue, which ought to
+have been done and put up on the day that Mr. Shakespeare was three
+hundred years old, only the statue wasn't ready then, but that was of no
+account, when we considered how beautiful the whole thing was, and what
+an honor it would be to American art. Judge Daly was all alive with this
+idea, and spoke splendidly. When he had done, I just laid down my
+parasol, and clapped my hands till a pair of three-button gloves gave
+out. Sisters, that one clap cost me just three dollars and fifty cents.
+
+When Judge Daly sat down, a gentleman walked up to the pyramid, and
+stood by it looking awful pale and anxious, as if the thousands and
+thousands of eyes bent on him had drawn all the blood from his body. He
+was a fine, handsome-looking man, and somehow I took a shine to him at
+first sight.
+
+All at once his face flushed up, and I saw that he held the end of a
+rope in his hand. While I was a-looking and wondering, he gave the rope
+a jerk, and down come those silk flags, all in a wild flutter, and there
+stood Mr. Shakespeare as if he'd just stopped to rest a minute after
+walking, and had been struck with an idea which he was thinking over.
+His head was just a little bent, and he held a book up against his
+bosom, with his finger between the leaves.
+
+Mr. Shakespeare must have been a proper handsome man about two hundred
+and seventy-five years ago. No wonder that elderly young lady fell in
+love with him. I could have done it myself, not because I am elderly,
+far from it, but because he was--well, I suppose because he was
+Shakespeare, and awful handsome at that.
+
+Queen Elizabeth must have given him the suit of clothes he wears; for
+when I said his trousers were too puffy and short for my liking, and his
+cloak nothing to speak of in the way of a covering, a gentleman near me
+said the dress was Elizabethan.
+
+This rather set me against the memory of Mr. S. He ought to have died
+rather than take anything from that cruel, hard-hearted old--I was going
+to say old maid, but refrain, not wishing to be hard on her, cruel as
+she was.
+
+Oh, mercy, what a shout that was. It seemed as if every heart in that
+great crowd had burst out in a glow of admiration. Mine just fluttered
+like a night hawk. I stood up and whirled the white parasol over my
+head; more than that, I split the other glove, and was glad of it.
+
+That Mr. Ward had been working eight years on the statue he had just
+uncovered, and our enthusiasm was his best reward. There he stood face
+to face with the people, who were to give him pain or cruel
+disappointment. I felt for him. No wonder his face turned white and then
+red as fire. Years of labor for one hour of triumph. He deserved all the
+praise he got, and that was stupendous.
+
+The statue was now all uncovered, and the sunshine lay upon it. Sisters,
+it is beautiful; but one thing troubles me--the color. Was Mr.
+Shakespeare of that complexion, or has the great man been darkened out
+of regard to the Fifteenth Amendment and Mr. Sumner? When a man is
+statued in bronze, does he always turn out a mulatto? I don't like the
+idea--it's carrying the Civil Rights Bill too far.
+
+Judge Daly had made a present of this statue to the park, in his speech.
+Now Mr. Stebbins, the President of the Park Commissioners, came forward
+and thanked him for it in the nicest way. He was just the man to do it,
+though he is a broker and banker; for he cares quite as much for art as
+he does for gold. Wherever he finds genius, this man spends his money
+like dew upon it. It was he that gave Miss Kellogg her first start in
+music, and a good many other stragglers have secretly been helped by him
+when they felt almost like giving up. For my part, I honor and glorify
+such men.
+
+The next thing I saw was a grand-looking old man, with a long, white
+beard falling over his bosom, and soft, white hair floating about his
+head. I held my breath when this man arose, and while the crowd yelled
+and shouted and made the ground tremble under me, I looked at him with
+my heart in my eyes. What Shakespeare was to England, this old man is to
+America--the best part of the land that gave him birth. He made a long
+speech, a beautiful speech. I have read his poems, so have you; but the
+poetry of his spoken words, of his voice and looks, is grander than
+written language, and nothing that I can write will give you the least
+idea of it.
+
+For my part, I hope that the next statue set up in the park will be that
+of William Cullen Bryant. What is the reason that we should wait till a
+man is dead before we give back something for the genius with which he
+has honored his country? The readers that may come up three hundred
+years from now owe him no more than we do. What are we waiting for,
+then? When Mr. Bryant sat down, there was another earthquake of
+applause, which had but just time to stop, when it burst out again for
+Edwin Booth. The best actor, and one of the handsomest men you ever saw,
+came forward and read a long piece of poetry, which just made the blood
+stir like wine in your veins. There was a double gust of genius in this
+poem; because the poet Stoddard wrote it, and then Booth gave it the
+fire of his soul and the music of his voice, which seemed to float and
+whisper around the statue long after the crowd had scattered itself over
+the park.
+
+
+
+
+LXVI.
+
+RACING DRESSES.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Don't be startled; don't hold up your hands in holy
+astonishment when I tell you that I--Phoemie Frost--your moral and--I
+say it meekly--religious missionary, have been to a horse-race. I am
+shocked myself now, in the cool of the morning, not exactly because I
+went, but from what happened after I got there.
+
+Have I done wrong? Can a missionary, without knowledge, do her duty? If
+she knows nothing of sin, how can she warn against sin?
+
+Then, again, is the running of swift horses sinful?
+
+Sisters, I am troubled. The more one knows, the more one is perplexed
+and put about. It is so easy to condemn things by the wholesale that you
+know nothing about. One can speak so positive about them, for total
+ignorance admits of no argument, and is entirely above all evidence.
+That is why ignorant stubbornness is so self-satisfied and comfortable.
+
+After all, I begin to think that "ignorance is bliss." Is there anything
+on this earth more snoozily comfortable than a litter of white pigs
+revelling with their mother in a mud-puddle--say in August? What do
+these contented animals care for the mud that soils their whiteness,
+with the pink skin shining through--rosy pigs, as one may call the kind
+I am speaking of. Think of them muzzling about in the rily water, free
+as air; then turn to your learned pig, chained to a master by the forced
+action of its own intellect--poor thing! obliged to play cards with its
+fore-foot, teach geography, and cipher out numbers like a
+schoolmaster--and then say if ignorance isn't bliss! Look in the little
+black eyes of the animal, and see the sad and hungry look that knowledge
+has brought to him!
+
+To know is to want--to want is to suffer.
+
+Where was I? Speaking about horses, naturally I wandered off down to
+other grades of animals--the laziest, largest, best-natured creatures of
+all--but, as you may observe with propriety, not suggestive of
+horse-races, which I admit and apologize for.
+
+Well, right or wrong, I have been to the races at Jerome Park, which is
+a hollow among the hills, clear out of New York, and the other side of
+Harlem River. There, every spring and fall, the best horses owned about
+here are set a-going like wildfire, and the one that beats is thought
+the world of.
+
+The park isn't much of a piece of woods, after all; a good-sized maple
+camp in Vermont has got twice as many trees, but then a good deal of it
+is turned out to grass. Then, again, a level turnpike curls in a ring
+all round one of the hills, and on the top of that is a kind of hotel,
+or long tavern, with a tremendous stoop stretched around it, where the
+upper-crust of fast horsedom crowd in to see the creatures run.
+
+On the other hillside, right against the tavern, is a great long, open
+shed, with seats after seats sloping down from the inside, where the
+lower-crust of fast horsedom crowd in from the railroads, and so on.
+They have to pay for going in, but, for all that, haven't a right to go
+across to the upper side, which must be aggravating.
+
+All the men that go to the upper-crust tavern wear a huge round thing
+with a ribbon fastened to their coats, and strut awfully under them, as
+if they were the crowning glory of all creation. Maybe they are; I don't
+know, not being highly educated in horsiness.
+
+Well, Cousin Dempster has one of these medals, which he hitched to the
+lappel of his coat that morning. Cousin E. E. had been fidgeting awfully
+all the week about a dress she was bent on wearing, and when it didn't
+come home from the dress-maker's till late the night before, I really
+thought she would take a fit right before us all. But the dress came at
+last, and then she wheeled right round the other way with joy.
+
+"Such a dress!" says she. "There won't be anything to match it. All my
+own idea, too"
+
+Here she tumbled a cataract of silk from a great paper box, and shook it
+out till it fluttered like the leaves on a young maple-tree.
+
+"Isn't it superb?" says she; "peacock green and peacock blue
+intermingled like a poem, sloping folds up the front breadth two and
+two, bunching splendidly behind, frilled, flounced, corded, folded,
+trailing, and yet demi to a large extent. Cousin Frost, Cousin Frost!
+did you ever see anything so original, so--so--"
+
+"Scrumptious," says I, a-helping her out, "peacock green and peacock
+blue; if we only had the half-moons on the train now."
+
+She looked at me earnestly; her soul had taken in the thought, and it
+burned in her eyes.
+
+"Oh, why didn't I think of that?" says she.
+
+I smiled. It takes genius to understand the fine irony of genius. Cousin
+E. E. is bright, but the subtle originality of a new thought isn't in
+her. That usually does in a family what this Government is trying so
+hard for--centralizes itself in one person.
+
+It is not difficult to say where this supreme essence condenses itself
+in our family. Still, I do not object to other members making their
+little mark, and if E. E. can make hers in the peacock line, why not?
+
+To my fancy, that dress was a nation sight too much. It was all in a
+flutter, silk heaped on silk. E. E. tried it on, and fairly waded in
+silk when she walked. There was neither elegance nor simplicity in it,
+nothing but a sickening idea of extravagance and money.
+
+E. E. looked like a peacock, walked like a peacock, and seemed to feel
+like one. She took a little mite of a bonnet from a box that came just
+after the dress, and put it on. It was shaped like the small end of a
+loaf of sugar, with a pink rose and a bunch of green and blue feathers
+on the top, bee-hivy in height, but brigandish in shape, slightly
+pastoral, and a little military.
+
+"Isn't it stylish?" says she, setting it on the top of her curls and
+puffs, with such an air.
+
+"Original," says I, "but you know which is _my_ color."
+
+E. E. laughed till the feathers shook on her head.
+
+"Oh!" says she, "Dempster and I are prudent. After the middle of July
+perhaps we may--"
+
+"Till then," says I, "you'll sit on the fence peacock fashion."
+
+We had more words, for E. E. is nobody's fool; but just then Cecilia
+came in, and I made myself scarce.
+
+
+
+
+XLVII.
+
+THE FIRST HORSE-RACE.
+
+
+Well, we started for the races in high feather. Cousin D. had just got
+his open carriage cushioned off beautifully. His horses had rosettes on
+their heads, and little looking-glasses about as big as a dollar
+flashing between their ears.
+
+Cousin E. E. wore the peacock dress and the brigandish hat. The parasol
+had a red coral handle, and, to own the truth, no horse on the
+race-ground looked faster than she did.
+
+I followed her modestly. My pink silk seemed to grow brighter when it
+settled down against her green and blue; my white hat was looped up on
+one side with a white cockade, and the white feather streamed out banner
+fashion. With me all was simplicity, patriotism, and whiteness--pure as
+the distinguished individual of whom they were a delicate typification.
+
+The drive up to that race-ground was just too lovely for anything. The
+horses fairly flew. The wind just shook the white fringe on my parasol,
+and kept my emblematical feather dancing after my hat. Cousin Dempster
+drove, and that girl Cecilia sat high up on the front seat by him, with
+her short dress ruffled and pinked about the bottom like a full-blown
+poppy; her--well, ankles visible to the knees, and all her hair floating
+out loose and crinkly. I say nothing, but ask you, as females of
+experience, what kind of a woman will that stuck-up child make, in the
+long run?
+
+The race ground was gay as a general training when we got there. It had
+rained lately; the trees and grass were green as green could be, and
+thousands of red-birds, yellow-hammers, blue-jays, and golden-robins,
+seemed to have settled down around the long tavern, the hill-side, and
+under the old trees. I declare, the sight was beautiful.
+
+Cousin D. had to show his badge and thing at the gate; then we drove up
+to the long tavern with a dash, hopped gracefully out of the carriage,
+and walked right in among the great crowd of gentlemen and ladies
+chatting, laughing, and moving about the long stoop.
+
+Sisters, I do try to be humble, but it is awful hard work. When I went
+into that crowd, with my pink silk trailing and that white feather all
+afloat, the whole congregation seemed to break into groups and hush up,
+just to look at me. I didn't pretend to notice this delicate ovation,
+but walked slowly forward, and with a becoming blush on my cheek, while
+E. E. and that child kept bowing and shaking hands with everybody they
+met.
+
+After I had seated myself in one of the great splint-bottomed chairs
+that stood in dozens on the stoop, the crowd felt at liberty to go on
+again--and it did. A flock of birds couldn't have twittered and tittered
+and flitted more joyaceously than the females crowded together on that
+stoop.
+
+But I soon had something else to look at. Down in front of the hotel a
+lot of horses were prancing to and fro, up and down, breaking into a run
+here, wheeling round, going back, standing still, and generally cutting
+about in a promiscuous manner, as if they were dying to have a dance in
+the street.
+
+Sisters, in all your born days, you never saw anything like those
+horses! Slender, smooth as glass, with eyes like balls of fire, they
+just took the shine off from everything in the horse line that I ever
+set eyes on. But the animals were nothing compared to the funny-looking
+creatures that rode them. A circus was nothing to them--neither is a
+theatre. Some of them were dressed in red, some in yellow, some in blue;
+one had on purple--all fitting just as tight as the skin to a rabbit's
+back. Each one had a boy's cap on his head; and, in fact, they all
+looked like boys out on a spree. There was a place just above the long
+tavern where most of these fellows always took their horses after a
+little run and blow--that was a little, cubby house, built up high from
+the ground, in which some men stood like captains on a steamboat.
+
+By and by there was a stir among the horses and a hustle among the men.
+
+"They're going to start! they're going to start!" says everybody to
+everybody else. A flag on the little house seemed to break down. Then
+off the whole lot flew like a flock of wild birds. The flying horses
+rushed along the road, beating time on the hard ground, and fairly
+taking the breath from one's lips.
+
+I gave a little scream, and jumped up. The whole crowd rushed forward,
+and seemed as if it would pour itself over the railing of the long
+stoop.
+
+"Where have they gone?" says I. "What has become of 'em?"
+
+"Here they come--here they come," shouted the whole crowd, answering me
+all at once.
+
+And they did come skimming along the road like
+wildfire--flash--flash--now two horses abreast--now one ahead--now
+another--then a sudden pull up, and the brown horse had won. Now it
+seemed to me as if the whole squad came up pretty much at the same time,
+but the whole crowd fell to clapping hands over the brown horse. I
+clapped too, and swung out my handkerchief as well as the rest; for when
+a multitude go into a thing like that it just sets one wild.
+
+Then the flag took another fall, and off went another squad of horses,
+and around the hill they went out of sight. Then came a stormy sound of
+hoofs, and another streak of lightning dash in which a chestnut-colored
+horse showed his head first, and then came another rolling thunder-clap
+from the crowd, and "Joe Daniels has beat," ran from lip to lip, as if
+"Joe Daniels" had been up for the Presidential election and got all the
+votes.
+
+Then the people cooled down, and, after a long wait, there was another
+rush, as if a whole training band had broke loose. We had hardly time to
+draw a deep breath, when they all came sweeping round in front of the
+long tavern, two of 'em just a little ahead, running so even and so
+fast, that I really believed that both of them beat the other, till the
+crowd began to clap and shout Alarm, which frightened me, for I thought
+something dreadful had happened; but Dempster hushed me up, saying it
+was the name of the horse that had won the race, and he was glad of it,
+for his friend Travers was one of the warmest-hearted, kindest fellows
+in the world, and ought to have a horse win every day of his life. This
+friendly little speech set me clapping my hands, both for the horse
+Alarm, his orange-colored rider, and the jolly-hearted man who owns
+him.
+
+There was a great commotion after this. The whole crowd was in a wild
+whirl of excitement. All the ladies were talking about gloves and pools,
+and gentleman riders, while the gentlemen talked fast, looked eager, and
+were restless as caged birds. Something was going to happen now, I was
+sure of that.
+
+"Do tell me what is the matter," says I to a gentleman that cousin had
+just introduced to me, "everybody is so excited."
+
+"Yes," says he, "all on the keyvive."
+
+What queer names they do have for horses. Alarm had just come in ahead,
+and now Keyvive.
+
+"What kind of a horse is the Keyvive?" says I.
+
+He didn't seem to hear me. No wonder, for that very minute five horses,
+with such nice-looking fellows on their backs, took a start, like a
+flock of wild deer, and went up the road so swift that before I could
+see them they were gone.
+
+"It is the hurdle-race," says the same gentleman, "splendid--splendid;
+what a leap!"
+
+His eyes were bright as stars; they fairly danced in his head.
+
+I sprang up, for a great wind seemed to be rushing around the hill. Then
+I gave a scream, for some wicked person had built a fence right across
+the road, and those five horses were galloping like mad right toward it.
+
+"Oh, stop them--stop them--for mercy's sake!" says I, a-clasping my
+hands, and pleading wildly to every one around. "They'll be killed--they
+don't see that awful fence."
+
+While I was screaming, the whole five horses came, one after another,
+sailed right over the fence, dived down like hen-hawks after a chicken,
+and away toward another fence that choked up the road. Before I could
+shriek out, and warn them, over they came, like a whirlwind, without
+touching the fence or seeming to care--over, and away up the road,
+taking one's breath with them.
+
+"Mercy on me! what a providential escape!" says I to the gentleman;
+"what wicked wretch could have heaped up things in the road? I do hope
+they'll be found out and sent to State's prison. Why, it's just as bad
+as blocking up a train of cars. Such nice-looking riders, too!"
+
+The gentleman looked a trifle puzzled, then he smiled a little funnily,
+and says he:
+
+"Perhaps you do not understand that this is a 'hurdle-race.'"
+
+"No," says I; "they told me that it would be horse-racing--nothing worse
+than that."
+
+"Well," says he, "it is nothing worse than that, only a little more
+dangerous, and to you ladies more interesting, because the riders are
+all gentlemen."
+
+"What, those men in the caps, gentlemen--not circus-riders, nor
+nothing?"
+
+He laughed, and says he:
+
+"I dare say no one of them has ever been in a circus since he left off
+tunics, but they have learned to hunt, and love these hard leaps."
+
+"You don't mean to say that they skiver over such fences on purpose?"
+says I.
+
+"Indeed they do, and build them higher and broader every year."
+
+"You don't say so," says I, feeling my eyes open wide.
+
+"They love the peril, for that increases the excitement."
+
+"What if some of them were to be flung head over heels?"
+
+"Oh, that has happened."
+
+"Not to-day?"
+
+"Yes, but fortunately the man was not killed."
+
+I felt myself a-growing pale.
+
+"But they don't know of it. Everybody is laughing," says I.
+
+"Yes, it is generally known, but that is a part of the excitement. In a
+crowd like this, it is difficult to realize trouble or death."
+
+"How strange!" says I, putting the handkerchief that I had torn with
+hard shaking into my pocket, with a deeply penitent feeling.
+
+"It is strange," says he; "but this is no place for deep feeling, or you
+would not see so many smiling faces around you, for a gentleman who owns
+some of the race-horses, and came up only a day or two ago to see them
+tried, is lying dead in his home now."
+
+My heart sank. I felt tears crowding up to my eyes. Death in one
+place--all this gorgeous confusion and wild gayety here. A lonely widow,
+weeping bitter tears; all these gay fluttering young people reckless and
+happy, in spite of it.
+
+I arose, and looked around me. No one seemed to feel this man's death.
+Never in my whole life had I been in such a whirlpool of gayety. There
+was not a sad or thoughtful face in the crowd. Yet many of the persons
+there had known the man who lay dead in the city. I had never heard of
+him till then, but no smiles came to my lips after that mournful
+knowledge reached me. In the midst of all this hilarious gayety I felt
+the shadow of human suffering creeping over me, and I rode home from the
+race-park in sad silence.
+
+
+
+
+LXVIII.
+
+OFF AGAIN.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--New York City is full of epidemical contagions.
+Horse-racing is one of them. Every spring and fall it rages fearfully,
+especially among the female women who wait for the races--dress up for
+the races, and come out with splendiferous spontaneosity, whenever the
+fast horses are ready to run.
+
+I have been up to see the creatures rush once, and sent you my report,
+which, owing to verdancy of mind caught from the Green Mountains, was
+only skim milk to which I now pour in cream with a liberal hand. To own
+the truth, it takes more than one visit before a regular New England
+young lady can understand the inns and outs of a horse-race.
+
+Now, I dare say you think it a sort of agricultural fair for
+animals--for the horsey kind meant to show off their beauty, try their
+speed, and encourage farmers to go in for improvement.
+
+Exactly, and a good deal more so. Why, sisters, it's gambling--just
+gambling, open handed and above board, in which the upper-crust female
+women of New York take a hand with the men, and glory in it. But I mean
+to tell you all about it in the regular way, and shall do it as I go
+along.
+
+You never saw such a crowd of carriages, wagons, buggies, and queer
+horse machines as crowded along the road when we got within three or
+four miles of the race-course. When we come to the long bridge that runs
+across the Harlem River, there were two lines of carriages stretching
+before and behind us, just as far as we could see, horses that tossed
+their heads and champed their bits, and shone like satin under harnesses
+mounted with gold and silver, with little looking-glasses flying in and
+out over their heads, and hoofs that struck the ground like the feet of
+a Vermont girl when she dances from the heart.
+
+All these carriages were filled as if they were on the way to a high
+jubilation, choke full of ladies, with parasols hovering over them like
+wild birds taking wing, and great clouds of silk, lace gauze, and shiny
+stuff a-billowing over the sides, till you could but just see the silk
+cushions they leaned against. Then, again, some were crowded over with
+gentlemen, mostly in white hats--which delighted me--some with cigars in
+their mouths--some not--but every one of them just boiling over with
+good-nature and fun.
+
+This was the way we went. Cousin Dempster has made a good deal of money
+in Washington--contracting, or something--and he got a spick-span new
+open carriage for this high occasion--a carriage made soft as a bird's
+nest with brown satin cushions, and that glittered outside like a crow's
+back whenever the sun struck it.
+
+We had a great big fellow, in new plum-colored clothes on the driver's
+seat, and another genteel youngster by his side--all plum-color and
+hat-band, like the coachman. Inside, there was Cousin E. E. with a
+pea-green dress on, all flounces and fringe, and overskirts piled up so
+high behind that she couldn't lean back, and your missionary, Miss
+Phoemie Frost, in her pink silk (turned again), and the white hat with
+plumes of snow, which bespoke at once her good taste and her most sacred
+political preferences, which would keep going on both sides all I could
+do.
+
+There, in the front seat, with his back to the horses and his face to
+us, sat Dempster, looking out with envy and bitter feelings on the men
+in buggies, that were laughing like fun, and smoking like New England
+stone chimneys. At such times I do not think that Dempster appreciates
+all the sweet benefits of female society.
+
+Last and least, I am sorry to say, was that child, Cecilia, with a pink
+parasol about as big as a good-sized toadstool, fluttering before her
+face, and all in a storm of flounces above her knees, with nothing but
+kid boots and silk stockings below.
+
+I do wonder what possesses Dempster and E. E. to train that child along
+wherever they go! She is just the aggravation of my life.
+
+Well, with our open carriage yeasting over with green, pink, white, and
+blue, which Dempster broke up with a lean streak of black, we rolled
+through the gate of the race-grounds and came up, with a magnificent
+sweep, to the back door of the club house, when E. E. and I gave a neat
+little jump, and tipped gracefully around the long stoop, right into the
+upper crust society of New York.
+
+Sisters, it was like wading right into a flower-bed! Everybody there had
+on her good clothes--I may say, her bettermost clothes of all. Red,
+green, purple, blue, white, black--every color or shade of color to be
+found in the sky, in flowers, in fruit, or in water, rustled against
+each other. Sisters, it was gorgeous! But one thing struck me as
+peculiar--most of these female ladies had the loveliest pink color in
+their cheeks all the time. While my face was turning red and white, as I
+grew warm or comfortable, theirs kept one steady pink. Ladies with hair
+as yellow as gold had ink-black eyebrows and lashes--things we never see
+together in the country. I don't understand it. Well, we had but just
+got seats on the largest stoop when the people below us let off a squad
+of horses that seemed to fly; for the mud was soft as mush on the road,
+and their hoofs made no more noise than as if they had trod on velvet.
+
+Just before these horses made their first dive, Dempster came up to us
+with a person who carried a white hat in his hand, and held it out as if
+he wanted something put into it. I thought that somebody had been
+cheating the poor fellow, for there was nothing but little, crumpled
+bits of paper in the hat. Of course I did not want to equal these
+treacherous people in meanness, so I took out my pocket-book and dropped
+a five-cent piece into the hat, smiling benignly on the good-looking
+suppliant as I did it. I really was ashamed of Cousin E. E.; for instead
+of giving the poor fellow a trifle of money, she just nipped up one of
+the crumpled bits of paper, and, opening it, called out, laughing like a
+girl:
+
+"I've drawn the favorite! Oh, isn't that splendid!"
+
+I declare I was mortified by such silly nonsense, and wanting to keep up
+the credit of the family, dropped another five-cent piece in the hat,
+and nodded toward E. E., as much as to say: "Never mind; I give it for
+her."
+
+Instead of thanking me, the man stared and turned a trifle red, as if
+the gratitude that filled his heart were trying to burst through his
+face. It was a noble feeling, and I appreciated it by another kind nod
+and smile.
+
+Then he held out the hat to "that child," and she, too, snatched up one
+of the papers and began to giggle over it. I declare you might have
+lighted a candle by my face, it burned so.
+
+"Is there no end to such meanness?" thought I, and once more I opened my
+pocket-book.
+
+"No matter, Phoemie, I'll attend to that," says Cousin Dempster,
+waving his hand at me.
+
+Out came his pocket-book then, and he took from it a handful of
+greenback-bills, which he gave to the man, who laughed as if he were
+half-tickled to death, and well he might be, for Dempster was as
+extravagant as the female portion of his family had been mean.
+
+"Here is the last number, and our pool is complete," says he, taking a
+bit of paper from the hat, and dropping it into my lap. "Don't trouble
+yourself, Phoemie, it's all right."
+
+I did trouble myself, in spite of his smiling face. Charity is one
+thing, and ostentation is another. After my gift, which I must say was
+liberal enough, there was no need of such a display as Dempster made. No
+wonder the man looked pleased as he marched away, with the money in one
+hand, and that white hat in the other.
+
+When the horses came rushing by again, and made a sharp halt just above
+the house, the man came up to us choke full of pleasure, and wanted to
+look at my paper. I thought he was taking liberties, but gave him the
+mite of paper, and drew back in my seat, in proper fashion.
+
+"Your horse has won," says he; "Mid-day has the race by a length."
+
+With that he laid a roll of bills in my lap, and went away, bowing low,
+till his white hat almost touched the floor.
+
+"Mercy on me! what does this mean?" says I, a-taking up the money. "Is
+the man crazy?"
+
+"It means that you have won the pool," said Dempster.
+
+Before I could ask him what on earth he meant, Cousin D. was swept off
+by a crowd of ladies, and three sandy-haired horses were put upon the
+run. I could not tell one horse from another, they were so alike; but
+they all were long and lank, with hind legs that looked as if all their
+strength lay in that direction to a wonderful extent, and the way they
+threw them out was surprising.
+
+About this time I saw a great many white hats flying about, and men had
+pocket-books in their hands, while ladies talked wildly about gloves and
+neckties, and clapped their hands when the horses rushed by, and the
+word "pool" was in everybody's mouth--in fact, it was Bedlam let loose.
+
+
+
+
+LXIX.
+
+THE STEEPLE-CHASE.
+
+
+Sisters:--This horse hurdling is something that just lifts you right off
+your feet. All that I had seen was nothing to what was to come. All
+along the winding road, and the lots each side, some men went to
+building fences, till every few yards were fenced in, and yet seven
+long-legged, long-bodied, and not over fleshy horses, with riders in
+white, in blue, in yellow, and striped brown and yellow, were ready for
+another start, which they made like a thunderburst.
+
+On they came, flying and flashing through the lots, like a flock of
+birds, right up to the first fence. I sprang up--everybody sprang up,
+wild and anxious--I expected to see the whole grist of them pitch
+head-foremost against the rails, when up they all rose, and away they
+went straight over, and off like a shot to the next and the next,
+clearing one after another, before you could draw a deep breath. Across
+lots, down the road, in and out they went, jumping fences, now abreast,
+now in a swift line, till they came up all at once to a pond of water.
+
+I screamed right out, and felt myself growing cold, for they were
+rushing toward it full split, and it was wider across than the
+mill-stream back of our school-house.
+
+"Stop 'em, stop 'em! They'll be drowned, they'll be killed!" I screamed
+out, just crazy with fear.
+
+No one minded me; the whole crowd was too busy watching those wild
+riders to mind me if I had yelled like an engine whistle. They came
+rushing up nearer--nearer, almost in a line, as if some enemy were
+ahead, and the whole squad meant to ride right through and trample
+everything down. They were close by the water now, with a low fence that
+side. On they rushed--a whole cloud of hoofs ploughed up through the
+air, and those seven horses went shooting like sparrows over the fence
+and across the water. Their hoofs struck fire from the stone wall on the
+other side, and away they went, pell-mell, their riders shooting out
+colors like a broken rainbow, and the crowd cheering them on as if it
+had been a sham fight on training-day.
+
+On they flew like a young whirlwind, though one bay horse they called
+"Blind Tom" fell short. The rider, trying to bring him up, was pitched
+over his head, at which the crowd was hushed, but burst out again when
+Blind Tom left the poor fellow behind, and dashed on with the other
+horses neck and neck round the fields, leaping a fence or two, before
+the poor stunned rider could roll over and pick himself up.
+
+Oh, it was too droll--that plucky horse, dashing along with the rest,
+shooting over the fences, up to time, and acting like a soldier charging
+under command. I could just have gone down and kissed the splendid
+creature, and the whole crowd--thousands and thousands--set up shout
+after shout that you could have heard almost on the Green Mountains.
+
+Another horse came out first best on the second round, but a couple of
+men, right behind me, insisted that Blind Tom ought to have the
+money--what money I didn't understand--but I agreed with the men, if
+there was anything that a horse could accept, Blind Tom was the animal
+for the money.
+
+Sisters, there don't seem much that is wrong about this. You can't see
+any amount of deep iniquity in it, can you now? I didn't discover
+anything poisonous to the moral character; but then we female women
+don't always see deep enough into great social and religious questions,
+and horse-racing is one.
+
+What do you think the gloves and neckties meant? What hidden sin lay
+buried under the pools? What, after all, took that great multitude up to
+that beautiful hollow among the hills? Gambling, my dear; male and
+female gambling, nothing more, nothing less. The horses run for money.
+The jockeys ride for money. The men bet money, hats, gloves, hundreds,
+thousands, on this horse and that. Everybody gambles, and everybody
+likes it.
+
+Sisters, that poor man's hat was a pool; there wasn't a drop of water in
+it; still it was a pool. The two five-cent pieces I threw into it were a
+dead loss to charity. The scraps of crumpled paper meant dollars. The
+heap of bills that I tucked away in my pocket-book, innocent as twenty
+lambs, was money that I had won gambling, ignorantly, innocently.
+
+With Christianity at my heart, and gambling money in my pocket, I feel
+demoralized as a church member; yet I must confess it exhilated me as if
+I had been on the top of a high mountain, and was looking down with
+delicious dizziness. I a gambler, I a diver into pools no larger than a
+man's hat, but dangerous as the bottomless pit! I cannot realize it; and
+when realized, it seems to me as if I couldn't be properly penitent.
+That sort of thing doesn't seem so awful to me as it did before I got
+into it, in this pleasant, innocent, and sweetly promiscuous manner.
+
+Is this "rolling sin like a sweet morsel under the tongue"? Am I getting
+faithless to the trust with which I set forth on this city mission?
+
+This much I will say in my own behalf: horse-racing, if pernicious, is
+awfully pleasant, and horse-betting (gloves and neckties I mean)
+is--well--ditto.
+
+_Such_ a ride home as we had! Trees and grass, cool and green--no dust.
+The sun going down, and throwing red shadows across the fields.
+Carriages crowded full of smiling people, horses wild to pass each other
+and get home; yourself deliciously tired, with half a dozen swift
+horses chasing each other through your brain, and trampling down your
+conscience.
+
+Well, sisters, I may have been wrong, but frankness is my peculiarity,
+and I should like to try it all over again, just once. Don't think hard
+of it, but I should.
+
+
+
+
+LXX.
+
+PREPARING FOR SEA.
+
+
+Dear Sisters:--With an aching head and bitter taste in my mouth, I take
+up my pen to write. Myself, and not myself, I sit here as if I had just
+come out of the upheaving of an earthquake. If I write anything of what
+happened yesterday, it must be sensational; for, of all sensations that
+ever riled up a human constitution, that I felt while out to sea beat
+all that I ever knew or heard of.
+
+I have been out to a yacht race.
+
+Horse-racing is a science not unknown, in its rudiments, to our rural
+population. You can remember when we took our first lessons, bareback,
+with a rope-halter looped around the horse's nose for a bridle. No--that
+was our second lesson; the first was on father's old grey horse, which
+was blind of one eye, and had a natural saddle curved into his back.
+Being a mite of a child, I sat in that hollow like a bird in its nest,
+hung on to the mane with one hand, and held a crooked stick before the
+eye that could see when I wanted the creature to turn. In this way I
+began my horse-alphabet. First, we waded through the plantains and
+burdocks, at a slow walk, with a stumble now and then, which set my
+little heart to quaking like a swampy bog trod upon. Then I grew
+venturesome, and the old grey warmed into a soft trot, which shook me up
+like anything, but was more exhilarating than the walk. With my bare
+feet pressed close to the animal's side and my fingers gripped into his
+mane, I began to rattle my stick timidly against his shoulder; at which
+he broke trot and racked himself off into a canter, which made my heart
+leap with every fall of his hoofs, and filled it with the courage of a
+trooper.
+
+Didn't we wade through the burdocks and sweet ferns then! Didn't we ride
+round and round that pasture lot, without giving the dear old beast time
+for a bite of grass or a fair nip at the sweet ferns! Didn't my crooked
+stick rattle and my hair fly out in the wind! Didn't my mother scream
+after me, and my father rush out like a crazy man, with both arms spread
+out, and try to head Old Grey off! Of course he did. But the dear old
+horse didn't want to give up, and I didn't mean that he should; so he
+shied, and, of course, having nothing to hold him in by but the tuft of
+hair and the stick, he left father behind, and, I do believe, kicked up
+a trifle, just to show his independence.
+
+That was my first lesson on horseback. On the second, my father insisted
+on haltering the creature, which gave me a pull at his head, and mane,
+too, which rather interfered with the use of my crooked stick, and
+bunched me up, till father called out to me to sit up straight--which I
+did, at last, going it with both hands on the halter, and the hair
+blowing about my face like a veil. That morning Old Grey and I jumped a
+brook a full yard wide, and cleared both banks beautifully.
+
+After that I did a great deal of bareback riding, along the road and in
+the pasture lots, and could sit and ride like a trooper before I ever
+got into a side-saddle or knew what a curb-bit was.
+
+Sisters, that is the way to learn things--begin at the beginning, and
+get a firm, steady seat before you attempt to cut a dash. The lady that
+can't sit her horse handsomely without regard to bit or stirrup, needn't
+set herself up as much of a rider--at any rate, in our part of the
+country.
+
+So much for one kind of racing. Now for the water-course.
+
+We used to send little boats, dug out with a jack-knife, under paper
+sails, down that brook by the school-house, and see them swamped among
+the cowslips or capsized in the eddies, when we were in the A B C class.
+Some of us went far enough to sail down the mill stream in a canoe dug
+out of the trunk of some big tree. In fact, I have a remembrance of
+crossing a large river in a scow pushed forward with awful long poles.
+But beyond these rudimental experiences, ship-rowing is not indigenous
+to the Green Mountains, as a general thing, and I do not see how it can
+ever become a Vermont institution, yet awhile. Therefore I say,
+horse-racing you can understand, but ship-racing is really a novelty in
+the Mountains.
+
+Now, a yacht, sisters, is nothing more or less than a baby schooner,
+which has two masts, or a sloop, that has one, built up slender and
+graceful, with a cock-pit, which is in the stern, and a cooking-room,
+which is in the bow, and all the other fixings which make it as much
+like a ship as a first-rate baby-house is like an old homestead.
+
+Dempster has been to Washington, and got some contracts or something,
+and what does he do but come home one hot day when we were all just
+sweltering in white loose gowns, and says he:
+
+"Girls, what do you say to going down to the Regatta?"
+
+"The Regatta," says I, "what is that--anything cool?"
+
+"Why, it is a race given by the Yacht Club," says he, "and of course it
+will be cool if we go out to sea."
+
+"Well, I don't object to seeing, if that will make things cool," says I;
+"but how a club can race, except when it is in a policeman's hand, I
+can't begin to make out."
+
+Cousin D. gave one of his long, hearty laughs, and says he:
+
+"Now, really, Phoemie, don't you understand what a club is?"
+
+I felt the blood rise up into my face.
+
+"Don't I know what a club is?" says I. "Well, I should rather think so.
+There are hickory clubs, oak clubs, yellow pine knots, that answer
+pretty well, and locust clubs, but how a little ship can be turned into
+a club beats me!"
+
+"Oh, it isn't one ship that makes the club, but a good many," says he,
+"crack ships, too."
+
+I just dropped the two hands I had been holding up, quite out of breath.
+
+"So a good many ships make one club, do they?" says I.
+
+"Just so," says he. "When a lot of men join together for any particular
+thing, it is called a 'club.' There is the Jockey Club, the Union Club,
+the Rural Club, the Union League Club, the Yacht Club."
+
+"Oh, for mercy's sake, do stop before you club me to death," says I,
+clapping both hands to my ears. "We have got timber enough in Vermont,
+but clubs of any kind are not in our line. Just tell me what you want of
+us, and we'll say Yes or No."
+
+"Well, I want you to get into my new yacht, and go a little way out to
+sea," says he.
+
+"To see what?" says I.
+
+"The Regatta."
+
+"Can't you for once speak honest English?" says I.
+
+"Well, a Yacht Race," says he.
+
+"That is, little ships running races," says I; "but where?"
+
+"On the Atlantic Ocean," says he.
+
+My spirit rose. I have seen the East River and the upper bay, and more
+than once have caught a view of the Long Island Sound from the
+car-windows, but a live ocean--a great, broad, heaving ocean, with waves
+roaring up thirty feet high, is an object we do not often get a chance
+to contemplate on the slopes of the Green Mountains. Would I go and see
+that? Wouldn't I?"
+
+"Then you will go?" says Cousin Dempster.
+
+"Go!" says I, "yes, if I have to walk afoot with snow-shoes on."
+
+"Well, then, get your yachting clothes ready," says he.
+
+"Pink silk?" I suggested.
+
+"Oh, no; something that can stand the water," says he.
+
+"Say black alpaca, with a white hat and plumes--principle and patriotism
+before anything else," says I.
+
+"That will be lovely on the blue waves," says Cousin E. E. "I will wear
+a blue feather, and Cecilia shall turn up her Leghorn flat with an
+anchor."
+
+"That's just the thing," says Cousin D., with maritime enthusiasm. "I
+have had the yacht painted white, and on her long white pennant you will
+find a name all Vermonters love particularly, and the world generally."
+
+"What is her name?" we all said right out at once.
+
+"The Vermonter," says he, straightening himself up proudly.
+
+We all sprang to out feet, and clapped our hands with the wildest
+enthusiasm.
+
+"I'm not afraid to dare the wildest storms on the ocean with that
+craft," says I.
+
+"Nor I."
+
+"Nor I."
+
+Sisters, it was a spontaneous outburst of pure state patriotism--even
+that child Cecilia seemed to feel it--for ten minutes after she was busy
+as a bee, sewing a silver anchor on her Leghorn flat, and that day, for
+the first time, I kissed the child with spontaneosity.
+
+
+
+
+LXXI.
+
+YACHT-RACING.
+
+
+Sisters:--When you go to a yacht-race, the first step is peculiar. You
+get into a carriage or a car, and ride down to the docks. Then you steam
+off in a ferry-boat to Staten Island, get into a thing they call a yawl,
+which floats like a cockle-shell, and carries two or three people, and
+row off to one of the cunningest, prettiest, slenderest, most
+scrumptious little ships you ever set eyes on, sitting on the water like
+a white duck with its wings spread.
+
+Some black-walnut steps fell down the side, over which I climbed, with
+my heart in my mouth, and jumped into a little pew, with a sofa running
+round it, and some light cross-legged chairs ready for visitors.
+
+The sun was hot overhead and up from the water, so I just went down into
+the prettiest little cabin you ever saw, all finished off with shiny
+wood, like a lady's bedroom, and carpeted with sky-blue, with a pale
+touch of gray in it. Right by this were two lovely little bedrooms, all
+blue and cloud color, with snow-white beds and cloudy curtains. There
+were four beds in the cabin, too, built into the wall, and lots of
+silver things were shining on brackets and silver hooks.
+
+A sofa, all cushioned with blue, ran down each side of the cabin, and on
+one of these I took my place while the rest came in.
+
+Cousin D. had invited a dozen people to try his new yacht, and when they
+all came swarming in, it was cheerful as a beehive.
+
+Some cramped themselves in the cockpit, some flung themselves on the
+long sofas of the cabin, some got under the sails, cosey as birds in a
+tree, two and two; but I always remarked that two men and two women
+somehow never got together; they were sure to split up one of each sort,
+just as they are apt to do on land.
+
+Well, the yacht spread her sails, made a graceful dive and off she went,
+her canvas snapping and her colors flying. A whole squad of other
+vessels set sail too, and off we went like a flock of birds.
+
+The water of the bay was blazing like quicksilver. Some white clouds
+cooled the sky a little, but everything around was sweltering with
+hotness. On we went, fleet and cheerful, sending up the water in
+sparkles, and flying toward the ocean, with green banks on each side of
+us, and that gloriously hot sun heating up the air like a furnace.
+
+By and by we passed a couple of great stone forts, and came out into the
+ocean. Oh, what a broad blaze of sky and water--blue and silver
+everywhere, blue and silver!
+
+On these waters, far out, lay a crimson ship, settled down like a
+mammoth red bird, and around that a crowd of little vessels, with their
+sails spread ready for flight. Ever so many steamboats, crowded with
+people, waited a little way off for the race to begin.
+
+One of these steamboats had the President of these United States on
+board, and hung out its flag that all the world might know where to find
+him. We didn't try, but kept modestly down among the small craft.
+
+By and by there was a fluttering among the yachts around the red ship;
+then a gun banged off, then another, and away the whole flock went,
+flying across the water in a white cloud.
+
+After it went the steamboats, ploughing and snorting through the water,
+and after them a whole storm of sailing craft, all on the wing, each
+dashing up foam like fury.
+
+Now the wind rose higher, and seemed to cool the air, while it spread
+out all the sails as they flew before it. This seemed to bring in a
+whole army of little waves from the great ocean, and, as true as you
+live, every wave had a white hat on.
+
+I jumped up and fairly clapped my hands when I saw these waves trooping
+in, battalion after battalion, all tossing up their white hats and
+dancing forward, as if the winds were singing Yankee Doodle behind them.
+
+Then the party in our yacht gave a shout.
+
+"They are rounding the spit," says Cousin D. "Do look, Phoemie."
+
+I did look, but saw nothing particular--who could? What would one spit
+be in a whole ocean of water.
+
+Then came another shout.
+
+"They have marked the boy."
+
+"Goodness, gracious," says I, "is there a boy overboard? Do fling out a
+boat-hook or something!"
+
+"Do not disturb yourself, Phoemie," said Cousin D.; "that particular
+boy has been swimming in one spot these ten years."
+
+"And alive yet?" says I, feeling my eyes widen like saucers.
+
+"Just as live as he ever was," says he.
+
+"You don't say so," says I. "Can we see him from here?"
+
+"Yes; yonder!"
+
+Cousin D. pointed toward something in the water, black, with a red cap
+on. There did not seem to be much danger of his sinking, for he kept his
+head high, and a good many boats were near enough to keep him up. I lost
+sight of him, and watched the vessels flying off again. But somehow,
+when they came in sight once more, my enthusiasm was all gone, and I
+began to feel limp and dreadfully discouraged. I haven't had such an
+uproar about my--well--heart, since the Grand Duke sailed, and that was
+very different, a sort of affectionate flutter, while this is beyond
+ex-pres-sion.
+
+Sisters, at the end of the last sentence, my head fell into one of those
+blue cushions, and I have a dreamy feeling that waves with white hats on
+were bowing to me right and left.
+
+I have lifted my head again. The yachts are coming in full split. As
+each comes up, the steamboats and vessels give a yell that makes the sea
+tremble, and scares all the birds in the neighborhood. One time they
+shriek--that is for the _Gracie_. Then there was a deep, long howl--that
+was for the _Jantha_. Then there was a yell, a shriek, and a howl, all
+together, which was for the _Vixen_.
+
+What yacht beat, I don't pretend to know, but it comes to me as if in a
+hideous dream that it was the _Vixen_.
+
+The next thing I have on my mind was, a table set out in the cabin, and
+the popping of corks from long bottles, with a sound that made me quiver
+all over. Then I recollect that some one was persecuting me with offers
+of something nice to eat, for which I shall loath them as long as I
+live.
+
+Sisters, I did _not_ see a single ocean wave thirty feet high--far from
+it--but those I did see were quite high enough. If you don't believe me,
+go to a yacht race, that's all.
+
+
+
+
+LXXII.
+
+MUSIC THAT IS MUSIC.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I love music. My soul was brought up on Old Hundred, and
+refreshed from time to time with Yankee Doodle. The lively tones of a
+fiddle drove me wild with delight, in my foolish, school-girl days; and
+I cannot keep my feet still when one rattles of money-musk or the Opera
+Reel even now, when enthusiasm is delicately toned down into graceful
+ease.
+
+The truth is, Nature is full of music, and we who live in a mountainous
+country know how much of it is to be found outside of instruments and
+the human voice. In fact, the sweetest music I ever heard has come to me
+through the woods--not from the birds, but the whispering leaves. Have
+you ever listened--with your heart--and learned, by the faintest sound,
+the different voices of the trees--the quick, soft rustle of the maple;
+the stronger sound of the oak-leaves; the weird, ghostly shiver of the
+pine-needles? I know little of music, if anything out of heaven can
+touch a human soul more tenderly than these sounds. Then the birds--what
+joyous or solemn music they can make! Have you never felt your heart
+leap to the singing of a robin among the branches of an apple-tree in
+full blossom, or shiver and grow sad at sunset, when the cry of a lonely
+whip-poor-will comes wailing through the dusk?
+
+There is the music of trees in the spring, when their blossoms are sweet
+and their leaves are just unfolding--soft, cheerful, happy music, full
+of tenderness and love. Then there is the low, drowsy music of the
+summer-time, when bumble-bees and lady-bugs and humming-birds fill the
+warm air with greedy droning as they plunder the wild flowers of honey.
+
+Did you never close your eyes, half go to sleep, and listen to them,
+with a lazy consciousness that you could rest and enjoy, while those
+little, busy creatures were singing at their work? I have, a thousand
+times.
+
+Then comes the fall, when the hills are burnt over with red and gold and
+brown. How the full, rough-edged leaves strike together, with a sound of
+copper and brass--with a rustle and shiver that makes one think of
+military funerals. Then comes the swift, rustling sound of ripe nuts
+rattling from burs and husks; the coarse, bass voices of the crows among
+the naked stubble-lots; the mellow crash of corn-stalks, as the cattle
+tread them; the slow, liquid grinding of cider-mills, and the sharp
+sound of the hackle, where flax is broken for the spinning-wheel.
+
+After this, comes stormy music--fierce, high winds, whistling sharp and
+shrill through the long, naked branches of the woods, which answer them
+back with moans and sighs and wild shrieks that make you shiver at night
+and hide yourself under the bed-clothes.
+
+When I was a little girl, sisters, my heart rose and fell to music like
+this till I suffered terribly, sometimes, without speaking a word to any
+one--for these are feelings which one never does talk of--there is no
+language that I ever learned which will express them. But I have never
+heard any music that could reach my soul like that which God gives us in
+the blossom season--the summer, the fall of late fruit--and the bleak,
+hard winter, when the clash of ice against ice has a sound that no man
+or woman can reach.
+
+This is my idea of music, and that is scattered far and given to all men
+alike. You can't gather it up and deal it out in great, thundering
+gushes. It isn't to be got for five dollars a ticket. In fact, the best
+and sweetest things we have are given to the poor and rich just
+alike--free, gratis, for nothing.
+
+
+
+
+LXXIII.
+
+HUBBISHNESS.
+
+
+Sisters:--The music I have just been writing about is not fashionable by
+any manner of means. Boston, the great central hub of all creation,
+can't bottle it up or engage it by the ton to astonish all creation
+with. She must have the manufactured article, and has sent all over the
+world to get it.
+
+Every fiddler, flute-player, drummer, and curlecued horn-man in Europe
+has been brought over here to thunder-out and roll-off billows of sound
+for people to pay for and wonder at.
+
+We have a Niagara of waters that astonishes the world. Now the people of
+Boston are determined to give us, in a great, wild, conglomeration of
+voices, a full Niagara of sound.
+
+I am New England all over, from the top of my beehive-bonnet to the sole
+of my gaiter, but--confidentially, among ourselves--don't you think
+Boston takes a little too much on herself? That narrow-streeted,
+up-hilly city isn't all six of the New England States by a long shot.
+
+My opinion is that Boston is putting on airs, and I for one don't mean
+to put up with it. I hate stuck-up people, and I despise stuck-up towns.
+
+Of course it is my duty to see all things in behalf of the Society, and
+to do my best to lay them before you. I cannot say that my ideas of
+Boston have not toned down considerably since I came to New York. Still
+New England is New England, and Boston is Boston, if she does now and
+then make a tremendous old goose of herself, and sometimes threatens to
+cackle the hub all to pieces.
+
+Cousin Dempster hasn't much to do in summer-time, so he was on hand for
+the Great High Jubilee; and E. E. was just crazy to go; for she is what
+you call musical, and goes right off the handle whenever a fellow that
+can't speak English plays on the piano or sings to her in some language
+that she don't know a word of.
+
+Well, we went, and found Boston just running over with people. Every
+house along the crooked streets had one or two flags a-streaming from
+the roof, or out of the windows--star-spangled banners tangled-up with
+red and yellow and all sorts of colors; some with eagles, some without,
+but making every street gorgeous, as if the Fourth of July had burst out
+before its time.
+
+The Coliseum is a tremendous building, big enough to roof-in forty
+thousand people, and leave room for the whole swarm of drummers,
+toot-horners, piano-thrashers, blacksmiths, anvils, and swivel-guns,
+with a thousand people to blow, thrash, and blast them off, and twenty
+thousand singers behind, ready to pile in the thunder of their voices.
+
+The Coliseum is grand, barny in its structure, and all outdoorish when
+you get into it; but there is a good deal to see before you do get into
+it. The streets were just jammed-up with people when we came in sight of
+the great building, which stands out in a bare piece of ground, without
+a tree near it, and the hottest sun you ever wilted under beating down
+on everything around it, till I felt as if approaching the mouth of a
+great New England brisk oven, heated to bake a thousand tons of beans
+in. The streets were blocked with people.
+
+The little wooden bridges built over the railroads were creaking under
+the tramp of a never-ending crowd. The street cars were crowded like
+beehives till the horses could not move, and some of the cars broke
+down, choking up the track.
+
+Female women, with red books in their hands, scrambled through the
+crowd. Little tents and shanties were scattered all about, everybody
+talked fast and loud--some in one language, some in another. It was like
+going into the Tower of Babel, with all the languages in full blast.
+
+From one of the shanties we heard the sound of a loud, eager, wild
+voice, as of some fellow going to be hung, and wrestling for his life.
+
+"What is that?" says I to Dempster. "What on earth are they doing in
+there?"
+
+"Oh, it's a prayer-meeting," says he; "some man is wrestling with the
+Lord in behalf of sinful souls."
+
+"Oh, that's it," says I, just disgusted: "Well, I hope he'll get through
+with his wrestling before we come this way again. To haul religion and
+force prayers into such a crowd as this, is making a farce of
+Christianity. We have churches for such things, and the calm of a holy
+Sabbath set aside for the service of God. Who has time to think of such
+things here?"
+
+"Oh, it takes all sorts of men to make a world," says Dempster, pushing
+his way through the crowd, while E. E. and I followed, with that child
+a-dragging after us.
+
+We went at the rate of three feet in as many minutes, and that
+wrestler's voice was wrangling over us all the time. If the angels
+caught one sentence, I'm sure they must have clapped their wings to
+their ears and left the hub to take care of itself.
+
+
+
+
+LXXIV.
+
+THUNDERS OF MUSIC.
+
+
+Well, at last we crowded and fought our way into the Coliseum, which was
+pretty well filled up when we got through the entrance.
+
+It was a sight, I must say that. Before us was a whole mountain-side of
+benches, rising one above another till you could hardly see the end of
+them--benches, benches, benches--crowded down and running over with
+people, all in a state of bewildering commotion--humming, whispering,
+and rustling together like ten millions of bees in a mammoth hive.
+
+You never saw so many female women together in your born days. Think of
+it, thousands and thousands with crimson books fluttering in their
+hands, as if each woman had caught a great red butterfly and was holding
+him out by the wings. All these female women were rigged out in gorgeous
+dresses, rustling, moving, and flaming with all sorts of colors, like a
+hillside covered with gorgeous flowers, broken up with a dash of
+blackness now and then, as if a thunder-cloud had settled down amongst
+them. These black patches were the musicians, the flower garden was the
+singers--almost all female women, with fans, and voices, and red books
+in motion.
+
+Below were the people, crowded together by the acre, all jolly, smiling,
+and looking as if Boston were ready to burst her tire and whirl on her
+own bare hub, with all her spokes a-whizzing.
+
+Flags streamed and blazed on the walls, the roof, and around the
+pillars. All the stars in the skies seemed to have been torn down,
+scattered on a blue ground, and hung over that great building. It was a
+grand sight, I must say that--grand, but hubby.
+
+It was the German day, Cousin Dempster said. England had had her turn,
+France had flared up, and now Germany was to splurge just as much as she
+was a mind to.
+
+Well, Germany did splurge, but she began with a loud, deep, woe-begone
+rush of music, that seemed to roll out from a graveyard where everybody
+lay uneasy in his grave and was begging to get out. This ended off when
+the day closed with a dreary, low complaint, as if they had begged long
+enough and gave up. Now and then they broke in with a grand crash that
+made me start from my seat, and went off in a low wail, with a storm of
+music between.
+
+Something lively followed the first moan. Then a lady got up and sang
+all alone by herself, and her voice went floating through that great
+barny place, full, loud, and clear, as if ten thousand nightingales--not
+that I ever saw or heard a nightingale in my life, but I persist in
+it--as if ten thousand nightingales had broken loose in a swamp of wild
+roses.
+
+"Who on earth is that?" says I to E. E.
+
+"Madame Puschka Leutner," says she, clasping her hands. "Isn't she
+delicious?"
+
+Then out E. E. drew her handkerchief and set it flying.
+
+"I never heard anything like it, so strong, so sweet, so spreading,"
+says I, flirting out my own handkerchief with enthusiasm. "The human
+voice is something worth while in the way of music after all."
+
+It was no use saying more, for up jumped all the thousands of people in
+that great encampment, out went a swarm of white handkerchiefs, flocking
+together like a host of frightened seagulls, and the roar of the people
+went up like thunder.
+
+Then a great band of men, mostly with yellow beards and rosy faces, got
+on their feet, and went at the fiddles, the twisted horns, the drums and
+things, like crazy creatures, and the way the music rose, and swelled,
+and thundered out was enough to drive one crazy.
+
+Once more that great crowd burst in with yells and shouts, and a wild
+storm of praise. Then one of the yellow-haired men stood up alone with a
+wide-mouthed toot-horn, made of bright brass, in his hand. After looking
+around a minute, he just put the horn to his mouth, and blew a slow,
+long blow. Then he went at it tooth and nail, bringing out great round
+tones that seemed as if they never would grow faint or die away.
+
+I have heard a great many toot-horns in my life; in fact, I have blown a
+tin one myself to call the men folks in to dinner; but never did I hear
+anything like that. It was what Cousin E. E. called wonderful--so-low.
+
+I couldn't quite agree with her there, for to me it seemed wonderfully
+loud and riotous, but it was enough to make one in love with brass
+toot-horns forever.
+
+By and by something happened that just took the starch out of my New
+England soul. There, in the midst of all those dashy singers, one
+hundred and fifty men and women of the colored persuasion rose up in a
+human thunder-cloud, and broke into that noble song of freedom, which is
+a glory to one New England woman, and a glory to New England, for no
+better thing has been written since the "Star Spangled Banner:"
+
+    "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming Lord."
+
+Oh, sisters! there mightn't have been the highest-priced music in those
+colored voices, but the words are enough to wake up a dead warrior; they
+went through and through me as the wind stirs a forest. It was something
+to hear those dusky-faced freedmen chanting the glory of their own
+emancipation--something better than music, I can tell you. But the
+thrill of the thing was all gone when twenty thousand white people, with
+drums, trumpets, fiddles, organs, everything and every creature that
+could make a noise, thundered in, and bore all the sentiment off in a
+wild whirlpool of thunder.
+
+I do wish the white people would stop helping the colored population so
+much. They only drown them out and stifle them. Why couldn't the
+jubilant darkies be left to sing their own song, and rush on with old
+John Brown without being whirlpooled up in twenty thousand white voices.
+They could have stood their own without help, I reckon.
+
+There was a little resting spell after the darkies sat down; then came a
+great heaving crash and storm of music. Everything from a jew's-harp to
+an organ was set a-going, and behind them thousands of women sent up
+their voices amid a crash of anvils, the thunder of guns, and the
+ringing of bells that plunged one headlong into a volcano of sound that
+was neither music, nor thunder, nor an earthquake, but altogether a
+stampede and whirlwind of noises that engulfed you, body and soul.
+Ring--crash-bang--thunder rolling, rolling--oceans in tumult--whirlwinds
+of sound--armies crashing together--the world at an end!
+
+That was what it seemed like to me. Sisters, I haven't a nerve left in
+my body; my temples throb, my heart feels as if it had been blown up
+with brass horns. There is a drum beating in each temple. Oh, if I could
+only hear a robin sing, or a brook in full flow--anything soft, and
+low, and sweet--it would be a relief.
+
+
+
+
+LXXV.
+
+SARATOGA TRUNKS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Do you know where Long Branch is? I reckon not, owing to
+its being a sandy slip, cut off from the edge of New Jersey, and not
+much of a place over two months in the year; it hasn't got into the
+geography books as a school item of importance, though, if a President
+or two more should settle in there, it might lift it a notch higher.
+
+But in duty bound, I am here in pursuit of my great social mission, and
+can tell you, confidently, that Long Branch is a great watering-place,
+brim full, and running over with fashion once a year, when the hot sun
+drives all the upper-crust people out of New York, and everybody that is
+anybody feels the want of extra washing.
+
+When I speak of watering-places, do not understand that I mean a tavern
+corner with some brook emptying itself into a huge wooden trough for
+horses to drink out of. Of course, that is our Vermont idea; with a
+willow-tree shading the trough. That, no doubt, gave the name here. But
+the two things are no more alike than trout streams are like the broad
+ocean.
+
+I ask no questions, always finding it best to wait and watch, and learn
+for myself; but when Dempster asked me if I would like to go down to a
+watering-place in New Jersey, I asked him if there wasn't Croton Water
+enough in the pipes for all the horses they kept.
+
+Dempster laughed, and said it was salt water he was thinking of, and
+asked, right on that, if I had got a bathing-dress?
+
+"A bathing-dress," says I. "Goodness, gracious, no. When I bathe, as a
+general thing, I--that is--I take off--"
+
+Here I broke off, and felt myself turning red. I declare, Cousin
+Dempster has a way of putting things upon you for explanation, which I,
+as a single lady, with expectations, of course, find embarrassing.
+
+Just then, E. E. came in, all of a flurry about her trunks; she wanted
+more and must have 'em, she said. Seventeen Saratoga trunks, and a
+basket or two, were just nothing to what she needed. Dempster must go
+out and get half a dozen more. Why, her fluted skirts alone filled three
+trunks.
+
+Dempster went. To own the truth, he is an obedient creature as ever wore
+coat and--well pocket-handkerchiefs. It wasn't long before a lot of
+trunks--big enough for country school-houses--were piled into the hall,
+and then Cousin E. E. began to revel. Her bed was crowded and loaded
+down with skirts, dresses, shawls, bonnets, round hats, broad flats,
+peaked caps. You never saw such heaps and mountains of clothes; such a
+litter of small things; such stacks of boots and shoes.
+
+It really seemed as if she was fitting out an army of feminines. Even
+Cecilia was down on her knees packing, and E. E. was deep in a high
+trunk with her slippers half dropping from her feet as she punched
+things in and pressed them down. The help, black and white, kept running
+up and downstairs like hens with their necks wrung. Every few minutes
+there came a ring at the door, and paper-boxes and bundles were set down
+in the hall, and struggled upstairs when any of the help thought it
+worth while to bring them, which was once in about ten minutes, all
+morning.
+
+I think Dempster made a cowardly attempt to get out of the way, but it
+was of no use. On such occasions men are wanted, especially when the
+bills come in, and E. E. knows her privileges.
+
+
+
+
+LXXVI.
+
+THE DOLLY VARDEN.
+
+
+As I stood looking on, wondering if cousin really meant to turn the
+house inside out, and set up a village of trunks somewhere on the
+sea-shore, that hard-working creature lifted her face, and looked at me
+deploringly.
+
+"Oh, Phoemie," says she; "are you packed? How cool you look."
+
+"Packed," says I; "oh, yes; I always keep my pink silk folded."
+
+"But your summer things, are they ready? Surely you'll have a Dolly?"
+
+"No," says I; "its years since I have thought of a doll, and I haven't
+the least idea of going back to my play-house days."
+
+"But I mean a dress," says she, lifting her head out of the trunk, and
+wiping the swe--well, perspiration from her face. "A Dolly Varden. Don't
+you understand?"
+
+"A dress, and some Miss Dolly Varden, all at once! Now I can't think
+what dress you mean; and, as for that young person, I don't know her
+from a bag of sweet corn. How should I? Never having been introduced!"
+says I.
+
+E. E. just sat back on the floor, and drew a deep breath.
+
+"Oh, Phoemie," says she, "you are so stolid about some things. Why, it
+is only a dress I mean."
+
+"Then what did you drag in that young person for?" says I.
+
+"Because she gives her name to the dress."
+
+"I'm sure the dress ought to be very much obliged to her. That is if she
+came by the name honestly," says I.
+
+"And it's all the rage now. You must order one, Phoemie."
+
+"What, the dress or the girl?" says I.
+
+Cousin E. E. got out of patience, and sprung up red in the face. Across
+the room she went, slopping along in her slippers, flung back the lid of
+the trunk that seemed to be overrunning with poppies, marigolds, and
+morning-glories, and, giving something a jerk, brought up a puffy, short
+gown of white muslin, blazed all over with great straggling flowers--the
+morning-glories, poppies, marigolds that I had seen bursting up from the
+trunk.
+
+"There is a Dolly," says she, a-shaking out the puffy, short dress, as
+if it had been a banner.
+
+"Not by a long shot," says I, laughing. "It may be a whopping big doll's
+dress; in fact, it looks like it, for what woman on earth would ever
+think of wearing that? Why, the flowers would set her on fire."
+
+"This is for Cecilia," says she, "but I have one just like it, and mean
+to wear it if you've no objection?"
+
+"Not the least in the world," says I. "It isn't my mission to stop
+peacocks from strutting and showing their half-moons if they want to."
+
+E. E. laughed. She is a good-hearted creature, and I set store by her
+after all.
+
+"I will try this on," says she. "They are all the rage, I tell you. Try
+one, Phoemie; your tall figure would set one off splendidly."
+
+"Do you really think so?" says I, beginning to take a notion to the
+great bunches of flowers which did stand out from the white ground with
+scrumptious richness.
+
+"I am sure of it. No one carries off a dress so well," says she, "and it
+will be expected of you. Distinguished persons are so criticised, you
+know."
+
+I looked at the dress again; the flowers were natural as life; the
+muslin was wavy, and white as drifted snow.
+
+"But the cost?" says I. "A burnt child dreads a blisterous
+contamination. That pink dress of mine is a scrumptious
+garment--palatial, as one might say, but costly. The value of
+twenty-five yards of silk is a load for any tender conscience."
+
+"Oh, a Dolly doesn't take half as much," says E. E.; "besides short
+skirts are the style on the sea-shore. The expense really isn't very
+enormous. In fact, almost any one can afford a Dolly."
+
+I yielded. Human nature is weak, and I had a letter yesterday from uncle
+Ben, saying that the hay and corn crops are promising. Besides, there is
+a sort of reason just now why I should be a little self-liberal in the
+way of dress. As Cousin E. E. says, people do expect something better
+than alpaca and calico of high genius--especially when the form is tall,
+and the figure commensurate to the genius.
+
+"But have I time? That French dressmaker will want three weeks, at
+least."
+
+Cousin E. E. saw by this that the austerity of my economical education
+was giving way; so she jumped up, flipped the slippers from her feet,
+and was soon buttoning her boots and tying her bonnet, ready for a
+start.
+
+"Where are you a-going?" says I.
+
+"Where they'll take your measure and send the Dolly home to-morrow
+morning, or down by express. Leave it to me, and you shall have
+something really beautiful."
+
+"Let there be plenty of flowers," says I.
+
+"Of course," says she, "bright, rich colors."
+
+"Hollyhocks," says I, "are my favorites; dandelions and feather-edged
+poppies come next; then a vine of trumpet flowers tangling the bunches
+together, would look scrumptious."
+
+"I see you enter into the spirit of it," says she; "but have you got
+everything else?"
+
+"Everything else? Of course I haven't. Who has, in fact? But my pink
+dress is turned wrong side out, and packed."
+
+"Have you a flat?" says she.
+
+"A flat! I? Not that I can call my own. Dempster has introduced half a
+dozen, but I don't claim them."
+
+"Oh, I don't mean men, but a broad straw flat that answers for a bonnet
+and an umbrella."
+
+"No," says I; "I have a Japanese thing that opens like a toad-stool,
+and shuts like a policeman's club. Will that do? That Japanese
+embassador gave it to me, with such a tender look. I never open it that
+his smile does not fall upon me like sunshine in a shady place."
+
+"That will be distinguished; take it, by all means. But you will want
+the straw flat, and a bathing-dress as well."
+
+"Now, Cousin E. E., says I, "what do you mean?"
+
+"Why, you mean to bathe, of course?"
+
+"Cousin E. E., have you ever seen a Vermont lady--not to say a woman of
+genius--who did not bathe?" says I, with dignity.
+
+"But you will go into the water?"
+
+"To a certain extent," says I, "that has always been my habit."
+
+"But the ocean--salt water?"
+
+"Well," says I, "salt water is beyond me; but if that is the fashion
+down at Long Branch, I don't object to a trifle of salt."
+
+"The bathing is delightful," says she. "At the turn of every tide you
+see parties in the water all along the shore."
+
+"Parties in the water--_parties_?"
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen."
+
+"What!!"
+
+"Children, too."
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen bathing together! Cousin, you--well, if I were
+telling a story like that to a congregation of born idiots, they might
+believe me--that's all."
+
+"But it is true."
+
+"And you call this a civilized country!" says I, blazing with
+indignation. "Emily Elizabeth Dempster, do you mean to say that men and
+women--gentlemen and ladies--go down to the salt water and bathe
+together?"
+
+"Indeed they do."
+
+"I don't believe it! I won't believe it! If my great-grandmother were to
+rise from her grave and swear to it, I would tell her to go back again
+and hide her face. Somebody has been imposing on you, Cousin E. E."
+
+"Believe it or not, it is the truth," says E. E. "Ask Dempster."
+
+"Ask Dempster! Do you think I have lost every grain of modesty, that
+such an outrageous question should pass my lips?"
+
+"Well, believe it or not, as you like," says she, "I haven't time to
+prove it; only it isn't worth while to scout at what every one does, and
+you are a little apt to do that, Phoemie."
+
+"So, if I lived among hottentots, I mustn't object to rancid-oil on my
+hair--but I think I should, anyhow."
+
+"Well, well; get on your bonnet, or the Dolly Varden will never be
+finished in time," says she, laughing.
+
+I put on my beehive, and we both went right down town. On our way we saw
+a wire woman standing in a broad, glass window, with a dress on, that
+took the shine off from anything I had ever seen in the way of a dress.
+
+"There is a Dolly," says E. E., "and really, now, I do believe it would
+fit you."
+
+We went into the store, had the wire woman undressed, and her Dolly
+carried up-stairs, where I put it on, behind a red curtain, with a
+chatty female woman hooking it together, and buttoning it up in puffs
+and waves that made me stand out like a race-horse with a saddle on. The
+girl was French, with a touch of the Irish brogue--just enough to give
+richness to the language.
+
+I asked her what was the reason of it, and she said in their
+establishment a great many of the upper crust Irish came to trade, and
+she had caught just the least taste of a brogue in waiting on
+them--which was natural, and accounts for the accent so many of these
+French girls have, which I must own has puzzled me a little.
+
+When my dress was on, E. E. and this French girl led me up to a great,
+tall looking-glass, and stood with their hands folded, while I took an
+observation. The French girl clasped her hands, and spoke first:
+
+"Tra jolly," says she.
+
+"No," says I, "that is not exactly my state of mind--composed I may be,
+but not jolly, by any manner of means."
+
+"She means that the dress is beautiful," says E. E.
+
+"Oh!" says I, "why didn't she say so then?"
+
+"Well, she did, in her way."
+
+"Magnifique," says the girl, cutting the word off with a squeak.
+
+"Why can't you open your mouth wide enough to say magnificent," says I,
+"if you like it so much; nipping off words with a bite isn't one thing
+or another."
+
+"Oh, but it is, beside the dress, that figure," says she, a-spreading
+her hands.
+
+After all, the girl did manage to express herself. I was sorry for not
+understanding her at first.
+
+Before I could say this, Cousin E. E. got out of patience.
+
+"Does the dress suit? for we have no time to throw away," says she.
+
+"Suit," says I, turning round and round with slow enjoyment of that
+queenly figure in the glass. "Of course it does. Why, cousin, it is
+superb; the bunching up is stupendous. Then the pattern--a whole flower
+garden in full bloom."
+
+"Then it had better be sent home at once, for we must go early in the
+morning," says she, short as pie crust.
+
+I paid for that Dolly Varden with satisfaction. It might have been
+dear--I think it was, but there were no extras, and I knew what I was
+about from the first. Besides it was a smashing affair, rain-bowish,
+beautifully puckered up, and blazing with flowers.
+
+Well, we went into the street, and then Cousin E. E. began:
+
+"One minute, Phoemie; I want some hair pins."
+
+We went into the next door and got the hair pins, then out again. After
+walking about fifty feet she broke out once more:
+
+"Dear me, I forgot the black ribbon."
+
+In she darted through another door, and came out stuffing a bit of
+twisted paper into her pocket. Ten feet more and she turned square
+about:
+
+"Some pins, Phoemie; I must get some pins."
+
+So we kept darting in and out of doors till there wasn't another in the
+street, and went home with both our pockets stuffed full of pins, lace,
+gloves, combs, buttons, and a general assortment of other small things,
+all of which E. E. had forgotten till the last minute.
+
+That night I left her plunged headforemost into a huge trunk, with a
+sloping roof, her feet just touching the ground, and complaining
+bitterly because Dempster was not at home to help press the things down.
+
+
+
+
+LXXVII.
+
+STARTING FOR LONG BRANCH.
+
+
+Early the next morning a big wagon-load of trunks drove from the door.
+Then a carriage came up ready to take us to the boat. It was awful hot,
+and the air in that house was so close one could hardly breathe. The
+parlors were all shut up. The stone girl and that other fellow had white
+dresses on, and for once made a decent appearance. The chairs and sofas
+were all done up in linen, the blinds were shut, and the whole house
+looked like a church whose minister had been sent off on his travels at
+the expense of an adoring congregation.
+
+E. E. and I stood in the hall, I with a satchel in my hand, she with a
+little brown affair buckled on one side of her waist.
+
+That child was a-standing in the open door, watching the men pile the
+trunks on the wagon.
+
+"Mamma," she called out, as the man drove away, "I'm sure they have left
+a trunk, for I counted, and there was only nineteen."
+
+E. E. ran to the foot of the stairs.
+
+"Dempster, Dempster!"
+
+Down came Dempster, looking hot and worried.
+
+E. E. called out:
+
+"Do stop the wagon, something is left."
+
+Dempster ran into the street, stopped the man, and stood in the hot sun
+counting over the trunks. His face was in a blaze when he came back.
+
+"It's all right," says he, "twenty of them, full count. Come, get into
+the carriage."
+
+E. E. moved forward a step or two, then halted.
+
+"The basement door--is it bolted?"
+
+Dempster dived down to the lower hall and up again, panting for breath.
+
+"The scuttle," said E. E., pointing upwards.
+
+Dempster rushed upstairs, banged away at the roof, and ran down again.
+
+E. E. drew down her veil, and tightened her shawl.
+
+"Oh, Dempster, have you locked the wine-cellar?"
+
+Again Dempster made a rush into the depths of the earth, and came up
+again dripping with swe--well, perspiration.
+
+"There, I think everything is safe now," he said, offering E. E. his
+arm.
+
+She took it a moment, then dropped it suddenly.
+
+"Dear me! Dempster, you haven't been near the stable, and I haven't a
+doubt it is wide open!"
+
+Dempster said something between his teeth which I tried my best not to
+hear; then off he went down the pavement, looking as if he would give
+the world to knock some one down. By and by he came back, panting like a
+mad dog.
+
+"Anything more!" says he, savage as a jack-knife, wiping his face with a
+white pocket-handkerchief.
+
+"Yes, dear," says E. E.; "I'm afraid I left my parasol--just run up and
+see."
+
+Dempster went, and came down with the parasol in his hand.
+
+She took it, and got into the carriage. I followed, and "that child"
+dived in after me. Dempster had his foot on the step, when E. E. broke
+out again:
+
+"Oh, darling, what shall I do?--Snip has been left behind. I think you
+will find her in the bath-room."
+
+Dempster dashed the handkerchief across his face, ran up the steps in
+desperate haste, and by and by came out with E. E.'s little black dog in
+his arms.
+
+E. E. reached out her arms, but Cecilia snatched it from her father.
+That moment a policeman went by, and E. E. leaned through the carriage
+window.
+
+"Why, Dempster, you have forgotten to see the policeman."
+
+Dempster followed the man, diving one hand down into his pocket. I saw
+him draw out some money, which the man took; then poor Dempster came
+back on a run, and plunged into the carriage.
+
+"Drive on--drive on, I say--or we'll be too late for the Long Branch
+boat!"
+
+The man did drive on, but E. E. jerked the check-string.
+
+"Oh, husband, do oblige me just this once--I have left my longest back
+braid on the bureau!"
+
+"No," says Dempster, "I'll be--"
+
+I put my hand over Dempster's mouth.
+
+"Dempster," says I, "if you ever want to be a Christian, this is the
+place to begin in, for here patience can have its perfect work."
+
+My gentle rebuke had its effect. Dempster got out of the carriage, and
+once more mounted those stone steps.
+
+By and by he came back with a long braid of hair trailing from his hand.
+Then he planted his foot on the carriage step with decision, and says
+he:
+
+"Drive on!" which the man did.
+
+
+
+
+LXXVIII.
+
+THAT HAIR-TRUNK.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--We are here at Long Branch, bag and baggage--Cousin
+Dempster, E. E., myself, and that creature Cecilia, who is more trouble
+than the whole of us put together. We came down in--not on--the
+_Plymouth Rock_, which is nothing of the sort, but a steamboat, as long
+as all out-doors, with room enough for a camping-ground for the next
+generation on the decks, and rows of staterooms that would line the main
+street of Sprucehill on both sides, and have some to let. There was a
+whole lot of fiddlers and horn-players on board that began to play the
+minute we came in sight--a compliment that I should feel more deeply if
+it hadn't become so common; but somehow wherever I go, those musical
+fellows start up, and grind and blow till one almost begins to wish for
+the privacy of an obscure position.
+
+Fame is beautiful, and reputation is the glory of genius; but when they
+are sounded out by fiddles in broad daylight, and blasted over creation
+by wide-mouthed toot-horns, innate modesty shrinks within itself.
+
+I really felt this way when a squad of music-grinders burst out in high
+jubilee the moment my foot touched the deck. It was a compliment, of
+course, but the sun was pouring down upon us, hot as a fiery furnace.
+
+The express-men were smashing our twenty-two trunks on deck end
+foremost, caving one in every minute or two, and I felt too hot and
+anxious for reciprocity when the musicians struck up, for all the genius
+and ambition was just burned out of me.
+
+When we got aboard, the thermometer was running up so fast that another
+hitch would have made it boil right over. Those glass things ought to be
+made longer at both ends.
+
+I haven't a blinding faith in express-men since I saw three of E. E.'s
+best Saratoga trunks stove in, so I let the music storm on while I kept
+watch of my own hair-trunk, which came down from my grandmother on the
+father's side, who fed the calf that gave up the skin that covers that
+trunk only with its innocent life. She fed it with skim-milk from her
+own saucer, and set store by the trunk on that account up to the day of
+her death. Then she willed it to me in a codicil, that being more sacred
+than the original testament, she said, which I cannot understand--all
+testaments, old or new, being first in my estimation.
+
+Well, of course, I kept watch of that trunk, and when I saw a great
+broad footed Irishman take it from the wagon and pitch it ten feet on
+deck, I just shut my parasol, clenched it in the middle, and went up to
+him.
+
+"How dare you pitch my property on end in that way?" says I.
+
+"I hain't touched none of your property," says he, a-wiping his forehead
+with the cuff of his coat. "Never see a bit of it."
+
+"That trunk is my property," says I, pointing toward it with my parasol,
+which I still held belligerently by the middle.
+
+"Well," says the fellow, eyeing the trunk sideways, "it does look sort
+of pecular, but still I reckon it's nothing more 'en a trunk, after
+all--one of the hairy old stagers--but only a trunk, anyhow!"
+
+"Sir," says I, with emphatic dignity, for the honor of my ancestors was
+concerned, "that is a traditional trunk--a testamentary bequest from my
+grandmother--who was revolutionary in her time."
+
+"What," says the man--"what is that you say?"
+
+Here a real nice-looking gentleman came up to where I stood, and says he
+to the man:
+
+"You should be more careful, the trunk is evidently an heirloom."
+
+"You are very kind," says I, relenting into a bow; "it's only a
+hair-trunk--grandmother's loom went to another branch of the family."
+
+"Well, anyway, I'll put the crather by itself, and bring it to yez safe,
+marum, never fear," says the Irishman; and with that he sat down on my
+blessed grandmother's trunk and wiped his face again. Then he waved his
+dirty hand and motioned that I should go away, which I did, and found E.
+E. spreading her skirts out wide on a settee, and looking as innocent as
+twenty lambs if any one seemed to turn anxiously toward the extra seat
+she was covering up for me.
+
+I took the seat thankfully, spread my parasol, and tried to catch a
+mouthful of air, but there wasn't a breath stirring. The water in the
+harbor was smooth as a looking-glass. The sky was broad, blue, and so
+hot with sunshine that it blistered one's face to look up.
+
+I put a blue veil around my beehive, and wilted down into my corner of
+the settee. Dempster stood by us blowing himself with a broad-brimmed
+hat, but not a breath of air he got.
+
+"I'll run down and see how the thermometer is," says he. "Never--never
+did I swelter under such a stifler in my life."
+
+Off he went, swinging his hat. In a few minutes he came back again,
+panting with the heat.
+
+"It's a hundred," says he.
+
+"What?" says I.
+
+"The thermometer," says he.
+
+"And is it that which makes things so hot?"
+
+"Of course," says he, "one hundred is as much as we can bear."
+
+"Then, why on earth don't they get rid of some? What is the use of
+piling-up things to this extent? For my part I never will travel on
+boats that carry these red-hot thermometers again. It's as much as one's
+life is worth. Nitro-glycerine is nothing to it; that blows you right
+straight up, but these other things pile on the heat and never come to
+an end."
+
+Congress ought to put a stop to such dangerous freights being piled-up
+in steamboats. It's enough to breed suicides on the water.
+
+Dempster wanted to laugh, I could see that, but his face just puckered
+up a little, and it was all he could do in that line. So he took a
+camp-stool, pulled his new white hat over his eyes, and fell into a
+soggy sort of sleep. There he sat, kind of simmering, like a baked apple
+in the mouth of an oven, till the steamboat stopped on the end of a
+sand-bank, and gave a lazy snarl, as if it was glad to get rid of us.
+
+After this they packed the whole cargo of live people in a line of cars,
+and sent them off sweltering through the sand with the engine roaring
+before them like a fiery dragon.
+
+
+
+
+LXXIX.
+
+AT THE BRANCH.
+
+
+By and by, we came to Long Branch, where the engine gave another long
+whoop, and were turned out into the sunshine again among stages, wagons,
+carriages, and all sorts of wheeled creatures, all looking as if they
+had been in a whirlwind of red dust.
+
+Cousin Dempster had sent his carriage ahead, and there his handsome bay
+horses stood sweating themselves black, and dropping foam into the dusty
+road. We got in, helter-skelter--no one cared which was first--and were
+driven toward the sea-shore.
+
+When we got in sight of the water the horses made a sudden turn, and
+wheeled into a wide, dusty street, that runs right along the edge of the
+water. It was an awful grand sight, but the waves didn't seem to have
+strength enough to move, only gave out a lazy sob once in a while, as if
+they were tired of carrying so many loafing ships about that hadn't
+spirit enough to flap their own sails.
+
+Long Branch is a real nice place after all; and just the broadest,
+coolest, and most scrumptious tavern in it is the Ocean Hotel, which
+stands just back of the sea-shore, stretching its white wings widely,
+from the centre building a quarter of a mile, I do believe, each way.
+Before the house is a great green lawn, with walks and carriage roads
+cut through it that lead from the house to the high bank, against which
+the ocean keeps beating all the year round.
+
+On each side the walks are great white marble flower-pots--vases they
+call them here--choke full and running over with flowers and vines, and
+great broad-leaved plants that looked cool and green, hot as it was.
+
+"Oh," says Cousin E. E. "Isn't that beautiful? So fresh, so bright, it
+is like a moving garden."
+
+So it was. All along those deep verandahs that run clear across the
+front of the hotel in double rows, were swinging baskets full of flowers
+and cool green leaves--hundreds of them--brightening the whole broad
+front of the hotel, and under them was a crowd of people--gentlemen,
+ladies, and children--reading, chatting, sleeping in the great easy
+willow chairs, or walking up and down on the soft grass.
+
+Sisters, I know now exactly the way an Arab feels when he finds a bright
+spring--which they call an oasis--in the deserts of Sahara, and hears
+the leaves shiver and the waters murmur. This hotel looked cool, still,
+and refreshing like that. All the front was in shadow, before it lay the
+deep blue water. Inside was Mr. Leland, a potentate among hotel-keepers,
+ready to make us at home.
+
+There it was again. Ovations will follow me. I had but just taken off my
+dusty clothes, bathed my face and hands with cold water, and stepped out
+on the verandah, when a storm of music burst out from a little
+summer-house on the grass. Wherever I go this sort of ovation follows
+me. Music and flowers seem to be my destiny. No matter where I roam, in
+all the steamboats and hotels they send storms of homage after me. Well,
+I am grateful, and I hope bear these honors with Christian meekness.
+
+I have been riding all along the beach. The sun has gone down and the
+ocean ripples to the softest and blandest wind I ever felt. The vessels
+that move on it show signs of life now. Their great white sails bend and
+strain with a look of power. The day has been hot, but a cool wind comes
+off the water, and you breathe once more.
+
+Sisters, do not be led to suppose that the Ocean Hotel, large and grand
+as it is, means all Long Branch. Why, there is a mile of hotels and
+cottages running along the beach, all swarming over with people. As you
+ride up the street you pass dozens and dozens of little summer-houses,
+full of young people looking out at the sea, which comes in with a slow
+rush and swell now that leaves a lonesome feeling in the heart.
+
+
+
+
+LXXX.
+
+THE RACE-COURSE.
+
+
+There is a race-ground three miles from here, where everybody is going
+this morning, though the weather is hot and the ocean is sound asleep,
+with great silver scales of sunshine trembling over it.
+
+New York has come down in crowds to Long Branch, and all the hotels have
+emptied themselves on to the race-course. Three miles of road are
+covered with moving carriages, wagons and stages--one cloud of yellow
+dust rolls along the road without a break. Every carriage is gay with
+brightly dressed ladies. Thousands go up or down on the railroad, whose
+engine stops and pours out clouds of black smoke close by the race
+track. From the cars a stream of people now on to the course, packing
+themselves into the benches of the Grand Stand, or scattering on the
+grass around it.
+
+When we got into the enclosure fifteen thousand people were waiting,
+some in the hot sun, others in the hot shade, all choked with dust and
+sweltering with heat.
+
+We were late. There was but one thing that we wanted to see: the race
+between Longfellow and Harry Bassett--two of the swiftest horses in the
+country.
+
+If horses could gamble I should call these two beautiful creatures
+black-legs, and the gayest of gamboliers; but as they can't do it
+themselves men and women do it for them.
+
+This time twenty-five thousand dollars was to go to the swiftest
+horse--twenty-five thousand dollars--enough to build a meeting-house.
+Doesn't it make you tremble in your shoes; but that isn't all. Everybody
+was betting with everybody else, just for the fun of betting.
+
+I saw a little shaver there, ten years old, who boasted that he had won
+three pair of gloves from a little girl of eight.
+
+The cream of that fifteen thousand skimmed itself off and consolidated
+in a handsome square building that they call the Club House. We went
+there, of course, and soon got seats among a crowd of upper-tenists on
+the roof, which took in a view of the whole race-ground.
+
+One or two horses, with funny little fellows on their backs, were moving
+up and down before the Grand Stand, but no one seemed to care about
+them. Harry Bassett and Longfellow were all they wanted in the way of
+fast horses.
+
+Sisters, don't fancy now that Longfellow is of a poetic, or even
+literary, turn of mind. Nor do I want you to think that his owner named
+him after our great New England poet because he was fired with
+admiration of his genius. Nothing of the kind. I don't suppose that "old
+Kentucky gentleman" ever read a line of Longfellow's poetry in his
+life--may be, though I hate to think so, he never heard of him--at any
+rate this great, long, swift, beautiful animal was named after himself,
+and nobody else. His body is long and slender, very long, and that is
+why the colt got his name. I wish it had been the other way, but it
+wasn't, and truth is truth. In fact, I'm afraid literature isn't
+appreciated on the race-course. It takes all the romance out of one to
+know that this grand young horse was named after his own body, and not
+after our great New Englander.
+
+Never mind about the name now, Harry Bassett is coming down the road,
+and slackens his speed in front of the Grand Stand. A beautiful,
+beautiful animal, with limbs like a deer, and a coat smooth as satin,
+colored like a plump ripe chestnut. Fifteen thousand people clap their
+hands, stamp their feet, shout, cheer, and flutter out their
+handkerchiefs as the horse goes by.
+
+Sisters, you never saw anything like it. A camp-meeting, where every
+man, woman, and child was just converted, might be a comparison, with
+drawbacks.
+
+Harry Bassett took all this cool as a cucumber. It didn't disturb a hair
+on his glossy coat. The creature knew that he was being admired, and
+liked it--that was all. Down he came by the Grand Stand, past the Club
+House, where he got another ovation and another whirlwind of white
+handkerchiefs, and, wheeling round, walked back again and gave the other
+horse a chance.
+
+Longfellow came next--a little larger, a little longer, and heavier in
+the limbs--a splendid horse; but he did not take my fancy as Harry
+Bassett did. From the first minute I wanted that chestnut beauty to
+beat; there was something about him, I can't tell what, but he suited
+me.
+
+I was half put-out with Longfellow for being such a grand, powerful
+fellow. When he came opposite the Grand Stand, out flew the
+handkerchiefs and out rolled the thunder, just as it had when Bassett
+went by. Both the animals were so handsome that you couldn't help
+clapping your hands.
+
+Bless you, the splendid creature didn't care a cent for it all. The
+crazy applause passed him like wind. He liked the fresh air, and gloried
+in a swift run, on his own hook; twenty-five thousand dollars were
+nothing to him. But he showed off his magnificent proportions and
+allowed the hot sunshine to stroam over his brown coat with the most
+abominable indifference.
+
+I insist upon it, Longfellow is a noble horse, but not so handsome or so
+lithe in his movement as Bassett. If these two creatures should ever
+come to Sprucehill, I know you will all stand by me in what I say--but
+then every one of you would be turned out of meeting if you only looked
+at a race-horse through a spy-glass.
+
+Well, when the two handsome beasts had shown themselves off long enough,
+they drew up together and made ready for a start. A red flag was
+floating close by them. There was no noise now; not a man in all those
+benches clapped his hands. Instead of that, the whole crowd seemed
+afraid to breathe.
+
+The red flag fell. The two horses started close together, and kept so
+once round the course; then that long-bodied fellow began to stretch
+himself a little ahead. They passed us like two arrows shot from one
+bow, Longfellow's head showing first. Once more they went round. Now a
+roll of wild, thundering noises followed them. Longfellow was ahead; you
+could see a gap of light between them. Beautiful Harry Bassett tried his
+best; but that long-bodied trooper just flew, and came out yards ahead.
+
+I declare it riled me. I know that the chestnut beauty could have beaten
+if something hadn't been the matter with him. Poor fellow! he looked
+awfully down in the mouth when he was ridden up right into the whirlwind
+of noises that rejoiced over that other horse. It seemed to me as if he
+knew the pain and humiliation of defeat, just as well as if he had been
+human; I am sure he did. Still, sisters, I stand by Harry Bassett.
+
+Oh, mercy, how hot it was coming home those three dusty miles! How tired
+and thankful I was when we got safely into the Ocean Hotel, with plenty
+of lemonade and ice-water, with a cool wind blowing up from the water.
+
+Sisters, I sometimes think you do not quite appreciate all the
+sacrifices that I make for you. The great want of our society, has been
+a thorough knowledge of what is going on in the wide world outside of
+Vermont and the Hub. That deficiency I am determined to make up by extra
+mission duties in the direction of general human nature. In order to
+prove or condemn a thing, one must see it in all its features. If
+ignorance were goodness, the universe would be crowded with pious
+people. But it isn't any such thing; and your pioneers and missionaries
+who mean to teach, musn't be afraid to learn. Now, there is a good deal
+to be said about races, and if 'twere not for the betting--which is
+gambling, under another name--I should rather like it. A noble horse in
+full training is a brave sight; and, next to a noble man or woman, I,
+for one, am glad to see him put forward. There isn't a bit of harm in
+swift running; but then twenty-five thousand dollars lost and won
+between two horses, is a snare and a delusion that the noble beasts have
+nothing to do with. I do not like that, and am quite sure that you will
+make it a subject of particular denunciation. I hope you will. Not that
+such things have ever found a mite of countenance in Vermont; but horses
+are raised there, and that may lead to something dreadful. If a patch of
+ground level enough for a race-course can be found in the State, some of
+these New Yorkers will be for fencing it in; and the way they are
+progressing here, some ambitious fellow may be wanting to charter the
+Green Mountains for a hurdle, for horses all but fly in these parts.
+
+Understand me--I am not blaming the animals--they are just splendid; but
+betting, especially among women, is my abomination. It is an open gate
+through which feminines slide into a habit of gambling. I don't like it,
+and the sooner our American feminine women know my opinion, the sooner
+they will be ready to turn back and consider what they are about.
+
+
+
+
+LXXXI.
+
+CLIMBING SEA CLIFF.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--You are right. My mind has been too much in the world. I
+have been led into walks of life that do not accurately jibe with the
+pious experiences of former days. I confess my shortcomings with
+humiliation, and am resolved on a season of mission duties in another
+direction than horse-races. They are exciting, and give one a
+high-stepping inclination. Still, my motive is good.
+
+"Try all things, and hold fast to that which is good," is scriptural,
+but on some occasions may be temptations, especially when the thing that
+is good happens to be disagreeable, and the other is awfully enticing.
+
+Any way, sisters, I am determined to do my duty in every walk of life,
+and the foremost duty this moment takes me far away from Long Branch,
+puts me on two steamboats and two short snatches of railroads, which
+land me at the foot of a great, sandy, high-sloping hill--some people
+call it a bluff--but which religious people of several denominations
+call "Sea Cliff Grove."
+
+Now, Sea Cliff Grove is a sacred institution, lifted high up toward
+Heaven, and bathed in an especial odor of sanctity, conglomerated from
+ever so many different churches, and so centralized in a place that may,
+to the fanciful mind, be considered a city set on a hill.
+
+Indeed, it is. If Jordan is a hard road to travel, Sea Cliff Grove is an
+awful hill to climb, even in a covered stage, with two long, thin horses
+dragging the blessed pilgrims upward with all their might.
+
+Before we got clear up, there was now and then an encouraging glimpse of
+brightness from the dome of the tabernacle, covered over with tin, which
+blazed and sparkled and shone in the hot sunshine, till it set one's
+brain to sweltering. If it hadn't been for a cool fringe of trees
+running along the edge of the hill, it seemed to me as if the whole
+bluff must have burned up, and gone off in a blaze of glory. That dome,
+which looked like a great cone, roofed in with milk-pans set on edge,
+was the crowning glory of a new tabernacle--not the one built without
+hands, for it took a great many hands to build this great, rambling
+affair, besides the cottages and tents and long, open stoops, that look
+out on the sea from morning till night.
+
+Among these tents and little houses and the great tabernacle, the man
+who drove us took his ten cents a-piece, and set us down, and wheeled
+about, singing "Old Hundred" to his horses, and swinging his whip with
+slow solemnity as he lumbered down hill again.
+
+Then we started off afoot in search of Cousin Dempster's cottage, for he
+had sent on ahead, and hired one of the little cubby-houses for us to
+stay in till the religious season was over.
+
+We found our cubby-house at last, but somebody else had got their nine
+points of the law out of it. So the man sent on beforehand had pitched a
+tent on the grass, which we went into like Indians just returned from a
+hunting-party--dusty, thirsty, and sort of wolfish for something to eat.
+
+We took off our bonnets, and pinned them by the strings to the walls of
+the tent, which were of the best tow-cloth I ever saw out of Vermont.
+Then we shook ourselves, as hens do when they have been rolling in the
+dust, and pushed back our hair with both hands, which E. E. said was
+making a rural toilet worthy of the occasion. Then I, with the kindest
+intentions, shook out E. E.'s--full panier--and found it puckered-up
+with green burdock burs, which she had got on from the weeds on her way
+to the tent. These I picked off, one by one, while she was stamping her
+foot with a spirit that shocked me dreadfully in that sacred place, for
+all around us the people were singing and praying, and shouting
+"Hallelujah" and "Amen" and "Glory," in a way that made the pious
+teachings of my grandmother rile up within me. I looked upon the burdock
+burs as a judgment upon Mrs. Dempster, especially as I hadn't any
+puckerings in my dress to catch them in, and she had brought all her
+wordliness on her back.
+
+
+
+
+LXXXII.
+
+FIGHTING FOR THE BODY.
+
+
+By and by the shouts and noises hushed up a little, and there was a
+stampede, like a rush of cattle, in the grounds.
+
+"Come," says Dempster, "or we shall get nothing to eat."
+
+"Does that mean dinner?" says E. E., with a hungry look.
+
+"Just that," says Dempster, "so look sharp; for here it is every man for
+himself, and the----"
+
+"Dempster!" said I, stepping back with pious horror, "do you know where
+you are?"
+
+"Exactly; but I know, too, that unless we look sharp, we shall feel flat
+when we get to the dining-hall and find everything swept off."
+
+We took the hint. I lifted the skirt of my alpaca dress gently, between
+my thumb and forefinger, just enough to give an idea of the ankle
+without revealing it, and went out of the tent, imbued with the spirit
+of the place, but humiliated with worldly craving.
+
+Sisters, if the denizens of this Sea Cliff are only half as earnest in
+their souls' salvation as they are in replenishing poor, frail human
+nature, there will be a glorious harvest of regeneration this holy
+season. The way they poured out of the tents, the houses, the long
+stoops, and through the bushes was fluttering and noisy as the flight of
+ten thousand chickens from a barn-yard. Still the crowd did not break
+all at once from the spiritual to the temporal wants of human nature.
+They kept on praying and singing in breaks and snatches clear up to the
+dining-hall, when the old earthly Evil One got uppermost, and each man
+seizing a knife and fork, went at the first dish he saw, and held on to
+it with one hand, while he did double express duty with the other.
+
+Sisters, this crowd of sinners sanctified, and to be sanctified, was
+made up of about the hungriest mortals that I ever set eyes upon. The
+way those safety-seeking souls took care of their bodies was
+regenerating, I can tell you. For my part, after seeing every dish swept
+away from before me, with Christian fortitude becoming to the place, my
+carnal nature rose uppermost, and, seizing upon a plate of summer
+squash, I held on to it valiantly, while E. E. snatched a potatoe with
+its jacket on, from a flying dish, and Dempster wrestled with one of the
+saints for a plate of bread, as Jacob wrestled with the angels; only
+this saint was six feet high, wore a hood-brimmed straw hat, and carried
+off the plate of bread in his hands, after all.
+
+I greatly fear Cousin Dempster didn't meet this test of a meek and lowly
+spirit with the fortitude of a martyr. In fact, I'm afraid he said
+something beside "Amen" between his grinding teeth, when that plate
+disappeared.
+
+As for E. E. and myself, we got a spoon between us, and dined on the
+squash, generously giving up the potato to Dempster, with an admonition
+which did not seem to suit him much better than that stone-cold
+vegetable.
+
+Well, when we had vegetated the inner man to this extent, and watched
+the swarm of hungry eaters devouring the food like a cloud of ravenous
+locusts, Cousin Dempster laid down his potato-peel on the table with
+mournful sadness, and said, plaintively:
+
+"This is all we are likely to get; let us go."
+
+"Wait," says I, "some one is going to return thanks."
+
+"What, for two spoonfuls of squash and one hollow-hearted potato for
+three of us? Never!" says Dempster.
+
+Really, sisters, the spirit will have a tough job before it brings the
+proud nature of Cousin Dempster into a state of perfect sanctification.
+E. E. and I gave him a beautiful example, and looked as humbly grateful
+as two hungry female women could, over a double spoonful of watery
+squash; I fear he did not appreciate it though, for when a deep Amen
+rolled down the hall, after the thanks were given, he meanly growled
+out--well, a very peculiar word, that made my heart jump into my mouth.
+In any other place, I should write out boldly that Cousin Dempster--but
+in that out-door sanctuary--no, the secret of what he said shall go with
+me to my grave.
+
+
+
+
+LXXXIII.
+
+LIONS AND LAMBS.
+
+
+Sisters:--The tabernacle under that tin roof will hold, well packed, six
+hundred anxious souls--each with a weak, human body attached. The seats
+are all cushioned with the softest pine, and have luxurious board backs.
+A stage rises grandly for the ministers of many churches who harmonize
+and fraternize like lions and lambs, each shepherding his own flock and
+drawing converts into his fold, wherever he can find a straggling sinner
+on his knees. The dining-room all at once emptied itself into the
+tabernacle; the ministers mounted the stage, and out in front came a man
+whose first words woke you up like the blast of a war trumpet.
+
+A stout, smart, almost grand-looking man, who looked over the crowd as
+if he owned every man and woman in it, and meant to regenerate them in
+flocks, or turn them over to what-you-may-call-him at once. His dark
+face, broad forehead, and silver-gray hair looked strong, if not
+handsome. His light eyes gleamed out from behind a pair of gold
+spectacles, and when he got in earnest his heavy brows drew together and
+left deep lines between them which made him look stronger yet.
+
+"Who is that?" I whispered to Cousin D.
+
+"Inskip," says he, "the greatest gun amongst them."
+
+"Dear me!" says I.
+
+There was no time to say more, for that great gun was pouring a hot
+storm of eloquence into the crowd, and stirring it up as a north-easter
+lashes the hemlocks on our mountains. Sisters, the scene was wonderfully
+impressive. I felt the old revival spirit in all my bones. When he
+stopped a minute for the crowd to say Amen, the word rattled out like a
+discharge of guns on a training day.
+
+By and by his discourse grew warmer and more startling. He just pitched
+headforemost into the cause, and stirred up that great congregation like
+a tornado. The Amens grew noisy, and were let off from lip to lip like
+fire-crackers on a Fourth of July. Then some one sang out "Hallelujah!"
+and another "Glory, Glory, Glory!" till the whole congregation broke
+into a young earthquake. Some started up, some rocked on their seats,
+and half a dozen fell to the ground, trembling, praying, and shouting
+"Hallelujah."
+
+There was a mixture of all sorts of people in the crowd, which made it
+yeast over like a baking of bread when the rising is lively. When one
+got a-going the rest set in. Half the crowd were crying and the other
+half clapping hands.
+
+Then Mr. Inskip rested a little, and a real handsome young gentleman
+stood up and sung beautifully. When he got through, the crowd joined in,
+every man, woman, and child singing on his own hook, which was noisy,
+and might have been harmonious if half of them had settled on the same
+tune, which they did, but cut across each other and sung out "Glory,"
+when they forgot everything else, which made the music a little uneven.
+
+Of course when a crowd like that gets a-going in a full blast of
+eloquence, stirring up consciences, and dancing and thrilling along the
+nerves, there is sure to be a whirlwind of magnetism heaving souls
+against each other till they cry out with the shock.
+
+I looked around; the crowd was all in commotion; every face burned with
+excitement of some kind, for under that man's voice human nature was
+stirred, aroused, lashed into a fury of wild enthusiasm. Female women
+grew pale, and trembled on the hard seats; men wilted down into
+childish softness; children cried and shouted.
+
+Before the stage was an open space, left free for sinners under
+conviction to come up and beseech the thrice-regenerated ministers to
+exhort and pray for them. Into this space those mostly stricken in the
+crowd, came like sheep looking for a shelter, some sobbing, some
+praying, some half sullen, as if the man's eloquent pleading for souls
+had forced, rather than persuaded them into that "Pen of the Penitents."
+But with each new convert, Brother Inskip broke forth in a new place,
+and the crowd shouted "Glory!" "Amen!" "Hallelujah!" till you could not
+hear yourself think.
+
+The enthusiasm was catching. I felt it blaze and tremble over me from
+the crown of my head to the sole of my foot, and when a young minister
+joined in, and poured the notes of a beautiful hymn on the tumult, my
+heart fairly swelled with the glory of it.
+
+I looked around for my cousins.
+
+There was Dempster, with the eyes fairly dancing in his head, clapping
+his hands like an overgrown boy, though he did drop them when he met my
+look, and turned his head away, half ashamed of his own feelings.
+
+I looked around for E. E., who sat with her mouth half open, while sobs
+came through her trembling lips.
+
+"Oh, cousin, cousin, what shall I do? Have I really been regenerated, or
+has the Lord sent me here this day to be made a new creature?"
+
+I did not answer her; there was no chance for free thought or cool
+reason in a crowd like that. In fact, I began to feel like a vile
+sinner, myself, and as if being unregenerated was the duty of every
+female woman every time a camp-meeting offered a good opportunity.
+Seeing E. E. crying there as if her heart were breaking up, and both men
+and women wild with joy or grief all around me, I just caved in, pulled
+out my handkerchief, and sobbed with them, though what on earth we were
+all crying about I couldn't have told to save my life.
+
+The truth was, the more some women cried the more others shouted; and
+when the meeting was over, everybody told everybody else what a
+refreshing time they had experienced under Brother Inskip's preaching,
+which was true as the Gospel, if tears refresh the soul as rain does the
+earth.
+
+
+
+
+LXXXIV.
+
+EXPERIENCES.
+
+
+After the preaching was done, the crowd broke up into sections and had a
+half-dozen prayer-meetings and spontaneous love-feasts, where men and
+women, and sometimes little children, got up and told all the strangers
+within hearing how wicked they had been--with tears, and sobs, and
+groans, that made one's heart ache. Still one and all of them seemed to
+enjoy their own depravity and put themselves down as such horrible
+sinners, that any amount of praying could not have dug them out of the
+degradation into which they dived headforemost and seemed to revel in,
+for a thousand years at least.
+
+Everybody told his experience.
+
+Among the rest, a young man from the Hub, slim as a beanpole and fiery
+as a race-horse, prayed and shouted, and sung, and blazed away at the
+crowd, like all possessed. His straight, black hair was parted down the
+middle of his forehead, and his mustache rose and fell like fury as the
+words of warning came like red-hot shot through his lips.
+
+"Who is that?" says I to Cousin Dempster, who was listening with all his
+heart.
+
+"That," says he, "is Corbett, the young fellow who shot Wilkes Booth
+through the crevices of the old barn in which he had taken shelter."
+
+I shuddered all over, and I'm afraid the spirit of prayer had a shock.
+
+That young man was about the last person I should have expected to see
+praying, storming, and exhorting at a camp-meeting. He told us all how
+he had become so sanctified by the Lord, that small-pox could not touch
+him, though he went into the midst of it and nursed people down with the
+deadly disease, right straight through.
+
+In fact, he seemed to think sanctification a certain preventative
+against small-pox, only I suppose you must be sure to get the genuine
+thing, just as he had got it.
+
+Then another little fellow got up and told us that he had been an awful
+bad boy in his early days, and learned to chew tobacco and drink
+cider-brandy when he wasn't more than knee-high to a grasshopper. That
+the cider-brandy and tobacco had stuck in and defiled him through and
+through, till nothing but saving grace could have washed him clean and
+made his soul white as a lamb, which it then was, Glory hallelujah.
+
+All the congregation chimed in here and struck up a solemn chorus of
+Glory, Glory, Glory, Glory, which ended in a rejoicing "Amen," when the
+young man informed us that religion had reformed all his depraved
+tastes, and now he both hated and despised cider-brandy, tobacco, and
+all the abominations he had formerly hankered after.
+
+Before the young man sat down, another was on his feet, brimming over
+with sympathy.
+
+"I too," says he, "have got an experience which urges me to bear
+testimony that what our precious brother says is true. I know it. I feel
+it in my own soul, for I, too, have met with regeneration, whereby all
+things with me have become new. Why, brethren, before I got religion I
+couldn't bear the sight of tomatoes, cooked or raw. They were an
+abomination to my unconverted mind; but now that I have got religion,
+there isn't a wigitable that grows, which I set store by as I do
+tomatoeses. So I can testify that old things pass away, and everything
+becomes new."
+
+After bearing this testimony, the man wiped his mouth with one hand, and
+sat down, his head meekly bowed.
+
+"Cousin," says I to E. E., "as camp-meetings do not belong to our
+special persuasion, and as I do not feel the regenerating spirit grow
+strong in my bosom just at present, supposing you and I go back to the
+tent? Don't you see it is getting to be after dark now, and we have had
+an awfully warm day in all respects."
+
+Cousin E. E. arose, looking heavy-eyed and worn out.
+
+"Yes, Phoemie," says she, "I have gone through a good deal, and feel
+the nothingness of everything but religion. Oh, cousin, if one could
+always feel as we do here."
+
+I shook my head, but only answered:
+
+"Come, cousin, we can hear the still, small voice better alone in our
+tent."
+
+She yielded, and we started to make the best of our way out of the
+crowd, but five or six thousand persons swarmed around that regenerating
+camp-ground, and it was some time before we got safely into our own
+tent. Then I sat down by Cousin E. E., drew a deep, long breath, and
+said, "Thank goodness," with all my heart.
+
+
+
+
+LXXXV.
+
+THE SECOND DAY.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I have been two days at this camp-meeting, fasting,
+because I have given up the fight about something to eat, and awake all
+night because the hot weather almost drove me into the anxious seat,
+from dread of a hotter place.
+
+I hope you are satisfied with the way I have been walking this straight
+and narrow path of missionary duty. I wish I could say quiet path, but,
+being of an honest turn of mind, I must say it is both steep and noisy.
+Just at this minute a prayer-meeting and revival is going on in the next
+tent to ours and the groaning and shouting is enough to drive one crazy.
+The tent is crowded full of women and children, and I don't know which
+jump the highest or make the most noise.
+
+Well, I am not a wife--which you know is not my fault; neither am I a
+mother, which, under the circumstances, I am grateful for; but why
+little boys and girls should be brought here, and put in the way of a
+second birth, puzzles me. One event of that kind ought to be enough for
+any family of moderate ambition. In fact, I know of people who would do
+without any, with Christian fortitude. But here we are--men, women, and
+children--trying to save each other with all our might, and doing it in
+a way that brings strangers together with a jerk sometimes.
+
+Just as we were coming into the camping-ground this morning, where the
+whole road was beginning to swarm again, a nice old lady, in a gray
+dress, and with a little, white muslin shawl pinned over her bosom, came
+up to me, and, lifting her meek eyes from under her sugar-scoop bonnet,
+informed me that the Spirit was upon her. She was exercised with a sense
+of duty regarding my sinful condition, which was miserably apparent in
+the white feather that curlecued itself around my hat, and the cut of my
+gaiter boots that had heels enough to send a dozen souls to everlasting
+ruin.
+
+I looked down at my boot, which is a scrumptious one, and said, with
+thankfulness, that I couldn't see anything in them that should carry the
+souls off; besides, they could be heeled again.
+
+The woman shook her sugar-scoop bonnet at me, mournfully, and said
+something about a wicked and perverse generation, as if all mankind were
+standing in my gaiter boots, and she was rebuking it in a lump.
+
+"Oh, sister!" says she, "if I could only make you see with my eyes, and
+hear with my ears! Why will you be so perverse? Have you no fear of the
+eternal flame that burneth and burneth forever?"
+
+"Fear!" says I, a-looking up at the hot sun, and wiping my forehead. "I
+should think so! If all creation has a hotter place than this, I'm too
+big a coward to hurry that way. If there is an ice-house in the
+neighborhood, I should prefer that by all manner of means, by way of a
+punishment, if I deserve any."
+
+"Ice!" says she, solemnly. "Ice! have you never read the Scriptures?"
+
+"Several times," says I, with sarcastic forbearance. "My father had a
+book of that kind, which he sometimes opened."
+
+She could not understand the delicate irony of this answer; but pressed
+forward like an old camp-meetinger as she was.
+
+"Did that good father never read of a place where a drop of water could
+not be found to cool a certain person's tongue?" says she. "If not, your
+paternal ancestor fell short of his duty. It is no wonder his child
+should have gone half through life without a ray of saving grace, and
+with a white feather in her hat."
+
+Sisters, I was riled. "Half through life," says I. "Madam, do you know
+how old I am?"
+
+She looked at me half a minute, with all the eyes in her head; then,
+with the cool air of a woman counting money, said, "about for--"
+
+Sisters, I _cannot_ repeat the audacious falsehood of that creature's
+calculation. It was enough to rile up venom in the heart of a born
+cherubim. If ever a fiend took the disguise of a sugar-scoop bonnet, I
+have encountered one. A heart of stone lay under the innocent folds of
+that muslin half-shawl.
+
+"Madam," said I, with a look of overpowering indignation, "you must have
+begun and ended your arithmetic in multiplication. Take off half of the
+years you have mentioned."
+
+The woman smiled so knowingly, that I longed to-- Well, no matter, she
+smiled, and says she:
+
+"At any rate, you are not too old for the mercy-seat."
+
+"I should think not," says I.
+
+"Look yonder."
+
+I looked at half a dozen children jumping, kneeling, praying, and
+singing before the revival tent, which had been so full of worrying
+noises all night long, that none of us had got a wink of sleep.
+
+"Look," says she; "unless you are born again, and become like one of
+these, there will be no chance that you will ever enter the kingdom of
+Heaven."
+
+I looked at the lovely children, and I looked at her.
+
+"Excuse me," says I, "the object don't seem quite equal to the trouble.
+I have no notion of going backward in my life. In the first place I was
+too handsome a baby in the beginning to hanker after a change, and since
+then--I say nothing; but really, I have seen a good many people that
+claim to have been born again, and, so far as I can judge, they don't
+look a mite better, or a day younger, after taking all the trouble,
+which is discouraging."
+
+"Discouraging!" said the woman; "why, you are talking of regeneration!
+Come--come with me to the anxious-seat--hundreds are flocking there
+now."
+
+"Excuse me," says I, "if you please. Crabs may change their shells, and
+snakes creep out of their skins--I rather think they do sometimes--but
+born-again females look so much like the old pattern, that it don't seem
+to me worth trying after one is grown up."
+
+"Many an older person than you are has been born again," says she.
+
+"You don't say so," says I, a-fanning myself with a palm-leaf, for every
+drop of blood in my body grew hot when she talked about my age, and I
+was mad enough to bite a tenpenny nail in two with my front teeth.
+
+"Yes, I do say so, humble as I am," says Sugar-scoop. "Look out there.
+See those women in Israel--three precious souls, just gathered into the
+fold. For two days they have been constantly at the redemption-seat. The
+spirit is upon them now. Their souls are struggling to be free. Before
+another morning they will be born again."
+
+I looked at a group of women she pointed out, and the human nature
+within me yeasted over. They were three of the homeliest creatures I
+ever set eyes on--long and lank, with faces like sour baked-apples.
+
+"Oh, my beloved sister," says Sugar-scoop, a-laying her cotton-gloved
+hand on mine; "can you look on that heavenly sight and not pray to be
+like unto them?"
+
+I shook the cotton glove from my arm, and the hand that was in it, just
+as St. Paul shook off the viper.
+
+"Like them, madam--like them! If I were one-half as lank and homely, I
+should want to be born again once a week, at least."
+
+Sugar-scoop lifted both hands in awful horror.
+
+"There are souls," says she, "given up to eternal darkness, I fear. Oh,
+sister, how I tremble for yours!"
+
+I was trembling with indignation. What right had this woman to assault
+me in this fashion? I did not know her; she did not know me. My white
+feather was a badge of noble patriotism; my gaiter boots fitted a foot
+that has been an object of encomium with every shoemaker who has been
+honored by taking its measure--to say nothing of a glance given it by
+imperial eyes. Does religious zeal justify uncivil intrusion? What right
+had this sugar-scoopy woman to exhort me? How did she know that my heart
+was not already in the right path?
+
+I asked this very question:
+
+"Madam," says I, "by what right do you pretend to teach me, a stranger,
+of whose life you can know nothing?"
+
+"I'm in the service of the Lord," says she, "looking up lost sheep. When
+I find one, torn and draggled with sin, it is my duty to drive it into
+the fold, where its fleece can be worked white as snow."
+
+"But how can you tell? By what authority do you claim the right to judge
+of a person you have never seen?"
+
+"Are we not told to go out into the highways and the hedges, and force
+them to come in?" says she.
+
+"Whether they want to or not?" says I.
+
+"Exactly," says she; "their not wanting to come into the fold shows the
+state of wickedness into which they have fallen."
+
+"But how do you know that I am wicked?" says I.
+
+She looked at me a long time, as if the idea were new to her. She had
+been so eager in raking up sinners, that it seemed to hurt her feelings
+to think that any human being she met wasn't on the high road to--well,
+what's its name?
+
+"That feather," says she, "isn't a mark of regeneration."
+
+"No," says I, "but it is the badge of a patriotic idea."
+
+The creature didn't take in this delicate political hint. In fact,
+anything fine or keen is sure to puzzle your woman of one idea.
+
+"Where do you go to meeting?" says she, as abrupt as a cracked stick.
+
+"Where my father did, generally," says I.
+
+She looked at me queerly from under her sugar-scoop.
+
+"Haven't backslid, nor nothing; because, if you have, remember, before
+it is too late, that the last state of a backsliding sinner is worse
+than the first."
+
+
+
+
+LXXXVI.
+
+THE BLACKSMITH'S CONVERSION.
+
+
+Before I could answer that audacious woman, a man came along with green
+spectacles on his eyes, and a broad straw hat on his head.
+
+"What, sister, hard at work? got hold of a case, I reckon; but press
+forward to the mark of the prize."
+
+"Oh, brother," says Sugar-scoop, "can't you stop a moment, and sow a
+morsel of seed on this barren rock. This is a precious sheep."
+
+"Lamb, if you please," says I, quickly.
+
+"No," says she, as smooth as oil, but no doubt boiling over with inward
+spite, "I have eyes, and can see. Sheep is the word. She is a precious
+sheep that, perchance, has once been in the fold, but is wandering far
+away from the straight and narrow path."
+
+"A backslider," says he, eying my face over his spectacles.
+
+"Hardened," says she.
+
+"Take her to the anxious-seat. Brother Blank is just the man for her
+case. You've heard of Brother Blank, just from the West, and burning
+with zeal. Heard of the way he converted a blacksmith out there--a
+great, stout, burly, unregenerated fellow. Why, compared to him, this
+poor, sinful creature is just nothing. That was a mighty work. What, you
+never heard of it? Well, I was there, and heard all about it on the
+spot.
+
+"You see, Brother Blank, who belongs to the Methodist wing of this
+camp-meeting, was sent out by the conference to a sparse Western
+district, where the meeting-houses were a good way apart, and there was
+any amount of horseback riding to be done. On the cross-roads, near one
+of the stations, there was a blacksmith shop, where a great, two-fisted,
+tough old sinner was blowing up red-hot coals into red-hot flames,
+morning and night, which ought to have reminded him of the eternal fires
+which threatened him, but only kindled his wicked soul into fierce
+rebellion against God.
+
+"Now this fellow had an awful spite against the ministers, and never let
+a new one pass his shop, without going out with his leather apron on,
+and a hammer in his hand, to scare the pious soul half to death with
+abuse, if nothing worse. When Brother Blank came on the district, he had
+to ride by the four corners like the rest; but he was a brave soldier of
+the Cross, and rode a first-rate horse, besides being a tall, powerful
+man in body as well as in spirit. I rather think he had heard of the
+blacksmith, but that made no difference to him, he neither rode faster
+nor slower when he came in sight of the shop, but looked straight ahead,
+and trusted in the Lord.
+
+"The moment Brother Blank came in sight, that miserable heathen brought
+his hammer down on the anvil with a crash, flung it across the shop, and
+went out with his fists clinched, his great bony chest bare, and his
+eyes blazing like sin.
+
+"'Hallo!' says he, standing right in the middle of the road.
+
+"'Hallo!'
+
+"Brother Blank drew up his horse, and says he:
+
+"'What's wanting, my friend?'
+
+"'I want you to just tumble down from that saddle, and pay toll,' says
+the old sinner. 'No minister passes this corner without stopping to take
+a thrashing from these.'
+
+"Here the blacksmith held up two clinched fists, hard and black as
+sledge-hammers.
+
+"'No nonsense; but get off, I say,' he bellowed out.
+
+"Brother Blank had a heavy whip in his hand, with a short plump lash,
+which he began to play with.
+
+"'Get down, I say!'
+
+"Brother Blank got down and laid the bridle on the neck of his horse.
+
+"'Now step out here and take it like a man,' says the blacksmith. 'The
+last two ministers were such puny fellers, there was no fun in thrashing
+them; but you're something worth while. Stand out, I say.'
+
+"While he was talking, the fire-blowing wretch rolled up his red flannel
+shirt-sleeves to the elbow, and went at Brother Blank with both fists.
+
+"Now, sisters, Brother Blank is a true Christian--meek as a lamb in
+prayer and persuasion, but the sight of that audacious old sinner riled
+up the natural man in him awfully. He stepped back. His right arm swung
+out, and that whip-lash curled round the fellow's bronzed neck like a
+garter snake. Again and again the lash fell, now across the red face,
+now across the naked arms, but generally left great red welts, like the
+bars of a fiery gridiron, across his chest.
+
+"Blind with the blows, and crazy with rage, the fellow struck out
+fiercely, but the lash stung him at every point, and at last he was glad
+to yell for quarters. Then it was that Brother Blank remembered that his
+mission was to convert sinners.
+
+"'Down upon your knees,' says he, pointing to the dusty road with his
+whip--'down upon your knees, and pray the Lord to forgive your sins.'
+
+"Down the fellow went, plump on his two knees, and down Brother Blank
+went beside him right in the dust of the street; and the way he wrestled
+for that blacksmith's soul was a lesson to all faltering Christians.
+
+"'Lift those blood-shot eyes to Heaven and pray,' says he, and his voice
+was tender with compassion.
+
+"'I won't. Pray for me,' says the sinner.
+
+"He did pray. All the old Adam had left Brother Blank's soul when he
+laid down that whip. It was flooded now with the milk of human kindness.
+In a voice, strong as his right arm and clear as his conscience, he
+poured forth a petition to Heaven, so loud, so powerful, so full of
+Christian force, that the blacksmith began to tremble on his knees, the
+two hands that had been clenched like sledge-hammers clasped themselves,
+till the palms met and were uplifted to Heaven as a child pleads with
+its mother.
+
+"By and by another voice--hoarse, deep, and earnest--joined with the
+prayer of Brother Blank. All that it said was, 'God be merciful to me a
+sinner;' but that was enough, for there was that stout old reprobate
+with his face to the earth, his broad chest swelling with repentance,
+and great tears making furrows through the cinders and ashes on his
+cheeks, penitent as a child, and meek as a spring lamb.
+
+"When Brother Blank saw this, his feelings came forth in a grateful
+shout, tears leaped down his own cheeks, and in one voice these two men
+thanked God for the soul that had been saved."
+
+When the man with green spectacles had finished his story, he took out a
+silk handkerchief from the crown of his hat and wiped his own eyes;
+then turning to the Sugar-scoop, says he:
+
+"Let this encourage you to persevere to the end, for 'while the lamp
+holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return.' If this person is
+hardened in the perversity of a depraved nature, think of the
+blacksmith, and do not despair."
+
+"Did that heathen blacksmith hold out?" says I, so interested in the
+cindery wretch that I passed over his comments about my perversity.
+
+"Hold out!" says he; "I saw him at a camp-meeting three years after, and
+heard him tell the story with his own lips. Brother Blank himself was
+sitting on the speaker's stand, and the blacksmith pointed him out to
+the people, and called on him to say if it was not his prayers that had
+snatched him as a brand from the burning.
+
+"Brother Blank got up and walked with a lazy motion down the platform.
+Putting both hands behind him he smiled benignly down on the agitated
+face of his old enemy. Then he looked around on the congregation, and
+spoke:
+
+"'Yes,' says he, 'I really do believe that I was the humble instrument
+of mauling some grace into that precious brother's soul.'
+
+"Sisters, that was a glorious moment for Brother Blank; think of it--a
+human soul turned heavenward in the midst of its wrath; persevere with
+this one. Leave her not till she is brought to the anxious-seat, and so
+by regeneration to membership with the church."
+
+"But I am a Church member," says I.
+
+"A Church member?" says the man with spectacles.
+
+"Certainly," says I.
+
+"In good standing?" says the woman, dropping her underlip.
+
+"A missionary from one of the first societies in the world," says I,
+with becoming dignity.
+
+The woman with the sugar-scoop bonnet looked at the man with spectacles,
+and the man with spectacles looked at the woman with the sugar-scoop
+bonnet. Before they could begin again I bowed my head with a lofty and
+dignified air, and walked away; which, I take it, was something of a
+rebuke to people whose religious zeal runs ahead of their good breeding.
+
+I have left that camp-ground and descended a hundred or two feet nearer
+the earth again, without feeling the worse or very much the better for
+it. The path of duty is sometimes awful steep. I found this precipitous
+to a wonderful extent. I really think nothing but the saving grace of
+church-membership kept me from the anxious-seat; but the opportunities
+of a new birth are not unlimited, and when one is folded and tethered
+among the lambs, there is a little awkwardness when you are exhorted to
+have it all done over again by a new minister and another church.
+Fortified with a certificate of church membership, I passed through the
+whirlwind and storm of this camp-meeting, with that graceful dignity
+which has won the high post you have kindly imposed on me.
+
+True, sisters, the pressure brought to bear upon me was long, strong,
+and persistent. A fierce raid was instituted against my back hair and
+the soft puffings of my frizzes in front. My white hat was a terrible
+source of trouble to those who want regeneration in nothing but
+religion; and the feather seemed to get more notice than the preaching
+did wherever I happened to take it.
+
+
+
+
+LXXXVII.
+
+THAT OVATION OF FIRE.
+
+
+Sisters:--I give you this little dash of camp-meeting, because I wish to
+level myself gradually and gracefully down to the gay sinfulness of Long
+Branch again, where the salt air is revivifying, and our return is a
+source of complimentary jubilation at this no-end of a hotel. We came
+here in the ten o'clock boat--that floating mansion-house, which Mr.
+James Fisk left as a memorial of the public good a splendid sinner can
+do when he is active and oriental in his taste.
+
+I am used to these things now; but it was gratifying as we drove up in
+Dempster's carriage from the railway to hear a glorious burst of music
+swell out from a round summer-house on the lawn. A serenade of that kind
+was what I had not expected, and my heart swelled with not unworthy
+triumph when I listened. The moment that crowd of musicians saw my white
+feather, they struck up "Lo, the Conquering Hero comes," with a soft and
+touchingly subdued sweetness, which threw an exquisite femininity into
+the air, and plainly marked out its object.
+
+Feeling this, I bowed a graceful recognition to those superior
+performers, who answered with a prolonged blast from the most curlecued
+of the long toot-horns as our carriage swept down the curving road that
+forms a horse-shoe--just a little broad at the heel--in front of Messrs.
+Leland's hotel.
+
+Feeling that many admiring eyes were upon me, I stepped with dignity
+from the carriage, and walked with a downcast look, which I did my best
+to make unconscious, through the gay crowd that had gathered in front of
+that long portico, only just to get a glimpse of me as I went in.
+
+Sisters, I had compassion on these people, and walked with slow
+gracefulness through their midst, determined to give even the humblest a
+chance to see how true genius can deport itself when ovations of music
+and respectful admiration recognize its greatness.
+
+There was a great publisher present when we got back to the hotel. I
+have no doubt that he listened to the music of that band when it gave me
+this harmonious reception, and I hope he indirectly felt the compliment
+reverberate back on himself. It was an honor he deserved to share with
+me, or any other high-bred, intellectual person to whom he had opened a
+golden pathway to the Temple of Fame through his numerous art journals.
+
+I had an idea of the gentleman in my mind, and tried to single him out
+from the crowd of persons standing in silent homage on the balcony as I
+passed into the hotel, but I think he was not there.
+
+Before the day was out, I could give a good guess at the reason why he
+did not appear to claim the honor of my acquaintance. He was meditating
+a delicate little surprise for me--one of those poetic fancies that take
+root only in highly artistic minds. By and by you will hear what it was.
+
+In Washington, and at the Grand Duke's reception at Sandy Hook--why that
+strip of salt water, which lets ships in and out from New York to the
+Atlantic Ocean, is called a hook, I cannot make out, for the life of me;
+and as for its being sandy--well, in my opinion, it is deep, salt water,
+and nothing else. But, as I was a-saying, in Washington, and at Sandy
+Hook, the largest guns of the nation did me homage. Here I am received
+with bursts of music from the middle of a home-lot belonging to the
+hotel; but this evening the crowning glory of an ovation was given me by
+the great publisher, who, unseen, and with the most delicate attention,
+startled me into a wild enthusiasm of gratitude.
+
+By guns on the water, by guns on shore, and by enchanting strains of
+music, my appearance in society has been heralded. Now the cap-sheaf has
+been placed on all these honors by a compliment of fire combined with
+the most exhilarating music. On Saturday nights, every hotel along the
+beach is crowded from ground-floor to gable, and gay as a spring
+morning. Then the husbands and brothers and beaux come down from New
+York, till all the trains run over with masculine humanity. When the
+cars come in, it really is a sight to behold. Out from a long train of
+cars rushes a swarm of men, with here and there a feminine sprinkling,
+carrying carpet-bags, satchels, umbrellas, and little baskets of fruit.
+Then they cluster in a thick, black cloud around the depot, like bees
+swarming from their hives. The streets all around are choked up with
+carriages, hacks, omnibuses, wagons, and all sorts of wheeled things, in
+which drivers sit, on the sharp watch, and ladies and girls wait for
+their men folks to get in and be drove away. I beg pardon--driven away.
+
+On Saturday night, every female seems to own a mate of some kind, and be
+on the watch for him. Then the engines give a snarl, and carriages make
+a grand start and go off in a line, stringing down Ocean Avenue a mile
+or so, and leaving clouds of dust rolling along the beach, each driver
+going it as if he were crazy to leave all the other fellows behind.
+
+Well, this fills the whole Branch with delightful confusion. The ladies
+put on their most scrumptious dresses, and the masculines blaze in red
+and blue and green neckties that almost set you on fire.
+
+Everybody dances on Saturday night. Streams of music pour upon you in
+cataracts if you walk up the beach after dark. All the doors and windows
+are open, and you feel dizzy with the idea that all creation has got
+into one grand whirl. This is Saturday night at Long Branch, as a
+general thing; but the particular Saturday night after we came from the
+camp-meeting, was the beatinest thing of all. Early in the evening the
+people seemed to flock in crowds to this hotel. They came afoot; they
+came in carriages; they came by the omnibuses, load after load. Cousin
+E. E. was astonished, and couldn't understand it. "Never," says she,
+"have I seen such a crowd before. What can it mean?"
+
+I said nothing, but kept a deep and satisfied thinking. What did it
+mean? Hadn't _I_ just arrived? Hadn't the news spread? Was not this a
+popular uprising--a great wave of homage to the worth and genius of a
+woman whom I did not care to mention? These thoughts were in my mind
+when a great storm of music broke out from that summer-house in the
+front home lot. Then whiz went a fiery snake, clear up into the sky,
+where it bent its head, opened its mouth, and poured a stream of burning
+stars down over the people.
+
+Mercy, what a great crowd those falling stars lighted up! The street in
+front of the hotel was black with people. The long, long stoop was
+swarming with them--the ladies all in scrumptious dresses; the gentlemen
+with red and blue ribbons on their hats, and the same colors glowing at
+their throats. This I saw by the light of the gas-globes and of those
+shooting stars that dropped like great jewels through the still air. The
+sight of that fiery snake frightened me; I jumped like a pea on a hot
+shovel, and gave a little scream.
+
+"What does it mean? What temptatious snake is it?" says I, a-trembling
+all over.
+
+"It's a rocket," says E. E.; "a publishing gentleman is going to
+compliment the ladies with a display of fireworks."
+
+"The ladies!" thought I, in silent irony. There is but one lady to whom
+so noble a compliment can be paid, and that lady--is--but no matter!
+
+I did not say this in words. Let E. E. have her vanities and her little
+delusions. She does assume a few airs on account of our relationship,
+but I seldom notice it--let her make her little mark in society. It
+pleases her, and does not hurt me. Only, an ovation like this--to think
+she, or any one else, could share that with me, is asking a little too
+much.
+
+Out went another snake, curling along the grass, shooting straight up,
+with a venomous blue light in its folds that was enough to frighten one;
+but it sort of melted away in sparks, and then a great wheel of
+fire--crimson, blue, green, yellow, rainbowish in every line and
+spoke--began to whirl round and round at the other end of the home lot,
+sending out great curving plumes of sparks, and twisting them into ten
+thousand rainbows, all winding, whirling, and shooting fire like a great
+wheel of jewels and revolving stars.
+
+Another broke out, and began to whirl close to one of the mammoth
+flower-vases, raining light down upon it, till the great white vase
+shone like snow, and all the flowers it held were frosted over with a
+beautiful light.
+
+Then another wheel--another and another--kindled and burst out, sending
+torrents of fire every which way, changing, flashing, shooting out
+gorgeous flames of color, till the grass was all aglow with light, and
+flashed under the vivid rain of sparks like a meadow full of
+lightning-bugs.
+
+Now the whole front of the hotel was blazing with wheels, and the air
+was alive with fiery serpents that spit forth a storm of great jewels
+before they died. Between the wheels, tall thickets of fire started up,
+and rose into quivering trees, and shot golden fruit of many colors into
+the air, lighting up the crowd like ten thousand gorgeous lamps tossed
+upward and broken as they fell.
+
+All this time the music was swelling through the fiery display, and the
+crowd clapped hands, as if enough honor could not be done to the
+occasion. My heart swelled--I felt this homage intended by this display,
+and the wild sympathy of the crowd filled me with a tumult of grateful
+feelings.
+
+I arose, and, with one hand on my heart, bowed profoundly every time the
+crowd clapped its multitudinous hands. It was a glorious moment. I
+longed to meet the publisher face to face, and tell him how profoundly
+his generosity had touched my soul; but, with that modesty which ever
+accompanies true merit, he kept in the background, and hid away from the
+thanks my soul was panting to give.
+
+Oh, Sisters, I wish you had been here in a body to see how this great
+white house--a half a mile or so long--was turned into a snow-white
+palace by the flood of fire in front of it. Then the sea--the great,
+heaving sea--on the other side of the road, was red as blood, and bright
+as gold, when the flames shot highest. I tell you, the golden gates of
+the New Jerusalem could not have been more beautifully luminous.
+
+Earth, sea, and air were kindled with light, and full of shooting-stars
+for a whole hour. Then, as the fires began to wane, and the jewels to
+melt, two great, tall balloons, striped red, white, and blue, were
+illuminated, and sent sailing up and up in the air, each with a trail of
+shooting-stars dropping along its path. Up and up, higher and higher,
+the balloons rose, with a slow, graceful movement, and drifted away to
+sea--away, away, away--till they shone like little stars, and went out
+in the distance.
+
+Then a great shout went up from the pleased multitude, which increased
+to frenzy when I once more showed myself.
+
+My white hat was on; the feather floated out in the air like a banner.
+In my hand I held a fan. In the fervor of my emotion I pressed it
+against my bosom. The people saw it, and the storm of applause that
+burst from them fairly took me off my feet. Emotion overcame me; I
+retired from that long stoop.
+
+Cousin E. E. followed me. She hasn't been herself since the
+camp-meeting; and when I asked her if it was not a beautiful ovation,
+she shook her head and answered, that all flesh was grass, which I don't
+believe any more than I believe that grass is flesh, which I know is not
+the fact, each being itself independent grass and independent flesh.
+
+"Well," says I, "call it grass, or anything you please, but wasn't the
+whole thing perfectly gorgeous."
+
+"Yes," says she, "it was a pretty compliment to the ladies of the
+hotel."
+
+Sisters, that jealous, provoking woman said "ladies of the hotel," not
+"the lady of the hotel." She is an aggravating creature, sometimes; I do
+believe she is jealous of the homage which is lavished on your
+missionary. At any rate speeches like this look like it. Don't you think
+so?
+
+I said nothing. A tart reply trembled on my tongue, but the atmosphere
+of that camp-meeting still clung to me, and I forbore to rebuke her.
+
+Sisters, I was too lenient; somehow or other E. E. has spread her
+selfish idea through this hotel. The ladies were all carried away by the
+fireworks--no, excuse me, that would be dangerous to such as had tindery
+tempers, but they could talk of nothing else, and made a great fuss
+about the compliment paid to them. To them--as if any man who has an
+appreciative soul would think of diffusing a compliment among a crowd of
+ten thousand people; but the vanity and presumption of some females are
+just disgusting. But for the secret consciousness that no one could have
+been intended but myself, their conceit would provoke me. As it is, let
+them have their conceity illusions. Others may think what they please,
+but I have an inner consciousness that is satisfaction enough.
+
+
+
+
+LXXXVIII.
+
+LET HIM GO.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--You know, or can guess, at the anxious state of mind in
+which a sensitive female-woman must have found her experiences since the
+great Grand Duke left this country. I am told that the Imperial Court of
+Russia is hard to please in the way of marrying its sons--that nobility
+is not considered enough, and nothing but the child of an emperor or of
+a king will satisfy the pride of Czar Alexander.
+
+But emperors are not to be found, like huckleberries, in the woods, and
+those among them that have lots and lots of children can't always find
+mates ready cut-out and made-up for all of them in the very uppermost
+crust of all the world.
+
+When emperors are scarce, and imperial children plentiful, is it strange
+that some of them should be sent to a free country, where the highest
+royalty in all the world is to be found waiting for orders.
+
+Republics have but one kingly order, that of individual genius, which
+ranks above kings all over the world, and is aspired to by queens,
+whenever a queen is gifted with superior ambition, as little Victoria
+Guelph was when she wrote her book of travels, and the life of her
+first-class husband.
+
+That which a queen hankers after, the son of an emperor may be glad to
+mate himself with. Is it wonderful, then, that a Grand Duke of all the
+Russias should aspire to the first feminine genius of a free land, and
+to a certain modest extent receive encouragement from her?
+
+A union between an archduke and the first lady writer of this
+country--excuse me, but truth is stranger than fiction--was a
+consummation that you as a Society ought to expect, and this nation, in
+its administrative capacity, ought to have insisted upon. If an aspiring
+and unprotected female cannot receive the support of her own Government,
+where can she go for it.
+
+Sisters, this union between Sprucehill and Russia is a great national
+question, which ought to have agitated this country from the shores of
+the two oceans, the Mississippi and Rocky Mountains inclusive.
+
+There has been considerable of an internal rumbling sort of a
+convulsion, earthquaky and threatening, in various sections, which ought
+to have given timely warning of what the true national feeling was; but
+somehow Russia don't seem to understand it, and I'm beginning to think
+that there is secret treason here at home--deep, double-dyed treason--of
+which your missionary is the object.
+
+It is a shameful fact that the Government has taken no sort of interest
+in an engagement which would have linked the two great social centres of
+Russia and Sprucehill in a close and loving union.
+
+From the day my Alexis had an interview with President Grant my
+heart-history has been allowed to drag like a lazy funeral train.
+Before, all was bright and luminous, with beautiful aspirations; but
+from that time suspense has coiled around me, hope has flared up,
+blinked, and almost died out. I did not understand it then. It seemed to
+me that fickleness was in the heart of the great Grand Duke.
+
+But I did him a cruel injustice. If our two hearts and destinies are
+severed, it has been by the underground machinations of this
+Administration. General Grant saw what was going on, and has cruelly
+circumvented two young and unsophisticated hearts that were knitting
+together, like ivy round an oak sapling.
+
+I am determined on it. The country shall hear of my wrongs. Sprucehill
+shall have redress for the insult put upon her favorite daughter. In all
+that General Grant has done in the way of omission, nothing approaches
+the inactivity which has wrung my heart, as wet blankets are twisted in
+the strong hands of a washerwoman.
+
+_He_ has not written me a line. His letters must have been interrupted.
+Evil machinations have been at work. The Government detectives are
+everywhere scattering slanders and distrust. I shouldn't wonder a bit if
+they have been to our old homestead on Sprucehill, mousing among church
+registers, and interviewing family physicians. Well, let them. Since I
+learned to write, some figures have been changed in the old Family
+Bible, and, thank goodness! old Doctor Perry is dead. The keenest
+detective won't find much difference between 1830 and 1850. It only
+requires that the curve of the three should be rubbed out, and a dash
+sharpened to a point added. If they look for eighteen hundred and thirty
+there, I can tell them it isn't to be found. Let them search--that's
+all!
+
+This was my state of mind three days ago. Now I am revivified with extra
+animation. Hope has perched on my white hat and sits there waving its
+feather like a pennant.
+
+I am glad from the bottom of my heart that I didn't follow the duke
+across the ocean. After all a duke is only a man, hard to catch and
+expensive to cage. Why should we trouble ourselves about princes and
+dukes and lords, when we have the most genuine of all manly articles
+right under our feet. Dukes are scarce and hard to scare up, but there
+are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. That's my motto
+to-day.
+
+
+
+
+LXXXIX.
+
+DONE UP IN A HURRY.
+
+
+Sisters:--the atmosphere of Long Branch is propitious, not to say
+exhilarating, for close by this half-mile of a hotel is another, crowded
+full at this time of the year, in which we can hear fiddling and dancing
+every night of the week. The hotels at watering-places are celebrated
+for several things, particularly low ceilings, widows, youngish ladies,
+and girls like our Cecilia, who wonder every day of their lives how
+their mothers ever got along decently till they were born to tell them
+how.
+
+Well, the most enterprising of these hotel accompaniments are the
+widows. Their superior advantages of experience is just overpowering,
+and these advantages are used with unscrupulous freedom. I say this with
+feeling, being one of the class that suffers from such unwarrantable
+competition.
+
+A widow was in the hotel I have spoken of. Yes, what might be called two
+widows rolled into one, for she had put two husbands into their little
+beds, and tucked in the sods comfortably before she came to Long Branch
+in search of a third.
+
+Sisters, she found him; her little traps and lines and baits had been
+all out to no sort of purpose for three or four weeks. She danced in the
+parlor, exhibited all the lines of a plumptitudinous figure at the
+bowling alley, which is a place I never saw, but have heard about;
+walked on the beach with a Leghorn hat on, curled up at the ears, and in
+front too, and Japanese umbrella, brown outside and yellow in the
+interior, which looked as if she had lots of money and meant to put it
+on the market with a dash.
+
+There was a great deal said about this widow. Some observed that she was
+handsome. Some said she wasn't--mostly ladies. Some observed how
+graceful she was, at which others smiled and shook their heads. One
+person persisted in it that she was awful rich--two or three hundred
+thousand dollars, at least. Then that was contradicted. Forty thousand
+was more than any one could prove she had. Others persisted that her
+wealth, like her virtues, was unlimited. In fact, being a widow, she
+made the best of it and let people talk, minding her snares and traps
+and things all the same.
+
+Last week a strange man came to that hotel. It was Saturday morning, and
+the first object that his eyes fell upon at breakfast was this widow,
+without the sign of a cap, and with a long curl straggling down to one
+shoulder, very fluffy and enticing. He looked at the curl; then his eyes
+wandered up to the widow's face. That face had smiled through a couple
+of matrimonial campaigns, and received the first battery of admiring
+eyes with a sweet, downcast look, innocent as blanc-mange. Then she
+lifted her eyes with slow modesty, and glanced wonderingly at her
+admirer, as if she were sort of bewildered by his looking so much that
+way.
+
+The stranger did not smile, but a light came over his face when he
+caught that childlike glance. Then both these innocent creatures fell to
+eating. Then he happened to look up again. So did she--a romantic
+coincidence that sort of affinitized them to a great extent, before
+anybody saw what was going on.
+
+After breakfast the stranger hunted up some one who knew him and the
+widow also. An introduction brought the two halves of that pair of
+scissors together, and the blades fitted beautifully. All they wanted
+was the rivet. But wait.
+
+At twelve o'clock that day the stranger ventured to ask a favor. Would
+the widow give him a little music?
+
+The widow said she would. The sweetness of a whole boiling of maple
+sugar was in her smile as she sat down by the parlor piano, and sent her
+two little hands fluttering over it like a pair of white pigeons with
+love-letters under their wings.
+
+The widow flew her fingers; the widow looked at the stranger from under
+her eyelashes, and her voice thrilled through him till he began to think
+of magnolias and mocking-birds and other ornamental things which soften
+a man's feelings down to the fluffiness of a feather bed.
+
+When she had done singing, he asked her to walk with him on the beach.
+She gave another slow lift of her eyelashes, said she would, and ran
+upstairs after the Leghorn and the Japanese umbrella, brown and yellow,
+with as many bones in it as the first April shad.
+
+They walked the beach up and down, she leaning heavier and heavier on
+his arm at each turn. Then they sat down on the sand with their faces to
+the sea, and held the umbrella so as to shade off the people on the
+bank--they didn't care for the sun a bit--and in that condition they sat
+and talked and talked and talked.
+
+By and by he got up from the sand. She lifted her eyes with a pitiful
+look of helplessness. He reached out his hand, and she rose to it
+gracefully, like a trout to a fly. The hand clung to his more than a
+minute after she got up--the sand was so uneven, you see. The stranger
+bore this with Christian fortitude, and really seemed as if he rather
+liked it. In fact, he encouraged her to hold on; and she did, with her
+sweet widowed face lifted to his just long enough to set his heart off
+like a windmill, when she dropped it again.
+
+When they came up the flight of wooden steps that leads down from the
+bank, both her white hands were clasped over his arm as loving as the
+soft paws of a kitten, and he looked like a fellow that had been out
+shooting doves, and had come in with his net full.
+
+They went in to lunch, and ate spring chickens; then they ended off with
+silly-bubs, which is a sweet froth that melts to nothing on the
+tongue--delicious, but not exactly hearty food.
+
+Two hours after lunch, the stranger asked the widow to ride out with
+him; which she did, in the puffiest and silkiest of dresses, and with a
+lace parasol, lined with pink, between her and the sun. This was one of
+her snares, for she depended on that pink lining for her blushes,
+having left them a good way behind her somewhere about the first
+wedding.
+
+The drive was paradisical. They talked, they smiled, they said the
+loveliest little things to each other with delicious reciprocity. He
+drove, and divided his manly attentions between her and the horses,
+giving her a generous share, which was creditable to him as a man.
+
+It was nearly twelve o'clock that night when those two people went up to
+their neglected couches--nothing but a widow would have stood the shock
+of such impropriety among the critical of her sex; but she didn't care a
+mite.
+
+Early the next morning, which was Sunday, these two persons were seen
+coming out of the little cubby-houses under the beach in the queerest
+sort of dresses--I cannot describe them, because, up to this time, beach
+flirtations have been forbidden subjects with me.
+
+But they came out on the beach, clasped hands, and walked right into the
+biggest waves they could find.
+
+What she said to him there I cannot tell, but by and by they came back
+to the hotel, the sneakiest-looking creatures you ever set your two eyes
+on.
+
+I don't know when it was that she brought him to the point, but the
+widow had netted him so close that he didn't even try to flounder.
+
+That night there was sacred music in the hotel parlor, and, somehow, a
+minister of the Gospel dropped in, with a white cravat on, and waited
+for something, looking as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.
+
+He hadn't been there long before the strange gentleman came in with a
+swallow-tailed coat on, a white vest and cravat, with ball-gloves on his
+hands.
+
+Hanging on to his arm was that widow, in a long, white dress, that
+streamed after her in windrows, and with a shower of lace falling over
+her.
+
+The minister got up, and opened his book. The people hanging about
+hushed their talk, and in less than ten minutes a third gold ring was
+chucked over the other two that weighed down the widow's finger, and she
+walked off with number three as proud as a white peacock.
+
+It took this widow just two days and part of a night to spring her traps
+and draw her hooks--but, then, she was a widow.
+
+Sisters, there is a good deal of commotion in our hotel just now. Rural
+single ladies talk of going over to the other place.
+
+I had a little hankering in that direction at first, but, come to think
+it over, mean to stay where I am. It isn't the house that has done this,
+but the bland atmosphere of Long Branch. If that sort of thing is
+indigenous to the place--and I mean to test it thoroughly--Russia is
+welcome to the Grand Duke; a whole-souled American is good enough for
+me. Besides, Russia is an awful cold place, and I don't think I ever
+could bring myself to eat cabbage-soup or the roe of a sturgeon.
+
+Sisters, if this sort of thing lies in the atmosphere, don't you think
+it would be a good thing for the whole Society to come down here next
+summer? A generous diffusion of masculine energy into the course might
+be a desirable change. For my part, I don't mean to leave this place
+till frost comes. I believe this thing is going to be an epidemic at the
+Branch, and when contagions rage I am sure to catch any disease that is
+going. I have had the measles twice, and two pretty severe tugs with the
+scarlet-fever. In fact, I was celebrated, as a child, for catching
+double. One thing is certain--I never ran away because a disease was
+catching, and I'm not going to do it here. On the contrary, I am making
+over one of my old alpaca skirts into a bathing-dress. If I know myself
+I shall fight it out on that line, if it takes all winter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XC.
+
+THE YELLOW FLAG.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I have gone and done it! Now let me give you a little
+wholesome advice. It comes out of my superior knowledge of the world,
+and experience of the human heart. Never say that you won't do a thing,
+because if you do, just as sure as you live it is the very thing that
+you are sure to plunge into, whether you want to or not. Besides, people
+who know enough to doubt themselves, understand that men and women are
+made up principally of human nature. Now human nature is a great fraud,
+and isn't to be trusted when he's found in the interior of your own
+heart, or anywhere else.
+
+In one of my reports, I expressed myself as shocked out of a year's
+growth, when I heard about gentlemen and ladies going into the salt-sea
+waves together, and submerging themselves like mermaids in the swell and
+foam of the ocean. I said, in the heat and glow of modest feminine
+shrinkitiveness, that nothing on earth, or in the water, should induce
+me to do it; but circumstances alter cases, and the capacity of eternal
+change is the essence of genius, which is always making new combinations
+and discarding old prejudices.
+
+I say it with reluctance, but truth demands frankness. Sometimes I am a
+little hasty in my conclusions.
+
+Have I said enough--need I go on to explain that the result of a thing
+proves its propriety?
+
+Now, bathing in company, in the abstract, does seem--well, peculiar. I
+might add other words which at one time came uppermost in my mind; but,
+looking toward results, I feel constrained to say nothing on the social
+aspect of multitudinous ablutions, but go into the high moral question
+which has slowly presented itself to my understanding.
+
+Isn't there a passage of Scripture somewhere that speaks about "fishers
+of men"? I think there is, and I am inclined to see that kind of
+business from a high moral stand-point. If men are to be legally caught
+with a dripping dress and an old straw hat for bait, who shall say that
+the thing is wrong? If men are told to go down to the sea in ships, what
+should prevent a female woman from going down in a four-cornered straw
+hat, a flannel tunic, and--well, pantalettes on? Everything depends on
+the point of view from which one sees a thing.
+
+As a marine picture, salt-sea waves rushing in upon a sandy beach can
+hardly be considered complete without throwing a little life into the
+foreground; but when that life is composed of a flock of old straw hats,
+and a lot of staggery, blinded, dripping people under them, I can't say
+that I hanker after this particular marine view.
+
+From an artistic stand-point then I reject the whole subject; but as the
+means of catching a heart afloat, that same picture offers numerous
+facilities.
+
+Well, sisters, as a social institution I no longer sneer at sea-bath
+flirtations. When two days of them end in matrimony, it isn't worth
+while to fight out the question on that line any longer. I give in.
+
+Such engagements may be unstable as water, but a damp engagement is
+better than none at all.
+
+With these sentiments, I finished off my bathing-dress, and put a red
+ribbon over a high-crowned, square-brimmed hat, coarse and clumsy, which
+was to keep my face from the sun, and my flowing tresses from the briny
+ocean waves.
+
+Early in the morning I went out into the veranda, and took a survey of
+the ocean--the broad infinite expanse of waters into which I was about
+to plunge in search of--well, health.
+
+In front of the veranda, on the high bank, was a pole, like the
+liberty-poles we run up on almost every village green of New England. On
+that pole a pale yellow flag was flying.
+
+A chill ran over me, and I know that my arms must have been roughened
+like a grater.
+
+"The yellow-fever." I knew it was in the harbor, shut up there by the
+authorities. Had it escaped through Sandy Hook, and come poisoning the
+waters along shore? Now that I was ready for the first plunge, were my
+best hopes to be frustrated? Had I sat up all night sewing red braid on
+that tunic, and those--well, Turkish pantalettes, for nothing? Had I
+conquered a great New England prejudice, to be conquered myself by
+careless health officers? Why hadn't they taken an example by some of
+the old stock, and divided the whole thing among them in perquisites? I
+only wish they had.
+
+Sisters, it was a keen disappointment. I was looking at that yellow
+flag, with tears in my eyes, when Cousin E. E. came on to the veranda.
+
+"Come, Phoemie," says she, bright as a May morning, "where is the new
+bathing-dress? It will be splendid bathing!"
+
+I looked at her, I looked at the ocean and at the path that led down to
+the beach, along which half a dozen real nice-looking gentlemen were
+picking their steps like rabbits toward a sweet-apple trap. It was
+tantalizing.
+
+"Yes," says she, as contented as a lamb, "it will be lovely bathing this
+morning; I mean to try it."
+
+"Try it," says I; "haven't you read that yellow-fever is in the harbor?"
+
+"Well, what then?" says she. "It won't hurt us."
+
+"Won't hurt us," says I. "Did you ever hear of poison getting into water
+that could be washed out? No, if it is in the harbor, some of it will
+drift down here. Look, you can see it sweltering in the waves now."
+
+She looked out on the ocean, where a faint yellow tinge rippled and
+shone with treacherous temptatiousness.
+
+"Oh, that is only the sunshine," says she.
+
+"But the fever," says I, "I know it is in the harbor, for the newspapers
+said so. They have run up the yellow flag wherever it is to be found.
+See there."
+
+Cousin E. E. sat down and dropped both hands in her lap.
+
+"Cousin Phoemie," says she, "I really don't know whether you are a
+real genius or the greatest goose that ever lived. You are just a puzzle
+to me. Who ever heard of yellow-fever in the water?"
+
+"I have," says I, "in the harbor, and isn't the harbor all water?"
+
+"Yes," says she, "that is true."
+
+"Then, isn't it dangerous to bathe in that water, and don't that flag
+give us warning not to do it?"
+
+"Cousin," says she; "as I said before, you know too much for common
+ideas to make an impression. Now do try to understand. There is one ship
+in the harbor that has yellow-fever on board--that is all. It will not
+be allowed to spread from that one ship."
+
+"Oh," says I, drawing a deep breath, "then it has not poisoned the
+water."
+
+"Not at all."
+
+"But the yellow flag?"
+
+"That means good bathing, and plenty of it. Come along. Don't you see
+people crowding down to the shore?"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCI.
+
+THE MAN THAT SAVED ME.
+
+
+I ran into my room, and came out with a bundle in one hand and a coarse
+straw hat in the other. That group of gentlemen was just dropping down
+the bank out of sight, and after them went a crowd of girls, with their
+parasols flaming in the sun like a bed of poppies.
+
+"Come," says I, all joyful animation, "I am dying to begin."
+
+E. E. spread her parasol, and off we marched.
+
+We came to the steep bank, and went down a flight of wooden stairs to
+the sandy shore. Right under the bank was a long row of cubby-houses,
+made of boards.
+
+"This is ours," says E. E., "come in."
+
+I went in. Sisters, what happened in the privacy of that board
+sanctuary, is not for the public--let this satisfy the curious.
+
+Two ladies went into that little retreat, with bunched-up skirts,
+beehive bonnets, and a general assortment of dry-goods, such as weighs
+down the ladies of the present generation to an extent that approaches
+martyrdom.
+
+Two persons came out skimped down into nothingness. They had grown tall
+and slim, not to say spooky. There was a deficiency of glossy ringlets
+under the two hats that squared off in front and behind, and were
+flapped down over each ear.
+
+E. E.'s plumptitudinous figure was mostly lost and gone, and I--well, I
+felt like a church steeple on a very high hill. I say nothing, the
+subject being one of great delicacy; but from my experience in those
+Turkish--well, pantalettes--the female that begrudges her husband that
+class of garments, must hanker after change more than I do. When I came
+out of the little house, Dempster stood on the sand with a pair--well,
+of garments like mine, only more so, on, and a flaming red upper
+garment, bright enough to set the waves on fire, covering his broad
+bosom.
+
+Another gentleman stood near him--blue and brown in his sea-outfit,
+youngish, and with eyes that made me wilt like a poppy the moment they
+fell upon me.
+
+My goodness, how I did feel in that dress! It was all I could do to keep
+from kind of scrouching down to hide my bare feet; but it was of no use,
+so I dug them deep into the sand, and felt myself blushing all over,
+while that gentleman in blue fixed his eyes upon them.
+
+Anyway, there was nothing to be so mightily timorous about, for,
+according to my calculation, two smaller or whiter feet didn't leave
+their prints in the sand that day, though I do make that assertion with
+my own lips, that ought to be mute.
+
+Cousin Dempster came forward, took both E. E. and my trembling self by
+the hand, and led us to the water.
+
+I took one glance: a swarm of straw hats, a crowd of men, women, and
+children were floundering, swimming, screaming, laughing, tumbling
+through the waves, that lifted them up, flung them down, pitched them
+forward, and behaved in a way that no well-bred ocean would have thought
+of doing.
+
+I shrank--I shivered--the heart seemed to die in my agitated bosom when
+the first wave kissed my feet; I gave a little scream, but checked
+myself bravely. The waves were full of men, some of them were looking at
+me.
+
+I determined to act bravely, and be the heroine of the occasion. I let
+go of Dempster's hand. A wave struck me, my head went down and my feet
+went up. In my fright and anguish I remembered their size and whiteness,
+and found consolation in the thought while I strove to right myself.
+
+It was in vain; while I staggered with one big wave, another took me
+unawares, like a thief in the night, and dragged me under, like a wild
+beast growling over some poor helpless lamb--it tore me away. I
+shrieked--I plunged--I fought madly for my life. Up through the vivid
+green of the waters the sunshine came toward me like light upon beaming
+emeralds. I clutched at it. I tried to scream; but my mouth filled with
+water, green flashes shot through and through my eyes. I began to pray.
+The Green Mountains, the farm, and all my life there shot through my
+brain; things I had forgotten came uppermost, and those thoughts grew
+pleasant while the waters seemed roaring me to sleep.
+
+Something came toward me, bluish. Was it a monster of the deep hungry
+for the life that was so fast dying out?
+
+It seized me. I was born upward on a great wave, and swept off into the
+light. The claws of some monster, or the arms of some friend, held me
+close. Which was it?
+
+Some power of good or evil, beastly or human, had dragged me into the
+sand, where white foam curled around me, and the sun struck down upon my
+eyes like fire.
+
+Some man was thanking another for a great favor; a crowd of people came
+swarming around me. I attempted to open my eyes, but the water dripping
+down from my hair came into them sharp and salt.
+
+"Is she sick? Is she afraid? Do tell who it is?"
+
+These questions came from women who had rushed up from the waters, and
+flocked around me like mermaids. I did not care about them, but by and
+by it came to me that men might be there as well. I lifted my hand,
+swept the wet hair back from my face, and, with a smarting pain in my
+eyes, saw my deliverer.
+
+His blue garments were black with dripping water, the thick hair
+streamed over his forehead, his bare feet looked hard and powerful on
+the sand. It was the man under whose admiring eyes I had blushed and
+trembled.
+
+"My preserver!" said I, clasping my wet fingers in an ecstasy of
+gratitude; "shall I ever live to thank you for the poor life you have
+saved?"
+
+He smiled, he shook his head; I am afraid he laughed, such was his joy
+and exultation; yet the modesty of true greatness possessed him still.
+
+"It is nothing," he said. "A wave knocked you head-foremost--that was
+all."
+
+I knew better. It was the inherent greatness of a noble soul that
+impelled him to make nothing of his own heroic act. He must have
+supported me miles on miles in those stalwart arms. No protest of his
+could lessen the bravery of his action or the force of my gratitude. If
+woman's gratitude and woman's love are anything, his reward shall be
+great.
+
+They bore me into that weather-beaten cubby-house, and there, with the
+help of E. E., my dripping garments were taken off, my wet hair done up
+snugly under the braids that had been left behind, and, filled with
+tender gratitude, I walked up to my hero in blue before going to my
+apartment in the hotel.
+
+"Let me see you to-morrow," said I, pressing the hand of that heroic
+man. "Then I may find language to express my life-long gratitude."
+
+He bowed; he drew his hand, with evident reluctance, from my clasp, and
+retreated.
+
+Ah, sisters, my destiny has come! I feel it in every breath I draw, in
+every sweet thought that haunts my brain. To-morrow I shall see him
+again. To-morrow!
+
+Oh, sisters, he has just left me. Alas! alas! for human aspirations. I
+had written thus far when he came.
+
+I received him in my room, looking pale, and, I think, interesting, for
+the sweet romance of my feelings left its imprint on my features. He
+came in with hesitation, and sat down on the edge of his chair, looking
+ill at ease, as if wishing to escape a mention of his own heroism. I
+felt a glow of admiration, a thrill of tender gratitude.
+
+"You have saved my life," I said, clasping my two hands, "and from this
+hour I devote that life to your happiness. Tell me how I can begin to
+repay you."
+
+He sat uneasily; he shifted in his chair. Then he murmured:
+
+"Anything you please; I never thought of asking. It was only my duty."
+
+"Heroic man!" I exclaimed; "and brave as modest. It is my pleasure to be
+more than grateful. Never, never can I repay you save with the warmest
+and sweetest emotions of a woman's heart. I owe you--ah, how much--how
+much!"
+
+My hands were clasped, my eyes were uplifted; emotion prevented me
+finishing my sentence. He spoke, while my soul halted for words--
+
+"Well, if you think so much of just helping you out of the way of a
+seaward wave, supposing we say five dollars. It is my duty, as
+bathing-master, to help people up from the sand when they get face
+downwards, as you did; but as you insist, I don't mind a fiver."
+
+Oh, sisters!
+
+
+
+
+XCII.
+
+PLEASURE BAY.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--I really do think that Cousin Dempster is one of the best
+creatures that ever lived. He seems to understand all the wounds and
+pains that a female woman's heart is exposed to, and sort of eases them
+off, so that you are cheated out of half your natural suffering.
+
+I cannot say that the bathing in the salt-sea waves was not a failure as
+a matrimonial speculation; but that is my luck. In some respects, the
+future to me is like a mirage--I put my hand out hopefully, and grasp
+nothing but fog.
+
+That bathing-master was a fine-looking man until he opened his mouth and
+attempted to sit down on a chair. He created a pleasant delusion in my
+bosom for a few moments, and then--well, we will say nothing more about
+that--the private sanctuary of a female woman's thoughts are too sacred
+for a Report.
+
+If I wept in the stillness of the night, no one but the angel that
+records broken love-dreams will ever know of it. With this precious
+angel I am in full sympathy. He has done too much of that kind of
+writing for me not to feel the cruel pangs of the long list of
+disappointments with which his books are blotted.
+
+Well, I arose the next morning after my experimental bath, heavy-eyed,
+heavy-hearted, and altogether blue as indigo. Cousin Dempster saw this,
+and his generous heart seized upon a remedy.
+
+"Let us go down to Pleasure Bay," says he. "What do you think of a day's
+crabbing?"
+
+"Crabbing?" says I, "just as if I didn't feel crabbed enough already. Do
+you want me to keep it up all day?"
+
+Dempster laughed; so did E. E.; just as if I'd said something awful
+funny, which I wasn't in the least conscious of, not having a spark of
+fun left in me since that salt-water deluge and its consequences.
+
+"Oh," says he, as good-natured as pie, "there is nothing like Pleasure
+Bay when one has the blues--a lunch under the trees, and a boat before
+the breeze."
+
+I stopped him; the dear, good fellow was launching off into poetry
+without knowing it; association with genins is doing everything with
+him. There is no knowing where he might have ended, if I hadn't lifted
+my forefinger, for a whole gust of poetry was riling up in his earthly
+nature like yeast in a baking of bread.
+
+"I'll go to Pleasure Bay," says I, "but, for goodness sake, don't try
+that sort of thing again; genius isn't catching, and though you have
+married into our family, don't expect that it will spread like an
+epidemic into yours, because it won't."
+
+"Why not?" says he; "is there nothing in association?"
+
+"Well, I can't exactly decide," says I; "strange things do happen in
+that direction. I have heard of young women marrying literary men who
+never wrote a line worth reading before, who burst out into full-blown
+geniuses right in the honeymoon. But it is wonderful how much their
+style was like their husbands'. Of course, those must be cases of
+especial affinity. When a woman has ransacked a poor fellow's heart, she
+naturally begins to pillage his brain, and I reckon he must like it at
+first; but after that, he subsides into himself, and she subsides into
+herself, and somehow she writes just as she did before, and so does he!"
+
+"Then there are plenty of young ladies who carry their ambition and
+their flirtations in among the newspaper people and stray Bohemians,"
+says E. E., kindling up to the subject; "for every time they get into a
+new flirtation, which is once in about three months, their style
+changes, giving them a wonderful versatility of talent that, somehow,
+dies out after awhile, as she grows old and homely."
+
+"That is," says Dempster, laughing, "every time a literary lady of this
+stamp changes her lover, she changes her style, too."
+
+"Exactly," answers E. E., "and where she hasn't any good-natured lover
+she retires into modest privacy till one comes along."
+
+I just listened, holding my breath.
+
+"What," says I, "does fraud and deception creep into the sacred
+literature of our country? I cannot believe it."
+
+"Can't you?" says E. E.; "but you have never been in Bohemia."
+
+"No," says I, "that is a part of Europe that I hope to visit, but never
+have. Is it a popular place for Americans?"
+
+"Oh, wonderfully popular, for people who dash off things here and there,
+write for this and that, and are willing to give half that they earn and
+know to any adventurer that comes along, free gratis for nothing; or, on
+occasion, sell reputation by the line, and for a price. Oh, Bohemia is a
+splendid place for adventurers and adventuresses to forage in!"
+
+"What!" says I, "genius sell itself?"
+
+"Yes," says she, "and its readers, too."
+
+"Cousin E. E.," says I, "you slander the grandest, the purest, the most
+sublime people on the earth."
+
+"Do I?" says she, nodding her head and laughing. "Wait and see."
+
+"Remember--you are speaking of authors, the first and purest aristocracy
+known to our free nation."
+
+"No; I speak of would-be authors--guerillas in literature--men and women
+of erratic ability, who adore inspiration and scorn work; for
+authorship, I am told, and believe, requires the hardest work of any
+calling in the world."
+
+"I'm afraid it does," said I, drawing a long breath, "but then such work
+brings its own prompt payment. The power to write is happiness in
+itself."
+
+"But what has this to do with Pleasure Bay?" says Dempster; "we mean to
+go there--not to Bohemia."
+
+"Just so," says I, a-tying on my bonnet.
+
+We got into Dempster's carriage, and after a delightful drive, we came
+down on the edge of a little bay, with green grass growing close down to
+the shore, and great, tall trees clumped here and there all around it.
+
+I was so charmed with the scenery that I didn't realize where we were
+till the carriage stopped before a white house, with a long wooden stoop
+in front, when we got out and walked right away down to the shore, where
+a plank platform ran out from the land, and a cunning little boat, with
+white sails, lay dipping up and down like a duck in the water.
+
+Sisters, I'm not timersome, but getting into a boat that rocks like a
+cradle in the water tries me, I must own to that. With what holding on
+and keeping your dress well down upon the ankles, one is seized with a
+sense of being awfully unsteady. This riles up the constitution to a
+state of dizziness that makes your ears buz like a bumblebee's nest.
+
+I was thankful to get seated at last, and, tucking up my dress, prepared
+at once for a long sea-voyage. E. E. had slung a great straw gypsy hat
+on her arm, by the strings, when she left Long Branch, which she bent
+down over her head like an umbrella with herself for a handle; over that
+she spread a broad yellow parasol that blazed in the hot air like a
+great sunflower.
+
+"Phoemie," says she, a-looking up from under her straw tent, "didn't
+you bring a flat?"
+
+"No," says I; "the young fellows of that stamp didn't happen to be about
+when we started."
+
+"Dear me! you'll burn your face up," says she; "that beehive is no
+protection."
+
+"About as much as one of your York flats would be," says I. "But
+supposing I hoist my parasol, too--one don't need a beau for that."
+
+The sun was pouring down like blazes, and I was mighty glad to spread my
+parasol, I can tell you; so I did it, and settled down on the same bench
+with E. E.
+
+Dempster had been awful busy on shore, pulling out fish-lines, looking
+up nets that swung like a great hang-bird's nest, on the end of a pole:
+and now he was on his knees, hacking a fish into chunks, which he tied
+to a line and dropped into the bottom of the boat. At last he lifted his
+great straw hat, wiped the blazing warmth from his face, and jumped in.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCIII.
+
+NETTING CRABS.
+
+
+Oh, sisters! judge of my feelings, when directly after Dempster, came a
+splendid gentleman--a creature of romance, shaded from the vulgar gaze
+by a felt hat, and dressed like a mariner along-shore. He lifted his hat
+to me, and also to E. E.--with a lofty reservation in her case.
+
+"Mr. Burke," says Dempster, with a degree of carelessness that, I am
+sorry to say, is characteristic--"he will teach you how to catch the
+creatures; for there is an art in it."
+
+"Then I shall never succeed," says I, in a low, gentle tone of voice.
+"Where anything but pure nature is expected, I must always keep in the
+shade. You know, Cousin E. E., what an artless young thing I always
+was."
+
+E. E. smiled--not at me but right up in the face of that strange
+gentleman. I declare, I never saw anything so bold in my life! But it
+was of no use; he came and sat down close to me. In fact, he took the
+parasol from my hand with a gallant air that made my heart beat like a
+partridge on a log. In one respect that movement wasn't an advantage:
+the parasol was not large enough to shade two, and he held it
+carelessly, as was natural to a dashing, splendid creature like him; but
+somehow the shade always fell on his side. I felt dreadfully certain
+that freckles were falling like split peas all over my face. Still he
+smiled so sweetly and looked so magnificent that, freckles or no
+freckles, I was ready to give him up my beehive, too, if he had only
+looked as if he wanted it.
+
+Dear me, how that boat did heel up and rock as we went sailing off down
+to a green grassy point, where the gentleman told me the crabs swarmed
+like lady-bugs around a full-blown rose--pretty simliar, wasn't it,
+sisters, and so original?
+
+I was dying to know what sort of a fish a crab was, never having seen
+any in our brooks. Were they like sun-fish, rainbowish and flat; or like
+trout, sparkled over with dripping jewels; or small and silvery, like
+shiners and pin-fish?
+
+I did not like to ask that magnificent stranger about this, and let him
+believe that crabbing had been an amusement of my childhood up in the
+Green Mountains--not that I said so outright--but my idea of discretion
+is to say nothing of a thing you don't understand, but wait and find
+out. What is the good of telling the world how much you don't know?
+
+Well, I hadn't the least idea what a crab was, but the name made me feel
+a little rily. The water was full of them; I was pretty sure to find
+out; so I waited.
+
+By and by, Dempster flung a great stone co-slash into the water, and
+tied us up just below a little green point of land that took the
+sunshine in its long grass till it seemed full of drifting gold which
+spread out upon the water in soft, shiny ripples.
+
+E. E. shut down her parasol. Mr. Burke shut mine. "Now," says he, "for
+the lines."
+
+With this he took up a lump of raw fish, gave it a swing and a splash
+into the water, and handed me the other end. Dempster gave another line
+and a chunk of fish to his wife, and then took one of the hang-bird nets
+and stood by as if he meant to do business.
+
+By and by I felt a sort of hungry nibbling at the end of my line, and
+gave it a jerk just as if it had been a brook trout, hard to catch.
+
+"Oh, goodness!" I just dropped the line and screamed like everything,
+scared half to death. If ever an innocent female caught a claw-footed
+imp, I came near doing it then. Why the animal, varmint, double and
+twisted serpent--I don't know what to call it--clung to the bait till I
+hauled him clear out of the water, and then fell back with a big sprawl
+and an awful splash, sinking down again like a great mammoth spider that
+made the water bubble with disgust.
+
+"What was it? What was it?" I said, turning my scared face on Mr. Burke.
+"What kind of young sea-devil is this?"
+
+He laughed, and laid down the net he had just taken up.
+
+"You pulled too quick," says he. "Crabs are like women."
+
+"Like women," I shrieked. "What, those horrid things? Sir, I thank you!"
+
+My voice shook so I could hardly get the words out with proper irony. A
+generous rage in behalf of my sex possessed me.
+
+"You did not hear me out," says he, pleasant as a sweet apple. "I was
+going to say crabs were like women in this respect. They must be led
+along, enticed, persuaded up to the bait."
+
+"Oh!" says I, "that is a sentiment I can appreciate, but the comparison
+is dreadful."
+
+"There is hardly anything in nature which would not be dreadful compared
+to some females that I know of," says he.
+
+I laid one hand on my bosom and bowed, but the next instant I felt one
+of those scraggly fiends pulling at my line, and I drew it softly in,
+hand-over-hand. Oh, how the beastly thing crept and crawled, and spread
+its scraggles as it nibbled and rose with the bait! I declare it made
+the flesh creep on my bones.
+
+"That's right, draw gently--lure him up. Ho!"
+
+As he spoke Mr. Burke just slid his net under the varmint, and flashed
+him up into the air, bait and all.
+
+Sisters, there is no use in talking; if these creatures they call crabs
+ain't great salt-sea spiders, no such animals exist; and eels ain't
+fish, that's all.
+
+Oh, I wish you could see them crawl up through the sea-grass and spread
+themselves. I declare it is just awful.
+
+Well, down went this crab--which they all gloried in, being a great big
+gridiron of a fellow--into a hole in one end of the boat, and out went
+my bait after another.
+
+At one great pull I brought up two wapping big fellows at a time, and
+trolled them on while Mr. Burke scooped them up. Chasing dragon flies in
+the old times was nothing to it.
+
+E. E. was busy as a bee on her side of the boat, Dempster ladled the
+animals up for her, till we had a couple of dozen trying to creep away,
+and fighting each other like chickens in a coop.
+
+By this time I could see that E. E., like a good many other people I
+could mention, was getting sort of restless for other attentions than
+those her husband could give. She kept casting side-glances at Mr.
+Burke, and at last says she to Dempster:
+
+"Dempster, it isn't expected that a man should always be a-hanging about
+his wife. It's time for you to do some netting for Phoemie."
+
+E. E. said this almost in a whisper, but I heard it, and all the temper
+in me riled up to my throat.
+
+Sisters, this married woman was just dying to change off her husband for
+the beau that was devoting all his energies to me. I felt that the
+crisis had come that self-interest and a high moral standard demanded
+that I should keep this man from the lure of a married woman. I owed it
+to myself, to Dempster, and, above all, to the cause of morality, to
+hold that man firmly to his post.
+
+"Phoemie," says Dempster, coming up to me and looking as if butter
+wouldn't melt in his mouth, "let me scoop for you?"
+
+Before I could speak Mr. Burke took that nefarious hint and went over to
+E. E.
+
+I gave Dempster a look of withering contempt, and flung my bait out with
+a splash that must have scared all the crabs out of a year's growth.
+
+"No," says I, "you may be willing to desert the marital outposts, but I
+will not help you. Go back to your wife; I can catch all the crabs I
+want without help."
+
+"Well, just as you like," says Dempster, and, settling down on the bow
+of the boat, he pulled his hat over his eyes and went to sleep, then and
+there.
+
+Three crabs come up to my bait--nibble, nibble, nibble. I drew in the
+line, they crawled through the water after it. Still I drew and drew.
+Three great plump fellows came to the top of the water. It was a good
+chance to call Burke away. He was leaning over E. E. and whispering,
+while she listened.
+
+"Here, here!" screamed I, "three at a haul. Will nobody help me?"
+
+That man did not seem to hear me, but kept on whispering, while E. E.
+listened with a smile on her lips and her eyes half shut. The sight made
+me awful mad.
+
+"I'll catch them myself," says I, and down I plunged my hand into the
+water. I meant to grip the crab, but he gripped me.
+
+Oh, mercy, how he pinched and bit, and screwed his claws around my hand.
+It seemed as if he were twisting it into a corkscrew. I shrieked--I
+yelled--I tried to shake the varmint off--to dash him to atoms against
+the side of the boat. It was of no use: his sharp claws dug into me in
+fifty places; he bit like fury. The blood ran down my fingers, my voice
+grew weaker, but it broke up that flirtation. It was a cruel price, but
+I paid it cheerfully. While I retain my moral sense, no married woman
+shall degrade her sex by a flirtation in my presence. Never, never!
+
+Yes, my screams broke up that well-arranged plan to delude Mr. Burke
+from my side, and it broke up the crabbing party too.
+
+Dempster woke up and hauled in the lines. We had thirty crabs
+floundering in the hold, all fighting like imps of darkness.
+
+"We'll have them for dinner," says Dempster, ferociously, "they won't be
+so lively half an hour from now."
+
+He was right, it took us just fifteen minutes to sail back to that white
+house with the long stoop. Fifteen minutes after that, every crab was in
+water so hot that they gave up clawing and began to turn furiously red.
+
+Half an hour after we sat around a long table out under the trees, with
+a great platter of those scrawny creatures lying with their red shells
+uppermost, a good deal easier to catch than they had been, I can tell
+you.
+
+Mr. Burke was busy as could be, telling me how to put in my knife under
+the red shell, so as to lay the sweet white flesh open.
+
+I say nothing, but it seemed to me there was one jealous female around
+those premises, and that female certainly was not me.
+
+The meat of those creatures is just delicious--what there is of it.
+
+Take it altogether, sisters, it seems to me that catching and eating
+crabs is an amusement which promises better than bathing.
+
+If I am not very much mistaken, Mr. Burke held my hand longer than was
+quite necessary when he said good-night after we reached the hotel. I
+saw E. E. looking at us sideways, and I let it rest--rest lovingly in
+his clasp long enough to wring her heart. What right has she to have any
+feeling about it, I should like to know? Isn't she married?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCIV.
+
+EXTRA POLITENESS.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--Life is a pleasant thing to have when its chariot-wheels
+revolve in smooth places. I went to bed last night angry with Cousin E.
+E. Ever since Mr. Burke was introduced into our party she has exhibited
+a desire for gentlemen's attention which I think entirely unbecoming a
+married lady. I do not wish to be severe or captious; such feelings
+should be left to maiden ladies of an age that I have not yet dreamed of
+reaching. But a married woman who hankers after any other man's society
+than that of her own lawful husband is--well, not to speak harshly, an
+example that some people may follow, but I won't.
+
+This morning, as we sat on the long stoop of the hotel, gazing out on
+the broad expanse of the boundless ocean, Mr. Burke came gently to my
+side, and spoke:
+
+"Miss Frost."
+
+My heart beat; my eyelids dropped, but I lifted them, in shy innocence,
+to his face, inquiringly, wistfully. What would he say next?
+
+"Miss Frost, have you ever seen a clam-bake?"
+
+I reflected a moment. Were clam-bakes indigenous to our Vermont soil?
+Were they a product of the mountains, or a spontaneous growth of the
+river vales?
+
+"I do not think I have ever seen them growing in Vermont," says I, at
+last; "yet there are few roots or vegetables, wild or tame, that I don't
+know something about. There is wake-robin, on the mountains, with its
+spokes of red berries; and snake-root, and adder's-tongue; but I don't
+remember clam-bakes among them, and I know they are not cultivated in
+our parts as garden-sas, I beg pardon, as vegetables."
+
+Mr. Burke smiled out loud, and his black mustache curled down on each
+side of his lips delightfully.
+
+"I fancy you have never seen anything of the kind in Vermont. Clam-bakes
+are only found at the sea-side--principally around Rhode Island. I don't
+think they prevail much in the mountains, as yet."
+
+"You don't say so!" says I. "Then they are a salt-water plant?"
+
+"Principally found in the sand and mud."
+
+"That don't seem to me very remarkable," says I; "most vegetables are
+found in one or the other. Watermelons, for instance, grow best in a
+bare sand-bank: perhaps your new-fangled vegetable is of that species?"
+
+Again his black mustache gave a lovely curl, and his black eyes looked
+into mine so tenderly, as if something I had said tickled him almost to
+death.
+
+"You _are_ an original creature," said he.
+
+I put one hand on my heart, and bowed.
+
+"People about Sprucehill, especially the Society of Infinite Progress,
+have done me the honor to think so," says I.
+
+"But about the clam-bake--if you like it, we must start for Pleasure Bay
+at once," says Mr. Burke.
+
+"Do they grow down there?" says I.
+
+"Not as a general thing, but we shall make out to get one up, with a
+little trouble."
+
+"Do they grow so deep?" says I.
+
+"You will see when we get there. Mrs. Dempster is ready, and the
+carriage is waiting."
+
+To please that man I would have done almost anything; but it did seem a
+wild-goose chase for a lot of grown people to rush down to Pleasure Bay
+for the fun of pulling up a lot of the strangest vegetables that ever
+grew.
+
+"Do make haste!" cried E. E. through the green slats of her
+window-blinds.
+
+I got up and shook out my dress.
+
+"It will be such fun!" she called out. "Mr. Burke has been so kind as to
+invite us, so don't keep him waiting."
+
+I lifted my eyes to the dark orbs of that noble-looking man, and he must
+have known from the expression that I did not mean to keep him waiting
+in any respect. Gently bending my head, I withdrew.
+
+I came from my room like a moving picture, with my black alpaca newly
+flounced, and surmounted by that fleecy white jacket with great buttons
+and double-breasted in front. Then my white hat, curled up victoriously,
+and the feather waving above it and curlecued around it, was enough to
+tantalize a minister.
+
+Mr. Burke smiled graciously when he saw me come forth clad in the
+whiteness of my principles, and I knew that the sympathy between us was
+national as well as individual.
+
+E. E. came out of her room flaunting a red jacket and a long black
+plume. Dashy for a married woman! But I said nothing. Let that young
+woman work out her own destiny; I am not her husband. I caught her
+sending sly glances from under her eyelashes at Mr. Burke. I wish
+Dempster had been close by, to see for himself, that's all.
+
+If there is anything on earth that I detest, it is a flirty married
+woman.
+
+We rode down to Pleasure Bay, four in the carriage, with that child
+perched up alongside of the driver. E. E. wanted to sit opposite to Mr.
+Burke, and, seized with a fit of extra politeness for that occasion
+only, insisted on it that I should get in first--which would have
+brought me face to face with Dempster. But I, too, was suffering under a
+sudden epidemic of good manners, and stepped back, bowing till the white
+feather shaded my face. She kept waving her hand; but I would not be
+persuaded into pushing myself before a married woman, and at last she
+got in, biting her lips as if she had a tenpenny nail between her teeth.
+I followed, looking innocent as a cat with cream on its tongue, and away
+we went.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCV.
+
+THE CLAM-BAKE.
+
+
+Two carriage-loads of people were at Pleasure Bay, wandering about under
+the trees in front of the hotel. Down between them and the bank was a
+lot of men piling up a heap of round stones and crossing sticks of wood
+over them till a high sort of a cross-beam pinnacle was built, to which
+one of the men set fire. Mercy, how it blazed up and flashed through the
+cracks in the wood! They seemed to enjoy the blaze, and worked like
+beavers around it--though I don't know how a beaver works, never having
+seen one.
+
+Some of the men went down to the water, and, dragging up great armfuls
+of dark green and yellow grass, swelled out here and there with bulbs
+and blisters, laid it in a heap before the fire. Some of the others sat
+down on the rocks, with pails of potatoes and sweet corn between their
+knees, which they began to wash and tie up in their husks.
+
+I was awful curious to know what all this was about, but made up my mind
+to wait and see; for Mr. Burke seemed so anxious and busy that I didn't
+want to stop him by asking questions.
+
+When the wet weeds, potatoes, and corn came on, I thought that the next
+thing would be some clam-bake; but instead of that, a fellow came down
+from the house with a lot of young chickens, picked clean, which he
+carried by the legs, and another loafed up from the water with three
+great horrid green monsters, like crabs swelled out--green as the
+sea-weed, and so dreadfully crawly that the very sight of them made me
+creep all over.
+
+"What on earth are those creatures?" says I to Dempster; "mammoth
+cockroaches that have taken to a seafaring life, or what?"
+
+"Why, lobsters," says he.
+
+"Lobsters!" says I. "Not a bit of it. All the lobsters I have ever seen
+were bright red, and still as mice."
+
+"That was after they were cooked," says he. "Wait till these come out,
+and they'll be red enough, I promise you."
+
+Well, I waited and watched, for what these men were up to was more than
+I could make out. When the wood was all burned down they brushed the
+coals and ashes away with an old broom, and two colored men came up from
+the shore, carrying a two-bushel basket full of little longish-round
+creatures, hard as stone, and with a long black sort of a knot hanging
+out of one end. They were dripping wet, and pieces of sea-weed clung to
+them, as if they grew in the water like the crabs and lobsters.
+
+Well, when the ashes were swept away, and nothing but the hot stones
+were left crowded close together, the two nig--well, colored persons,
+lifted that great basket between them and poured the round creatures
+among the hot stones till they sissed again. Then they piled on a heap
+of sea-weed, and a cloud of steam came pouring through. Then another
+layer, and over that the potatoes and corn were poured down and laid on.
+Then another layer of weeds, and the chickens and three great large
+fish, done up in cloths, were laid out for a steaming, and with them
+those live, green lobsters. Oh, mercy! how they did spread their claws
+and crawl through the sea-weed! It was enough to make you creep all
+over; but the men soon smothered them with steaming grass, which heaved
+up and down for a while, and then sank off, till the lobsters lay as
+dead as the chickens, and made no more fuss about being roasted alive.
+
+By this time the whole heap--grass, chickens, corn, lobsters, and other
+shell creatures--was big as a small haystack. At last the two colored
+persons came down with a long tin pail, in which was a roll of butter
+and some vinegar. They sunk the pail down into the steaming sea-grass,
+clapped the corn on, and buried it with all the rest. Then more sea-weed
+and an old boat-sail flung over all, and that little mountain of
+roasting things was left to steam and sizzle while the whole party went
+to take a walk along the shore.
+
+Mr. Burke kept by my side, and part of the time he carried my parasol,
+shading my face with it in the tenderest way.
+
+He said something about the clam-bake, but I had really got so sick of
+everything in the fish, fowl, or vegetable line, that a curiosity, more
+or less, was of no consequence, so I said I should know how I liked
+clam-bakes better when I had seen one.
+
+He answered that would be soon, for half an hour was enough to put one
+through.
+
+Sisters, I was in no sort of hurry about it, for the rest of them were
+busy chatting and talking, so that we were just as good as alone, and
+the moments were precious as gold sands in an hour-glass.
+
+By and by some one set up a shout. Mr. Burke wheeled right round, and
+says he:
+
+"They are going to open the clam-bake; come and see it done?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCVI.
+
+THAT CLAM BAKE.
+
+
+He walked fast. I followed him with reluctant footsteps. What did I care
+for clam-bakes or any other new-fangled vegetable while he was by my
+side?
+
+The crowd were all around that heap of sea-weed when we came up. Men,
+women, Irish help, and nig--well, colored freemen, with eager eyes and
+open mouths, were waiting for the sail-cloth to be taken off. On the
+grass, under the trees, a great long table was set out with plates,
+glasses, castors, and things. At the end, two pails of ice, with the
+necks of a dozen bottles peeping up like hungry birds in a nest, stood
+ready for somebody to uncork.
+
+Well, the nig--freedman gave that sail a jerk, and a cloud of salty
+steam rolled up from the sea-grass. Then he raked away a winrow of that,
+dug out a pail of melted butter and vinegar, and held a lobster up by
+one claw, looking red as a British soldier's jacket. The creature had
+given up fighting, and hung in his hand meek as Moses. The poor thing
+was green enough when he went in, but came out blazing red and steaming
+hot.
+
+More sea-weed; chickens dripping with gravy; heaps of corn; potatoes,
+mealy, and broken open; fish, and then those longish-round shell
+things, heaped in plates and dishes, were carried off to the table. We
+followed those dishes; we sat down to eat. Those longish hard-shelled
+creatures had all burst open, and something that smelt delicious lay
+inside, with black heads sticking out.
+
+I watched to see what the rest did with those animals, then seized one
+by the head, drew him out, soused him in the melted butter, and dropped
+him softly into my open mouth.
+
+"Delicious, scrumptious, beyond anything I ever ate in my life," says I,
+when Mr. Burke leaned toward me and wanted to know how I liked it. "But
+what are these black-headed things with shells, called?"
+
+"Oh, soft-shells--the best part of the clam-bake, I think," says he.
+
+"I reckon you are right," says I, taking another little fellow by the
+nape of the neck, and biting him off at the shoulders. Then I drank a
+glass of the sparklingest cider you ever tasted, and went in for an ear
+of corn, smoking hot, and the breast of a chicken.
+
+Mr. Burke wanted me to eat some of the red lobster, but the thought of
+it made me creep all over, so I asked to be excused, and said I
+preferred a dozen or two more soft-shells.
+
+There was a good deal of first-rate cider drank around that table, and
+we left a bushel of open shells under the trees, besides a heap of
+lobsters, clams, and chicken bones, well picked.
+
+Then we went back to look at the place where they had been cooked, and
+found nothing but a heap of smoking stones, a ring of burnt grass, and a
+pile of steamy sea-weed. Somehow, the sight of it all made me feel sort
+of faint, and it didn't seem to me that I should ever want to eat or
+drink again.
+
+We went home from Pleasure Bay in the carriage, feeling lazy and kind of
+half sea-sick.
+
+That night I dreamed that a whole regiment of green lobsters were
+crawling over my bed, clawing at me fiercely as they went. Then I
+thought that Mr. Burke came and shoved them off with both arms flung
+out, and invited me to breakfast on a heap of empty shells, dipped in
+butter, which set awful heavy on my stomach.
+
+In fact, I had a worrying night, and got up feeling as if I had been
+feasting on tenpenny nails and roasted flat-irons.
+
+
+
+
+XCVII.
+
+ONE HOUR OF HEAVEN.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--You haven't the least idea of what warm weather is in
+Vermont. Why, if one of your mountain trout streams could have run
+through New York, it would have boiled over and cooked the poor little
+speckled creatures that live in its waves. You never saw anything like
+it in your born days. The sea breezes at Long Branch seemed to come over
+an ocean of melted lead, blasted up by some old furnace of a volcano.
+For one whole week I was just dying of envy, when I thought of the pigs
+roving loose in our village, with such lovely mud puddles to lie down
+in, without caring a sumarke whether their clothes were mussed--excuse
+that word, I got it here in York--or not.
+
+While I was panting for breath on the sea-shore, I could think of them,
+with home-sick longing, up to their throats in the soft, mushy fluid of
+a delicious puddle, with swarms of yellow butterflies rising, floating,
+and settling around them, as if a bed of primroses had got tired of
+growing in one place, and had burst off on a grand spree through the
+air, settling down for a drink now and then.
+
+Yes, sisters, I was brought, in the hot blast of those summer days, to a
+state of unchristian envy, and would have been glad to swap places with
+flounders, or have slept in some cellar, with a block of ice for a
+pillow.
+
+But nothing that I ever saw lasts for ever, or if it does I haven't
+lived long enough to prove it. Still, one gets restless in weather like
+this, when human beings are dropping down dead in the streets of a city
+close by in dozens, from sunstrokes.
+
+This morning I sat in my room, with a short gown and not over many
+skirts on, looking through the green slats of my door, and watching the
+sunshine shimmer down on the waves where the little white vessels were
+folding their sails, and going to sleep like birds too lazy for flying,
+when a colored person came to my door, and says he:
+
+"Mr. Burke's compliments, and will Miss Frost take a walk with him on
+the beach?"
+
+I started up, and, says I:
+
+"Won't I!" Then I composed myself, and sent back compliments, and Miss
+Frost will have great pleasure in complying with Mr. Burke's polite
+invitation.
+
+When the--colored messenger was gone, I sat down in the Boston rocker,
+clasped my hands, and drew a deep, deep sigh of ecstatic expectation.
+Then I remembered that he was waiting, and sprang to my feet.
+
+With my two shaking hands I fastened the other woman's hair over my own,
+that would neither curl nor friz worth a cent that awful hot day. Then I
+put on a white muslin dress, that looked seraphically innocent, and
+tightened it up with a plaid silk sash, that circled my slender waist
+and floated off like a rainbow breaking through a cloud.
+
+Then I took my parasol in one hand, held my flowing skirts up with the
+other, and went forth to meet my destiny. Oh, how my feet longed to
+dance! How my girlish heart beat and fluttered in this innocent bosom.
+
+He was waiting for me in the long stoop, leaning against a post, and
+fanning his manly head with the broad brim of his Panama hat. Oh, how
+majestic, how--but language fails me here.
+
+Arm in arm we walked along the beach. He leaned toward me, I leaned
+with gentle heaviness on him--delightful reciprocity--eloquent silence.
+A soft breeze blew up from the ocean, and kissed us both with refreshing
+softness.
+
+"Ah!" said the noble man by my side, "this is delicious."
+
+"Deliriously so," I murmured.
+
+"You feel the revivifying effect?" says he.
+
+"Exquisitely," says I, leaning a little more confidingly on his stalwart
+arm.
+
+He bent his stately head and looked down into my eyes. Sisters, the
+thrill of that glance shook my delicate frame as bumble-bees set a
+full-blown rose to trembling when they swarm in its heart.
+
+"Shall we go down to the sands?" says he; "the incoming tide is dashing
+them with coolness."
+
+I understood the delicate meaning conveyed in these words. Nothing could
+be more exquisitely suggestive. The tide--what was that but his own
+noble self? The sands--pure, white, untrodden--in my whole life I never
+heard anything more typical.
+
+"If you desire it," I said.
+
+"If I desire it. Ah! Miss Frost, it is for you to say."
+
+My heart leaped to this as a speckled trout snaps at a fly. Nothing so
+near a proposal had ever reached me before. But a New England woman is
+modest; she does not snatch at the first offer--far from it. I pretended
+not to understand the badly hidden meaning of his metaphor. A little art
+of this kind is feminine and excusable, even in a young girl dignified
+with Society membership and a mission. I felt that he could appreciate
+it. He did. Some people were below us on the sands. They paused to look
+up as this noble creature handed me down those wooden steps. The effect
+must have been artistical. My cloud-like skirts floated softly on the
+zephyrs. My scarf streamed out like a banner. I am afraid the curve of
+my boot might have been seen from below, for many admiring faces were
+turned that way, and Mr. Burke cast his eye downward in a fugitive
+manner.
+
+At last we reached the sands, on which both the sun and waves were
+beating luminously. By a ridge of white sand he paused.
+
+"Shall we sit here?" says he, with tender questioning.
+
+"Anywhere," says I, with sweet feminine complacency.
+
+Then I dropped down on the sand ridge, and sweeping my skirts together,
+cast a timid glance up and around.
+
+That noble man was spreading a silk umbrella. There was a hitch in the
+spring, and, such was his eager impatience to occupy the seat I had so
+delicately suggested, that a real naughty word broke from his lips--a
+word I, as a missionary, never could forgive, if it hadn't been the
+proof of such loving impatience. As it was, like a recording angel, I
+blotted it out of my memory with a forgiving sigh.
+
+That refractory umbrella was hoisted at last, and its owner placed
+himself on the sand beside me, holding it not seaward, but like a tent,
+shading us two from the whole world, while the sun took care of itself.
+
+"This," says he, "is a sweet relief. Don't you find it so, Miss Frost?"
+
+I answered him with a sigh, soft, but audible.
+
+"Yes, one can draw a full breath here," says he. "I was sure you would
+enjoy it."
+
+"I do, indeed," says I, playing with the sand in the innocence of my
+heart.
+
+Evidently embarrassed by deep feeling, he too began to sift the white
+sand through his fingers, which came so near mine that they made me
+catch my breath for fear he might clasp them. On the contrary, he gave
+up the temptatious exercise, and throwing a generous restraint on
+himself, began to talk metaphorically and metaphysically about many
+things, especially about gathering maple-sap, of which he questioned me
+tenderly, veiling the hidden meaning in his heart, by a seeming interest
+in our trees.
+
+He asked me, with infinite meaning in his voice, at what period the
+sparkling sap began to mount up from the curly roots of our maples, and
+vivify the trunk, twigs, and branches of that noble tree.
+
+I understood his meaning, delicately veiled as it was. He wished to
+reveal his contempt of young saplings compared to the vigorous tree. It
+was a poetic way of comparing young snips of things with whole-souled
+girls, who had all the bloom of youth, and all the strength of maturity.
+
+I spoke my mind on the subject. I said that strength, greenness, a
+full-grown trunk were necessary before sweet wholesome sap could
+circulate from root to top of a sugar maple. That saplings amounted to
+just nothing at all. In fact, they kept absorbing, but gave forth
+nothing; that a rich maturity was desirable before the maple became
+important as a forest-tree or an object of wealth.
+
+I think he understood me--or rather he understood that I, with the
+exquisite intuition of genius, understood him. For right off, on that,
+he said that he would like to live in Vermont, and own maple-trees
+himself; that native sugar was a sweet business, and must have a
+softening tendency upon those who entered into it.
+
+He sometimes bought it of little boys in the cars, and always felt a
+soothing influence after eating it, that made him long to drink the
+native sap fresh from the tree. In fact, he took a deep interest in
+Vermont and all its institutions.
+
+While we were talking on these sweet subjects, quite a breeze sprang up
+from the water.
+
+Things brighten around us. The sky looked blue. The heaving waves of the
+ocean began to swell and sparkle as if a diamond mine were breaking up
+in their depths. I am satisfied that Long Branch is all that it has been
+cracked up to be--and more too, when kindred souls meet on its sandy
+shores.
+
+"How bright! how beautiful!" says he, backing off suddenly from the
+maple question, which had covered a world of hidden meaning, and looking
+out to sea, with a delicate wish, no doubt, to spare my blushes.
+
+"Some persons have been kind enough to think so," says I, "but it isn't
+for me to say."
+
+"I love the fitful changes--the soft transparency: nothing can be more
+lovely," says he.
+
+The occasion required downcast eyes and shrinking silence. I gave him
+both. There could be no better answer for a speech so personal and yet
+so poetic.
+
+"I hope you share my feelings in this."
+
+That moment--that precious, precious moment--was broken in upon in a way
+that makes me clench my teeth as I write. Up the sands, racing forward
+like a young colt, came "that child," with her flat flying back by the
+strings, and a broken parasol in her hand; up she flew toward Mr. Burke.
+
+"Come here," says she, "I want you to whip that boy out there within an
+inch of his life. I broke my parasol over his head, but it wasn't half
+enough; I want you to give it to him good."
+
+"But what has he done," says Mr. Burke, no doubt riled to the depths of
+his noble heart, as I was.
+
+"Done enough, I should think. He mimicked the way I carried my parasol,
+and said some folks wanted to be young ladies before they could
+read--that's what he has done," says the creature, flaming out like a
+bantam.
+
+"Perhaps we had better go in," says Mr. Burke, lifting himself out of
+the sand.
+
+"Not till you've given him hail Columbia," says the creature, taking a
+new grip on her broken parasol.
+
+"I rather think he has got that," says Mr. Burke, reaching out his hand
+to help me up.
+
+I arose. I jerked that Leghorn flat by the strings, and tied it under
+the creature's chin with a pull that made her scream. Then I took Mr.
+Burke's arm and mounted the wooden steps, with a feeling at my heart
+that is not to be described by mortal pen. What a world of bliss that
+wicked little wretch broke in upon. His soul was verging towards mine so
+beautifully. The final words were burning on his lips when she rushed
+in. Still, memory is left, reason is left. I know what was in that
+noble heart, and that knowledge is bliss.
+
+I felt this: I knew his meaning. To a common woman he might have said,
+"I love you dearly. I wish above all things to spend my life with you;"
+but to a creature made up of sensitive pride and poetic niceties,
+unclothed proposals of this kind must be quite out of place. Of course I
+understood all that, and felt the refinement of his conduct deeply.
+
+What more _could_ a man say than this? In order to be delicately
+personal, one must talk by comparisons. To praise the State one is born
+in, is to praise one's self. To seize upon any material thing for a
+poetical comparison with a human being, is to be intensely complimentary
+to that being.
+
+For the first time in my life I feel the sweet certainty of duplication.
+My heart swells with the beautiful faith of hope deferred. Those
+heavenly lines we have sung so often together in our meeting-house come
+back to my mind--
+
+    "To patient faith the prize is sure--"
+
+I dare not go farther and complete the rhyme, because human sensation
+should not encroach on the divine; but the spirit of that hymn sings in
+my heart; for if there is anything on this earth that woman should be
+grateful for, it is love.
+
+Yes, my sisters, at last I feel that I am beloved. A ray of sympathetic
+feeling has darted from a grand and noble soul to mine, changing that
+dull, sandy coast to Elysium.
+
+Last night, when I retired to the secrecy of my chamber, it seemed to me
+that if ever a woman's heart--beg pardon, a young girl's heart--was born
+again, mine had become more tenderly infantine than it was when I lay
+one week old in my loving mother's arms.
+
+The moonlight was streaming through the muslin curtains of my room when
+I entered it. It was an ovation of silvery light dawning upon the new
+life that opens before me. I do not know how other people feel when the
+crisis of fate is on them, but in my heart there is room for nothing but
+infinite thankfulness.
+
+Yes, sisters, I think you can conscientiously congratulate me. Virtue
+does sometimes meet with its own reward, especially when it is combined
+with youthfulness, elegance, and high mental attributes.
+
+
+
+
+XCVI.
+
+C. O. D.
+
+
+Dear sisters:--The cruelty of one female woman to another is something
+awful. As a general thing, E. E. Dempster is a good-natured, amiable
+person, but her conduct on the very day after that heavenly season on
+the shore was worthy of the Spanish Inquisition. She has lacerated the
+heart in my bosom, and torn me away from this place like a ruthless
+highwayman. That is what she has done.
+
+Early in the morning, while I was dreaming sweetly of the sea-shore,
+that unfeeling female rushed into my room.
+
+"Phoemie," says she, "you can't sleep any longer. We are packing up
+for the city. Cecilia has been insulted here, and I won't stay another
+hour in the place."
+
+"What! what is it?" says I. "How could you! He was just giving up
+metaphor and coming squarely out in the sweetest way."
+
+"You will have no more than time to pack your trunk before the train
+starts," says she.
+
+"Starts--what for! where?"
+
+"For New York, and after that to Saratoga; Cecilia insists on it, poor,
+sweet darling."
+
+"For New York?" says I.
+
+"On the way to Saratoga."
+
+"But--but who is going. Is--is--?"
+
+"Why, you and I, Dempster, and that sweet, ill-used child. Would you
+believe it, that rude boy's father refuses to whip him, and said a girl
+that could give a black eye with her parasol was--well, I can't find the
+heart to repeat it. At any rate, she doesn't stay another hour under the
+same roof with that little fiend."
+
+"But is that all--Oh, tell me is no one else going?" says I feeling as
+if a ton of lead had been heaped on me.
+
+"Dear me. There is no one else to care for the poor child. Of course, no
+one will take it up but us. So make haste."
+
+Out she went, leaving me just heart-broken and ready to give up. How
+could I go? how could I leave him and "the Branch," as if my soul were
+fleeing from his?
+
+It was of no use. E. E. was set upon going, and I couldn't help myself.
+
+Well, sisters, two hours after I left that bed we had packed up bag and
+baggage, given a cart-load of trunks for the express-men to smash or
+carry, just as they liked, and then took a little run of railroad, and a
+sail in a steamboat so grand and airy, and no ending, that we began to
+feel sorry that James Fisk was dead, or that his splendid ghost didn't
+roam along the steamboat track and keep things ship-shape, as he left
+them.
+
+Well, in that steamboat we reached New York, warm, restless, and nigh
+about ready to give out, or take a friendly sunstroke and be peaceably
+carried away to a cool vault in some shady graveyard.
+
+I mentioned this alternative to Cousin Dempster, but he shook his head
+and answered that some of us might find ourselves waking up in a more
+uncomfortable place than the streets of New York; which I thought
+impossible, but said nothing.
+
+Well, we had a few hours to stay in the city before a boat would be
+ready to take us to Saratoga Springs--a name that sounded so cool and
+refreshing, that I longed to get there and breathe again.
+
+Cousin E. E. said, when we went ashore:
+
+"Phoemie," says she, "there are a few hours before us; suppose we go
+a-shopping? I want ever so many things. Saratoga is a dressy place, and
+I haven't a thing to wear."
+
+Then, before I could object, says she to Dempster:
+
+"A check, my dear, or if you have the funds on hand."
+
+Dempster gave a sigh that shook his manly bosom through and through, and
+says he:
+
+"There," drawing a roll of bank bills from his vest pocket, "will that
+do?"
+
+E. E. unrolled the bills and sorted them out.
+
+"Ten, twenty, fifty, ten, ten, ten, fif-- Why, Dempster, what do you
+mean? How far will a hundred and fifty dollars go? I want to spend more
+than that on Valenciennes lace for Cecilia's dress. The child must have
+something to wear."
+
+She spoke in a grieved, half-angry way, that touched Dempster to the
+heart. He took out his pocket-book, but not another sign of money was in
+it. Then he felt in three or four pockets with the air of a man who was
+tormented with doubts of finding anything. At last he stopped looking.
+
+"I haven't another red cent about me, dear. Indeed I haven't."
+
+"Dear me, what am I to do? There is a guipure sacque at Stewart's that I
+must have."
+
+"Couldn't you get along without it?" says Dempster, with such pathetic
+earnestness that I really felt sorry for him.
+
+"Get along without it! How can you ask?"
+
+"That Brussels lace thing," faltered Dempster.
+
+"What, that? I have had it six months at least; besides, I saw another
+just like it at the hotel, and that is enough to disgust one with
+anything. If people will pattern after me, I can't help it. Then again
+one gets so tired of the same thing."
+
+"But I have no more money."
+
+"Can't you draw a check?"
+
+"My check-book is at the office."
+
+"Always so when I want anything. Now, Dempster, this is too bad."
+
+"Well," says Dempster, desperately, "get the thing, and tell Stewart to
+charge it?"
+
+Cousin E. E. turned her face away. It was awful cloudy, and I could see
+that she was biting her lips. She had an awful long bill at Stewart's
+already. Then her face lighted up.
+
+"Can't I have them sent C. O. D., by express? You will have time to get
+plenty of money before then," says she, as soft as silk weed.
+
+"I hate the system," says Dempster; "money in hand is the only way a
+lady should make purchases. Then she knows what she is about. Everything
+else leads to extravagance. I hate bills as if they were copperheads;
+they are things I never will forgive."
+
+I saw that E. E. turned pale, and a red flush came around her eyes as if
+she were just ready to burst out a-crying.
+
+Dempster thought it was because he had stood out about the money and
+gave in a trifle.
+
+"For this once," says he, "have the things charged, but bring the bill
+with you. I must know what I am about in these matters."
+
+"But I mightn't find them all in one place. Hadn't we better make it a
+C. O. D., just for once?" says she, pleading for her own way as if her
+mouth were full of humble pie.
+
+"Do as you please for this once," says he, half out of patience, "but
+remember, I am set against bills and running accounts--pay as you go
+along, is my motto."
+
+E. E. drew a deep breath, and, putting the money in a little mite of a
+leather satchel fastened to her side by a belt, took up her parasol and
+prepared to march off.
+
+Cecilia followed after, surveying her little toadstool of a parasol, and
+stooping forward as she walked, like an undersized kangaroo.
+
+I only wish E. E., or even Cousin Dempster, could see that child as I
+see her. But they can't. Where she is concerned, they seem born fools,
+both of them.
+
+Well, off we went one way, and Dempster the other--he to get the money,
+and his wife to spend it. I looked on, and wondered how any man living
+could afford to get married. The whole thing made me down-hearted, and
+half-ashamed of my relationship with a woman who could worry money out
+of her husband like that, and not feel how mean she was--could not my
+cousin see that she was poisoning the soul of her own child by an
+example which she was just as certain to follow as she was to live.
+
+Well, we got into a carriage and drove up Broadway; but instead of going
+to Stewart's great marble building, E. E. stopped at some other places,
+and kept buying and buying till I got tired out, and sat on a round
+stool by the counter, saying nothing, but thinking a good deal. Each
+place we left, I heard her say, "Grand Union Hotel, Saratoga: C. O. D.,"
+till I got tired to death of the word.
+
+At one place my cousin and that child had a grand set-to in the store.
+Cecilia wanted a bright-red silk dress to wear under her lace one; but
+E. E. liked blue best, and ordered it. Then Cecilia declared she didn't
+want any dress at all, broke her new parasol striking it against the
+counter, and ended off by flinging herself down on a stool and drumming
+her feet against the counter--so mad that she cried till everybody in
+the store heard her.
+
+Of course E. E. gave in, just to pacify her, while I would have given
+fifty of the brightest silver dollars ever issued by the U. S.
+Government, for the happiness of giving her the neatest little trouncing
+she ever got in her life. But luxuries like these, I can hardly expect
+just yet. How that cousin of mine can give up a parental prerogative so
+tempting to the hands I cannot imagine. I really would not put so much
+pleasure off an hour.
+
+
+
+
+XCVII.
+
+TAKEN IN.
+
+
+Well, after trapesing about from one store to another till I was nigh
+about tired to death, E. E. concluded that she had got through her
+shopping, except a few things that we could carry in our pockets, which
+kept us rushing in and out of every little shop we came to for an hour
+longer. Then she said we would stop into Purssell's and get something to
+eat, for she was beginning to feel hungry. This had been the case with
+me ever so long; not that I hankered much in hot weather for hearty
+food, but I felt a sort of faintness; and when she said something about
+Purssell's having delicious peaches, I knew that they were exactly the
+thing which would appease all the internal longing of my nature.
+
+But just as my mouth was beginning to water, E. E. took out her watch
+and gave a little scream.
+
+"Why," says she, "who would a-thought it? We have but just fifteen
+minutes to reach the boat in?"
+
+My heart sank. The taste of those peaches had almost got into my mouth,
+but now a taste of dust came in their place. I could just have sat down
+and cried.
+
+"Never mind," says E. E.; "we can get dinner on board."
+
+"Dinner on board!" Thin soup; hot meat down in the bottom of a
+steamboat, with a smell of oil, sour water, and musty linen all around
+you--that is what "a dinner on board" means, and nothing else. The very
+thought made me feel rily about the temper--all that I wanted was some
+peaches.
+
+You will not wonder, sisters, that I hankered after this delicious
+fruit, which is about the only good thing that grows which we do not
+have in the old Vermont State. Only think of them--round, plump, juicy;
+with the redness of a warm sunset burning on one side, and pale-gold
+glowing on the other; cool, delicious, melting away in the mouth with a
+flavor that just makes you want to kiss some smiling baby while it is
+on your lips! Think of them! then imagine my feelings when I was hurried
+into a hack, and rattled off to the steamboat with the promise of a hot
+dinner in its internal regions. We saw peaches on every hand as we drove
+along--in stores, on street tables, in baskets carried by Irish women,
+who looked up at the carriage-window pleadingly as we drove along.
+
+"Wait one minute," says I, as a woman came up with her long basket
+brimming over with the luscious fruit; "I must have some peaches."
+
+"Not a second," says E. E.; "don't you see Dempster beckoning from the
+deck? The last bell is ringing. Come, come!"
+
+The Irish woman lifted up her basket, and stood there enticing me. E. E.
+rushed up the plank, calling out: "Make haste, make haste!"
+
+Cecilia sung out: "Come along, Phoemie!"
+
+Two men had hold of the plank bridge. I had to cross then, or be left
+behind. I cast one yearning look towards the basket, rushed up the
+plank, and stood panting, by the side of Dempster.
+
+"Oh dear, it is too bad!" says I.
+
+"What is it, Phoemie?" says Dempster.
+
+"Peaches!" says I. "Those delicious peaches--see how they glow in the
+sunshine!"
+
+"Oh, nonsense! There is plenty on board," says he; "I'll go and get
+some."
+
+"Not yet," says E. E.; "the deck is so crowded."
+
+Dempster got seats for us and a stool for himself. The crowd was packed
+so close that one could hardly breathe. I was thirsty, I was tired out,
+and just ready to cry. E. E. was tired also, and a little cross. Cecilia
+was just as she always is--a nuisance. I felt like thanking Dempster
+when he jumped up, and says he:
+
+"Now for the peaches!"
+
+Away he went, just as good-natured as could be, calling back for me to
+keep his seat for him. I laid my parasol on it, and kept my hand on
+that; but a minute after came a great heathen of a fellow and attempted
+to take the stool.
+
+"It is engaged," says I, pressing down my hand.
+
+"What of that?" says he, jerking the stool away, and throwing my parasol
+on to the floor. "Every one for himself, and no favors."
+
+I was blue as indigo before that. At another time this creature would
+have riled me into a tempest, but now I felt more like crying. But there
+he sat, plump on the stool, looking as self-contented as if butter would
+not melt in his mouth.
+
+Dempster came back. I looked up longingly. His hands were empty.
+
+"I am very sorry," says he, "but there isn't a peach on board."
+
+Well, there I sat, with the sun pouring down on me, while E. E. read the
+illustrated papers, and that child made herself generally numerous among
+the passengers. After awhile I got up to look over the side of the
+vessel, when that horrid wretch snatched up my seat and carried it off,
+looking back at me and laughing.
+
+I said nothing--what was the use?--but leaned against the cabin-door,
+holding my satchel, the most forlorn creature you ever saw. Just then
+some one spoke to me. I looked round. It was a roly-poly, oldish woman,
+who spread considerably over her chair, and held a travelling-basket on
+her lap. She had found an empty stool, and asked me to take it.
+
+I sat down while she smiled blandly upon me.
+
+"Never mind that fellow," says she. "Some men are born animals of one
+kind or another, so let them go."
+
+Her words were kind--her manner motherly. I liked the woman. She is not
+elegant, I thought, but who could be with all that breadth of chest and
+brevity of limb? I smiled and thanked her, wondering who she was.
+
+"Pretty scenery," says she, pointing to the bank on which some
+cottage-houses, and a wooden tavern with red maroon half-curtains at the
+window, seemed to set the whole neighborhood on fire. "Now I would give
+anything for a house like that. Snug, isn't it?"
+
+She might have been looking at the wooden tavern, or at a cottage close
+by with a beautiful drapery of vines running along the porch. "Of
+course," thought I, "she means that."
+
+"Yes," says I, "it looks delightfully quiet."
+
+She nodded, and opened her basket, a capacious affair, quite large
+enough to hold half a peck of peaches. My mouth began to water.
+Perhaps--
+
+"Take one," says she, handing over a cracker.
+
+I took the disappointment, and tried to eat, but with that hankering
+after peaches in my throat it seemed like refreshing one's self on
+sawdust. She noticed this, I think, and, with a little hesitation,
+looked into her basket again, then closed it, and, looking towards me,
+whispered--
+
+"That's dry eating. Come down to the cabin, and I'll give you something
+nice."
+
+"Something nice!" I felt my eyes brighten. "Something nice--peaches, of
+course. What else could she have but peaches?" I thanked her with
+enthusiasm; my eyes gloated on her basket. Peaches and plenty of
+them--delicious!
+
+The stranger arose, smoothed down her dress, and led the way downstairs.
+Her presence was imposing, her step firm as a rock. Assuredly my new
+acquaintance was no common person--a little stout, certainly, but so is
+the Queen of England.
+
+I followed her eagerly, thinking of the peaches, longing for them with
+inexpressible longing. We went through the cabin--on and on--back of
+some curtains that draped it at one end. Here she paused, set her basket
+on a marble table, and proceeded to open it.
+
+I did not wish to show the craving eagerness which possessed me, and
+delicately turned my eyes away. Then she spoke in a deep mellow voice,
+as though she had fed on peaches from the cradle up.
+
+"Look a-here," says she. "Isn't this something nice?"
+
+I looked! the basket was open. She held a tumbler in one hand and a
+bottle in the other, from which a stream of brandy gurgled. That rotund
+impostor came toward me, beaming.
+
+"There," says she, "take right hold. It's first-rate Cognac."
+
+All the Vermont blood in my veins riled suddenly. I drew myself up to
+the full queenly height that so many people have thought imposing.
+Disappointment sharpened virtue's indignation.
+
+"Madam," says I, "you have practised a hospitable fraud--in Christian
+charity I will call it hospitable--on a New England lady, who looks upon
+temperance as a cardinal virtue. Put up your bottle. Maple sap and sweet
+cider from straws are the strongest drinks I ever indulge in."
+
+"Maple sap," says she, with a rumbling, mellow laugh, which ended in a
+cough as the brandy went down her throat. "Sweet cider, through straws!
+Well, every one to her taste."
+
+Here she filled the glass again and held it out, smiling like a harvest
+moon.
+
+"What, you won't take the least nip, just to save it, you know?"
+
+I turned my back upon that rotund tempter, and walked with a stately
+step to the deck, followed by a rich gurgle from the second glass as it
+went down that perfidious creature's throat.
+
+"Goodness gracious! What a surprise!"
+
+This was my exclamation when I saw Mr. Burke coming towards me, across
+the deck, with a small basketful of the most delicious peaches in his
+hand.
+
+There he came, smiling so blandly, and held out the basket for me to
+help myself. He was going to Saratoga, he said. The hot season had
+driven him to seek mountainous air. O sisters!
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Phemie Frost's Experiences, by Ann S. Stephens
+
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