Chapter 1

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.

PHŒMIE 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.