Chapter IV: Preface (4)

Cecilia looked, and saw the doll and the open trunk. Her lips drooped at the corners, her right shoulder lifted itself.

"A doll for me! The idea!" says she.

Cousin E. E. turned away, I think, to hide the tears that swelled to her eyes. Mr. Dempster saw it, and says he:

"Cecilia, your mother spent a great deal of money for the doll--don't be ungrateful."

"Just as if I wanted her to do it. Baby things!"

"Well," says Cousin E. E., trying to brighten up her face, "there is your father's present."

Cecilia untwisted the string of coral, and looked at it.

"Coral is for babies! That is worse yet! I just wish there hadn't been any Christmas at all," says she, a-flinging the beads in a lovely pink heap on the floor. "There now--I'll just go up-stairs and stay there!"

"Wait a minute, my darling," says E. E.; "mother has got something else."

Cecilia turned back a step, but scorned to let her sullen face brighten, though her eyes grew eager when Cousin E. E. took a little paper box from one of the baskets, and opened it.

"See here!"

Cecilia edged up to her mother, saw the emerald ring, and snatched at it.

"I bought it for Cousin Phœmie," says E. E., a-looking sort of pleadingly at me; "but as you are so disappointed, I'm sure she won't care."

"Cousin Phœmie! The idea!" Cecilia muttered to herself, as she tried the ring, first on one finger, then on another. "Of course she don't want it--old as the hills!"

I did not say one word while that creature carried off the first Christmas present I ever had in my life; but it seemed as if I should choke. Isn't it hard that a spoiled child like that should have the power to destroy the happiness of three grown people? But she did it.

The Christmas dinner was enough to make your mouths water, from this distance--the noblest sort of a turkey, stuffed with oysters, and everything to match--but none of us had much appetite for it. You can judge what my feelings amounted to, when I have lived one whole month in a boarding-house and couldn't get up an appetite--no, not even for the whitest meat of the breast! Old as the hills, indeed!

XX.

ABOUT LIONS.

Dear sisters:--Cousin E. E. had invited a lot of her friends to a stupendous dinner-party on Christmas Day, and she wanted me there for a lion, she said, though what on earth a great roaring lion had to do at a dinner-table I couldn't begin to think. The idea made me fidgety; but I didn't think it consistent with the dignity of our Society to ask questions, or let any one know that I didn't understand everything just as well as folks that have lived in York all their lives. Still I couldn't help trying to circumvent Cousin E. E. into telling me what I wanted to know in a way that some people might call femininely surreptitious.

"A lion!" says I. "Are such animals invited to a city dinner as a general thing?"

"Oh! not at all," says she; "the most difficult thing in the world to get hold of is a real, genuine lion; that is, one the whole world knows about, and wants to see."

"Why," says I, "if folks are so anxious about it, why don't they go up to the Rink and see Mr. Barnum's great monster animal. It don't cost much; besides, there are camels and monkeys, and lots and lots of things, thrown in."

Cousin Emily Elizabeth laughed till tears come into her eyes.

"Oh! Cousin Phœmie," says she, "you are so delightfully satirical."

"Do you think so?" says I, awfully puzzled.

"Yes," says she, "I do; but to me the eccentricities of genius are always interesting. To be an attractive lion one must say bright things, no matter how hard they cut."

"I wasn't aware," says I, "that lions were given to much talking."

"Oh!" says she, "that depends. There is your talkative lion, your learned lion, your silent lion--"

"That is the sort that I've always seen," says I; "now and then a growl, but nothing beyond that."

Cousin E. E. began to laugh again, till she had to hold one hand to her side.

"Oh! cousin, paws, paws," says she; "you just kill me with laughing."

"Yes," says I, "I don't deny that lions have paws, but it was speech we were talking about, and that I do deny."

Cousin E. E. just shrieked out laughing, though for the life of me I couldn't tell what it was all about.

"Now, don't you understand me--honest now--don't you?" says she.

"Why, of course I do; only nothing could be more ridiculous than the idea of a great, big, magnificent wild beast, with a swinging walk, and a tuft on the end of his tail, being showed off at a dinner-table. I for one shouldn't have a mite of appetite with such a creature prowling round."

"My dear, dear cousin, I'm speaking of human lions."

"Human lions! I always thought the creatures were awfully inhuman," says I; "nothing but a jackal can be worse."

"I mean great people--celebrated for something--bravery, literature, the arts, sciences," says she.

"Well, what of them?" says I.

"In society we sometimes call them lions."

"O--oh!" says I, drawing the word out to give myself time. "So you really thought I didn't understand. Why, of course. Dear me! cousin, how easy it is to cheat you!"

"Oh!" says she, "one must get up early to match you women of genius, I'm aware of that. What dry humor you have, now, looking so innocent and earnest, too!"

I smiled benignly upon Cousin E. E.; if she could find any humor in what we'd been a-talking about, it was more than I could. Lions! Where does the joke come in, when human beings are called such names as that? Wild beasts, indeed!

"How really modest you are!" says Cousin E. E. "Anybody else, who could write as you do, would have known that she was meant when I mentioned lions."

I dropped my eyes, and folded both hands.

"It will be the great feature of our party," says she. "Our friends will know that you are a blood relation, and that pleases Dempster; besides, you converse so beautifully, too."

"Do I?" says I, folding one hand over the other, and back again.

"And look so--so distinguished."

I drew my figure upright, and looked into the glass opposite. My cousin had chosen her words well; there was something imposing in the bend of that head. I say nothing; but she was right. Indeed, so far as I am concerned, she generally is.

Early in the morning I sent down for my pink silk dress. Cousin E. E. looked as if she was going to say something against it, at first; but, after a little, her face cleared up, and I heard her muttering:

"This is the third time. Nothing on earth but a woman of genius could stand that; but she has got enough to carry it off."

I said nothing, but thought of that bill, and just made a calculation of how much it would cost a woman to rig herself out if she went to many parties, and only wore a dress that cost five hundred dollars once.

Well, sisters, Christmas Day came, and we were up by daylight, for Cousin Emily Elizabeth is, as I have told you, a High Church woman and an Episcopalian. We haven't got any meeting-house of that denomination in our neighborhood, and I don't exactly know what high and low church means, without it is that one set hold to meeting-houses with a belfry, and the others stand up for a high steeple--a thing that I told Cousin E. E. we common people didn't aspire to; at which she laughed again, as if I had said something awfully witty.

Well, in another report I have given you an account of this daybreak meeting in the High Church, but just now I am taken up with the Christmas dinner.

Now don't calculate, because we eat dinner punctually at noon in Vermont, that people here do the same thing, because it is nothing of the sort. Poor working people do that in this city, and nobody else. The more genteel and the richer you are, the later you eat your meals. Most of the well-to-do merchants eat dinner at six. Men that have got above earning their own living dine later yet, and some have got so disgustingly genteel and rich, that I don't suppose they dine till next day.

Cousin Dempster attends to business yet, so he settled down on eight o'clock for his dinner, and a splendid affair it was.

When Cousin E. E. and I came rustling downstairs with a cataract of silk rolling after us, I just screamed right out. The sight of that table was so exhilarating, glass a-shining--silver dishes and things a-sparkling--flowers heaped up in flower-pots and twisted in wreaths around the glass globe overhead, which flashed, and sparkled, and glittered as if it had been frozen up with ten thousand icicles that flung back all the light without melting a drop. The silk curtains were all let down. The carpet looked like a flower-bed, and the whole room was a sight to behold.

Cousin E. E. shut the glass doors that looked as if a sharp frost had crept over 'em, and we sat down on the round sofa in the front room, ready for company, with nothing but those two marble folks to hear what we said.

But peace and quietness will never come to a house that has a fast child like Miss Dempster, as the creature calls herself, in it. We had hardly sat down and got our trains spread, when in she came, all in a fluff of white muslin, and a flutteration of red ribbons, with her hair a flowing down her back, crinkle, crinkle, and her--well--limbs just strained into silk stockings and kid boots laced down ever so far below her frock, and looking so impudent. Down she sat on the round sofa, and begun to swing her heels against the silk cushions.

"Why, daughter," says Cousin E. E., "what is the meaning of this?"

The child laughed and flung back her head.

"It means," says she, "that I'm not to be cheated into staying upstairs when a Christmas dinner is on hand. I'm ready for it, and I wish the company would come."

"But, my child, you are too young."

"If I'm too young, where do you find your old folks?" says the saucy thing, shaking out her ribbons.

"Cousin E. E., I would not permit it," says I, for I couldn't help speaking to save my life. "She isn't of an age to go into company."

"Well, you are old enough, and a good deal to spare," says the impudent thing. "No mistake about that!"

I drew up the train of my pink silk dress, and walked across the room in a way that spoke my indignation, without words. When I turned to go back that creature was right behind me, with her head up, measuring off the carpet, step by step, with me.

Sisters, I confess it, the strangling of that child would have done me a world of good; my fingers quivered to begin. But she just burst out a-laughing, and, would you believe it? her mother laughed too, but turned red as fire when I caught her at it.

Before anything more could be said, Cousin Dempster came in, and the door-bell kept up such a ringing, that we were in a flutteration till, one after another, the company came in; ladies and gentlemen dressed up as if it had been a ball they were invited to.

XXI.

DINING IN THE DARK.

Sisters, I'm afraid you would be taken aback by such dresses as filled Cousin Dempster's parlors that night. Such necks, such arms, no sleeves to speak of, nothing but a skimpy band across the shoulders; heads loaded down with braids and puffs, and great, long curls, which fell on those bare necks and covered them up into a little decency. Then the figures--mercy, how the dresses stood out behind; every lady seemed to be humpbacked below the waist. It takes time to get used to genteel society, I can tell you, and any amount of blushing has to be gone through.

Well, when we had all got together, Cousin Dempster came up to me and crooked his elbow. I put my hand on his arm. The glass doors opened as if of themselves, and into the dining-room we went. The other ladies and gentlemen all locked arms, and followed us in good order. Cousin Dempster whispered to me as I went in,

"The dinner is _given_ to you, remember."

I said yes, I would remember. I hadn't even thought of paying for it, but I suppose he wanted to set my mind at rest on that point, which was kind, but unnecessary, as we never charge for meals in Vermont, except at taverns.

"They were all invited to meet you," says he, at which I just turned round and made a low curtsey to the whole lot of 'em, before I took my seat, which was at Cousin Dempster's right hand.

On the other side was a proper, pretty girl, with a neck like water-lilies, and cheeks like ever-blooming roses. She was a girl that laughed very low, when she did laugh, and looked at gentlemen sideways from under her eyelashes. One of those girls that speak as if ice cream would not melt in their mouths. An awful handsome young fellow came with her.

Well, we all stood up waiting for Cousin E. E. to sit down, which she did. Then the rest of us rustled into our places, and half a dozen waiters went circumventing round us with little oysters, shells and all, on plates, which they set down before each of us, with a teinty silver pitchfork to eat 'em with. Then they brought plates with a few spoonfuls of soup in them, which they cleared away the minute we laid down our spoons. After that, came plate after plate, and the waiters kept filling the glasses that stood before us--pink, green, yellow, and white--with cider that bubbled and sparkled, and made the blood come faster and warmer into my face every time I tasted it.

At first there hadn't been much talking; but now the ladies grew chipper, as so many canary birds, and the men followed suit.

Such soft, low laughing, and such sweet voices I never heard at one table in my life.

But while we were all enjoying ourselves so much, the lights in the glass balloon above us began to flash up and down, as if a high wind was rushing over them. Then all at once they quivered--winked furiously, as if they were joking with us--and went out, leaving us all in stone darkness.

Then the ladies shrieked faintly, or laughed; some of them jumped up, I among the rest, wondering if the Day of Judgment had come.

Cousin Dempster called out for the waiters to go and see what ailed the gas, and all was rustle and bustle and confusion.

Perhaps I moved from my seat and dropped into some other without knowing it. I can't be certain about that or anything else; but all at once I felt an arm around my waist, and while I was holding my breath, with astonishment, some one kissed me.

I gave a little scream, and pushed away that impudent arm with all my might.

The arm wore a coat-sleeve--I can take my oath to that--and if I was used to such things I should say that there was a beard about the lips that touched my face.

Sisters, it seemed to me for a minute as if Cousin E. E. really had got a roaring lion in her dining-room.

While I sat there breathless and wondering if he would have the impudence to repeat that audacious conduct, a soft hand took hold of mine, and a sweet voice whispered in my ear:

"Forgive me, dearest, I did not mean to be rude."

I did not speak, but his penitence touched me with compassion. Softly I pressed the hand, in token of a relenting heart. How could I be hard on a man who meant no real harm, considering the temptation.

He whispered something more, but I could not hear distinctly; for just then a waiter came in with a candle in his hand. Says he, "The gas works are blown up, and all Murray Hill, and more too, is in total darkness."

Then there was a burst of voices; everybody laughed and everybody had something to say, which no one listened to.

"Bring candles," Cousin Dempster sung out.

"But the candlesticks--we have not got one in the house," says his wife.

Then everybody laughed, and Cousin Dempster laughed loudest of all.

"Find something," says he, "for we must have light."

The waiter, says he, "Yes, sir, we'll do our best," and out he went.

By and by he comes back, and all the rest of the waiters with him. Every one had a stone beer bottle in each hand, from which a tall white candle rose like a steeple to a church. There was not a smile on their faces.

City waiters are never expected to smile, but each man set his two bottles down on the table, and drew back.

Dempster burst out laughing; the rest burst out too; some giggled, some choked, some pealed out the fun that was in them like wedding bells.

Everybody laughed except me and an elegant young gentleman, with blue eyes and a soft beard, that sat next me. He stared in my face, and I would have stared in his, only I couldn't bring myself to look in his eyes.

Oh, sisters, it was dreadful! I had got into that young girl's place and she was in mine, and a teinty bit of court-plaster that I had put on the corner of my mouth, where the skin had been a trifle rubbed, was sticking right on the plumpest part of his under lip.

Oh, sisters! I thought that I should have died with shame.

He looked from me to the young lady, and she looked at him. I looked first at one, then at the other, from under my drooping lashes.

She smiled, she touched her lip with one finger; he touched his, the mite of court-plaster stuck on his finger. Then she began to laugh, and so did he; the chairs shook under them. They made no noise, and the redness of their faces was lost in the shadow cast by the beer-bottles to every one but me.

Cousin Dempster was busy trying to crowd an extra candle into one of the wine-bottles that had just been emptied, while he sat before the chair I ought to have been sitting in.

"We must have a little more elegance at this end of the table," says he.

"Wax candles and champagne bottles for this lady."

He stooped down, expecting me to answer him; when he saw _her_ face all glowing with blushes.

"Ah!" says he, laughing, "we have got a little mixed here, Cousin Frost. It will never answer to come between man and wife in this fashion, especially when they have been only three weeks married. Supposing we change round again?"

I arose--she arose--we exchanged glances, then exchanged seats.

The lights from these beer bottles were numerous, but not brilliant. Under the shadows we concealed the emotions which disturbed us.

He looked funnily penitent, whenever his eyes caught mine, which was often, for somehow I could not keep looking on my plate all the time.

As for that young creature, she seemed to be brimming over with fun.

After a little, I began to feel myself smiling. It really was droll, but not so _very_ unpleasant.

XXII.

NEW YEAR'S DAY.

Dear sisters:--After all, this city of New York is a wonderful institution. Vermont has its specialties, such as maple-sugar, pine shingles, and education; but in such things as style, fashion, and general gentilities, I must say this great Empire City isn't to be sneezed at, even by a Green Mountainer. Of course we are ahead in religion, morality, decorum, and a kind of politics that consolidates all these things into great moral ideas--as rusticoats, greenings and Spitzenbergen apples are ground down into one barrel of such sweet cider as we used to steal through the bunghole with a straw. You will recollect the straws--a Down-east invention, which these degenerated Yorkers have stolen, and are now using unblushingly for mint-juleps, sherry-cobblers, and such awful drinks as New England has put her foot down against with a stamp that makes inebriating individuals shake in their boots. But New York won't put her foot down, and the encroachment upon our patent-right for straws is just winked at.

Dear me, how one thing does lead a person's mind into another! I took up my pen to write about New Year's Day in New York, and here I am, back in that old cider-mill behind our orchard, with heaps of red and yellow apples piled up in the grass, and the old blind horse moving round and round in the mill-ring, dragging along that great wooden wheel, under which we could hear the soft-gushing squelch of the apples, while all the air smelt rich and fruity with them.

Do you remember the luscious juice dropping from the press, and the full barrels lying about, with the sweetness beginning to yeast through the bungholes? Then it was we pounced down upon them with our straws, and it was these straws that brought New Year's Day in New York and the old cider-mill at home into my mind at once. Thus it is, my sisters, with us children of genius; thought is born of thought, feeling springs out of feeling, till creation and re-creation become spontaneosities.

Some people have said of Phœmie Frost that she lacks philosophy and that transcendental essence which becomes the highest female type in New England. If any such caviler should reach our Society, have the moral courage to point out that last paragraph, and see if the wretches have forgotten to blush for themselves.

Christmas Day isn't anything very particular outside of the Episcopal Church, in our parts. Somehow the Pilgrim Fathers took a notion against it when they cut away from the old country, and built square meeting-houses all over New England. But they set up the same thing under a new-fangled name. Thanksgiving was just the same to them, and showed their independence; so they roasted and baked and stewed, and made pumpkin-pies a specialty--because the cavaliers in England couldn't get pumkins to compete with them--and went into their meeting-houses to thank God that they had good crops, instead of going down on their knees--which they didn't, because of standing up to pray--in solemn gratitude that the blessed Lord was born upon earth.

Sisters, as a New England female, it would be against nature to say that the Pilgrim Fathers wasn't right in sinking Christmas in Thanksgiving, and thanking God for full crops, because the corn and potatoes were things they all could understand and accept with universal thankfulness; but about the birth of Christ, and its merciful object, no two sects that I ever heard of could agree, much less the Old Church and the New Covenanters.

There it is again; my pen is getting demoralized. Christmas has come and gone. What more have I got to say about it? Why, just nothing. Wise people accept the past and look forward.

Cousin Dempster insisted upon it, that I should come up and spend New Year's Day with them. Cousin E. E. was going to receive calls, and wanted some distinguished friend to help her entertain.

I went.

Early in the morning the empty carriage came down to my boarding-house, with those two regimental chaps on the out seat.

I was all ready, with my pink silk dress on, and my front hair all in one lovely friz; but I just let the carriage wait that the boarders and people, with their faces against the window opposite, might have a good chance to look at it. Then I walked down the stairs with queenly slowness; the long skirt of my dress came a-rustling after, with a rich sound that must have penetrated to the boarding-house parlor, for the door was just a trifle open as I went by, and three faces, I could swear to, were peeping out as if they had never seen a long-trailed, pink silk dress before. Then I heard a scuttling toward the window, and, while I stood on the upper step, gathering up the back cataract of my dress, those same faces flattened themselves plump against the glass.

Of course I did not hurry myself on that account, but took an observation up and down the street while I tightened the buttons of my glove, though one of the regimental chaps was a-standing there and holding the door wide open.

"Why shouldn't I give the poor things just this one glimpse of the fashionable life to which genius has lifted me," says I to myself.

Influenced by this idea, I paused, perhaps, half a minute, with my foot on the iron step, and asked the regimental chap, with the air of a queen giving directions, if it was very cold? and if Mrs. Dempster was quite well, that morning?

He bowed when he answered both these questions, with the greatest respect; which was satisfactory, as the people on both sides must have seen him do it.

Then I stepped gracefully into the carriage and sat down, buried to my knees in billows of pink silk. Over that I drew the robe of white fur, and waved my hand, as much as to say: I am seated; you can close the door. Which he did.

One thing is curious about the streets of New York on New Year's Day. Not a woman or girl is to be seen on the sidewalks.

The garden of Eden, before Adam went into the spare-rib business, wouldn't have been more completely given up to the desolation of manhood, unrefined by sweet female influence.

But every man that I saw, going up or down, looked bright and smiling, as if he expected to find an Eve of his own before the day was over, and I shouldn't wonder if a good many of them did.

XXIII.

THE NEW YEAR'S RECEPTION.

Cousin E. E. Dempster was all ready, and standing as large as life in one end of her long parlor, when I went in. The first sight of that room made me start back and scream right out. I had left daylight outside, but found night there. The blinds were shut close to every window. Over them fell a snow-storm of white lace, and over that a cataract of silk that seemed to have been dyed in wine, its redness was so rich and wavy.

The two great glass balloons were just running over with brightness that scattered itself everywhere--on the chairs, the cushions, the carpet, and a great round sofa which stood, like a giant cheese, in the middle of the room, all covered with silk, and with a tall flower-pot standing up from the centre, running over with flowers, and vines, and things.

This queer sofa, that seemed to have burst out into blossom for the occasion, was a New Year's present, Cousin E. E. said, and quite a surprise. "Then there is another," says she, a-pointing towards a marble man, dressed in a grape leaf, that seemed to have been firing something at the stone girl, and was watching to see if it had hit. "Of course you have seen the Apollo before?"

I looked at the stone fellow sideways, then dropped my eyes.

"I--I don't know," says I; "maybe I should know him better if he had his clothes on."

"Look again. You must have seen him," says she.

"No," says I, a-turning my head away; "I--I'd rather not till he goes out and fixes himself up a little."

Cousin E. E. laughed till her face was red. While she was tittering like a chirping bird, that little creature Cecilia came tripping into the room, with a blue silk dress, ruffled over with white lace, just reaching to her knees, her yellow hair a-rippling over that, clear down behind, and a wreath of pink roses on her head. She looked at me from top to toe, gave her head a toss, and went up to her mother with the air of an injured princess.

"That old pink silk again! What did you let her wear it for? New Year's Day, too. The idea!"

I heard every word of it, for the stuck-up thing didn't trouble herself to speak low. My face had been hot enough before, but it burned like fire now, and my bosom heaved till it stormed against my dress and almost burst it.

"Hush!" said Cousin E. E., looking scared; "she will hear."

"Well, let her. As if I cared! The idea!"

I stepped forward, with my finger lifted, and my dress sweeping. It must have been an imposing sight, for E. E. raised both hands, imploringly, and says she, "Cecilia, come and see your father's present."

"Oh, isn't it gorgeous?" sang out the child, clasping her hands, and turning her back square on me while she went up to the stone fellow. "Such a splendid mate for Venus!"

"Yes, I should think so," says I sarcastically; "only Miss Venus does seem ashamed of herself; but the fellow is bold as brass."

The girl's lip curled like an opening rose-bud; she gave a nipping laugh, and I just heard "old fogy" break through it so saucily that my blood riled.

"Did you apply that to me?" says I, a-lifting my finger.

"No, no, nothing of the kind," says Cousin E. E., catching her breath. "You quite misunderstand Cecilia. Dear me, that is a carriage; people are beginning to call. Cecilia, my love, do try and make yourself agreeable."

"Just as much as to say that I could be anything else," says the aggravating creature, a-hitching up her shoulders.

Sure enough, some one was coming, and no three canary birds in a cage ever fluttered into their places quicker than we did. Cousin E. E. seated herself in a great cosey chair, all cushions, spread out her dress on the floor, and leaned a little sideways as if she was sitting to Brady for a picture. I gave my pink silk a wide swoop, and let it settle down on the carpet in ridges; then I leaned my elbow on the silk cushions of the great round sofa, and drooped my head a little as if breathing the scent of so many flowers had made me a trifle faint. That child ran to the glass, shook out her lace ruffles, and stepped back again to admire--well, her limbs--just as if she had been a stone girl, and was in love with herself. I swan to man she made me sick and faint, if the flowers didn't.

There was a noise in the hall-way, and I caught a peep at a handsome young fellow prinking himself in the great looking-glass set in the hat-stand. Then he came in, tripping along with his hand held out to Cousin E. E., who went forward with her train following after, took his lilac glove in her hand, smiled up in his face, and said how glad she was to see him.

Before he could answer, that forward child came up and held out _her_ hand. She, too, was delighted; wondered he hadn't been there lately. Indeed, she began to think he was never coming again.

The young fellow did seem to be taken aback a minute, for the forward creature had just cut her mother out; but he soon began to talk and laugh with her as chipper as could be, and only stopped to give me a nip of a bow when Cousin E. E. introduced him.

Well, my opinion is I gave him as good as he sent; but short measure at that; for I just lifted my head as if taking a sniff at the flowers, and that was all. If that young man thought I was brought up in the woods to be scared by owls, he found out his mistake. He was standing with his back towards me when I heard E. E. say, in one of those whispers that cut to the ear keener than a scream:

"It is Miss Phœmie Frost, the celebrated writer."

"What," says he, "Miss Frost, the person on whom the Grand Duke levelled his eye-glass at the opera three times, and who was prevented opening the ball with him by the machinations of the committee?"

"The same," says Cousin E. E.

Before she could put in another word, that young gentleman had wheeled round in his patent leather boots, and was making me a bow that went so near the floor that his lilac gloves fell below his knees. Then he rose slowly, like a jack-knife that opens hard, and stood there a-smiling in my face as if I had just treated him to a quart of maple molasses fresh from the kettle.

"Miss Frost," says he, "I'm happy to make your acquaintance; your writings have been my delight--in fact, a household word in our family--for years."

"Years?" says I.

"That is, ever since you began to honor the world with the emanations of your genius," says he, with an open wave of both hands.

I bowed. I half rose from that round sofa. I knew by the soft, quivering sensation that smiles were creeping to my lips, and giving them a lovely redness.

"Sir," says I, "you are complimentary. I am but a young beginner in the paths of literature--a timid worker in the great harvest field of thought."

He smiled; he moved the billowy folds of my dress with infinite reverence, and seated himself timidly beside me. Then he talked books to me--broken and fragmentary, but exquisite. He could understand why the Grand Duke was so anxious to get back to New York. That poetry of mine must have lifted him right off from his feet. What a lovely talent poetry was!

I sat upright, but looked downward, hiding the pleasure in my eyes by my drooping lashes. Faithful, heart and soul, to one noble being, I refused to look into the admiring eyes of another. His insidious praises of my genius made no impression. The image of a man six feet two, with a sky-blue scarf across his princely bosom, stood at the portal of my heart, and the young gentleman with curled hair and that light-colored mustache sighed, and sighed in vain.

That forward little creature, Cecilia, saved me from temptation. Up she came, with her frock and her hair all in a flutter.

"You haven't seen our new statue," says she, a-pulling at his hand.

The young gentleman arose from my side with a look that went to my heart. As he stood before that pre-Adamite stone man, I got one good, long look at his face. As true as I live, he had found out some of Cousin E. E.'s ways of making herself beautiful! for his eyes had shadows under them, and his cheeks were like roses. Now, sisters, did you ever? Only think of a Green Mountain fellow doing that!

But now another lot of men came in, dressed up to kill. Some had yellow kid gloves on, some lilac, and some gray. Their patent-leather boots shone like looking-glasses, and some of 'em tipped along as if they were treading over eggs and didn't mean to break 'em. Cousin E. E. introduced them all, and I had to rise, and bow, and make long, sweeping curtsies till my back ached, and my poor mouth felt dry with trying to look unconscious when so many of 'em told me I was a household word in their families.

When the first lot of 'em were going out, Cousin E. E. just put back the red curtains at one end of the room, and behind 'em was a table all set off with silver, and glass, and flowers, and great, tall dishes crowded full of fruit and mottoes, all standing under the hot sunshine of one of those glass balloons, a-glittering and a-flashing like a house afire.

I couldn't help giving a little scream, it was all so rich and beautiful--with two colored waiters in white gloves, ready to help everybody.

Cousin E. E. stood at one end of the table--for it was a stand-up meal--and asked her visitors to take birds, and oysters, and terrapin. What the dickens is terrapin? Have you any idea, sisters? I ate some, and it had a stewy sort of taste, as if it had been kind of burnt in cooking.

Well, one took one thing, and one another. Then each fellow wiped his mustaches, and the waiters came round with cider bottles, loaded over and chained up with silver, and the cider hissed and bubbled and sparkled as they poured it out into the glasses, that started narrow at the bottom, but spread out into dishes at the top, giving a chance for little whirlpools to the cider--which _was_ cider, I can tell you; it had vim enough in it to make your eyes snap.

When the glasses were full we all took them up. The gentlemen muttered "Compliments of the season," and we answered "Compliments of the season" Cecilia and all--who just had the impudence to stand on tip-toe, and knock her glass against that of the fellow with lilac gloves and curly hair. Then we all drank and sipped, and, as that party went off, another came in--stream after stream--till night. It was the same thing over and over again, till ten o'clock at night, when Mr. Dempster came home, looking awfully tired out; then we just gave up. Sisters, this has been the hardest and most confusing day that I have known in New York. It seems as if my joints never would get limber again. But then I had a real good time, though the cider did begin to get into my head towards night. It couldn't have been made out of Vermont apples, I feel certain--they haven't got so much dizziness in 'em.

XXIV.

MIGNON: A NIGHT AT THE GRAND OPERA.

Sisters, we went to the opera--that is, dear sisters in the cause, the Grand Duke and I were there; both of us seated on red cushions, and so near that we could exchange glances through our eye-glasses, which draw a beloved object close to you. They are a great invention which has not yet reached that portion of the country where prayer-meetings take the place of operas.

I felt in my bones that he would meet me there; and when Cousin Emily Elizabeth sent me word that she had got a loge--which means a little square pen in the gallery, cushioned off like a first-class pew--and wanted me to go with her to hear the great primer-donner, I just got that dress out again, and set the frizzing-pins to work, and did myself up so scrumptiously that I don't believe that a creature on Sprucehill would have known me. Don't say this is extravagant, and flying in the face of Providence. If He don't want silk dresses worn by the elect, what on earth does He make silk-worms and mulberry-leaves for? That is a question that we'll have debated over in the Society some day. Until then, oblige me by not saying, openly, that I'm a free-thinker, because I'm nothing of the sort. Not that my taste, since coming to the opera, has not got a notch above Greenbank or Old Hundred, in the way of music; I am free to own that it has.

Well, Cousin Emily Elizabeth had sent word that I mustn't wear a bonnet, or think of such a thing; and she sent me down a fur mantle, made of white kitten-skins, I reckon, with little black tails dropping all over it--just the tips, which needn't have hurt the black kittens much, if it _was_ all day to the white ones. So, when I come down, holding up my long skirts with one hand, and folding this fur across my innocent bosom, she just screamed out from the carriage that I looked gorgeous enough to turn the great Grand Duke's head, which I felt to be true--for women are not given to praising each other for nothing, anyhow.

The opera-house in New York would take in our biggest meeting-house, and leave room for a wide strip of carpeting all round it. It has got three galleries, and ever so many places, that look like pulpits and deacon's seats, all cushioned and curtained off beautifully.

We went up to the first gallery, and got into Cousin Dempster's loge-pew, which was just big enough for four people. This was fortunate, for our skirts and fur mantles took up every mite of room that Cousin D. did not want; but he put up with it beautifully, and just scrouched down behind us, with his head rising above our shoulders, which would have been rather uncovered if it had not been for the fur, which tickled mine a little; but I bore it with fortitude. You who know me will understand that.

The opera-house was crowded full; every pew was crammed, and the benches down below couldn't be seen, the people were so thick. The pew loges were running over with handsome girls, and old ladies that tried their best to look like girls, and couldn't, not having the country freshness that some people bring with them from the mountains.

But the three pulpits on the second gallery were empty yet--all empty, and gorgeously red, waiting for _him_.

At last, a great green curtain that hung just beyond this sacred place rolled up. The lights in a great glittering balloon, all hung with ropes of shiny glass beads which fell down from the centre of the roof, blazed up, and when I dropped my head from looking at it, all the other end of the room was crowded with a gang of the queerest-looking people--men, women, children, and dogs--that ever you did see. That was the opera, Cousin E. E. said; though how an opera could have a house and a cart in it, beat me.

Well, sisters, I give up. Roll every singing-school in Vermont into one crowd, and they couldn't begin to burst out like that; men, women, and girls, just went in for a splendid time, and they had it. First, a pew full of fiddlers, drummers, tromboners, and bas-violers, let themselves out in a storm of music that made the ten millions of beads on the glass balloons tremble like hailstones. Then the whole gang lifted up their voices, and the music rolled out just as I reckon the water does at Niagara Falls. Such a general training of music was enough to wake the dead out of a New England grave, where they sleep sound, I guess, if they do anywhere.

By and by they rose up, and began to wander about, making their funny little white dogs play, and some of the girls began to dance about. It was a travelling-show, you see, and some of the upper-crust people came out of the house I spoke of, and listened. One was a lady, dressed out to kill in a striped skirt, black velvet, and yellow silk; another yellow skirt bunched over that, and then a blue dress puffed above both, and her hair just splendid. I tell you she was a dasher!

But the people were all busy unloading the cart; they took out bundles and baskets and things. Finally a girl, that had been lying asleep on the load, jumped down, with her shoulders hitched up, and looking cross as fire at everybody that came near her. She was barefooted and bareheaded, and had nothing but an under night-gown and petticoat on, which seemed to aggravate her, for she looked scowling enough at the handsome young lady, and would not double-shuffle worth a cent, though all the men and women were trying to make her.

The moment she jumped off from the cart, the folks in the seats just ran crazy, and began clapping their hands and stamping their feet like a house afire; I never saw people act so in my life. It was enough to frighten the poor thing half to death. Instead of that, it seemed to tickle her mightily, for she came forward, with her bare feet, and made a little mincing bow, and almost laughed.

Then the strangest thing happened. First one, and then another, of the show-people, instead of reasoning with the wilful creature, just went to waving their arms and singing at her. I declare it was enough to have made a minister laugh when she turned, and began to sing back at them, sometimes spiteful, and then, again, with tears melting through her voice. An old man in gray clothes, that looked crazy as a coot, sung at her, sort of hoarse, and mournfully. Then a young fellow, in a green coat and high boots, dropped into the affair, and he sung at her. Then the handsome lady in blue and yellow burst out and sang at her too, filling the whole opera-house with music. By watching and listening, I found out this much. This girl was an orphan, picked up by the band of players, that made her dance and sing for her keeping. The fellow with the green coat and boots felt sorry for her, and bought her up, short gown and all, from the tribe of players. Then she put on the dress of a pretty boy, and waited on the handsome woman in yellow, who was one of them actress-women, and dead in love with the young fellow in boots. He was awfully in love with the actress woman too, which just aggravated that girl-boy out of her seven senses, poor thing! When she happened to watch them together, you should have seen her fling down her cap, and kick it about. There was some human nature in that, but singing love out before folks beats me. I couldn't bring myself to anything of the kind--not if the Grand Duke were standing before me with his arms out, shouting Old Hundred.

Goodness gracious! that girl-boy had taken up my thoughts, so that I didn't know when the Grand Duke came into his pulpit loge. But there he was, standing up, and looking right toward me, so pleasant.

I threw back my fur mantle a trifle, and taking Cousin E. E.'s fan, waved it gracefully, hoping thus to cool off the blushes that bathed my cheeks with a rosiness that I feared might not harmonize with the tints already there.

Still he looked my way earnestly, and with the fire of admiration in his blue eyes. A young thing sitting in the loge-pew behind me began to turn away her head and hide behind her fan, as if she had anything to do with it. The conceit of some people is astonishing!

Cousin E. E.'s little spy-glass lay in her lap. I took it up; I held it to my eyes, and devoured him with one burning glance. His heart seemed leaping to mine through the glass. I knew it. I felt it. Indeed he won't be the first of his noble race that has lost heart and soul to a country girl.

The Prince sat down, and when there was a lull in the music, clapped his hands with joy. Oh, my sisters! it is something to have given such supreme pleasure to the Grand Ducal soul.

He looked at the play; I looked too. Souls in sympathy have but one thought. I pitied that poor girl-boy with all my heart--my own happiness made me compassionate. How she suffered when that woman with the yellow skirts and the young fellow in boots were singing love to each other! Once she got wild, and dressed herself in a pink silk, and--well, she made one of those toilets that Cousin E. E. understands so well. I was sorry to see her exposing one or two little things that should be a secret with the sex. But she did, and the yellow lady caught her at it, and sung awfully provoking things at her.

Well, she just tore off the dress, scattered the lace trimmings about, put on her old duds, and ran away.

Then the house got on fire: the whole swarm of people come out helter-skelter, singing to the flames that didn't mind the music more than if it had been buckets full of water. Firemen came running with ladders that nobody climbed, and pails of water, that the firemen carried round and round, in and out, like crazy creatures. I am sure I saw one fellow, with a white pail, pitch through the same window into the red-hot flames fifty times. The poor girl-boy, being desperate, just pitched in, determined to burn herself, while the woman in yellow and the man in boots looked on.

This went right to the cruel man's heart; he jumped in after her, carried her away from the devouring flames, and fell in love with her like a man. Of course, being a decent kind of a fellow, he couldn't keep on singing out his love to both girls at once with enthusiasm, and began to neglect the yellow girl in a way that brought tears into her voice whenever she came pleading to him under the window--which she did, not having the pride of all the Frost family in her veins.

Of course this did no good; men never come back to women that whine. The girl--for she had given up boys' clothes--had got him safe; he didn't care a chestnut-burr for all the other's singing, but took to the little vagabondess with all his heart and soul.

Now something else happened. The old man in gray got his mind again and turned out to be Mignon's father (have I told you that was her name?). He was a rich old fellow, with a house furnished with gilt chairs, and everything sumptuous--so, of course, the fellow in boots stuck to her more than ever.

I don't know what became of the woman in yellow, but as for this other girl, she came out first best in every respect; especially at the end, when ever so many flowers and baskets and things were just poured down upon her. For my part, I thought the yellow girl ought to have had full half of these things, for I liked her quite as well, if not better than the vagabondess.

Well, the green curtain went down for good, and the whole congregation got up to go out.

"How do you like Nilsson?" says Cousin E. E., as she was fastening her fur mantle.

"Nilsson!" says I, "I haven't seen her yet."

"Why, yes you have--she just came out."

"What!--that girl-boy?"

"Yes, Mignon."

"You don't say so," says I. "Who then was the girl in yellow?"

"Oh! she is Duval."

"Well, I like her at any rate, poor thing; it was a shame to treat her so."

That moment I felt that the great Grand Duke was gone. Not one more glance. It was hard!

XXV.

THE BLACK CROOK.

Sisters:--Since my intimacy with Imperial Royalty, Cousin Emily Elizabeth Dempster has been as proud as a peacock of our relationship, and speaks about the Court of all the Russias as if she expected to have an ice-palace built on the Neva for her, every winter, for the rest of her life. This may be natural--I dare say it is; but I'm afraid that Russia--being an awful despotism--wouldn't stand too many of one's relations crowding into the Imperial corn-crib, that being a free-born institution peculiar to high moral ideas which my great Grand Duke did not stay in Boston long enough to imbibe.

Still, being a relation and born under the star-spangled banner, why shouldn't she have her own little hopes? I ask myself this and resolve to do my best for her. Being a first cousin she has her rights.

This morning E. E. sent down a little straw-colored letter with a picture on the envelop just where it seals, and asked me to go with her and Dempster to see "The Black Crook," which she wrote was a spectacle worth looking at. They had got seats at Niblo's to see it after ever so much trouble, and were sure that I would be delighted.

Delighted! What about! I never hankered much for eye-glass or spectacles. I wish cousin E. E. would be a little more particular about her spelling--that sometimes makes goose-pimples creep all over me--but a spectacle, singular, spelt with an "a," gives one just a tantalizing sense of growing old, more provoking than saying the thing right out. I can't see any more sense in one spectacle than in half a pair of scissors, but maybe she can. At any rate I don't mean to go gadding down to Mr. Niblo's theatre just to see that.