Chapter II: Preface (2)

I took my satchel from a table all framed in gold, and checkered with precious stones, where I had laid it down. Then, bowing my head and lifting my forefinger, told that servile creature to proceed, with an air of command that quenched his saucy smile in no time.

Up the stairs he went, and I followed after; treading a carpet that gave to the feet like a meadow in its first spring grass. Through an open door I saw my cousin lifting herself up from a sofa, covered with blue silk and open-worked lace. Then she dawdled towards me with one hand out, and the laziest smile you ever saw about her mouth.

"Cousin Emily," says I, "how do you do?"

"My dear Miss Frost," says she, "I'm happy to make your acquaintance."

Happy to make my acquaintance, and I her first cousin. Did you ever?

At first I _was_ taken aback, and felt as if I should choke. Hadn't I learned that great white creature her letters? Hadn't I spent dollars on her for slates and pencils, besides taking her to the maple camps when she was a little girl, and giving her no end of sweet sap to drink. Who was it but me that turned down her first over-and-over seam, and gave her a tentie-tointy silver thimble to take the stitches with. I wonder what she did with it? Now she was happy to make my acquaintance, and dragged a double winrow of worked flounces, topped off with a muslin skirt and scarlet training jacket, across the room to tell me so. Our mothers were sisters; pray remember that!

"Take that seat," says she, a-dropping down to the sofa as a great white hen turkey settles onto its nest. "How long have you been in the city? Do you make anything of a visit? So thoughtful and kind of you to give me an early call."

There I sat, straight as a sign-post, with my satchel in my lap, and both hands on that, riling up like an Irish girl's coffee, and feeling the wrath within me grow stronger and stronger while she settled back and half-shut her eyes, and seemed to be quite satisfied that she had done her best. I could see that her half-shut eyes were turned on my alpaca dress, which was a trifle dusty, and on my cotton gloves, that were clean and whole, at any rate. While she examined them, I took an observation of her. Mercy, how she has changed! Five times the hair she ever had before hung in great, heavy braided loops down her back. There must be some way of making the hair grow, 'specially here in York, that we never heard of. And her figure, which was slim and graceful as the droop of a willow when she married, has swelled out fearfully behind, which makes her seem to stoop, and gives one the most humpy idea of a camel in motion of anything I know, which, being Scriptural, is, I dare say, the only religious idea she has kept firm to.

"You called the other day," says she. "I was so sorry not to have seen you; but I was dressing to go out. Still, you saw my little girl?"

"Yes," says I, "I saw your little girl; and, to tell you the honest truth, that is what brings me here now. I haven't had a minute's rest since I was here. Why, Cousin Emily, I expected to see a child. Instead of that--"

She roused up at this, opened her eyes wide, and interrupted me.

"Instead of that," says she, turning a great gold bracelet on her arm, and smiling as if what she was saying swelled her out with pride--"instead of that, you found a finished young lady. No wonder you were surprised."

"A finished young lady!" says I, riling into strength. "That is what no child ever can be; and let me tell you, the attempt to force one into such an unnatural creature is abominable. You can polish every bit of the modesty and innocence of childhood out of a little girl; but all that you can get for it is affectation and self-sufficient impertinence, becoming neither to the child nor the woman. Why, cousin, the little creature I saw in your parlor--sent there, as she said, to _entertain a gentleman_--was just an absurdity to him, and to me something dreadful. I asked myself what a child like that would become at forty years of age. Why, cousin, when she is at her meridian she will feel herself at least a hundred and fifty. You have cut off all the bloom and richness of a young life; you have made a dainty little monster of her--swept away all companionship with children, and made it presumption and impertinence when she attempts to force herself among her elders. I could not be so cruel to a dog as you have been to that child."

Cousin Emily woke up now with a vengeance. Her sleepy eyes flashed lightning. "Cruel!" says she. "I cruel to my only daughter? Why, there is not a child in America who has had such care--such abundant chances for improvement. She has been to the most expensive schools."

"Exactly," says I.

"She has had masters at home--music, dancing, the languages--"

"Exactly," says I.

"Things that I never thought of learning she has mastered."

"Just so," says I.

"She had a French nurse before she could speak. No expense has been spared by her father. I never had such chances; and we are determined to give her a splendid education. In fact, she might come out this season, so far as that is concerned; but I have resolved to be rigid--not a day before she is seventeen. Then her education will be complete."

"Her education complete at seventeen! Why, Cousin Emily, a woman's education is _never_ complete. At the best schools we get but a dreamy sort of idea of the things we must bring all the faculties of a well-regulated mind to understand in after years. A well-educated woman is one who studies and learns something every day of her life--who thinks about what she sees, and acts upon what she knows."

Cousin Emily lifted up both hands, all covered with shining rings, as if to choke me off. I stopped. Far be it from Phœmie Frost to force the opinions of our Society upon unwilling ears; but I lifted my forefinger in solemn admonishment, and says I:

"Oh, Cousin Emily, Cousin Emily, has it got so that you hold up both hands against common-sense!"

"Not against common-sense," says she, "but against your uncommonly long sentences. Why, Miss Frost, it is like our old-fashioned country preaching."

"Which has died out of your heart, I dare say. Oh, Emily, Emily, what would your sainted mother, my aunt, say?"

This brought the misguided woman to her tears. She sat up on that lace-silk sofa, straight and listening, as I have seen her many a time on the a b c bench at school, when her little feet couldn't touch the floor.

"Cousin Phœmie," says she, "I am trying to do what is right."

"I hope so," says I, with tears of thankfulness in my eyes, for the "Cousin Phœmie" went straight to my heart. "But my mind isn't quite equal to more of this conversation this morning. The next time I come this way we shall both be more like our natural selves."

With that I tightened my cotton gloves, took up my satchel, and left that house, feeling that I had paved the way to a good work hereafter.

V.

POOR CHILDREN.

Are there no genuine children among the poor of New York?

Beloved sisters, your question wrings the heart in my bosom. I asked it of myself this very morning, and resolved to investigate.

I hadn't found a child that could be called a child outside a perambulator, which means a little carriage pushed by an Irish girl, with a cap on, along the avenues. So I took my mission down among the tenement-houses. There I found young ones on the sidewalks, the doorsteps, and in the gutters, thick as grasshoppers in a dry pasture lot, all hard at work, trying to play. But the play seemed more like fighting than fun. Two girls stopped me on the sidewalk, swinging the dirty end of a rope, while another tried to jump it, but only tripped up, and went at it again. Shaking her loose hair, and--yes, I say it with tears in my eyes--swearing at the other two.

I laid my hand on her head, and gently expostulated. She was a little mite of a girl, with a sharp, knowing face. The first word she spoke made my nerves creep. Why, that little thing had the wickedness of an old sinner on her baby mouth, and couldn't speak it out plain yet.

Oh! my dear sister, and you, my friend, in the great course of infinite progress and general perfection, had you been with me, almost broken-hearted among that rabble of children, who will never, never know what childhood is, the last pound of butter and dozen of eggs in our village would be freely given to support my mission here. Barefooted, bareheaded, barelegged, and, it seemed to be, bare of soul, these little wretches swarmed around me when I kindly asked the baby girls not to swear, all making faces at me. The boys, that sat with their feet in the gutters, flung away the oyster-shells and lobster claws they had just raked from an ash-barrel, and began to hoot at me. One little wretch--forgive me for calling names--not more than five years old, had a cigar in his mouth half as long as his own arm. When I stooped down to take it from him, he gave a great puff right into my eyes, and scampered off, with his dirty fingers twirling about his face like the handle of a coffee-mill.

As a New England woman, whose duty, I take it, is to set everybody right, I wasn't to be put down by a boy like that, but caught him by the collar of his jacket, snatched the cigar from his lips, and flung it into the gutter, where it sizzled itself out. Then I lifted my forefinger as I do in Sunday-class, and began to admonish him. But instead of listening, he got the skirt of my alpaca dress between his teeth and ground a great hole in it, swearing like a trooper betweenwhiles.

Oh, sister! that was a trying season! In less than three minutes the sidewalk was swarming with dirty-faced children. I might as well have been in a wasps' nest. The spiteful imps buzzed around me so--little girls, with lank hair falling over their eyes; lazy boys, swaggering like drunken men, and swearing like troopers; and a woman--the boy who smoked called her mother--who stood on a doorstep, with a hand on each hip, scolding like fury. I kept my finger up. They would not hear a word I said, but I felt it my duty to do that much, when a very gentlemanly man in blue regimentals touched my arm, and observed in the kindest way that things were getting so mixed and unpleasant perhaps I would permit him to escort me round the corner. You know, sister, I always had a power in the lift of my finger. It was wonderfully manifest just as this gentleman crossed the street, and must have astonished him, for the children hushed up at once, and huddled back to the doorstep like a flock of lambs, which was an evidence of moral suasion I take pride in reporting to the Society.

VI.

HE HAS COME.

Sisters:--As a representative of your august body, I ought now to have been in an atmosphere of royalty--Imperial royalty, which counts at A No. 1, as kings are put down. The young potentate of all the Russias, with all his ships and things, ought to have been on hand a week ago; but he still lingers on the "rolling sea and briny deep," a prey, it is dreadfully to be feared, to sea-sickness--which, they tell me, is heart-rending--and storms which are liable to aggravate the sea-sickness.

I sympathize with that young man in all the depths of my feminine nature--which are getting bottomless from the great need of compassion which human life exhibits to the thinking mind. He ought to have been here when our enthusiasm was at its hottest point. Then he would have had the stormiest sort of a welcome. The soldiers were ready to file out any minute; the mouths of ever so many cannon were burning to let off fire; all the ships would have burst into a storm of flags at the first gun. People couldn't but just keep from shouting every time they met each other. But the young man didn't come. He hasn't come yet, and all the enthusiasm is burning down to cinders and ashes. When he does come, I'm afraid it'll be like putting a mess of apples into an oven after the pan of baked pork and beans has been drawn out--half roasted, and hard at the core when you cut 'em.

This is a great country, my friends--in fact, very extensive--but you can't wake it up to an earthquake of enthusiasm about the same person more than once. That prince had better have struck when the iron was red-hot. He didn't, and so I can't tell you anything about him, except that he isn't more at sea than the rest of us. When he does come, depend upon it, there will be an uprising among the females of this great city; and foremost of her sex will be your representative, faithful to her trust, and ready, with a modest helping hand, to lead this young person into the paths of propriety.

He has come at last, but the bitter-sweet of hope and fear has been given us as daily food for two weeks past, and the wormwood of ceaseless apprehension took the place of the yellow berries, and nightshade darkness settled down upon us. Lovely young girls cried over their ball-dresses of illusion, and wondered if _their_ hopes would thin off into the same slimpsy nothingness. Middle-aged ladies, whose hair needs no powder, and whose teeth never ache, began to falter in the dancing steps practised in the private recesses of their own palatial homes, and wondered if their joints were to be twisted and racked into new-born graces, only to settle down into rusty stiffness again without having fascinated the Russian soul out of that princely bosom.

Of course it is right and proper that an opportunity to study the antiquities of a nation should be offered to every potentate and prince that honors our Republican shores by setting his high-born foot upon them, and it is highly proper that first-class specimens should be in readiness the moment he enters a ball-room. That is what people tell me has always been the custom at balls given to princes, and it isn't likely that new rules are to be laid down for the benefit of a lot of girls, anyhow. Governors and mayors are not often so young as they have been. As a general thing, their wives are not troubled with an epidemic of youth and beauty. It is an awful omission in the laws, but these dignified chaps can't get up young and dashing wives for the occasion, when a great high potentate from over seas shines down upon us in the dancing way. I haven't a doubt they would like to sacrifice themselves and astonish the world by so doing, but common people would be apt to call it bigamy. So they have to do the very best they can with such wives as they have got, and furbish them up with diamonds, laces, flounces, and a dancing-master, till they answer to begin with.

I don't mean to be hard or sarcastical on this subject, but in these times, when it is so easy for a man to put away his wife, couldn't this official potentate get a temporary divorce just for the occasion, especially if the kingly visitor happens to be young and very fond of dancing. It would give us young girls a chance.

Don't think that I am putting on airs, or that I don't feel reverential when age is mentioned, but Emperors' sons don't come to our free land of liberty every day, and girls are so plenty that old folks ought to stand back. Far be it from Phœmie Frost, on her own humble merits, to build upon opening that ball with the Imperial Duke of all the Russias; but a Society like ours has its social, moral, and scientific claims. As for literature, since my reports have been honored by publication, I must maintain the dignity of the position. If dignity and age is to lead in this grand ceremonial, I have kept school, and--well, yes--no, one could say that I--in fact, as to years, am I not competent to open the ball with any prince that can come across the ocean, be he boy or patriarch? There, that sentence is off my mind, and I can go on without a hitch of the pen.

In other respects I have been silently but surely preparing myself. The Society has been liberal, and most of my savings were in the bank, rolling up interest beautifully, when I came from my childhood's home. Then there was a handsome profit on the donation of eggs and butter and maple-sugar which came in the freight train before I started. I attended to the sale myself at the market, and had nothing to do with that Mr. Middleman people talk so awfully about as a cheat and a general grabber. Well, I dickered the things off at a good price, as I was a-saying, and have got the money safe in my bosom--a hiding-place sacred to myself alone.

Thus lifted above all mercenary anxieties, I gave my attention entirely to the self-improvement necessary to my appearance before his highness as a representative character on whom the eyes of all Sprucehill were fixed. I would say the world--only for the modest consciousness that comes over me when I think of myself as a genius.

VII.

THE FRENCH DRESS-MAKER.

Alpaca does make a first-class dress for our social gatherings and literary circles in Sprucehill, and when puffed out behind, and trimmed promiscuously with flutings, it sometimes has a sumptuous appearance elsewhere; but for a ball, in which one aims to dance with a great grand Archduke of all the Russias--excuse me for saying it, but alpaca is not quite the thing. Doubtful of my own imperfect judgment, I asked a fashionable dress-maker in the Third Avenue, who had "Madame" spelt with an E on her tin sign at the door, and she said: "It wasn't the thing for a lady entirely, by no manner of means," and her tongue had a rich roll to it, which satisfied me that Ireland had sympathized with France in her troubles, to the extent of getting the language a little mixed.

"No," says she, a leaning both elbows on her counter, and a looking at me from head to foot. "Madame should have a _robe de_ silk, very complete, with flowers in her hair entirely, and an overskirt to the fore, garnitured with Limerick point."

"An overskirt before," says I, lifting both hands, satchel and all. "Why, every skirt that I've seen in the street, or anywhere else, was puckered and bunched up behind," says I. "Excuse me, but I really couldn't think of wearing 'em in any other way."

The French dress-maker--I know she was French by the letter E after Madam, and because the sign said she was from Paris. Well, she colored up, and looked every which way at first, but then she gave a skimping laugh, and said that I didn't understand French. I--I didn't understand French! I who had studied "French without a Master" as a speciality, with the most intelligent member of our circle, and conversed in the language as directed by that excellent book so fluently that the pronunciation sounded almost like English nipped off a little! This was too much.

The clear grit, which lies at the bottom of every New England woman's heart, riled up in mine when that cherished accomplishment was cast into disrepute.

"Madame," says I, putting a keen emphasis on that E, "I came here to inquire about the most fashionable way of making a dress, not to give or take a lesson in the languages. Permit me to say I never could submit to wear an overskirt in the way you speak of--wrong side before--why, it would look dreadfully."

"But Madame does not understand; I speak English so much in this country that my own language gets knocked into smithereens. I beg pardon--into confusion. Madame must be very perfect herself to detect it."

I felt a smile creeping over my lips. Really, sisters, I had been too hard on the poor woman. It was not her fault if my ear was so very correct that nothing but the purest accent could satisfy me. She saw this look dawning upon my face, and I knew that she felt relieved by the way her elbows settled down on the counter again.

"If madame will take a chair--that is, repose herself. Madame--"

"Excuse me," says I, benignly, for I didn't want to hurt her feelings again. "_Mademoiselle_, if you please."

"Pardon me," says she, humbly.

"Just so," says I, benignly. "Now supposing we go on about this ball-dress. How much silk will it take?"

The woman sat and thought to herself ever so long. Then she counted her fingers over once or twice. Then she said she didn't exactly know how much, which is the way with dress-makers all over the world, I do believe.

"But one won't buy a dress without knowing how much to ask for," says I. "Say twelve yards now?"

The woman lifted herself right off from the counter, and sat staring at me.

"Twelve!" says she, "eighteen at the least."

I felt as if some one had struck me. Eighteen yards for a dress, and gored all to pieces at that!

"Some of your dress-makers in Broadway would want more than that!" says she, "and send for more and more after that."

I made no answer, but took up my satchel and walked straight out of the door.

Eighteen yards of silk for a dress! The thought of it kept me awake all night.

The next morning I went right up to the palatial residence of my cousin, Emily Elizabeth Dempster, feeling that she would expect me to enter on that subject about bringing up children, which was my duty; but I was so down in the mouth about that dress, that everything like a moral idea had just swamped itself in those eighteen yards of silk; and instead of giving advice, I went into that house to beg for it, feeling all the time as if somebody had dumped me down from a mighty high horse onto that stone doorstep, and left me to travel home afoot. In fact, I felt as if coming to that house to ask about ball-dresses, instead of giving instruction, was a mean sort of business. But the ambition of a great, worldly idea was burning in my bosom, and I resolved to press forward to the mark of the prize of the high calling.

Mercy on me! it is a ball-dress, not a class-meeting, that I am writing about. Oh, my sisters! is it true that black angels and white angels ever do get to fighting in a human soul, just as they do down South? If so, they had a tussle in my bosom that morning, and the black fellow came out best, with a gorgeous silk dress a-floating and a-rustling out from his triumphant right hand, and the splendid shadow of a great Grand Duke following after.

Cousin Emily Elizabeth was just coming downstairs, flounced and puffed and tucked up about the waist, till she was all over in a flutter of silk, and lace, and black beads, with a dashing bonnet on her head high enough for a trooper's training-cap, all shivery with lace and bows, with one long feather curling half way round it, and a white tuft sticking up straight on the top, looking so 'cute and saucy.

Emily Elizabeth looked a little scared when she saw me coming in with my satchel; but when I told her what I wanted, her eyes brightened up, and she laughed as easy as a blackbird sings. "Oh, is that all!" says she. "I thought it was about the children. I'll give you a note to my dress-maker. Styles all French, and _so recherché_." Look in the dictionary, sisters, and you will discover that this means something first-class.

She took out a pencil and a square piece of paper with her name printed on it, and wrote something French, with the number of a house, which I won't give, not wanting any of my friends to be talked out of a year's growth, as I was.

"There," says she. "The cream-on-cream all go to her. She'll fit you out splendidly. Leave it all to her. Good-morning, cousin; I must go; but my daughter is in the drawing-room--she will entertain you."

"Just so," says I, putting the card in my satchel, and making swift tracks for the out-door; "but I haven't time to be entertained."

VIII.

THE GENUINE MADAME.

Well, I went straight down to that dress-maker's house, and handed the square paper cousin had written on to a lady who was fluttering round among a lot of girls, all hard at work sewing, like bumble-bees in a rose-bush.

She looked at the paper; then she gave my alpaca dress an overhauling with her scornful eyes. Then she began to talk; but, my goodness, her French was awful. I couldn't understand a word of it. Once in a while she would chuck an English word in, and rush on again like a mill-dam.

When I tried to put in a word of genuine French or pure English, she lifted her hands, hitched up her shoulders, and seemed as if she was swearing at me one minute and wanted to kiss me the next. I couldn't stand that.

"How much will you ask--how many yards will it take. _La pre la pre?_" says I, bursting into French.

The woman looked around on her girls, spread her hands as if praying for help, and then, all red in the face, she burst into English. Then I knew she did not understand her own native tongue, and gave her a sarcastic smile.

"I find everything. How many yards? Oh, that depends on the idea, the invention. I have it here growing in my brain. The price? Ah, I cannot tell. When the work is complete then we know. There will be crêpe and point--"

"But I don't want points," says I. "Talk in English if you don't understand your own language. The price, the price!"

"Oh, very well, it shall be to your own satisfaction--perfect," says she, and then the creature shook out her hands as if she was shewing chickens from a corn-crib, and before I could say another word she shewed me on to the steps and shut the door.

Well, I went back to my boarding-house, beat out and worried almost to death. Figures are satisfactory to the New England mind; but when you have only a whirlpool of broken words, ending with satisfaction, with a woman's hands spread out on her bosom, and nothing more, it is tantalizing. But I reckon the figures will come by and by, only I _should_ like to have an idea of what they will count up to.

As I was saying in the beginning of my report, ten thousand anxious female bosoms thrilled with expectations every night, and existence dragged wofully in literary and fashionable circles until that auspicious moment arrived when the son of an Imperial Emperor cast refulgence on our Western Hemisphere. But the waiting of us young girls was lonesome, very.

I had done my best. For the first time in my life I had twisted my front hair into little wire tongs they call crimping-pins; maybe it was their tightness that held my eyes so wide open last night. I was trying with all my strength to shut them, when the sound of a cannon, ever so far off, brought me up in the bed, with my hand clasped and the heart in my bosom trembling like a frightened chicken.

"He has come," says I to myself. "Alexis has come. To-morrow we shall see him--handsome, young, filled with Imperial royalty from the crown of his noble head to the soles of his patent-leather boots. But will he wear his crown in the procession, or only keep it for the grand ball. What if he should rest that crown on the head of some distinguished American, selecting a literary lady?" This thought impressed me; both hands went up to my lofty brow. Alas! they only sent the crimping-pins ploughing across my head with a thorny sharpness that filled my throat with screeches.

My dress has come home--I am stunned:

Thirty yards of silk, $10 per yard $300.00
One piece French crape 25.00
Ten yards Brussels point 100.00
Linings 10.00
Making 50.00
Materials 35.00
Silk buttons 12.00
Passementerie, etc. 15.50
-------
$547.50

I have just recovered from a long fainting fit. They have taken the crimping-pins out of my hair and deluged it with crystal water. I am lying on my couch faint and exhausted. Oh, my sisters, the paths of royalty are beautiful, but full of thorns. That bill has been enough to destroy all my pleasure in the visit of the Grand Duke Alexis.

IX.

READY TO LAND.

The great Grand Duke of all the Russias has been thrown upon our shore by an upheaving of the mighty deep, and is now rocking at his ease in the iron-clad cradle of a great nation. Oh, he had a terrible time. Winds tossed him, storms pitched that noble vessel end foremost into the very bowels of the sea, then hove it up on great mountain waves, where it rocked and tottered and trembled, while the rain washed its decks--rendering mops useless--and the lightning got so tangled in the spars and rigging that you couldn't tell which was rope and which was fire.

Out of all this danger the great Grand Duke was blown upon our shore, with a good deal less fuss than Jonah had when he took to his life-boat with fins and tail, and discharged cargo on a desert shore, without the first chance of an imperial reception, and nothing but an upstart guard to offer him the hospitalities of the country.

Before daylight, Sunday morning, the vessel which bore that noble youth, all weather-beaten as a rusty potash kettle, but grand and majestic after its tussle with the storms, shot out her anchor in the lower bay--for New York has two bays, and two fine old rivers empty into them. The squadron--which means three or four other ships from Russia--had been waiting there till their great iron hearts nearly burst with fear that the imperial vessel had foundered; and when they saw it careering in amongst 'em, they set up a shout that made the very fishes in the bay rest on their fins and wonder what it could mean, for they had never heard Russians before, and it seemed as if the alphabet had been shaken ten thousand times over from as many pepper-boxes, and rained down on the water in one great shout.

Nobody has told me yet how his imperial dukeship took this, and I haven't liked to inquire too closely. Supposing him asleep in the sweet privacy of his own upper berth, it wouldn't be quite proper, you know, but it must have been soul-stirring to hear those native syllables raining down blessings like tacks and brad-awls on his noble head.

How our imperial guest spent the Sabbath-day is a mystery that Russia and the Russians only can solve. But I am credibly informed that ten thousand upper-crust females betook themselves to secret devotions in their own rooms, in crimping-pins and curl papers, the moment we got news that he was here.

As for myself, I confess--no, our Society is not a confessional, and the secrets of a lady's get-up don't belong to a report for the public eye. So I say nothing on that point.

Sunday night I couldn't sleep a wink; my heart was full of noble aspirations, and it seemed as if some wild Indian of the forest had got his grip in my hair and might scalp me any minute, everything was twisted so tight in that direction. In fact, to say nothing of sleeping, I couldn't have winked to save my life. But I bore it with Christian fortitude, determined to press forward to the mark of the prize. Oh, dear! will I ever remember that this report isn't a class-meeting confession? Well, the morning came, and oh, my sisters, it was pouring cats and dogs. When I heard this, I rose up in bed, covered my face with both hands, and just boo-hooed out a crying. I knew well enough that ten thousand other young girls were weeping like the skies; but that only made me feel worse and worse, for mine has always been a sympathetic heart, and I felt for them--I did indeed.

I did not know what on earth to do. Cousin Emily Elizabeth Dempster had promised to come and take me down to the _Mary Powell_, a steamboat which the committee had engaged to take itself and all its wives and their friends, down to welcome the great Grand Duke, and bring him up to the city.

Cousin Emily Elizabeth's husband was a head cockalorum in this committee, which being the _crême on crême_--excuse French, it will break in somehow in spite of me--well, which being the _crême on crême_ that had skimmed itself off from all the common milk of New York society, puffed Cousin E. E. up like--like a ripe button-ball.

Since my reports have appeared in what the newspapers call the world of letters--I say it modestly, but truth is truth--Cousin E. E. has been sweet as maple-sugar to me, I can tell you. She had her eye teeth cut in Vermont, and understood that Queen Victoria knew there was one notch above the crown when she took to writing books. I say nothing; but there is an aristocracy that cuts its own way through all social flummery, like an eagle among chippen birds. That is real live genius; and if New England hasn't got her share of that, I don't know where its head-quarters are.

Well, I and the clouds shed tears together for a good while; then I started up. "What if it does pour?" says I to myself; "the Grand Duke has been in storms before this; he ain't sugar nor salt, to melt at anything less than the glance of a loving eye. What's the good of being down in the mouth about a little rain? I'll get up--I'll unskewer my hair--I'll put on _that dress_, if I die for it." I started out of bed; I stood before the looking-glass; I began to untwist, to unroll; I did the corkscrew movement; I jerked--I shook my hair out--ripple, ripple, ripple, it fell over my shoulders. Then I rested awhile, and winked my eyes with exquisite satisfaction--for freedom is sweet both to the head and heart.

I felt like a new creature--a delicious looseness settled on my temples--a feeling of feminine triumph swelled my soul. Could he resist the fleecy softness of that hair--the thousand ripples breaking up the sunshine--only there wasn't any sunshine to break. Not a silver thread was visible; if there had been several the night before, it was nobody's business but my own. My arms were tired with continual undoing; but, sisters, am I one to faint by the way? No, no, a thousand times no.

I began to roll, to braid, to puff; I planted hair-pins in my head as thick as bean-poles in a garden. Heavy braids--expensive but lovely--fell down the back of my head; fluff on fluff shaded my lofty forehead. I say nothing; but my literary success, great as it is, has not been more satisfactory than this.

I put on that dress in a great hurry, for Cousin E. E. was at the door in her carriage. How it glistened in the glass! How it swept out on the carpet, a peacock's tail is a trifle compared to it! I tucked it up; I turned the lining inside out, pinned it, puckered it round the waist, and then put on my new bonnet, which looked like a black beehive with a bird perched on the top. Then, with a burning heart, that fairly turned against it, I put on my waterproof cloak and pulled the hood over my poor bonnet.

I opened my cotton umbrella, and went down. Cousin E. E. was waiting, and a tall fellow in half regimentals held the door open. I jumped in as spry as a cricket, and away we went.

X.

DOWN THE BAY.

The _Mary Powell_ lay huddled up close to the wharf, with a great white flag crossed with blue stripes at one end, and the glorious old star-spangled banner at the other. In fact, she was all dressed out in flags. They were soaked through and through till their slimpsiness was distressing. In fact, the steamboat looked like a draggled rooster with no fence or cart to hide under.

The committee were all there, with a whole swarm of ladies in waterproof cloaks, huddled together like chickens in a coop. There were generals, too, with gold epaulets on their shoulders: one that I'd heard of in the war, General McDowell, and some others, that lighted up the deck a little with their gold lace and sword-handles.

She moved--I mean the _Mary Powell_. The sea was gray, the sky was black. Now and then I saw a flag fluttering by on some vessel, like a poor frightened bird searching for shelter, and pitied it. Then all at once bang went a gun. I hopped right up, and screamed out:

"What's that?"

"The salute," says a gentleman close by me. "A salute for the Grand Duke."

I sat down astonished.

"Sir," says I, "I can't believe it. I--I've been saluted myself before this, and I know what it is. No human lips could have made that noise."

The man looked at me, and puckered up his lips a trifle, as if he were trying to choke back a laugh.

"I'm speaking of guns," says he, "not the sweet little salutes in your mind."

"Oh," says I, "that makes a difference, though I never heard firing off guns by that name before."

"The Grand Duke will have twenty-two of 'em," says he.

"Well, then, I'm glad it's only the guns," says I, and a great big sigh of relief came up from my jealous bosom.

Then we all went on again, till I heard some one call out that we'd got to heave-to. This scared me dreadfully. I looked around. Which two of all these females did they mean to heave into the vasty deep? Not me for one. If Russia is barbarous enough to want that sort of cannibal hospitality, I'm counted out.

Shivering with fear, I drew back into the crowd, but watched things like a cat. Drifting through the fog, I saw a little vessel coming close to us, as if she had something to do with this heathen ceremony. The ladies in their waterproofs crowded to the side of the steamboat, as if they rather panted for the glory of being drowned then and there for the pleasure of the great Grand Duke.

I heard a splash, but could not see if any one had been flung over, and when I got up to look, there was a magnificent old fellow, with ribbons in his coat and brooches set thick with shining stones on his bosom, a-coming up the side of the boat. He looks so proud and puffy, that I should have took him for the great Grand Duke, only that he wasn't near young enough.

"Who is it?" says I to the old gentleman.

"Catacazy," says he.

"Cat--what?" says I, categorically.

"Catacazy, the Russian Minister," says he.

"Minister," says I; "do they mean to get up a prayer-meeting on board?"

The old gentleman simmered down the laugh that was on his lips into a smile, and said he thought not.

This pacified me, and I sat still while we went down through the upper bay, which seemed wrapped in waterproofs too, and into the lower bay, which heaved and rolled as if it was half-choked up with sweltering wet blankets. Then we came in sight of the ships, and saw the flags a-battling with the storm; but no one on board seemed to care a continental cent whether New York sent out her _crême on crême_ or not. This silence made my heart sink.

Then the minister went to the side of the vessel, leaned over, and swung his hat. By and by a boat came from the great Grand Duke's vessel, in which an imperial-looking man stood upright, like a high-born monarch, and lifted his cap as if it had been a crown.

"It is--it is--oh, yes, it is the Duke!"

This was on every lip but mine. I could not speak; exquisite emotion forbade it.

No one came on board; but the minister with that catish name got into the boat, and then some of the committee, which skimmed itself again, and thickened up its cream considerably.

There we waited and waited.

They came back at last. That young gentleman was not the great Grand Duke. He wasn't coming till next day.

Oh, how we wilted! Some of us almost burst out a-crying. I did not speak; I could not. Ever since we reached the lower bay, I had felt dreadfully discouraged; now a strange sinking of the heart seized upon me--a faint dizziness, an agony of disappointment seemed raging in my stomach. Oh, my sisters! these exquisite sensibilities are a proof of greatness, I know, but the sufferings they bring, no human being but the creature of genius can tell.

I am better. The glorious sight which followed that stormy day has relieved me. I have seen ten thousand flags blazing along Broadway--I have seen three times ten thousand republican worshippers waving their hats and handkerchiefs in acclamations for the son of an imperial despot. I have heard the glorious music of an imperial serenade--I have seen HIM.

XI.

THE GRAND DUKE.

Sisters:--I have seen him. This hand has been pressed--significantly pressed--by the soft, rosy palm of imperial royalty. If a tablet to my memory should ever be sunk in the walls of our meeting-house, I charge you, dear sisters in the cause, to have this honor cut in Roman capitals deep into the marble; for what is an exaltation to me is glory to the Society, and, in fact, to all Vermont.

I have been on the same steamboat with the great Grand Duke; his splendid blue eyes have looked into mine, and in that glance we grappled each other, soul to soul. He has smiled upon me through the yellow glory of that silky mustache, under which his plump, red lips shone like cherries, ripe enough to swallow, stones and all. He speaks English; reveres genius, and knows that it can never grow old.

I saw him in Broadway, when all the New York militia turned out, which was a training day worth looking at. A snow-storm of handkerchiefs burst out of the windows; ten thousand female hands waved him forward. Shouts rose from the multitude; little children were crowded back into the gutters; women were jammed together on doorsteps and curbstones. In fact, the skim milk of society was compelled to flow in awful narrow channels, while the _crême on crême_--excuse French once more--rolled smoothly through the city in carriages, with royalty leading the way, a regiment of trainers leading him, and a band of music leading the whole.

I saw the whole glorious procession. From block to block I flitted, like some aspiring bird on the crest of a wave. My heart was full, my eyes fixed on one object--that tall, noble figure, with a blue watered silk scarf across his royal bosom, and a half-moon hat, with dipping points, gracefully lifted from his head. He must have been dazzled; he must have been impressed by this proof that republics scorn monarchies and trample them under foot.

I flitted onward through the crowd, waving my handkerchief from a doorstep now and then. That handkerchief the idol of this august occasion seemed to follow eagerly with his eyes, as a sort of beacon light which kindred sympathy impelled him to recognize, for wherever I went he lifted that half-moon hat from his royal brow and smiled. I felt this compliment to the depths of my soul--it thrilled me.

When I lifted myself out of the skim milk, and flowed in with the cream of cream on that stand in Union Square with my cousin and the _élite_ of society, he saw me again and recognized me once more, which irritated my cousin's jealousy a little, for she insisted that he lifted his black half-moon to the whole of us. But I know!

I watched the carriage that bore him with a blushing cheek and a beating heart. There was General Dix, a real nice-looking old gentleman, sitting in front of him; there was Catacazy, the ambassador of all Russia, also a nice gentleman as you want to see, with _his_ hat off, a-bowing and a-bowing. We flung up our handkerchiefs--we clapped our hands.

The Clarendon Hotel stands near one corner of the Union Square; it has a skimpy piazza in front made of iron, and I've seen bigger hotels anyhow. But it is considered tip-top, and is always brimming over with the cream of cream. That is why Mr. Catacazy took my Grand Duke there. There was such a crowd of folks and trainers that I lost sight of him. By and by out he came into the piazza, and stood right before our aristocratic stand, which was fringed round with red cloth, and over which the star-spangled banner waved itself meekly to the nest of black eagles that streamed out over that noble scion of all the Russias.

I could not see _him_ plainly, as my heart panted to, so I borrowed my cousin's glass--a little spy-glass, understand--not specs, which I haven't come to by a long way. Well, I unscrewed the eye-glass, wound it up to the right notch, and brought him almost to my face; and there I stood, choke-full of heavenly satisfaction, all the while _he_ looked down on the general training of soldiers that marched stream on stream between him and me.

While my soul was going out luminously through these eyes, Cousin Emma Elizabeth Dempster touched my elbow, and says she:

"Miss Frost, if you've got through with my glass, I should like to try it a little."

I gave it up. Not being long-sighted, the whole pageant was a blank to me after that cruel deprivation, for I could no longer see that imperial figure on the piazza.

My reports are making a tremendous sensation, and I--well, being modest by nature, I say nothing, but a committee, skimmed daintily off from the cream of cream, called at my boarding-house, and wanted me, as a rising star in the literary hemisphere of writers, to invite the great Grand Duke to a private reception, or entertainment, or something, where some that hadn't been on the steamboat could shake hands with him, and others might just touch the extremity of his coat, which they gave me their honor they wouldn't pull--as some high-bred ladies did when he was going from the boat.

I received this committee with dignity, and promised to take their request into mature consideration, as soon as I could learn personally from the great Grand Duke whether he should prefer to have this homage paid by my own sex to the extremities of his coat, or not. I felt for these young ladies. I had experienced the yearning desire that possessed them, and knew how truly irrepressible it was. Had it not inspired the whole committee of reception, their wives, and their children to the third generation? Had it not disturbed fashionable life to its very dregs, and given spice to our weekly literature? Yes, I felt for these young persons, and in a little speech, remarkable for its graceful elocution, gave them encouragement.

XII.

TICKETS FOR THE BALL.

Tickets for the ball! Sent, no doubt, at the Grand Duke's request. Cousin Emily Elizabeth has got tickets too. We shall go together in the same carriage, and leaning on her husband's arm. Dempster is a handsome man, and really _distingué_ looking. Excuse French; an educated person will break into it now and then.

The day has come. Cousin Emily has just sent me a bundle of things, with her compliments--a little box with a cake of lovely white chalk in it; another, smaller yet, filled with a pink powder that looks like ground rose-leaves, and a bottle with something liquid and dark in it, which does not seem as if it was good to drink. What on earth does Cousin E. E. expect me to do with these things?

Ah! pinned to the bundle, I find a letter, beginning "Dear Cousin Phœmie," and asking me to excuse her, but she sends the things, thinking that I may want to rejuvenate, and perhaps dye, before I go to the ball.

Rejuvenate! Does she mean to say that I'm not young enough? and if I wasn't, how are these things a-going to help me? I know that girls in school sometimes eat chalk and chew gum, but never heard that they got the younger for it. Then the pink powder--well, it's no use calculating about it, especially as she wants me to die after it. I wish Cousin E. E. would ever learn to spell. When a woman dies she does not do it with a "y" as a general thing.

Now what _does_ all this mean?

I was doing my hair at the looking-glass, when Cousin E. E. came in, looking like a queen; her blue silk dress was all spotted with gold flowers, and it streamed out half across my bedroom. Over that she wore a long white cloak, with tassels to it, and her hair was looped in with pink roses that were not redder than her cheeks, which would have satisfied me that her health was first-rate, if it hadn't been for the shadows that lay around her eyes, which had grown awfully dark since I saw her at home.

"Oh!" says she, "I am just in time. Came early, thinking you might want help. Sit down; that will do. Now where is the you-know-what--those boxes--you understand?"

Here E. E. flung off her cloak and came to the glass. I declare to you the creature's neck was white as any snow-drift but uncovered to an extent that frightened me out of a week's growth. Her arms, too, were the same, and bare as her neck. She had a narrow pink shoulder-strap, and some lace between them, and that was all; only a string of white stones, that shone like a rainbow now and then, was around her neck and one arm; two or three of the same kind of stones hung down from her ears, and shot out light from her hair.

The whiteness of that neck astonished me, and made me look every which way.

E. E. didn't seem to mind that, but took off her long white gloves and laid them on the table; then she snatched up one of the boxes, and began to rub a handkerchief that lay on the bureau in it.

"There now; hold back your head a little," says she; "shut your eyes."

Here she began to rub my face and neck and arms with the handkerchief till they looked white as her own. Then she changed boxes, and I could feel her making soft dabs at my cheeks, which tickled a little.

"Now open your eyes," says she.

I opened them wide, she astonished me so; and, as true as you live, she began to tickle them with a tenty-tointy brush. After that she titivated my hair a little, washed her hands with some Cologne water, and snatching up my pink silk dress, which lay across the bed, just buried me in it. I declare it was scrumptious to feel the silk a-rustling round me, and a-settling down on the floor, wave on wave. Well, the bill was a damper, but I couldn't help enjoying it for all that.

"Now," says E. E., a-drawing on her long, white gloves, "just take a look, and let us be off--Dempster is waiting."