"Haven"t you got a seat; that is a pity. But I dare say you can easily find one."
"Vraiment, ma chere Madame EEL-sun, there is no sacrifice I would not make to procure you one. I am desole it should be impossible.
I have been looking; but all the tabourets and chair are taken by ladies and gentlemans. You have a drole de maniere of travel in this countree; so many people together, the ladies must be victimes sometime."
{"Vraiment, ma chere..." = truly, my dear...; "drole de maniere"
= funny way (French)}
"Oh, no; you don"t know how to manage, that is all. Has not the Baron a chair?"
"Non, Madame; you see he is debout."
{"debout" = standing (French)}
"Well, there are some gentlemen seated; I see three or four--one quite near you. Ask him for his chair."
The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders, and looked bewildered.
"Pray, ask that gentleman for his chair," repeated the lady, pointing with her parasol to a person sitting at no great distance.
"But, Madame, the gentleman will not know what a charming lady wish for the chair--he will not give it."
"Oh, no danger; if you tell him it is for a lady, of course he will let you have it. Why, how slow you are about it; you are almost as bad as Captain k.o.c.kney, who never did anything when he was asked."
"Ah, Madame, de graces do not say that!--I go."
{"de graces" = please (French)}
And Monsieur Bonnet, edging his way here and there behind the ladies, and begging ten thousand pardons, at length reached the person Mrs. Hilson had pointed out to him.
"What did you say?" exclaimed this individual, looking up rather gruffly, at being addressed by an utter stranger.
"Mille pardons, Monsieur," continued Monsieur Bonnet; "a lady is very much oppressed with fatigue, and send me to beg you will be aimable to give her your chair."
{"mille pardons" = excuse me; "aimable" = obliging enough (French)}
"What is it?" repeated the man, who looked like an Englishman; "I don"t understand you."
Monsieur Bonnet again urged his request, in terms still more civil. It would be rendering a very great service to the lady, he said.
"I am not acquainted with the lady; I advise you to look for an empty chair," replied the other, resolutely turning his face in an opposite direction.
Monsieur Bonnet shrugged his shoulders, and was moving towards Mrs. Hilson au desespoir, when a gentlemanly-looking man, who was seated, reading, not far from the Englishman, rose and quietly offered his bench for the use of the lady. Monsieur Bonnet was, of course, all grat.i.tude, and returned enchante to Mrs. Hilson, who took the matter very quietly; while M. Bonnet seemed surprised at his own success.
{"au desespoir" = in despair; "enchante" = delighted (French)}
The gentleman who had given up his seat, was obliged to continue standing; shutting up his book, he began to look about him, among the crowd, for acquaintances. There was a very gay, noisy party, at no great distance, which first attracted his attention; it consisted of two pretty young women in the centre of a group of men. The shrill voice and rattling laugh of one lady, might be very distinctly heard across the deck; the other was leaning back listlessly in her chair: one of the young men was reading a paper with a sort of family expression, as if the ladies were his near connexions; and, on a chair, at the side of the silent lady, sat an old gentleman, with a very rusty coat, snuffy nose, and a red handkerchief spread on one knee, while on the other he held a pretty little boy, about two years old.
"I tell you I know she was dead in love with him!" cried the rattling young lady, at the top of her voice. Then, observing the gentleman, who was looking in that direction, she bowed with a coquettish graciousness. The bow was returned, but the gentleman did not seem very anxious to approach the party; when the young lady, beckoning with her finger, obliged him to draw near.
"Now, Mr. Ellsworth, you are just the man I wanted. Three of these gentlemen are against me; I have only one on my side, and I want you to help me to fight the battle."
"Must I enlist, Miss Taylor, before I know whether the cause is good or bad?"
"Oh, certainly, or else you are not worth a cent. But I"ll tell you how the matter stands: you know Helen de Vaux and you were at the Springs, last summer, when she and Mr. Van Alstyne were there. Well, I say she was dead in love with him, though she did refuse him."
"Was she?" replied Mr. Ellsworth.
"Why, I know she was; it was as plain as a pike-staff to everybody who saw them together. And here, these good folks provoke me so; they say if she refused him she did not care for him; and here is my ridiculous brother-in-law, Mr. St. Leger, says I don"t know anything about it; and my sister Adeline always thinks just as her husband does."
"That"s quite right, my dear," said the rusty Mr. Hopkins, taking a pinch of snuff. "I hope you will follow her example one of these days."
"What are the precise symptoms of a young lady"s being dead in love?" asked the quiet, business-looking Theodore St. Leger.
"Oh, you know well enough what I mean. You may say what you please about Helen de Vaux not caring for him, I know better,"
continued the young lady, in a voice that might be heard on the other side of the boat.
"As Miss de Vaux"s mother is on board, suppose you refer the question to her," said Mr. Ellsworth, in a dry manner.
"Is she?--I hope she didn"t hear us," continued the young lady, lowering her voice half a tone. "But you need not ask her, though; for I don"t believe her mother knows anything about it."
"You are going to the Springs, I suppose," said Mr. Ellsworth, by way of changing the conversation.
"I wish we were! No; Adeline has taken it into her head to be romantic, for the first time in her life. She says we must go to the Falls; and it will be a fortnight lost from Saratoga."
"But, have you no wish to see Niagara?"
"Not a bit; and I don"t believe Adeline has, either. But it is no wonder she doesn"t care about the Springs, now she"s married; she began to go there four years before I did."
"Have you never been to Niagara, Mrs. St. Leger?" continued Mr.
Ellsworth, addressing the elder sister; who, from the giddy, belleish Adeline, was now metamorphosed into the half-sober young matron--the wife of an individual, who in spite of the romantic appellation of Theodore St. Leger, was a very quiet, industrious business-man, the nephew and adopted son of Mr. Hopkins, Adeline"s Boston escort. She had been sitting contentedly beside the old gentleman, for the last half hour, leaving her unmarried sister to entertain the beaux, according to etiquette.
"No, I have never been to the Falls; and all our party but my sister Emma, seemed to think it would be a pleasant jaunt."
"Mr. Hopkins has entered into an engagement to supply me with at least two beaux at a time, and a regular change all the way to Niagara, or else I shouldn"t have come," said Miss Emma.
"We are engaged at least by the day, I hope," interposed one of the attendant young men.
"No, indeed; I should be tired to death of you, for more than an hour at a time. I sha"n"t speak to YOU again, until we have pa.s.sed West Point."
"I have had no trouble as yet, my dear, in picking up recruits,"
said Mr. Hopkins, whose attention seemed equally divided between his snuff-box, and the little Hopkins, junior, on his knee--his great-nephew.
"If there are two, that"s all I care for; but I hate to have only one person to talk to."
Mr. Ellsworth bit his lips, to prevent their expressing his opinion, that the young lady must always have a large circle of listeners.
"Have you seen Mr. Wyllys"s party this morning?" inquired Adeline.
"The Wyllyses!--Are they on board?" exclaimed Mr. Ellsworth, with surprise and pleasure. "I thought them at Saratoga by this time."