Phemie Frost's Experiences Part 28

"Poetry--and yours! How can you doubt its effect?"

"I do not doubt. Are you not by my side?" I whispered.

He drew my hand under his loose sleeve, and pressed it tenderly--so tenderly, that I did not know when the handkerchief it held escaped from my grasp to his; but, directly after, I saw him thrust something white into his bosom. It was my very best handkerchief, embroidered with my name; but I said nothing--how could I?

We walked on. The crowd swarmed and hummed like bees in a clover-field.

Now and then a great gray eagle flapped by, or a bear prowled along; but, after all, it was a clumsy make-believe, and didn't scare anybody much.

By and by a lady came along dressed just like me--yellow and black all over. She stared at me, and I stared at her--just my height--just my air--modest, but queenly. There was a trifling difference--she wore a bunch of red roses on her bosom.

After staring at me awhile, she drew softly round to the other side, and it seemed as if she was saying something to _him_. I can't tell you what happened next; for just then four great big gilt candlesticks walked into the middle of the room, and began to dance, in a way that fairly took me off my feet. It really was too funny. The style in which they hopped up and down, crossed over, and stalked about, was enough to make a priest laugh.

"Isn't it awful queer!" says I, a-turning to the man who had come so far to tell me of his love.

He was gone. I stood there alone in the crowd, my limbs shook, my heart sunk like lead. How had I lost him?

Wild with a sense of widowhood, I wandered to and fro over that ball-room. Many people spoke to me; some gentlemen in disguise wanted to walk with me; but I evaded them all. Some I answered; to some I gave nothing but sighs. At last I felt tears stealing down under my mask, my strength gave way, I sat down on a cus.h.i.+oned bench in a fit of despondency. The cup of bliss had sparkled at my lips, and been dashed aside.

What did I care for the men and women who were whirling, talking, and dancing around me!

"Cousin, are you almost ready to go home?"

It was Cousin Dempster who spoke; he had been searching for me high and low, and was shocked to find me sitting there alone. I said nothing, but, like that Spartan boy, gathered the yellow waves of my cloak over the vulture that knawed at my poor heart, and followed my cousin out of the crowd--still looking eagerly for that one n.o.ble figure, but looking in vain.

x.x.xVII.

HOW DID THE PAPERS KNOW?

Dear sisters:--Would you believe it? Cousin Dempster had hardly got down to his business after the ball, when a telegram--I think that is the name of the thing that he said came flying over the wires--called him to Was.h.i.+ngton again. Cousin E. E. made up her mind to go with him this time, and nothing would satisfy her but that I must join in and cut a dash with them. After the strange way in which that majestic man in the black cloak had gone off with the yellowhammer of a female, I had felt so down in the mouth that nothing seemed to pacify me. If it really was the great Grand Duke, his conduct was just abominable. I wouldn't have believed it of him; taking off a lady's handkerchief in his bosom, and that the best one she had in the world, and not bringing it back again.

Such conduct may be imperial, but it isn't polite, that I must say, though it wrings my heart to find fault with him. If he had brought it back the next day, of course it would have been different; but he didn't, and there I sat and sat, waiting like patience on a--on a stone wall, smiling, but wanting to cry all the time.

"It'll do you good, and cheer you up," says Cousin E. E.

"Maybe it will," says I, drawing a heavy breath, "but I don't seem to expect much. February is gone, and no answer to--"

I bit my tongue, and cut off what it was going to say about that valentine, for that was a secret breathed only to you, as a Society, in the strictest confidence.

"This time," says Cousin E. E., "there shall be no secrecy. The whole world shall know that the rising genius of the age is with us. The day we start, all the morning papers will announce that Mr. and Mrs.

Dempster, of ----, have gone to Was.h.i.+ngton, accompanied by that celebrated auth.o.r.ess, Miss Phmie Frost, who cannot fail to meet with every attention from the statesmen and high fas.h.i.+on of the Capital."

"But how are the papers going to know?" says I.

E. E. laughed.

"Oh, Dempster will manage that; he's hand-and-glove with ever so many city editors," says she.

"Oh!" says I.

"There are some things that even genius itself don't know how to manage," says E. E., nodding her head, and smiling slyly; "but they can be done. As soon as we get to Was.h.i.+ngton, all the papers there will catch fire from New York, and the Senate will get up another committee, and vote you a seat in the diplomatic gallery by ballot. We'll break right into the j.a.panese furore, and carry off the palm," says she, kindling up like a heap of pine shavings when a match touches it.

I began to feel the proud Frosty blood melting in my bosom.

"The woman who writes is more than equal to the man who votes," says she.

"There is no comparison," says I. "Women are women and men are men--n.o.body thinks of comparing rose-bushes and oak-trees--one makes timber and the other perfume; we shelter the roses, and let the oaks battle for themselves. So it ought to be with men and women--"

Cousin E. E. cut me short.

"That is beautifully expressed," says she, "but save it for one of your reports or literary conversations; my head is full of Was.h.i.+ngton."

"And my heart is full of sadness," says I, beginning to droop again.

"Nonsense, you will be happy as a bird when we once get a-going," says she.

Cousin E. E. isn't a woman of great depth, but she knows a thing or two about fas.h.i.+onable life.

The York papers _did_ announce to the world that a distinguished party had gone on to the seat of government, and, singular enough, it was done exactly in E. E.'s own words--a circ.u.mstance that rather puzzled me.

What was more--the very day we got to Was.h.i.+ngton all the papers there did the same thing, which set us at the top of the heap at once.

I hadn't the least idea of interfering with the j.a.panese that came to us from California, and in that way seem to be turning the world the other side about from what it used to be; but when genius takes the bit between its teeth, it's apt to scatter things right and left. I suppose it was the newspapers did it, but I hadn't been a day at the hotel when a letter come to us from the President's mansion, which invited us to come to the White House and see the j.a.panese presentation--in full dress.

I declare I felt myself blus.h.i.+ng all over when I read that. Did any one suppose that we were a-coming to meet those outside potentates half dressed? Some of them, perhaps, unmarried men.

"The idea!" as that child would say. I showed the card to Cousin E. E., who seemed to think it all right, so I said nothing, though the whole thing had riled me so it seemed as if I never should stop blus.h.i.+ng.

"What does it mean," says I.

"We must go, d.i.c.k or Lottie," says she.

"Go--how?" says I. "Haven't they got horses and carriages in this great city, that we must go in an outlandish thing like that?"

Here E. E. broke into one of her aggravating t.i.tters; but when I gave her a look she choked off, and says she:

"It means low necks and short sleeves."

"Low necks and short sleeves! Why didn't they say so, then? What has any d.i.c.k or Lottie got to do with it? But it's no use; I won't wear anything of the kind. Those who want to have a shoulder-strap for a sleeve, and their dresses too short at one end and too long at the other, can; I won't--there!"

"Oh! you are privileged; genius always is," says E. E.

"That is, genius is privileged to be decent in Was.h.i.+ngton. Well, I'm glad of that," says I. "Some young ladies may like to go about with bare arms and shoulders--let them. I won't!"