LVI.
GOOD CLOTHES.
Dear sisters:--I told you in my last Report that there were three or four invitations that I had made up my mind to accept, for I have got so now, that it is my privilege to pick and choose who I will honor and who I will not.
Well, the person I distinguished this time was just one of the handsomest and nicest ladies that you ever sot eyes on. Everybody that knows her says that. No bird pluming itself on an apple-tree limb full of blossoms was ever more graceful; no church member could be more kind-hearted. She is just a sumptuous young woman who worshipped a true-hearted, high-minded father with all her might and honored him in all her acts. It is a great pity she wasn"t born in Vermont, but that cannot be helped now. I wish it could.
Of course I felt it a privilege to represent your Society before a lady like this; for it seems to me as if she were born to be an ornament to this great nation. I say this because I really think she is good as good can be. Miss Kate Chase, though she did marry a United States Senator, will always be best known to the country as Chief Justice Chase"s daughter, and a compliment to her is a compliment to him, which I, as a distinguished wom--I beg pardon, young girl--could pay, and still preserve that reputation for correct deportment which, I am proud to say, follows me wherever I go.
Well, not wanting to keep Mrs. Sprague in suspense, and feeling that she might be pining for my autograph to lie uppermost in the great dish, all gold and stone pictures, which she keeps full of letters and cards and things, I wrote her a sweet little letter, in my finest hand, with a green and red "P. F." twisted together on the straw-colored envelope, saying that I would come.
After that I felt calm and content, knowing how much happiness I had given.
Cousin Dempster and E. E. had an invite too. I really hope they have sense enough to know the source from which all these attentions come, but sometimes I doubt it. Still, they do look up to me.
The night came, and found me ready. E. E. had told me that when Mrs.
Sprague gave a party, her guests almost always came out in span-new dresses. Her entertainments were _the_ entertainments of the season.
n.o.body had yet been able to come up to her, let them try ever so much, and people dressed accordingly.
Of course I wasn"t going to be behindhand on a fashionable occasion like that, where a certain person was sure to be an object of special admiration and envious criticism, so I went to work at once, and turned my pink silk wrong side out with my own hands.
Then I took an hour or so of solitary shopping, and had the things I bought carried straight into my own room, for I had given out that I had a sick headache, and wanted to sleep--a fib so delicate, that it seemed almost conscientious, besides being worth forgiving on account of its originality.
Well, I worked away like everything, determined to show the world, for my own private enjoyment, that genius wasn"t limited to writing, but would sometimes break out in silks and laces and flowers, with astonishing effects. So my heart rose, and my fingers flew.
That headache of mine lasted three days, without intermission. During this season of affliction, my meals were brought up on a hotel tray, and I took care to order them myself--the toast and tea, which cousin sent up at first, not being quite satisfactory as a persistent diet.
At last my dress was ready. E. E. said _she_ had ordered hers from Worth, ever so long ago, expecting that something super-elegant might turn up, like Mrs. Sprague"s party. I didn"t ask who Worth was, not thinking a masculine mantua-maker worth inquiring about; but I kept a close mouth about my own toilet--that word needs explaining, sisters.
With us it means a half-moon table, curtained down, and ruffled over with spotted muslin, and set under a looking-gla.s.s. But here it means your whole dress-frock, boots, everything that you wear from top to toe.
This is why the word "toilet" comes in so naturally in my Report. But understand, it does _not_ mean a table--quite the contrary.
You should have seen me when I came out of my room that evening. Up to this I had been harmonious in my dress, but newness was the thing here, so I had studied the grandly poetical harmony of contrasts. My aim had been something poetical and striking.
My pink silk had turned beautifully. It looked good as new, if not more so; the fresh lining hunched it out behind, till a good-sized baby could have sat on it, as such little fellows billow themselves among the clouds in an old picture. Contrast, I have told you, was my idea--novelty my object. Pink and white roses I had worn, black velvet, too, and natural geranium-leaves, which are given to wilting fearfully; so I cast these things all aside, and looped up my dress with pond lilies, of a rich orange color.
Sisters, the effect was wonderful. The broad green leaves on the pink ground, the yellow flowers cl.u.s.tering amongst them. The lilies of red gold entwining my head was a picture in itself--to say nothing of the tall and elegant young person who, as I may write, carried off the dress.
You should have seen Cousin E. E. when I swept into the room, where she stood ready, my pink silk rustling, my golden lilies on the high quiver, my hair crinkled in front, curled behind, and looped up with those yellow flowers. Sisters, her surprise was really a tribute.
I did not deign to ask her how she liked my dress. The look that followed her first surprise was clouded with the envy she did not dare to speak. I was seized with a desire to punish such malice, and swept up and down the room, looking back on my train, as a peac.o.c.k spreads his tail-feathers in the sun.
E. E. looked ready to burst. She saw that her own dress was nowhere, and resented it in angry silence. So I kept on walking slowly up and down, in order to bring her into a reasonable state of mind, which Christian exertion, I am sorry to say, failed.
Dempster came in, and he, too, was struck dumb with admiring surprise.
He looked at me, then at E. E., but said nothing. Still the comparison must have been humiliating to a man who really does take some pride in his wife.
LVII.
THE PARTY OF THE SEASON.
Dear sisters:--The carriage was full to overflowment; E. E. and I filled it with the sumptuosity of our garments. Dempster was nowhere. Now and then the carriage jolted his head into sight--that was all.
Mrs. Sprague lives in a great, square corner-house that looks rich and respectable--two things that do not always come together in these days, when people creep into society, and build themselves up there on the property that should belong to the Government. It has some wide, jutting windows, and plenty of room inside.
The hall-way was crowded full of ladies, and so was the stairs. Some were going up, and some were coming down. The first in shawls and cloaks, the others with their arms and necks uncovered, or with just a shadow of lace on them, nothing more.
The great square chamber that we went into was as full as a bee-hive.
Silks swept and rustled against each other like oak-leaves when the wind shakes them. The great looking-gla.s.ses were full also--you saw a crowd of handsome faces coming and going in them all the time. Each gla.s.s was like a picture always changing.
The bed was covered over with cloaks and shawls, but you could see that the bedstead was beautifully carved, and the pillow-cases were ruffled all round and edged with lace. On a table near the door was a case of shiny black wood, curlicued with gold, and lined with velvet. In it was a lot of gold things, essence bottles, knives, scissors with gold handles, and gla.s.s cases with gold lids. It lay open, and anybody could use the things that wanted to; I didn"t, but had a good look while E. E.
was t.i.tivating in the crowd before the gla.s.s.
My dress must have carried out the grand idea in my mind when I made it, for all the ladies stopped, and gave me a good, long look before they went out, and I could see smiles of approbation dancing about their mouths. My triumph commenced, sisters, even in the dressing-room.
Dempster was waiting for us, and we followed him downstairs into the largest and handsomest room I"ve seen in Washington City.
It was just afire with lights. The great curving window was crowded full of flowers; every table in the room blazed out with them. Two folding-doors, like those we have in a Vermont meeting-house, opened into another great room, just as rainbowish with light, and smelling just as sweet with flowers--I never saw anything like it.
A crowd went in with us, and we had to wait till they let us go up to Judge Chase and Mrs. Sprague, who stood in the front room.
Goodness gracious, what a female woman that is! No willow tree was ever half so graceful, and, as for manners, the nicest woman I ever saw is nowhere to her. Her dress--well, I really cannot say that it didn"t pull an even yoke with mine--at any rate the contrast between us was striking, nothing could have been more so. But I can say, without vanity, the crowd as it came in stopped to look at mine quite as much as it did at hers. Original taste, you know, sisters, is everything; then literary genius united with taste isn"t easily matched. Still, Mrs.
Sprague"s dress was well worth noticing.
"What did she wear?" I hear you say.
Sisters, your wishes are laws to me.
This lady, for she _is_ a lady, every inch of her, as I have said, was a complete contrast to your missionary. Her dress had three colors; blue satin in front, wreathed across with a wreath of rosebuds and leaves over each flounce. Running up each side were other wreaths, fastening down the edges of a long train of white silk, that was fastened in a wide box-plait at the back of the neck, and swept away to the carpet, where it fell and floated like a snow-drift scattered over with roses, for they were done in needle work all over the white robe, and seemed to grow there. The dress was cut square about the neck, and filled in with lace. She had half-sleeves, too, a thing I was glad to see, for some of the stuck-up persons who came there with no sleeves, and their dresses cut short about the neck, might have taken it for a rebuke. Thank goodness, I didn"t.
Mrs. Sprague wore some jewelry. A wreath of blue stones with white ones that shone like rain-drops in the sunshine, was fastened in her hair, and hung quivering in her ears. She had gold bands, full of fiery stones, on her arms, and some gold thing fell down to her bosom, set with something that looked to me like half-ripe cherries. Pink coral, E.
E. said it was.
There now, you have Mrs. Sprague"s dress, and you have mine. I say nothing. Certainly hers was handsome. I am not the person to draw comparisons, but, from the notice given to mine, I had no reason to be dissatisfied.
Chief Justice Chase stood by his daughter, and shook hands with me in the most friendly manner--he was quite impressed, I can a.s.sure you. He was large and tall--in fact, grand in his appearance. His smile was enough to make any one long to know more of him. It reminded me a little of the great Grand Duke"s, which made my heart beat a little sadly.
We moved into the crowd. There I saw a lot of those foreign ministers.
One of them bowed to me. I gave him a dignified bend of the head. This messing-up of divinity and parties goes against my ideas of propriety.
A Vermont minister would be turned out of his pulpit if he ventured to show himself in a worldly gathering like that.
"What are you so dignified about, Cousin Phmie?" says Dempster. "Didn"t you see the minister bowing to us?"
"Yes," says I, "but I don"t mean to encourage backsliding and worldly amus.e.m.e.nts in Christian leaders. They have no business here."