Chapter VI

Visitors--Our Neighbors--The Chappaqua Croquet Club--Gabrielle's Letter--A Hiding Party--Summer Heat--The Music-room--Friends from the City.

_June 18_.

While out on the croquet ground this afternoon, a lady and gentleman alighted from a carriage, and walked up to join us. They proved to be our friends, Mr. and Mrs. Charles E. Wilbour, of New York, who had driven over from White Plains to make us an afternoon call. Mrs. Wilbour is a charming, intellectual woman, the president of Sorosis, and a friend of many years of both mamma and Aunt Mary. In appearance she is tall, handsome, and queenly, dressing in perfect taste, and a graceful hostess. Her pretty daughter Linny is a school friend of Gabrielle's at St. Mary's.

Mr. and Mrs. Wilbour spend much time during the summer, driving about from one town to another; certainly the most comfortable and agreeable mode of travelling that one could adopt.

We have some agreeable neighbors here, who contribute somewhat to the general entertainment. The aristocracy of Chappaqua are chiefly Quaker families who have lived here since the days of the Indians, and who look down quite doubtfully upon the New York families who come out here for the summer only, and of whose ancestry they know nothing. The fathers and mothers wear the Quaker dress, and use the "Friends" phraseology, which I think very pretty and caressing, but the young people depart somewhat from the way of grace, in speech, costume, and habits. The young girls wear whatever color of the rainbow best suits their fresh complexions, are skilled in flirting, and with the assistance of the young gentlemen, have organized a club for weekly croquet parties and private theatricals at the residences of the different members, whilst picnics and riding-parties to Croton and Rye Lakes, and other pretty points of interest, are of frequent occurrence. But of the riding-parties Gabrielle has just written a sprightly description to a school friend, and before the letter goes to the post, I will transcribe it.

CHAPPAQUA, _June 18_.

"DEAR MOLLIE: I received your charming letter and photograph last week. Many thanks for both. You ask me how do I pass my time, and what is the latest excitement?

"Well, to begin with, you must know that we have just started a club in Chappaqua for mutual amusement, but as I have been indisposed for some time, I certainly have not yet derived much benefit from it, but spend most of my time reading.

"Last Saturday I was just longing for something to happen, and apostrophizing the world as a hollow sham, when Minna came up to say that we had all been invited to an equestrian party, to start after tea. You would have imagined I had been offered several kingdoms by my delight. I gave two or three screams of condensed joy, while dancing wildly around the room, much to Aunt Esther's surprise.

"But on second thoughts, what _was_ I to do for a horse? My ponies had never been broken to the saddle, but having made up my mind to go, go I would, if I had to ride a wild buffalo; so I ordered Lady Alice around an hour before the time to start. When she arrived, the balcony was filled with a large and anxious audience, and rather than fail before so many, I was determined that either I should break the horse in, or she should break me. I sprang into the saddle, but before I could seat myself or put my foot in the stirrup, she jerked her head away from Bernard, and commenced a series of exciting manoeuvres, rearing, plunging, and kicking. For about five minutes I defied all the laws of gravitation. But when the coachman tried to seize her bridle, she shied so suddenly that I was surprised to find myself on terra firma. I jumped up directly and assured every one that I had not hurt myself in the least, in fact had never felt better; but between you and me, I felt very like the dog that was tossed by the cow with the crumpled horn. I am afraid that by this time I had let my little angry passions rise--in other words, I was decidedly angry.

"I got on splendidly this time, and was quite ready to start with my cousins when the time came, although my Lady Alice evinced serious objections to the gate, and preferred ambling gently along sideways up the hill. After a while I intimated kindly with my whip a desire to gallop. I fear that, like some of our friends, she is hard to take a hint, for she progressed by the most wonderful plunges, garnished with little kicks; but I kept her head well up, and clawed out several handfuls of her mane. When we came to the rendezvous, my cavalier proposed running her for two or three miles to take down her spirits a little, after which she went beautifully, and I never enjoyed a ride so much before.

"We rode to Lake Wampus, and everything looked so lovely, for the full moon lighted it up like a mirror, and we had singing and thrilling ghost stories.

"Dear me, how awfully long this letter is! Be sure you answer it soon.

"Yours lovingly,

"GABRIELLE."

_June 19_.

The heat and dust are becoming insufferable, for we have had no rain, save in very homoeopathic doses, during the three weeks that we have been here. The shrubs and bushes by the roadside look so piteous under their weight of dust, that I feel half inclined to try the effect of a feather brush upon their drooping leaves; and Bernard, who is never prone to take cheerful views of anything, grows daily more gloomy when we inquire after the progress of the kitchen-garden. But, although we are sighing under the heat, it is nothing, we are told, to what the New Yorkers are now enduring, and our friends, Mrs. Acheson and Dr. Taylor, who came out yesterday from the city to spend the day with us, congratulated us upon the coolness of the temperature at Chappaqua.

The morning was passed out of doors playing croquet and walking

"Sotto i pini del boschetto,"

to use the words of the coquettish Countess and her arch waiting-maid in the "Marriage of Figaro" (that Letter Duo contains, I think, some of the most delicious music that the joyous Mozart ever wrote).

The sun was too hot after our early dinner, for us to find much pleasure in croquet; so we sat in the music-room, and upon the piazza, and listened to a few songs from Marguerite, and watched the skill of papa and the handsome blond doctor in the "Magic Rings,"--a very easy game, to all appearance, but one which really requires much dexterity of hand.

The music-room is, I think, the coolest and pleasantest room in the house. It is one of the additions built by uncle after he had purchased this house--a large, square room on the ground floor, with curtained windows opening upon the balcony, and upon the old apple-tree. It is singularly favorable for music, for it contains no heavy furniture, and the floor is uncarpeted. We had intended to remove all the pictures from the walls, that they might not deaden the sound of the music, but we could not resist an exquisite "Mary in the Desert," purchased by uncle in Florence, in 1851; so this painting is now hung over the piano.

Our sprightly brunette friend with the merry black eyes, Mrs. Acheson, looked unusually pretty and charming yesterday. I love to describe stylish toilettes as well as any fashion-writer; so here is hers in all its details: steel-colored silk trimmed with turquoise blue, demi-traine, her hair beautifully dressed (or _coiffured_, to use the fashionable newspaper word) in puffs and rolls, and finished with a little blue feather; while an elegant fan attached to half a yard of gold chain depended from her belt.

When the 4.45 train was at hand, Ida and I walked down to the station with our friends. Quite luckily there was a drawing-room car attached to the train, although such luxury is generally confined to the express, which does not stop here. I learnt, however, from the station-master, that this car had borne some happy pair as far as Albany the day before, had stayed there over-night for repairs, and was now returning in a leisurely manner to New York.