University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

Midsummer-night's Dream.

Grace Van Cortlandt was the first to make her
appearance after the retreat from the drawing-room.
It has often been said that, pretty as the American
females incontestably are, as a whole they appear
better in demi-toilette, than when attired for a ball.
With what would be termed high dress in other parts

of the world, they are little acquainted; but reversing
the rule of Europe, where the married bestow the
most care on their personal appearance, and the single
are taught to observe a rigid simplicity, Grace now
seemed sufficiently ornamented in the eyes of the fastidious
baronet, while, at the same time, he thought
her less obnoxious to the criticism just mentioned,
than most of her young countrywomen, in general.

An embonpoint that was just sufficient to distinguish
her from most of her companions, a fine colour,
brilliant eyes, a sweet smile, rich hair, and such feet
and hands as Sir George Templemore had, somehow—
he scarcely knew how, himself—fancied could only
belong to the daughters of peers and princes, rendered
Grace so strikingly attractive this evening, that the
young baronet began to think her even handsomer
than her cousin. There was also a charm in the
unsophisticated simplicity of Grace, that was particularly
alluring to a man educated amidst the coldness
and mannerism of the higher classes of England. In
Grace, too, this simplicity was chastened by perfect
decorum and retenue of deportment; the exuberance
of the new school of manners not having helped
to impair the dignity of her character, or to weaken
the charm of diffidence. She was less finished in her
manners than Eve, certainly; a circumstance, perhaps,
that induced Sir George Templemore to fancy her
a shade more simple, but she was never unfeminine
or unladylike; and the term vulgar, in despite of all
the capricious and arbitrary rules of fashion, under
no circumstances, could ever be applied to Grace
Van Cortlandt. In this respect, nature seemed to
have aided her; for had not her associations raised
her above such an imputation, no one could believe
that she would be obnoxious to the charge, had her
lot in life been cast even many degrees lower than it
actually was.

It is well known that, after a sufficient similarity

has been created by education to prevent any violent
shocks to our habits or principles, we most affect
those whose characters and dispositions the least
resemble our own. This was probably one of the
reasons why Sir George Templemore, who, for some
time, had been well assured of the hopelessness of his
suit with Eve, began to regard her scarcely less
lovely cousin, with an interest of a novel and lively
nature. Quick-sighted and deeply interested in Grace's
happiness, Miss Effingham had already detected this
change in the young baronet's inclinations, and though
sincerely rejoiced on her own account, she did not
observe it without concern; for she understood better
than most of her countrywomen, the great hazards
of destroying her peace of mind, that are incurred by
transplanting an American woman into the more artificial
circles of the old world.

“I shall rely on your kind offices, in particular,
Miss Van Cortlandt, to reconcile Mrs. Jarvis and
Mrs. Hawker to the liberty I am about to take,” cried
Sir George, as Grace burst upon them in the library,
in a blaze of beauty that, in her case, was aided by
her attire; “and cold-hearted and unchristian-like
women they must be, indeed, to resist such a mediator!”

Grace was unaccustomed to adulation of this sort;
for though the baronet spoke gaily, and like one half
trifling, his look of admiration was too honest to
escape the intuitive perception of woman. She
blushed deeply, and then recovering herself instantly,
said with a naiveté that had a thousand charms with
her listener—

“I do not see why Miss Effingham and myself
should hesitate about introducing you at either place.
Mrs. Hawker is a relative and an intimate—an intimate
of mine, at least—and as for poor Mrs. Jarvis,
she is the daughter of an old neighbour, and will be

too glad to see us, to raise objections. I fancy any
one of a certain—” Grace hesitated and laughed.

“Any one of a certain—?” said Sir George,
inquiringly.

“Any one from this house,” resumed the young lady,
correcting the intended expression, “will be welcome
in Spring street.”

“Pure, native aristocracy!” exclaimed the baronet,
with an air of affected triumph. “This you see, Mr.
John Effingham, is in aid of my argument.”

“I am quite of your opinion,” returned the gentleman
addressed—“as much native aristocracy as you
please, but no hereditary.”

The entrance of Eve and Mademoiselle Viefville
interrupted this pleasantry, and the carriages being
just then announced, John Effingham went in quest of
Captain Truck, who was in the drawing-room with
Mr. Effingham and Aristabulus.

“I have left Ned to discuss trespass suits and leases
with his land-agent,” said John Effingham, as he followed
Eve to the street-door. “By ten o'clock, they
will have taxed a pretty bill of costs between them!”

Mademoiselle Viefville followed John Effingham;
Grace came next, and Sir George Templemore and
the Captain brought up the rear. Grace wondered the
young baronet did not offer her his arm, for she had
been accustomed to receive this attention from the
other sex, in a hundred situations in which it was rather
an incumbrance than a service; while on the other
hand, Sir George himself would have hesitated about
offering such assistance, as an act of uncalled-for familiarity.

Miss Van Cortlandt, being much in society, kept a
chariot for her own use, and the three ladies took their
seats in it, while the gentlemen took possession of Mr.
Effingham's coach. The order was given to drive to
Spring street, and the whole party proceeded.

The acquaintance between the Effinghams and Mr.

Jarvis had arisen from the fact of their having been
near, and, in a certain sense, sociable neighbours in the
country. Their town associations, however, were as
distinct as if they dwelt in different hemispheres, with
the exception of an occasional morning call, and, now
and then, a family dinner given by Mr. Effingham.
Such had been the nature of the intercourse previously
to the family of the latter's having gone abroad, and
there were symptoms of its being renewed on the same
quiet and friendly footing as formerly. But no two beings
could be less alike, in certain essentials, than Mr.
Jarvis and his wife. The former was a plain painstaking,
sensible man of business, while the latter had
an itching desire to figure in the world of fashion.
The first was perfectly aware that Mr. Effingham, in
education, habits, associations and manners, was, at
least, of a class entirely distinct from his own; and
without troubling himself to analyze causes, and without
a feeling of envy, or unkindness of any sort, while
totally exempt from any undue deference or unmanly
cringing, he quietly submitted to let things take their
course. His wife expressed her surprise that any one
in New-York should presume to be better than themselves;
and the remark gave rise to the following short
conversation, on the very morning of the day she gave
the party, to which we are now conducting the reader.

“How do you know, my dear, that any one does
think himself our better?” demanded the husband.

“Why do they not all visit us then!”

“Why do you not visit everybody yourself? A
pretty household we should have, if you did nothing
but visit every one who lives even in this street!”

“You surely would not have me visiting the grocers'
wives at the corners, and all the other rubbish of
the neighbourhood. What I mean is that all the people
of a certain sort ought to visit all the other people
of a certain sort, in the same town.”

“You surely will make an exception, at least on

account of numbers. I saw number three thousand
six hundred and fifty this very day on a cart, and if
the wives of all these carmen should visit one another,
each would have to make ten visits daily in order to
get through with the list in a twelvemonth.”

“I have always bad luck in making you comprehend
these things, Mr. Jarvis.”

“I am afraid, my dear, it is because you do not very
clearly comprehend them yourself. You first say that
everybody ought to visit everybody, and then you insist
on it, you will visit none but those you think good
enough to be visited by Mrs. Jared Jarvis.”

“What I mean is, that no one in New-York has a
right to think himself, or herself, better than ourselves.”

“Better?—In what sense better?”

“In such a sense as to induce them to think themselves
too good to visit us.”

“That may be your opinion, my dear, but others
may judge differently. You clearly think yourself too
good to visit Mrs. Onion, the grocer's wife, who is a
capital woman in her way; and how do we know that
certain people may not fancy we are not quite refined
enough for them? Refinement is a positive thing, Mrs.
Jarvis, and one that has much more influence on the
pleasures of association than money. We may want
a hundred little perfections that escape our ignorance,
and which those who are trained to such matters deem
essentials.”

“I never met with a man of so little social spirit,
Mr. Jarvis! Really, you are quite unsuited to be a
citizen of a republican country.”

“Republican!—I do not really see what republican
has to do with the question. In the first place, it is a
droll word for you to use in this sense at least; for,
taking your own meaning of the term, you are as anti-republican
as any woman I know. But a republic does
not necessarily infer equality of condition, or even
equality of rights,—it meaning merely the substitution

of the right of the commonwealth for the right of a
prince. Had you said a democracy there would have
been some plausibility in using the word, though even
then its application would have been illogical. If I am
a freeman and a democrat, I hope I have the justice
to allow others to be just as free and democratic as I
am myself.”

“And who wishes the contrary?—all I ask is a claim
to be considered a fit associate for anybody in this
country—in these United States of America.”

“I would quit these United States of America next
week, if I thought there existed any necessity for such
an intolerable state of things.”

“Mr. Jarvis!—and you, too, one of the Committee
of Tammany Hall!”

“Yes, Mrs. Jarvis, and I one of the Committee of
Tammany Hall! What, do you think I want the three
thousand six hundred and fifty carmen running in and
out of my house, with their tobacco saliva and pipes,
all day long?”

“Who is thinking of your carmen and grocers!—I
speak now only of genteel people.”

“In other words, my dear, you are thinking only
of those whom you fancy to have the advantage of
you, and keep those who think of you in the same
way, quite out of sight. This is not my democracy
and freedom. I believe that it requires two people to
make a bargain; and although I may consent to dine
with A—, if A— will not consent to dine with
me, there is an end of the matter.”

“Now, you have come to a case in point. You
often dined with Mr. Effingham before he went abroad,
and yet you would never allow me to ask Mr. Effingham
to dine with us. That is what I call meanness.”

“It might be so, indeed, if it were done to save my
money. I dined with Mr. Effingham because I like
him; because he was an old neighbour; because he
asked me, and because I found a pleasure in the quiet

elegance of his table and society; and I did not ask
him to dine with me, because I was satisfied he would
be better pleased with such a tacit acknowledgement
of his superiority in this respect, than by any bustling
and ungraceful efforts to pay him in kind. Edward
Effingham has dinners enough, without keeping a
debtor and credit account with his guests, which is
rather too New-Yorkish, even for me.”

“Bustling and ungraceful!” repeated Mrs. Jarvis,
bitterly; “I do not know that you are at all more
bustling and ungraceful than Mr. Effingham himself.”

“No, my dear, I am a quiet, unpretending man, like
the great majority of my countrymen, thank God.”

“Then why talk of these sorts of differences in a
country in which the law establishes none?”

“For precisely the reason that I talk of the river
at the foot of this street, or because there is a river.
A thing may exist without there being a law for it.
There is no law for building this house, and yet it is
built. There is no law for making Dr. Verse a better
preacher than Dr. Prolix, and yet he is a much better
preacher; neither is there any law for making Mr.
Effingham a more finished gentleman than I happen to
be, and yet I am not fool enough to deny the fact. In
the way of making out a bill of parcels, I will not
turn my back to him, I can promise you.”

“All this strikes me as being very spiritless, and as
particularly anti-republican,” said Mrs. Jarvis, rising
to quit the room; “and if the Effinghams do not come
this evening, I shall not enter their house this winter.
I am sure they have no right to pretend to be our betters,
and I feel no disposition to admit the impudent
claim.”

“Before you go, Jane, let me say a parting word,”
rejoined the husband, looking for his hat, “which is
just this. If you wish the world to believe you the
equal of any one, no matter whom, do not be always
talking about it, lest they see you distrust the fact

yourself. A positive thing will surely be seen, and
they who have the highest claims are the least disposed
to be always pressing them on the attention of the
world. An outrage may certainly be done those social
rights which have been established by common
consent, and then it may be proper to resent it; but
beware betraying a consciousness of your own inferiority,
by letting every one see you are jealous of
your station. Now, kiss me; here is the money to pay
for your finery this evening, and let me see you as
happy to receive Mrs. Jewett from Albion Place, as
you would be to receive Mrs. Hawker herself.”

“Mrs. Hawker!” cried the wife, with a toss of her
head, “I would not cross the street to invite Mrs.
Hawker and all her clan.” Which was very true, as
Mrs. Jarvis was thoroughly convinced the trouble
would be unavailing, the lady in question being as near
the head of fashion in New-York, as it was possible
to be in a town that, in a moral sense, resembles an
encampment, quite as much as it resembles a permanent
and a long-existing capital.

Notwithstanding a great deal of management on the
part of Mrs. Jarvis to get showy personages to attend
her entertainment, the simple elegance of the two carriages
that bore the Effingham party, threw all the
other equipages into the shade. The arrival, indeed,
was deemed a matter of so much moment, that intelligence
was conveyed to the lady, who was still at her
post in the inner drawing-room, of the arrival of a
party altogether superior to any thing that had yet
appeared in her rooms. It is true, this was not expressed
in words, but it was made sufficiently obvious
by the breathless haste and the air of importance of
Mrs. Jarvis' sister, who had received the news from a
servant, and who communicated it propriâ personâ to
the mistress of the house.

The simple, useful, graceful, almost indispensable
usage of announcing at the door, indispensable to those

who receive much, and where there is the risk of
meeting people known to us by name and not in person,
is but little practised in America. Mrs. Jarvis
would have shrunk from such an innovation, had she
known that elsewhere the custom prevailed, but she
was in happy ignorance on this point, as on many
others that were more essential to the much-coveted
social éclat at which she aimed. When Mademoiselle
Viefville appeared, therefore, walking unsupported, as
if she were out of leading-strings, followed by Eve
and Grace and the gentlemen of their party, she at
first supposed there was some mistake, and that her
visiters had got into the wrong house; there being an
opposition party in the neighbourhood.

“What brazen people!” whispered Mrs. Abijah
Gross, who having removed from an interior New-England
village, fully two years previously, fancied
herself au fait of all the niceties of breeding and social
tact. “There are positively two young ladies actually
walking about without gentlemen!”

But it was not in the power of Mrs. Abijah Gross,
with her audible whisper and obvious sneer and laugh,
to put down two such lovely creatures as Eve and her
cousin. The simple elegance of their attire, the indescribable
air of polish, particularly in the former, and
the surpassing beauty and modesty of mien of both,
effectually silenced criticism, after this solitary outbreaking
of vulgarity. Mrs. Jarvis recognized Eve
and John Effingham, and her hurried compliments and
obvious delight proclaimed to all near her, the importance
she attached to their visit. Mademoiselle Viefville
she had not recollected in her present dress, and even
she was covered with expressions of delight and satisfaction.

“I wish particularly to present to you a friend that
we all prize exceedingly,” said Eve, as soon as there
was an opportunity of speaking. “This is Captain
Truck, the gentleman who commands the Montauk,

the ship of which you have heard so much. Ah! Mr.
Jarvis,” offering a hand to him with sincere cordiality,
for Eve had known him from childhood, and always
sincerely respected him—“you will receive my friend
with a cordial welcome, I am certain.”

She then explained to Mr. Jarvis who the honest
captain was, when the former, first paying the proper
respect to his other guests, led the old sailor aside, and
began an earnest conversation on the subject of the
recent passage.

John Effingham presented the baronet, whom Mrs.
Jarvis, out of pure ignorance of his rank in his own
country, received with perfect propriety and self-respect.

“We have very few people of note in town at present,
I believe,” said Mrs. Jarvis to John Effingham.
“A great traveller, a most interesting man, is the only
person of that sort I could obtain for this evening, and
I shall have great pleasure in introducing you. He is
there in that crowd, for he is in the greatest possible
demand; he has seen so much.—Mrs. Snow, with your
permission—really the ladies are thronging about him
as if he were a Pawnee,—have the goodness to step a
little this way, Mr. Effingham—Miss Effingham—Mrs.
Snow, just touch his arm and let him know I wish to
introduce a couple of friends.—Mr. Dodge, Mr. John
Effingham, Miss Effingham, Miss Van Cortlandt. I
hope you may succeed in getting him a little to yourselves,
ladies, for he can tell you all about Europe—
saw the king of France riding out to Nully, and has a
prodigious knowledge of things on the other side of the
water.”

It required a good deal of Eve's habitual self-command
to prevent a smile, but she had the tact and discretion
to receive Steadfast as an utter stranger. John
Effingham bowed as haughtily as man can bow, and
then it was whispered that he and Mr. Dodge were
rival travellers. The distance of the former, coupled

with an expression of countenance that did not invite
familiarity, drove nearly all the company over to the
side of Steadfast, who, it was soon settled, had seen
much the most of the world, understood society the
best, and had moreover travelled as far as Timbuctoo
in Africa. The clientèle of Mr. Dodge increased
rapidly, as these reports spread in the rooms, and those
who had not read the “delightful letters published in
the Active Inquirer,” furiously envied those who had
enjoyed that high advantage.

“It is Mr. Dodge, the great traveller,” said one
young lady, who had extricated herself from the crowd
around the `lion,' and taken a station near Eve and
Grace, and who, moreover, was a `blue' in her own
set; “his beautiful and accurate descriptions have
attracted great attention in England, and it is said they
have actually been republished!”

“Have you read them, Miss Brackett?”

“Not the letters themselves, absolutely; but all the
remarks on them in the last week's Hebdomad. Most
delightful letters, judging from those remarks; full of
nature and point, and singularly accurate in all their
facts. In this respect they are invaluable, travellers
do fall into such extraordinary errors!”

“I hope, ma'am,” said John Effingham, gravely,
“that the gentleman has avoided the capital mistake
of commenting on things that actually exist. Comments
on its facts are generally esteemed by the people
of a country, impertinent and unjust; and your true
way to succeed, is to treat as freely as possible its
imaginary peculiarities.”

Miss Brackett had nothing to answer to this observation,
the Hebdomad having, among its other profundities,
never seen proper to touch on the subject.
She went on praising the “Letters,” however, not one of
which had she read, or would she read; for this young
lady had contrived to gain a high reputation in her
own coteric for taste and knowledge in books, by

merely skimming the strictures of those who do not
even skim the works they pretend to analyze.

Eve had never before been in so close contact with
so much flippant ignorance, and she could not but wonder
at seeing a man like her kinsman overlooked, in
order that a man like Mr. Dodge should be preferred.
All this gave John Effingham himself no concern, but
retiring a little from the crowd, he entered into a short
conversation with the young baronet.

“I should like to know your real opinions of this
set,” he said; “not that I plead guilty to the childish
sensibility that is so common in all provincial circles
to the judgments of strangers, but with a view to aid
you in forming a just estimate of the real state of the
country.”

“As I know the precise connexion between you and
our host, there can be no objection to giving a perfectly
frank reply. The women strike me as being
singularly delicate and pretty; well dressed, too, I
might add; but, while there is a great air of decency,
there is very little high finish; and what strikes me as
being quite odd, under such circumstances, scarcely
any downright vulgarity, or coarseness.”

“A Daniel come to judgment! One who had passed
a life here, would not have come so near the truth,
simply because he would not have observed peculiarities,
that require the means of comparison to be
detected. You are a little too indulgent in saying
there is no downright vulgarity; for some there is;
though surprisingly little for the circumstances. But
of the coarseness that would be so prominent elsewhere,
there is hardly any. True, so great is the
equality in all things, in this country, so direct the
tendency to this respectable mediocrity, that what you
now see here, to-night, may be seen in almost every
village in the land, with a few immaterial exceptions
in the way of furniture and other city appliances, and
not much even in these.”

“Certainly, as a mediocrity, this is respectable,
though a fastidious taste might see a multitude of
faults.”

“I shall not say that the taste would be merely fastidious,
for much is wanting that would add to the
grace and beauty of society, while much that is
wanting would be missed only by the over-sophisticated.
Those young men, who are sniggering over
some bad joke in the corner, for instance, are positively
vulgar, as is that young lady who is indulging
in practical coquetry; but, on the whole, there is little
of this; and, even our hostess, a silly woman, devoured
with the desire of being what neither her social position,
education, habits nor notions fit her to be, is less
obtrusive, bustling, and offensive, than a similar person,
elsewhere.”

“I am quite of your way of thinking, and intended
to ask you to account for it.”

“The Americans are an imitative people of necessity,
and they are apt at this part of imitation, in particular.
Then they are less artificial in all their practices,
than older and more sophisticated nations; and
this company has got that essential part of good
breeding, simplicity, as it were per force. A step
higher in the social scale, you will see less of it; for
greater daring and bad models lead to blunders in
matters that require to be exceedingly well done, if
done at all. The faults here would be more apparent,
by an approach near enough to get into the tone of
mind, the forms of speech, and the attempts at wit.”

“Which I think we shall escape to-night, as I see
the ladies are already making their apologies and
taking leave. We must defer this investigation to
another time.”

“It may be indefinitely postponed, as it would
scarcely reward the trouble of an inquiry.”

The gentlemen now approached Mrs. Jarvis, paid
their parting compliments, hunted up Captain Truck,

whom they tore by violence from the good-natured
hospitality of the master of the house, and then saw
the ladies into their carriage. As they drove off, the
worthy mariner protested that Mr. Jarvis was one of
the honestest men he had ever met, and announced
that he intended giving him a dinner on board the
Montauk, the very next day.

The dwelling of Mrs. Hawker was in Hudson
Square; or in a portion of the city that the lovers of
the grandiose are endeavouring to call St. John's
Park; for it is rather an amusing peculiarity among a
certain portion of the emigrants who have flocked into
the Middle States, within the last thirty years, that
they are not satisfied with permitting any family, or
thing, to possess the name it originally enjoyed, if there
exists the least opportunity to change it. There was
but a carriage or two before the door, though the
strong lights in the house showed that company had
collected.

“Mrs. Hawker is the widow and the daughter of
men of long established New-York families; she is
childless, affluent, and universally respected where
known, for her breeding, benevolence, good sense,
and heart,” said John Effingham, while the party was
driving from one house to the other. “Were you to
go into most of the sets of this town, and mention
Mrs. Hawker's name, not one person in ten would
know there is such a being in their vicinity; the pêle
mêle of a migratory population keeping persons of her
character and condition in life, quite out of view.
The very persons who will prattle by the hour, of the
establishments of Mrs. Peleg Pond, and Mrs. Jonah
Twist, and Mrs. Abiram Wattles, people who first
appeared on this island five or six years since, and,
who having accumulated what to them are relatively
large fortunes, have launched out into vulgar and
uninstructed finery, would look with surprise at hearing
Mrs. Hawker mentioned as one having any claims

to social distinction. Her historical names are over-shadowed
in their minds by the parochial glories of
certain local prodigies in the townships whence they
emigrated; her manners would puzzle the comprehension
of people whose imitation has not gone beyond
the surface, and her polished and simple mind would
find little sympathy among a class who seldom rise
above a common-place sentiment without getting upon
stilts.”

“Mrs. Hawker, then, is a lady,” observed Sir George
Templemore.

“Mrs. Hawker is a lady, in every sense of the word;
by position, education, manners, association, mind, fortune
and birth. I do not know that we ever had more
of her class than exist to-day, but certainly we once
had them more prominent in society.”

“I suppose, sir,” said Captain Truck, “that this Mrs.
Hawker is of what is called the old school?”

“Of a very ancient school, and one that is likely to
continue, though it may not be generally attended.”

“I am afraid, Mr. John Effingham, that I shall be
like a fish out of water in such a house. I can get
along very well with your Mrs. Jarvis, and with the
dear young lady in the other carriage; but the sort of
woman you have described, will be apt to jam a plain
mariner like myself. What in nature should I do, now,
if she should ask me to dance a minuet?”

“Dance it agreeably to the laws of nature,” returned
John Effingham, as the carriages stopped.

A respectable, quiet, and an aged black admitted the
party, though even he did not announce the visiters,
while he held the door of the drawing-room open for
them, with respectful attention. Mrs. Hawker arose,
and advanced to meet Eve and her companions, and,
though she kissed the cousins affectionately, her reception
of Mademoiselle Viefville was so simply polite as
to convince the latter she was valued on account of
her services. John Effingham, who was ten or fifteen

years the junior of the old lady, gallantly kissed her
hand, when he presented his two male companions.
After paying the proper attention to the greatest stranger,
Mrs. Hawker turned to Captain Truck and said—

“This, then, is the gentleman to whose skill and
courage you all owe so much—we all owe so much, I
might better have said—the commander of the Montauk?”

“I have the honour of commanding that vessel,
ma'am,” returned Captain Truck, who was singularly
awed by the dignified simplicity of his hostess, although
her quiet, natural, and yet finished manner, which extended
even to the intonation of the voice, and the
smallest movement, were as unlike what he had expected
as possible; “and with such passengers as she
had last voyage I can only say, it is a pity that she is
not better off for one to take care of her.”

“Your passengers give a different account of the
matter, but, in order that I may judge impartially, do
me the favour to take this chair, and let me learn a few
of the particulars from yourself.”

Observing that Sir George Templemore had followed
Eve to the other side of the room, Mrs. Hawker now
resumed her seat, and, without neglecting any to attend
to one in particular, or attending to one in a way
to make him feel oppressed, she contrived, in a few
minutes, to make the captain forget all about the minuet,
and to feel much more at his ease than would have
been the case with Mrs. Jarvis, in a month's intercourse.

In the mean time, Eve had crossed the room to join
a lady whose smile invited her to her side. This was
a young, slightly framed female, of a pleasing countenance,
but who would not have been particularly distinguished,
in such a place, for personal charms. Still,
her smile was sweet, her eyes were soft, and the expression
of her face was what might almost be called
illuminated. As Sir George Templemore followed her,

Eve mentioned his name to her acquaintance, whom
she addressed as Mrs. Bloomfield.

“You are bent on perpetrating further gaiety to-night,”
said the latter, glancing at the ball-dresses of
the two cousins; “are you in the colours of the Houston
faction, or in those of the Peabody.”

“Not in pea-green, certainly,” returned Eve, laughing—“as
you may see; but in simple white.”

“You intend then to be `led a measure' at Mrs.
Houston's. It were more suitable than among the
other faction.”

“Is fashion, then, faction, in New-York?” inquired
Sir George.

“Fractions would be a better word, perhaps. But
we have parties in almost every thing, in America; in
politics, religion, temperance, speculations, and taste;
why not in fashion?”

“I fear we are not quite independent enough to form
parties on such a subject,” said Eve.

“Perfectly well said, Miss Effingham; one must
think a little originally, let it be ever so falsely, in order
to get up a fashion. I fear we shall have to admit our
insignificance on this point. You are a late arrival,
Sir George Templemore?”

“As lately as the commencement of this month; I
had the honour of being a fellow-passenger with Mr.
Effingham and his family.”

“In which voyage you suffered shipwreck, captivity,
and famine, if half we hear be true.”

“Report has a little magnified our risks; we encountered
some serious dangers, but nothing amounting
to the sufferings you have mentioned.”

“Being a married woman, and having passed the
crisis in which deception is not practised, I expect to
hear truth again,” said Mrs. Bloomfield, smiling. “I
trust, however, you underwent enough to qualify you
all for heroes and heroines, and shall content myself
with knowing that you are here, safe and happy—if,”

she added, looking inquiringly at Eve, “one who has
been educated abroad can be happy at home.”

“One educated abroad may be happy at home,
though possibly not in the modes most practised by the
world,” said Eve, firmly.

“Without an opera, without a court, almost without
society!”

“An opera would be desirable, I confess; of courts
I know nothing, unmarried females being cyphers in
Europe; and I hope better things than to think I shall
be without society.”

“Unmarried females are considered cyphers too,
here, provided there be enough of them with a good
respectable digit at their head. I assure you no one
quarrels with the cyphers under such circumstances.
I think, Sir George Templemore, a town like this must
be something of a paradox to you.”

“Might I venture to inquire the reason for this
opinion!”

“Merely because it is neither one thing nor another.
Not a capital, nor yet merely a provincial place;
with something more than commerce in its bosom, and
yet with that something hidden under a bushel. A
good deal more than Liverpool, and a good deal less
than London. Better even than Edinburgh, in many
respects, and worse than Wapping, in others.”

“You have been abroad, Mrs. Bloomfield?”

“Not a foot out of my own country; scarcely a foot
out of my own state. I have been at Lake George,
the Falls, and the Mountain House; and, as one does
not travel in a balloon, I saw some of the intermediate
places. As for all else, I am obliged to go by report.”

“It is a pity Mrs. Bloomfield was not with us, this
evening, at Mrs. Jarvis's,” said Eve, laughing. “She
might then have increased her knowledge, by listening
to a few cantos from the epic of Mr. Dodge.”

“I have glanced at some of that author's wisdom,”
returned Mrs. Bloomfield, “but I soon found it was

learning backwards. There is a never-failing rule, by
which it is easy to arrive at a traveller's worth, in a
negative sense, at least.”

“That is a rule which may be worth knowing,”
said the baronet, “as it would save much useless wear
of the eyes.”

“When one betrays a profound ignorance of his
own country, it is a fair presumption that he cannot be
very acute in his observation of strangers. Mr. Dodge
is one of these writers, and a single letter fully satisfied
my curiosity. I fear, Miss Effingham, very inferior
wares, in the way of manners, have been lately
imported, in large quantities, into this country, as
having the Tower mark on them.”

Eve laughed, but declared that Sir George Templemore
was better qualified than herself to answer
such a question.

“We are said to be a people of facts, rather than
a people of theories,” continued Mrs. Bloomfield,
without attending to the reference of the young lady,
“and any coin that offers passes, until another that is
better, arrives. It is a singular, but a very general
mistake, I believe, of the people of this country, in
supposing that they can exist under the present régime,
when others would fail, because their opinions keep
even pace with, or precede the actual condition of society;
whereas, those who have thought and observed
most on such subjects, agree in thinking the very reverse
to be the case.”

“This would be a curious condition for a government
so purely conventional,” observed Sir George,
with interest, “and it certainly is entirely opposed to
the state of things all over Europe.”

“It is so, and yet there is no great mystery in it,
after all. Accident has liberated us from trammels
that still fetter you. We are like a vehicle on the top
of a hill, which, the moment it is pushed beyond the
point of resistance, rolls down of itself, without the aid

of horses. One may follow with the team, and hook
on when it gets to the bottom, but there is no such
thing as keeping company with it until it arrives
there.”

“You will allow, then, that there is a bottom?”

“There is a bottom to every thing—to good and
bad; happiness and misery; hope, fear, faith and
charity; even to a woman's mind, which I have sometimes
fancied the most bottomless thing in nature.
There may, therefore, well be a bottom even to the
institutions of America.”

Sir George listened with the interest with which an
Englishman of his class always endeavours to catch a
concession that he fancies is about to favour his own
political predilections, and he felt encouraged to push
the subject further.

“And you think the political machine is rolling
downwards towards this bottom?” he said, with an interest
in the answer that, living in the quiet and forgetfulness
of his own home, he would have laughed at
himself for entertaining. But our sensibilities become
quickened by collision, and opposition is known even
to create love.

Mrs. Bloomfield was quick-witted, intelligent, cultivated
and shrewd. She saw the motive at a glance,
and, notwithstanding she saw and felt all its abuses,
strongly attached to the governing principle of her
country's social organization, as is almost universally
the case with the strongest minds and most generous
hearts of the nation, she was not disposed to let a
stranger carry away a false impression of her sentiments
on such a point.

“Did you ever study logic, Sir George Templemore?”
she asked, archly.

“A little, though not enough I fear to influence my
mode of reasoning, or even to leave me familiar with
the terms.”

“Oh! I am not about to assail you with sequiturs

and non sequiturs, dialectics and all the mysteries of
Denk-Lehre, but simply to remind you there is such a
thing as the bottom of a subject. When I tell you we
are flying towards the bottom of our institutions, it is
in the intellectual sense, and not, as you have erroneously
imagined, in an unintellectual sense. I mean
that we are getting to understand them, which, I fear,
we did not absolutely do at the commencement of the
`experiment.' ”

“But I think you will admit, that as the civilization
of the country advances, some material changes must
occur; your people cannot always remain stationary;
they must either go backwards or forward.”

“Up or down, if you will allow me to correct your
phraseology. The civilization of the country, in one
sense at least, is retrogressive, and the people, as they
cannot go `up,' betray a disposition to go `down.' ”

“You deal in enigmas, and I am afraid to think I
understand you.”

“I mean, merely, that gallowses are fast disappearing,
and that the people—le peuple you will understand
—begin to accept money. In both particulars, I think
there is a sensible change for the worse, within my
own recollection.”

Mrs. Bloomfield then changed her manner, and from
using that light-hearted gaiety with which she often
rendered her conversation piquante, and even occasionally
brilliant, she became more grave and explicit.
The subject soon turned to that of punishments, and
few men could have reasoned more sensibly, justly or
forcibly, on such a subject, than this slight and fragile-looking
young woman. Without the least pedantry,
with a beauty of language that the other sex seldom
attains, and with a delicacy of discrimination, and a
sentiment that were strictly feminine, she rendered a
theme interesting, that, however important in itself, is
forbidding, veiling all its odious and revolting features
in the refinement and finesse of her own polished
mind.

Eve could have listened all night, and, at every syllable
that fell from the lips of her friend, she felt a glow
of triumph; for she was proud of letting an intelligent
foreigner see that America did contain women worthy
to be ranked with the best of other countries, a circumstance
that they who merely frequented what is
called the world, she thought might be reasonably justified
in distrusting. In one respect, she even fancied
Mrs. Bloomfield's knowledge and cleverness superior
to those which she had so often admired in her own
sex abroad. It was untrammelled, equally by the prejudices
incident to a factitious condition of society, or
by their reaction; two circumstances that often obscured
the sense and candour of those to whom she had
so often listened with pleasure in other countries. The
singularly feminine tone, too, of all that Mrs. Bloomfield
said or thought, while it lacked nothing in strength,
added to the charm of her conversation, and increased
the pleasure of those that listened.

“Is the circle large to which Mrs. Hawker and her
friends belong?” asked Sir George, as he assisted Eve
and Grace to cloak, when they had taken leave. “A
town which can boast of half-a-dozen such houses need
not accuse itself of wanting society.”

“Ah! there is but one Mrs. Hawker in New-York,”
answered Grace, “and not many Mrs. Bloomfields in
the world. It would be too much to say, we have
even half-a-dozen such houses.”

“Have you not been struck with the admirable tone
of this drawing-room,” half whispered Eve. “It may
want a little of that lofty ease that one sees among the
better portion of the old Princesses et Duchesses, which
is a relic of a school that, it is to be feared, is going
out; but in its place there is a winning nature, with as
much dignity as is necessary, and a truth that gives
us confidence in the sincerity of those around us.”

“Upon my word, I think Mrs. Hawker quite fit for
a Duchess.”

“You mean a Duchesse,” said Eve, “and yet she is
without the manner that we understand by such a
word. Mrs. Hawker is a lady, and there can be no
higher term.”

“She is a delightful old woman,” cried John Effingham,
“and if twenty years younger and disposed to
change her condition, I should really be afraid to enter
the house.”

“My dear sir,” put in the captain, “I will make her
Mrs. Truck to-morrow, and say nothing of years, if
she could be content to take up with such an offer.
Why, sir, she is no woman, but a saint in petticoats!
I felt the whole time as if talking to my own mother,
and as for ships, she knows more about them than I
do!”

The whole party laughed at the strength of the captain's
admiration, and getting into the carriages proceeded
to the last of the houses they intended visiting
that night.