University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.
THE EVENT OF THE SEASON.

“Mr. and Mrs. Colonel Sprowle's compliments
to Mr. Langdon and requests the pleasure of his
company at a social entertainment on Wednesday
evening next.

“Elm St. Monday.”

On paper of a pinkish color and musky smell,
with a large S at the top, and an embossed border.
Envelop adherent, not sealed. Addressed,

— Langdon Esq.

Present.

Brought by H. Frederic Sprowle, youngest son
of the Colonel, — the H. of course standing for the
paternal Hezekiah, put in to please the father, and
reduced to its initial to please the mother, she
having a marked preference for Frederic. Boy
directed to wait for an answer.

“Mr. Langdon has the pleasure of accepting
Mr. and Mrs. Colonel Sprowle's polite invitation
for Wednesday evening.”

On plain paper, sealed with an initial.

In walking along the main street, Mr. Bernard
had noticed a large house of some pretensions to
architectural display, namely, unnecessarily projecting
eaves, giving it a mushroomy aspect,
wooden mouldings at various available points,
and a grandiose arched portico. It looked a little
swaggering by the side of one or two of the mansion-houses
that were not far from it, was painted
too bright for Mr. Bernard's taste, had rather too
fanciful a fence before it, and had some fruit-trees
planted in the front-yard, which to this fastidious
young gentleman implied a defective sense of the
fitness of things, not promising in people who
lived in so large a house, with a mushroom roof
and a triumphal arch for its entrance.

This place was known as “Colonel Sprowle's
villa,” (genteel friends,) — as “the elegant residence
of our distinguished fellow-citizen, Colonel
Sprowle,” (Rockland Weekly Universe,) — as “the
neew haouse,” (old settlers,) — as “Spraowle's
Folly,” (disaffected and possibly envious neighbors,)
— and in common discourse, as “the Colonel's.”

Hezekiah Sprowle, Esquire, Colonel Sprowle
of the Commonwealth's Militia, was a retired
“merchant.” An India merchant he might, perhaps,
have been properly called; for he used to
deal in West India goods, such as coffee, sugar,
and molasses, not to speak of rum, — also in tea,
salt fish, butter and cheese, oil and candles, dried
fruit, agricultural “p'dóose” generally, industrial

products, such as boots and shoes, and various
kinds of iron and wooden ware, and at one end
of the establishment in calicoes and other stuffs,
— to say nothing of miscellaneous objects of the
most varied nature, from sticks of candy, which
tempted in the smaller youth with coppers in
their fists, up to ornamental articles of apparel,
pocket-books, breast-pins, gilt-edged Bibles, stationery,
— in short, everything which was like to
prove seductive to the rural population. The
Colonel had made money in trade, and also by
matrimony. He had married Sarah, daughter
and heiress of the late Tekel Jordan, Esq., an old
miser, who gave the town-clock, which carries his
name to posterity in large gilt letters as a generous
benefactor of his native place. In due time
the Colonel reaped the reward of well-placed affections.
When his wife's inheritance fell in, he
thought he had money enough to give up trade,
and therefore sold out his “store,” called in some
dialects of the English language shop, and his
business.

Life became pretty hard work to him, of course,
as soon as he had nothing particular to do. Country
people with money enough not to have to
work are in much more danger than city people
in the same condition. They get a specific look
and character, which are the same in all the villages
where one studies them. They very commonly
fall into a routine, the basis of which is
going to some lounging-place or other, a bar-room,

a reading-room, or something of the kind. They
grow slovenly in dress, and wear the same hat forever.
They have a feeble curiosity for news perhaps,
which they take daily as a man takes his
bitters, and then fall silent and think they are
thinking. But the mind goes out under this regimen,
like a fire without a draught; and it is not
very strange, if the instinct of mental self-preservation
drives them to brandy-and-water, which
makes the hoarse whisper of memory musical for
a few brief moments, and puts a weak leer of
promise on the features of the hollow-eyed future.
The Colonel was kept pretty well in hand as yet
by his wife, and though it had happened to him
once or twice to come home rather late at night
with a curious tendency to say the same thing
twice and even three times over, it had always
been in very cold weather, — and everybody
knows that no one is safe to drink a couple of
glasses of wine in a warm room and go suddenly
out into the cold air.

Miss Matilda Sprowle, sole daughter of the
house, had reached the age at which young ladies
are supposed in technical language to have come
out, and thereafter are considered to be in company.

“There's one piece o' goods,” said the Colonel
to his wife, “that we ha'n't disposed of, nor got a
customer for yet. That's Matildy. I don't mean
to set her up at vaandoo. I guess she can have
her pick of a dozen.”

“She 's never seen anybody yet,” said Mrs.
Sprowle, who had had a certain project for some
time, but had kept quiet about it. “Let 's have a
party, and give her a chance to show herself and
see some of the young folks.”

The Colonel was not very clear-headed, and he
thought, naturally enough, that the party was his
own suggestion, because his remark led to the
first starting of the idea. He entered into the
plan, therefore, with a feeling of pride as well as
pleasure, and the great project was resolved upon
in a family council without a dissentient voice.
This was the party, then, to which Mr. Bernard
was going. The town had been full of it for a
week. “Everybody was asked.” So everybody
said that was invited. But how in respect of
those who were not asked? If it had been one
of the old mansion-houses that was giving a
party, the boundary between the favored and the
slighted families would have been known pretty
well beforehand, and there would have been no
great amount of grumbling. But the Colonel,
for all his title, had a forest of poor relations and
a brushwood swamp of shabby friends, for he had
scrambled up to fortune, and now the time was
come when he must define his new social position.

This is always an awkward business in town
or country. An exclusive alliance between two
powers is often the same thing as a declaration
of war against a third. Rockland was soon

split into a triumphant minority, invited to Mrs.
Sprowle's party, and a great majority, uninvited,
of which the fraction just on the border line between
recognized “gentility” and the level of the
ungloved masses was in an active state of excitement
and indignation.

“Who is she, I should like to know?” said
Mrs. Saymore, the tailor's wife. “There was
plenty of folks in Rockland as good as ever Sally
Jordan was, if she had managed to pick up a merchant.
Other folks could have married merchants,
if their families wasn't as wealthy as them old
skinflints that willed her their money,” etc. etc.
Mrs. Saymore expressed the feeling of many beside
herself. She had, however, a special right to
be proud of the name she bore. Her husband was
own cousin to the Saymores of Freestone Avenue
(who write the name Seymour, and claim to
be of the Duke of Somerset's family, showing a
clear descent from the Protector to Edward Seymour,
(1630,) — then a jump that would break a
herald's neck to one Seth Saymore, (1783,) —
from whom to the head of the present family the
line is clear again). Mrs. Saymore, the tailor's
wife, was not invited, because her husband mended
clothes. If he had confined himself strictly to
making them, it would have put a different face
upon the matter.

The landlord of the Mountain House and his
lady were invited to Mrs. Sprowle's party. Not
so the landlord of Pollard's Tahvern and his lady.

Whereupon the latter vowed that they would
have a party at their house too, and made arrangements
for a dance of twenty or thirty couples,
to be followed by an entertainment. Tickets to
this “Social Ball” were soon circulated, and,
being accessible to all at a moderate price, admission
to the “Elegant Supper” included, this
second festival promised to be as merry, if not as
select, as the great party.

Wednesday came. Such doings had never
been heard of in Rockland as went on that day
at the “villa.” The carpet had been taken up in
the long room, so that the young folks might have
a dance. Miss Matilda's piano had been moved
in, and two fiddlers and a clarionet-player engaged
to make music. All kinds of lamps had
been put in requisition, and even colored wax-candles
figured on the mantel-pieces. The costumes
of the family had been tried on the day
before: the Colonel's black suit fitted exceedingly
well; his lady's velvet dress displayed her contours
to advantage; Miss Matilda's flowered silk
was considered superb; the eldest son of the family,
Mr. T. Jordan Sprowle, called affectionately
and elegantly “Geordie,” voted himself “stunnin'”;
and even the small youth who had borne
Mr. Bernard's invitation was effective in a new
jacket and trousers, buttony in front, and baggy
in the reverse aspect, as is wont to be the case
with the home-made garments of inland youngsters.

Great preparations had been made for the refection
which was to be part of the entertainment.
There was much clinking of borrowed
spoons, which were to be carefully counted, and
much clicking of borrowed china, which was to
be tenderly handled, — for nobody in the country
keeps those vast closets full of such things which
one may see in rich city-houses. Not a great
deal could be done in the way of flowers, for
there were no green-houses, and few plants were
out as yet; but there were paper ornaments
for the candlesticks, and colored mats for the
lamps, and all the tassels of the curtains and bells
were taken out of those brown linen bags, in
which, for reasons hitherto undiscovered, they are
habitually concealed in some households. In the
remoter apartments every imaginable operation
was going on at once, — roasting, boiling, baking,
beating, rolling, pounding in mortars, frying,
freezing; for there was to be ice-cream to-night
of domestic manufacture; — and in the midst of
all these labors, Mrs. Sprowle and Miss Matilda
were moving about, directing and helping as they
best might, all day long. When the evening
came, it might be feared they would not be in
just the state of mind and body to entertain
company.

— One would like to give a party now and
then, if one could be a billionnaire. — “Antoine,
I am going to have twenty people to dine to-day.”
“Bien, Madame.” Not a word or thought

more about it, but get home in season to dress,
and come down to your own table, one of your
own guests.— “Giuseppe, we are to have a party
a week from to-night, — five hundred invitations,
— there is the list.” The day comes. “Madam,
do you remember you have your party to-night?”
“Why, so I have! Everything right? supper and
all?” “All as it should be, Madam.” “Send up
Victorine.” “Victorine, full toilet for this evening,
— pink, diamonds, and emeralds. Coiffeur
at seven. Allez.” — Billionism, or even millionism,
must be a blessed kind of state, with health
and clear conscience and youth and good looks,
— but most blessed in this, that it takes off all
the mean cares which give people the three wrinkles
between the eyebrows, and leaves them free
to have a good time and make others have a
good time, all the way along from the charity
that tips up unexpected loads of wood before
widows' houses, and leaves foundling turkeys
upon poor men's door-steps, and sets lean clergymen
crying at the sight of anonymous fifty-dollar
bills, to the taste which orders a perfect banquet
in such sweet accord with every sense that everybody's
nature flowers out full-blown in its golden-glowing,
fragrant atmosphere.

— A great party given by the smaller gentry
of the interior is a kind of solemnity, so to speak.
It involves so much labor and anxiety, — its spasmodic
splendors are so violently contrasted with
the homeliness of every-day family-life, — it is

such a formidable matter to break in the raw
subordinates to the manège of the cloak-room and
the table, — there is such a terrible uncertainty in
the results of unfamiliar culinary operations, — so
many feuds are involved in drawing that fatal
line which divides the invited from the uninvited
fraction of the local universe, — that, if the notes
requested the pleasure of the guests' company on
“this solemn occasion,” they would pretty nearly
express the true state of things.

The Colonel himself had been pressed into the
service. He had pounded something in the great
mortar. He had agitated a quantity of sweetened
and thickened milk in what was called a
cream-freezer. At eleven o'clock, A. M., he retired
for a space. On returning, his color was noted
to be somewhat heightened, and he showed a disposition
to be jocular with the female help, —
which tendency, displaying itself in livelier demonstrations
than were approved at head-quarters,
led to his being detailed to out-of-door duties,
such as raking gravel, arranging places for horses
to be hitched to, and assisting in the construction
of an arch of winter-green at the porch of the
mansion.

A whiff from Mr. Geordie's cigar refreshed the
toiling females from time to time; for the windows
had to be opened occasionally, while all these
operations were going on, and the youth amused
himself with inspecting the interior, encouraging
the operatives now and then in the phrases commonly

employed by genteel young men, — for he
had perused an odd volume of “Verdant Green,”
and was acquainted with a Sophomore from one
of the fresh-water colleges. — “Go it on the feed!”
exclaimed this spirited young man. “Nothin' like
a good spread. Grub enough and good liquor;
that's the ticket. Guv'nor 'll do the heavy polite,
and let me alone for polishin' off the young
charmers.” And Mr. Geordie looked expressively
at a handmaid who was rolling gingerbread, as if
he were rehearsing for “Don Giovanni.”

Evening came at last, and the ladies were
forced to leave the scene of their labors to array
themselves for the coming festivities. The tables
had been set in a back room, the meats were
ready, the pickles were displayed, the cake was
baked, the blanc-mange had stiffened, and the
ice-cream had frozen.

At half past seven o'clock, the Colonel, in costume,
came into the front parlor, and proceeded
to light the lamps. Some were good-humored
enough and took the hint of a lighted match at
once. Others were as vicious as they could be,—
would not light on any terms, any more than if
they were filled with water, or lighted and smoked
one side of the chimney, or sputtered a few sparks
and sulked themselves out, or kept up a faint
show of burning, so that their ground glasses
looked as feebly phosphorescent as so many invalid
fireflies. With much coaxing and screwing
and pricking, a tolerable illumination was at last

achieved. At eight there was a grand rustling of
silks, and Mrs. and Miss Sprowle descended from
their respective bowers or boudoirs. Of course
they were pretty well tired by this time, and very
glad to sit down, — having the prospect before
them of being obliged to stand for hours. The
Colonel walked about the parlor, inspecting his
regiment of lamps. By-and-by Mr. Geordie entered.

“Mph! mph!” he sniffed, as he came in.
“You smell of lamp-smoke here.”

That always galls people, — to have a newcomer
accuse them of smoke or close air, which
they have got used to and do not perceive. The
Colonel raged at the thought of his lamps' smoking,
and tongued a few anathemas inside of his
shut teeth, but turned down two or three that
burned higher than the rest.

Master H. Frederic next made his appearance,
with questionable marks upon his fingers and
countenance. Had been tampering with something
brown and sticky. His elder brother grew
playful, and caught him by the baggy reverse of
his more essential garment.

“Hush!” said Mrs. Sprowle, — “there's the
bell!”

Everybody took position at once, and began to
look very smiling and altogether at ease. — False
alarm. Only a parcel of spoons, — “loaned,” as
the inland folks say when they mean lent, by a
neighbor.

“Better late than never!” said the Colonel;
“let me heft them spoons.”

Mrs. Sprowle came down into her chair again
as if all her bones had been bewitched out of her.

“I'm pretty nigh beat out a'ready,” said she,
“before any of the folks has come.”

They sat silent awhile, waiting for the first
arrival. How nervous they got! and how their
senses were sharpened!

“Hark!” said Miss Matilda, — “what's that
rumblin'!”

It was a cart going over a bridge more than a
mile off, which at any other time they would not
have heard. After this there was a lull, and poor
Mrs. Sprowle's head nodded once or twice. Presently
a crackling and grinding of gravel; — how
much that means, when we are waiting for those
whom we long or dread to see! Then a change
in the tone of the gravel-crackling.

“Yes, they have turned in at our gate. They're
comin'! Mother! mother!”

Everybody in position, smiling and at ease.
Bell rings. Enter the first set of visitors. The
Event of the Season has begun.

“Law! it's nothin' but the Cranes' folks! I
do believe Mahala's come in that old green de-laine
she wore at the Surprise Party!”

Miss Matilda had peeped through a crack of
the door and made this observation and the remark
founded thereon. Continuing her attitude
of attention, she overheard Mrs. Crane and her

two daughters conversing in the attiring-room, up
one flight.

“How fine everything is in the great house!”
said Mrs. Crane, — “jest look at the picters!”

“Matildy Sprowle's drawins,” said Ada Azuba,
the eldest daughter.

“I should think so,” said Mahala Crane, her
younger sister, — a wide-awake girl, who hadn't
been to school for nothing, and performed a little
on the lead pencil herself. “I should like to know
whether that's a hay-cock or a mountain!”

Miss Matilda winced; for this must refer to
her favorite monochrome, executed by laying on
heavy shadows and stumping them down into
mellow harmony, — the style of drawing which
is taught in six lessons, and the kind of specimen
which is executed in something less than one
hour. Parents and other very near relatives are
sometimes gratified with these productions, and
cause them to be framed and hung up, as in the
present instance.

“I guess we won't go down jest yet,” said Mrs.
Crane, “as folks don't seem to have come.”

So she began a systematic inspection of the
dressing-room and its conveniences.

“Mahogany four-poster, — come from the Jordans',
I cal'late. Marseilles quilt. Ruffles all
round the piller. Chintz curtings, — jest put up,
— o' purpose for the party, I'll lay ye a dollar. —
What a nice washbowl!” (Taps it with a white
knuckle belonging to a red finger.) “Stone chaney.

— Here's a bran'-new brush and comb, — and
here's a scent-bottle. Come here, girls, and fix
yourselves in the glass, and scent your pocket-handkerchers.”

And Mrs. Crane bedewed her own kerchief
with some of the eau de Cologne of native manufacture,
— said on its label to be much superior
to the German article.

It was a relief to Mrs. and the Miss Cranes
when the bell rang and the next guests were
admitted. Deacon and Mrs. Soper, — Deacon
Soper of the Rev. Mr. Fairweather's church, and
his lady. Mrs. Deacon Soper was directed, of
course, to the ladies' dressing-room, and her husband
to the other apartment, where gentlemen
were to leave their outside coats and hats. Then
came Mr. and Mrs. Briggs, and then the three
Miss Spinneys, then Silas Peckham, Head of
the Apollinean Institute, and Mrs. Peckham, and
more after them, until at last the ladies' dressing-room
got so full that one might have thought it
was a trap none of them could get out of. In
truth, they all felt a little awkwardly. Nobody
wanted to be first to venture down-stairs. At last
Mr. Silas Peckham thought it was time to make
a move for the parlor, and for this purpose presented
himself at the door of the ladies' dressing-room.

“Lorindy, my dear!” he exclaimed to Mrs.
Peckham, — “I think there can be no impropriety
in our joining the family down-stairs.”

Mrs. Peckham laid her large, flaccid arm in the
sharp angle made by the black sleeve which held
the bony limb her husband offered, and the two
took the stair and struck out for the parlor. The
ice was broken, and the dressing-room began to
empty itself into the spacious, lighted apartments
below.

Mr. Silas Peckham scaled into the room with
Mrs. Peckham alongside, like a shad convoying
a jelly-fish.

“Good evenin', Mrs. Sprowle! I hope I see
you well this evenin'. How's your haälth, Colonel
Sprowle?”

“Very well, much obleeged to you. Hope you
and your good lady are well. Much pleased to
see you. Hope you'll enjoy yourselves. We've
laid out to have everything in good shape, —
spared no trouble nor ex” —

— “pense,” — said Silas Peckham.

Mrs. Colonel Sprowle, who, you remember,
was a Jordan, had nipped the Colonel's statement
in the middle of the word Mr. Peckham
finished, with a look that jerked him like one
of those sharp twitches women keep giving a
horse when they get a chance to drive one.

Mr. and Mrs. Crane, Miss Ada Azuba, and
Miss Mahala Crane made their entrance. There
had been a discussion about the necessity and
propriety of inviting this family, the head of
which kept a small shop for hats and boots and
shoes. The Colonel's casting vote had carried

it in the affirmative. — How terribly the poor old
green de-laine did cut up in the blaze of so many
lamps and candles.

— Deluded little wretch, male or female, in
town or country, going to your first great party,
how little you know the nature of the ceremony
in which you are to bear the part of victim!
What! are not these garlands and gauzy mists
and many-colored streamers which adorn you, is
not this music which welcomes you, this radiance
that glows about you, meant solely for your
enjoyment, young miss of seventeen or eighteen
summers, now for the first time swimming into
the frothy, chatoyant, sparkling, undulating sea
of laces and silks and satins, and white-armed,
flower-crowned maidens struggling in their waves,
beneath the lustres that make the false summer
of the drawing-room?

Stop at the threshold! This is a hall of judgment
you are entering; the court is in session;
and if you move five steps forward, you will be
at its bar.

There was a tribunal once in France, as you
may remember, called the Chambre Ardente, the
Burning Chamber. It was hung all round with
lamps, and hence its name. The burning chamber
for the trial of young maidens is the blazing
ball-room. What have they full-dressed you, or
rather half-dressed you for, do you think? To
make you look pretty, of course! — Why have
they hung a chandelier above you, flickering all

over with flames, so that it searches you like the
noonday sun, and your deepest dimple cannot
hold a shadow? To give brilliancy to the gay
scene, no doubt! — No, my dear! Society is inspecting
you, and it finds undisguised surfaces
and strong lights a convenience in the process.
The dance answers the purpose of the revolving
pedestal upon which the “White Captive” turns,
to show us the soft, kneaded marble, which looks
as if it had never been hard, in all its manifold
aspects of living loveliness. No mercy for you,
my love! Justice, strict justice, you shall certainly
have, — neither more nor less. For, look
you, there are dozens, scores, hundreds, with
whom you must be weighed in the balance;
and you have got to learn that the “struggle
for life” Mr. Charles Darwin talks about reaches
to vertebrates clad in crinoline, as well as to mollusks
in shells, or articulates in jointed scales, or
anything that fights for breathing-room and food
and love in any coat of fur or feather! Happy
they who can flash defiance from bright eyes and
snowy shoulders back into the pendants of the
insolent lustres!

— Miss Mahala Crane did not have these reflections;
and no young girl ever did, or ever will,
thank Heaven! Her keen eyes sparkled under
her plainly parted hair, and the green de-laine
moulded itself in those unmistakable lines of
natural symmetry in which Nature indulges a
small shopkeeper's daughter occasionally as well

as a wholesale dealer's young ladies. She would
have liked a new dress as much as any other girl,
but she meant to go and have a good time at
any rate.

The guests were now arriving in the drawing-room
pretty fast, and the Colonel's hand began to
burn a good deal with the sharp squeezes which
many of the visitors gave it. Conversation, which
had begun like a summer-shower, in scattering
drops, was fast becoming continuous, and occasionally
rising into gusty swells, with now and
then a broad-chested laugh from some Captain
or Major or other military personage, — for it may
be noted that all large and loud men in the unpaved
districts bear military titles.

Deacon Soper came up presently, and entered
into conversation with Colonel Sprowle.

“I hope to see our pastor present this evenin',”
said the Deacon.

“I don't feel quite sure,” the Colonel answered.
“His dyspepsy has been bad on him
lately. He wrote to say, that, Providence permittin',
it would be agreeable to him to take a
part in the exercises of the evenin'; but I mistrusted
he didn't mean to come. To tell the
truth, Deacon Soper, I rather guess he don't like
the idee of dancin', and some of the other little
arrangements.”

“Well,” said the Deacon, “I know there's
some condemns dancin'. I've heerd a good deal
of talk about it among the folks round. Some

have it that it never brings a blessin' on a house
to have dancin' in it. Judge Tileston died, you
remember, within a month after he had his great
ball, twelve year ago, and some thought it was in
the natur' of a judgment. I don't believe in any
of them notions. If a man happened to be struck
dead the night after he'd been givin' a ball,” (the
Colonel loosened his black stock a little, and
winked and swallowed two or three times,) “I
shouldn't call it a judgment, — I should call it a
coincidence. But I'm a little afraid our pastor
won't come. Somethin' or other's the matter
with Mr. Fairweather. I should sooner expect
to see the old Doctor come over out of the Orthodox
parsonage-house.”

“I've asked him,” said the Colonel.

“Well?” said Deacon Soper.

“He said he should like to come, but he didn't
know what his people would say. For his part,
he loved to see young folks havin' their sports
together, and very often felt as if he should like
to be one of 'em himself. `But,' says I, `Doctor,
I don't say there won't be a little dancin'.'
`Don't!' says he, `for I want Letty to go,' (she's
his granddaughter that's been stayin' with him,)
`and Letty 's mighty fond of dancin'. You know,'
says the Doctor, `it isn't my business to settle
whether other people's children should dance or
not.' And the Doctor looked as if he should like
to rigadoon and sashy across as well as the young
one he was talkin' about. He 's got blood in him,

the old Doctor has. I wish our little man and
him would swop pulpits.”

Deacon Soper started and looked up into the
Colonel's face, as if to see whether he was in
earnest.

Mr. Silas Peckham and his lady joined the
group.

“Is this to be a Temperance Celebration, Mrs.
Sprowle?” asked Mr. Silas Peckham.

Mrs. Sprowle replied, “that there would be
lemonade and srub for those that preferred such
drinks, but that the Colonel had given folks to
understand that he didn't mean to set in judgment
on the marriage in Canaan, and that those
that didn't like srub and such things would find
somethin' that would suit them better.”

Deacon Soper's countenance assumed a certain
air of restrained cheerfulness. The conversation
rose into one of its gusty paroxysms just then.
Master H. Frederic got behind a door and began
performing the experiment of stopping and unstopping
his ears in rapid alternation, greatly
rejoicing in the singular effect of mixed conversation
chopped very small, like the contents of a
mince-pie, — or meat pie, as it is more forcibly
called in the deep-rutted villages lying along the
unsalted streams. All at once it grew silent just
round the door, where it had been loudest, — and
the silence spread itself like a stain, till it hushed
everything but a few corner-duets. A dark,
sad-looking, middle-aged gentleman entered the

parlor, with a young lady on his arm, — his
daughter, as it seemed, for she was not wholly
unlike him in feature, and of the same dark complexion.

“Dudley Venner!” exclaimed a dozen people,
in startled, but half-suppressed tones.

“What can have brought Dudley out to-night?”
said Jefferson Buck, a young fellow, who had
been interrupted in one of the corner-duets which
he was executing in concert with Miss Susy Pettingill.

“How do I know, Jeff?” was Miss Susy's
answer. Then, after a pause, — “Elsie made
him come, I guess. Go ask Dr. Kittredge; he
knows all about 'em both, they say.”

Dr. Kittredge, the leading physician of Rockland,
was a shrewd old man, who looked pretty
keenly into his patients through his spectacles,
and pretty widely at men, women, and things in
general over them. Sixty-three years old, — just
the year of the grand climacteric. A bald crown,
as every doctor should have. A consulting practitioner's
mouth; that is, movable round the corners
while the case is under examination, but
both corners well drawn down and kept so when
the final opinion is made up. In fact, the Doctor
was often sent for to act as “caounsel,” all
over the county, and beyond it. He kept three
or four horses, sometimes riding in the saddle,
commonly driving in a sulky, pretty fast, and
looking straight before him, so that people got

out of the way of bowing to him as he passed
on the road. There was some talk about his not
being so long-sighted as other folks, but his old
patients laughed and looked knowing when this
was spoken of.

The Doctor knew a good many things besides
how to drop tinctures and shake out powders.
Thus, he knew a horse, and, what is harder to
understand, a horse-dealer, and was a match for
him. He knew what a nervous woman is, and
how to manage her. He could tell at a glance
when she is in that condition of unstable equilibrium
in which a rough word is like a blow to
her, and the touch of unmagnetized fingers reverses
all her nervous currents. It is not everybody
that enters into the soul of Mozart's or
Beethoven's harmonies; and there are vital symphonies
in B flat, and other low, sad keys, which
a doctor may know as little of as a hurdy-gurdy
player of the essence of those divine musical mysteries.
The Doctor knew the difference between
what men say and what they mean as well as
most people. When he was listening to common
talk, he was in the habit of looking over his spectacles;
if he lifted his head so as to look through
them at the person talking, he was busier with
that person's thoughts than with his words.

Jefferson Buck was not bold enough to confront
the Doctor with Miss Susy's question, for he did
not look as if he were in the mood to answer
queries put by curious young people. His eyes

were fixed steadily on the dark girl, every movement
of whom he seemed to follow.

She was, indeed, an apparition of wild beauty,
so unlike the girls about her that it seemed nothing
more than natural, that, when she moved, the
groups should part to let her pass through them,
and that she should carry the centre of all looks
and thoughts with her. She was dressed to please
her own fancy, evidently, with small regard to the
modes declared correct by the Rockland milliners
and mantua-makers. Her heavy black hair lay
in a braided coil, with a long gold pin shot
through it like a javelin. Round her neck was
a golden torque, a round, cord-like chain, such as
the Gauls used to wear: the “Dying Gladiator”
has it. Her dress was a grayish watered silk; her
collar was pinned with a flashing diamond brooch,
the stones looking as fresh as morning dew-drops,
but the silver setting of the past generation; her
arms were bare, round, but slender rather than
large, in keeping with her lithe round figure. On
her wrists she wore bracelets: one was a circlet
of enamelled scales; the other looked as if it
might have been Cleopatra's asp, with its body
turned to gold and its eyes to emeralds.

Her father — for Dudley Venner was her father
— looked like a man of culture and breeding, but
melancholy and with a distracted air, as one
whose life had met some fatal cross or blight.
He saluted hardly anybody except his entertainers
and the Doctor. One would have said, to

look at him, that he was not at the party by
choice; and it was natural enough to think, with
Susy Pettingill, that it must have been a freak
of the dark girl's which brought him there, for he
had the air of a shy and sad-hearted recluse.

It was hard to say what could have brought
Elsie Venner to the party. Hardly anybody
seemed to know her, and she seemed not at all
disposed to make acquaintances. Here and there
was one of the older girls from the Institute,
but she appeared to have nothing in common
with them. Even in the school-room, it may be
remembered, she sat apart by her own choice,
and now in the midst of the crowd she made a
circle of isolation round herself. Drawing her
arm out of her father's, she stood against the
wall, and looked, with a strange, cold glitter in
her eyes, at the crowd which moved and babbled
before her.

The old Doctor came up to her by-and-by.

“Well, Elsie, I am quite surprised to find you
here. Do tell me how you happened to do such
a good-natured thing as to let us see you at
such a great party.”

“It's been dull at the mansion-house,” she said,
“and I wanted to get out of it. It's too lonely
there, — there's nobody to hate since Dick's gone.”

The Doctor laughed good-naturedly, as if this
were an amusing bit of pleasantry, — but he lifted
his head and dropped his eyes a little, so as to
see her through his spectacles. She narrowed

her lids slightly, as one often sees a sleepy cat
narrow hers, — somewhat as you may remember
our famous Margaret used to, if you remember
her at all, — so that her eyes looked very small,
but bright as the diamonds on her breast. The
old Doctor felt very oddly as she looked at him;
he did not like the feeling, so he dropped his head
and lifted his eyes and looked at her over his
spectacles again.

“And how have you all been at the mansion-house?”
said the Doctor.

“Oh, well enough. But Dick's gone, and
there's nobody left but Dudley and I and the
people. I'm tired of it. What kills anybody
quickest, Doctor?” Then, in a whisper, “I ran
away again the other day, you know.”

“Where did you go?” The Doctor spoke in
a low, serious tone.

“Oh, to the old place. Here, I brought this
for you.”

The Doctor started as she handed him a flower
of the Atragene Americana, for he knew that
there was only one spot where it grew, and that
not one where any rash foot, least of all a thinshod
woman's foot, should venture.

“How long were you gone?” said the Doctor.

“Only one night. You should have heard the
horns blowing and the guns firing. Dudley was
frightened out of his wits. Old Sophy told him
she 'd had a dream, and that I should be found
in Dead-Man's Hollow, with a great rock lying

on me. They hunted all over it, but they didn't
find me, — I was farther up.”

Doctor Kittredge looked cloudy and worried
while she was speaking, but forced a pleasant
professional smile, as he said cheerily, and as if
wishing to change the subject, —

“Have a good dance this evening, Elsie. The
fiddlers are tuning up. Where 's the young master?
Has he come yet? or is he going to be late,
with the other great folks?”

The girl turned away without answering, and
looked toward the door.

The “great folks,” meaning the mansion-house
gentry, were just beginning to come; Dudley
Venner and his daughter had been the first of
them. Judge Thornton, white-headed, fresh-faced,
as good at sixty as he was at forty, with a youngish
second wife, and one noble daughter, Arabella,
who, they said, knew as much law as her father,
a stately, Portia-like girl, fit for a premier's wife,
not like to find her match even in the great cities
she sometimes visited; the Trecothicks, the family
of a merchant, (in the larger sense,) who, having
made himself rich enough by the time he had
reached middle life, threw down his ledger as
Sylla did his dagger, and retired to make a little
paradise around him in one of the stateliest residences
of the town, a family inheritance; the
Vaughans, an old Rockland race, descended from
its first settlers, Toryish in tendency in Revolutionary
times, and barely escaping confiscation

or worse; the Dunhams, a new family, dating
its gentility only as far back as the Honorable
Washington Dunham, M. C., but turning out a
clever boy or two that went to college, and some
showy girls with white necks and fat arms who
had picked up professional husbands: these were
the principal mansion-house people. All of them
had made it a point to come; and as each of them
entered, it seemed to Colonel and Mrs. Sprowle
that the lamps burned up with a more cheerful
light, and that the fiddles which sounded from
the uncarpeted room were all half a tone higher
and half a beat quicker.

Mr. Bernard came in later than any of them;
he had been busy with his new duties. He
looked well; and that is saying a good deal; for
nothing but a gentleman is endurable in full
dress. Hair that masses well, a head set on with
an air, a neckerchief tied cleverly by an easy, practised
hand, close-fitting gloves, feet well shaped
and well covered, — these advantages can make
us forgive the odious sable broadcloth suit, which
appears to have been adopted by society on the
same principle that condemned all the Venetian
gondolas to perpetual and uniform blackness. Mr.
Bernard, introduced by Mr. Geordie, made his bow
to the Colonel and his lady and to Miss Matilda,
from whom he got a particularly gracious curtsy,
and then began looking about him for acquaintances.
He found two or three faces he knew, —
many more strangers. There was Silas Peckham,

— there was no mistaking him; there was the
inelastic amplitude of Mrs. Peckham; few of the
Apollinean girls, of course, they not being recognized
members of society, — but there is one
with the flame in her cheeks and the fire in her
eyes, the girl of vigorous tints and emphatic outlines,
whom we saw entering the school-room the
other day. Old Judge Thornton has his eyes on
her, and the Colonel steals a look every now and
then at the red brooch which lifts itself so superbly
into the light, as if he thought it a wonderfully
becoming ornament. Mr. Bernard himself
was not displeased with the general effect of the
rich-blooded school-girl, as she stood under the
bright lamps, fanning herself in the warm, languid
air, fixed in a kind of passionate surprise at
the new life which seemed to be flowering out in
her consciousness. Perhaps he looked at her
somewhat steadily, as some others had done; at
any rate, she seemed to feel that she was looked
at, as people often do, and, turning her eyes suddenly
on him, caught his own on her face, gave
him a half-bashful smile, and threw in a blush
involuntarily which made it more charming.

“What can I do better,” he said to himself,
“than have a dance with Rosa Milburn?” So
he carried his handsome pupil into the next
room and took his place with her in a cotillon.
Whether the breath of the Goddess of Love
could intoxicate like the cup of Circe, — whether
a woman is ever phosphorescent with the luminous

vapor of life that she exhales, — these and
other questions which relate to occult influences
exercised by certain women, we will not now
discuss. It is enough that Mr. Bernard was sensible
of a strange fascination, not wholly new to
him, nor unprecedented in the history of human
experience, but always a revelation when it comes
over us for the first or the hundredth time, so
pale is the most recent memory by the side of
the passing moment with the flush of any newborn
passion on its cheek. Remember that Nature
makes every man love all women, and trusts
the trivial matter of special choice to the commonest
accident.

If Mr. Bernard had had nothing to distract his
attention, he might have thought too much about
his handsome partner, and then gone home and
dreamed about her, which is always dangerous,
and waked up thinking of her still, and then begun
to be deeply interested in her studies, and
so on, through the whole syllogism which ends
in Nature's supreme quod erat demonstrandum.
What was there to distract him or disturb him?
He did not know, — but there was something.
This sumptuous creature, this Eve just within
the gate of an untried Paradise, untutored in the
ways of the world, but on tiptoe to reach the
fruit of the tree of knowledge, — alive to the
moist vitality of that warm atmosphere palpitating
with voices and music, as the flower of some
diœcious plant which has grown in a lone corner,

and suddenly unfolding its corolla on some hot-breathing
June evening, feels that the air is perfumed
with strange odors and loaded with golden
dust wafted from those other blossoms with which
its double life is shared, — this almost over-womanized
woman might well have bewitched him,
but that he had a vague sense of a counter-charm.
It was, perhaps, only the same consciousness that
some one was looking at him which he himself
had just given occasion to in his partner. Presently,
in one of the turns of the dance, he felt
his eyes drawn to a figure he had not distinctly
recognized, though he had dimly felt its presence,
and saw that Elsie Venner was looking at him
as if she saw nothing else but him. He was
not a nervous person, like the poor lady teacher,
yet the glitter of the diamond eyes affected him
strangely. It seemed to disenchant the air, so
full a moment before of strange attractions. He
became silent, and dreamy, as it were. The
round-limbed beauty at his side crushed her
gauzy draperies against him, as they trod the
figure of the dance together, but it was no more
to him than if an old nurse had laid her hand
on his sleeve. The young girl chafed at his
seeming neglect, and her imperious blood mounted
into her cheeks; but he appeared unconscious
of it.

“There is one of our young ladies I must
speak to,” he said, — and was just leaving his
partner's side.

“Four hands all round!” shouted the first violin,
— and Mr. Bernard found himself seized and
whirled in a circle out of which he could not escape,
and then forced to “cross over,” and then
to “dozy do,” as the maestro had it, — and when,
on getting back to his place, he looked for Elsie
Venner, she was gone.

The dancing went on briskly. Some of the
old folks looked on, others conversed in groups
and pairs, and so the evening wore along, until a
little after ten o'clock. About this time there
was noticed an increased bustle in the passages,
with a considerable opening and shutting of
doors. Presently it began to be whispered about
that they were going to have supper. Many,
who had never been to any large party before,
held their breath for a moment at this announcement.
It was rather with a tremulous interest
than with open hilarity that the rumor was generally
received.

One point the Colonel had entirely forgotten
to settle. It was a point involving not merely
propriety, but perhaps principle also, or at least
the good report of the house, — and he had never
thought to arrange it. He took Judge Thornton
aside and whispered the important question to
him, — in his distress of mind, mistaking pockets
and taking out his bandanna instead of his white
handkerchief to wipe his forehead.

“Judge,” he said, “do you think, that, before
we commence refreshing ourselves at the tables,

it would be the proper thing to — crave a — to
request Deacon Soper or some other elderly person
— to ask a blessing?”

The Judge looked as grave as if he were about
giving the opinion of the Court in the great India-rubber
case.

“On the whole,” he answered, after a pause,
“I should think it might, perhaps, be dispensed
with on this occasion. Young folks are noisy,
and it is awkward to have talking and laughing
going on while a blessing is being asked. Unless
a clergyman is present and makes a point
of it, I think it will hardly be expected.”

The Colonel was infinitely relieved. “Judge,
will you take Mrs. Sprowle in to supper?” And
the Colonel returned the compliment by offering
his arm to Mrs. Judge Thornton.

The door of the supper-room was now open,
and the company, following the lead of the host
and hostess, began to stream into it, until it was
pretty well filled.

There was an awful kind of pause. Many
were beginning to drop their heads and shut
their eyes, in anticipation of the usual petition
before a meal; some expected the music to strike
up, — others, that an oration would now be delivered
by the Colonel.

“Make yourselves at home, ladies and gentlemen,”
said the Colonel; “good things were made
to eat, and you 're welcome to all you see before
you.”

So saying, he attacked a huge turkey which
stood at the head of the table; and his example
being followed first by the bold, then by the
doubtful, and lastly by the timid, the clatter soon
made the circuit of the tables. Some were
shocked, however, as the Colonel had feared
they would be, at the want of the customary invocation.
Widow Leech, a kind of relation,
who had to be invited, and who came with her
old, back-country-looking string of gold beads
round her neck, seemed to feel very serious about
it.

“If she'd ha' known that folks would begrutch
cravin' a blessin' over sech a heap o' provisions,
she'd rather ha' staid t' home. It was a bad
sign, when folks wasn't grateful for the baounties
of Providence.”

The elder Miss Spinney, to whom she made
this remark, assented to it, at the same time
ogling a piece of frosted cake, which she presently
appropriated with great refinement of manner,
— taking it between her thumb and forefinger,
keeping the others well spread and the
little finger in extreme divergence, with a graceful
undulation of the neck, and a queer little
sound in her throat, as of an m that wanted to
get out and perished in the attempt.

The tables now presented an animated spectacle.
Young fellows of the more dashing sort,
with high stand-up collars and voluminous bows
to their neckerchiefs, distinguished themselves by

cutting up fowls and offering portion thereof to
the buxom girls these knowing ones had commonly
selected.

“A bit of the wing, Roxy, or of the — under
limb?”

The first laugh broke out at this, but it was
premature, a sporadic laugh, as Dr. Kittredge
would have said, which did not become epidemic.
People were very solemn as yet, many of them
being new to such splendid scenes, and crushed,
as it were, in the presence of so much crockery
and so many silver spoons, and such a variety of
unusual vainds and beverages. When the laugh
rose around Roxy and her saucy beau, several
looked in that direction with an anxious expression,
as if something had happened, — a lady
fainted, for instance, or a couple of lively fellows
come to high words.

“Young folks will be young folks,” said Deacon
Soper. “No harm done. Least said soonest
mended.”

“Have some of these shell-oysters?” said the
Colonel to Mrs. Trecothick.

A delicate emphasis on the word shell implied
that the Colonel knew what was what. To the
New England inland native, beyond the reach
of the east winds, the oyster unconditioned, the
oyster absolute, without a qualifying adjective,
is the pickled oyster. Mrs. Trecothick, who knew
very well that an oyster long out of his shell (as
is apt to be the case with the rural bivalve) gets

homesick and loses his sprightliness, replied, with
the pleasantest smile in the world, that the chicken
she had been helped to was too delicate to be
given up even for the greater rarity. But the
word “shell-oysters” had been overheard; and
there was a perceptible crowding movement towards
their newly discovered habitat, a large souptureen.

Silas Peckham had meantime fallen upon another
locality of these recent mollusks. He said
nothing, but helped himself freely, and made a
sign to Mrs. Peckham.

“Lorindy,” he whispered, “shell-oysters!”

And ladled them out to her largely, without
betraying any emotion, just as if they had been
the natural inland or pickled article.

After the more solid portion of the banquet
had been duly honored, the cakes and sweet
preparations of various kinds began to get their
share of attention. There were great cakes and
little cakes, cakes with raisins in them, cakes with
currants, and cakes without either; there were
brown cakes and yellow cakes, frosted cakes,
glazed cakes, hearts and rounds, and jumbles,
which playful youth slip over the forefinger before
spoiling their annular outline. There were
moulds of blo'monje, of the arrowroot variety, —
that being undistinguishable from such as is
made with Russia isinglass. There were jellies,
which had been shaking, all the time the
young folks were dancing in the next room, as

if they were balancing to partners. There were
built-up fabrics, called Charlottes, caky externally,
pulpy within; there were also marangs, and likewise
custards, — some of the indolent-fluid sort,
others firm, in which every stroke of the teaspoon
left a smooth, conchoidal surface like the fracture
of chalcedony, with here and there a little eye
like what one sees in cheeses. Nor was that
most wonderful object of domestic art called
trifle wanting, with its charming confusion of
cream and cake and almonds and jam and jelly
and wine and cinnamon and froth; nor yet the
marvellous floating-island, — name suggestive of
all that is romantic in the imaginations of youthful
palates.

“It must have cost you a sight of work, to say
nothin' of money, to get all this beautiful confectionery
made for the party,” said Mrs. Crane to
Mrs. Sprowle.

“Well, it cost some consid'able labor, no
doubt,” said Mrs. Sprowle. “Matilda and our
girls and I made 'most all the cake with our own
hands, and we all feel some tired; but if folks get
what suits 'em, we don't begrudge the time nor
the work. But I do feel thirsty,” said the poor
lady, “and I think a glass of srub would do my
throat good; it's dreadful dry. Mr. Peckham,
would you be so polite as to pass me a glass
of srub?”

Silas Peckham bowed with great alacrity, and
took from the table a small glass cup, containing

a fluid reddish in hue and subacid in taste. This
was srub, a beverage in local repute, of questionable
nature, but suspected of owing its color and
sharpness to some kind of syrup derived from the
maroon-colored fruit of the sumac. There were
similar small cups on the table filled with lemonade,
and here and there a decanter of Madeira
wine, of the Marsala kind, which some prefer to,
and many more cannot distinguish from, that
which comes from the Atlantic island.

“Take a glass of wine, Judge,” said the Colonel;
“here is an article that I rather think 'll
suit you.”

The Judge knew something of wines, and
could tell all the famous old Madeiras from
each other, — “Eclipse,” “Juno,” the almost fabulously
scarce and precious “White-top,” and
the rest. He struck the nativity of the Mediterranean
Madeira before it had fairly moistened
his lip.

“A sound wine, Colonel, and I should think
of a genuine vintage. Your very good health.”

“Deacon Soper,” said the Colonel, “here is
some Madary Judge Thornton recommends.
Let me fill you a glass of it.”

The Deacon's eyes glistened. He was one of
those consistent Christians who stick firmly by
the first miracle and Paul's advice to Timothy.

“A little good wine won't hurt anybody,”
said the Deacon. “Plenty, — plenty, — plenty.
There!” He had not withdrawn his glass, while

the Colonel was pouring, for fear it should spill;
and now it was running over.

— It is very odd how all a man's philosophy
and theology are at the mercy of a few drops of
a fluid which the chemists say consists of nothing
but C 4, O 2, H 6. The Deacon's theology fell
off several points towards latitudinarianism in the
course of the next ten minutes. He had a deep
inward sense that everything was as it should be,
human nature included. The little accidents of
humanity, known collectively to moralists as sin,
looked very venial to his growing sense of universal
brotherhood and benevolence.

“It will all come right,” the Deacon said to
himself, — “I feel a joyful conviction that everything
is for the best. I am favored with a blessed
peace of mind, and a very precious season of
good feelin' toward my fellow-creturs.”

A lusty young fellow happened to make a
quick step backward just at that instant, and
put his heel, with his weight on top of it, upon
the Deacon's toes.

“Aigh! What the d' d' didos are y' abaout
with them great huffs o' yourn?” said the Deacon,
with an expression upon his features not
exactly that of peace and good-will to man.
The lusty young fellow apologized; but the
Deacon's face did not come right, and his theology
backed round several points in the direction
of total depravity.

Some of the dashing young men in stand-up

collars and extensive neck-ties, encouraged by
Mr. Geordie, made quite free with the “Madary,”
and even induced some of the more stylish
girls — not of the mansion-house set, but of
the tip-top two-story families — to taste a little.
Most of these young ladies made faces at it, and
declared it was “perfectly horrid,” with that aspect
of veracity peculiar to their age and sex.

About this time a movement was made on
the part of some of the mansion-house people
to leave the supper-table. Miss Jane Trecothick
had quietly hinted to her mother that she
had had enough of it. Miss Arabella Thornton
had whispered to her father that he had better
adjourn this court to the next room. There
were signs of migration, — a loosening of people
in their places, — a looking about for arms
to hitch on to.

“Stop!” said the Colonel. “There's something
coming yet. — Ice-cream!”

The great folks saw that the play was not over
yet, and that it was only polite to stay and see
it out. The word “Ice-Cream” was no sooner
whispered than it passed from one to another all
down the tables. The effect was what might
have been anticipated. Many of the guests had
never seen this celebrated product of human skill,
and to all the two-story population of Rockland
it was the last expression of the art of pleasing
and astonishing the human palate. Its appearance
had been deferred for several reasons: first,

because everybody would have attacked it, if it
had come in with the other luxuries; secondly,
because undue apprehensions were entertained
(owing to want of experience) of its tendency to
deliquesce and resolve itself with alarming rapidity
into puddles of creamy fluid; and, thirdly,
because the surprise would make a grand climax
to finish off the banquet.

There is something so audacious in the conception
of ice-cream, that it is not strange that
a population undebauched by the luxury of great
cities looks upon it with a kind of awe and
speaks of it with a certain emotion. This defiance
of the seasons, forcing Nature to do her
work of congelation in the face of her sultriest
noon, might well inspire a timid mind with fear
lest human art were revolting against the Higher
Powers, and raise the same scruples which resisted
the use of ether and chloroform in certain
contingencies. Whatever may be the cause, it
is well known that the announcement at any
private rural entertainment that there is to be
ice-cream produces an immediate and profound
impression. It may be remarked, as aiding this
impression, that exaggerated ideas are entertained
as to the dangerous effects this congealed
food may produce on persons not in the
most robust health.

There was silence as the pyramids of ice were
placed on the table, everybody looking on in admiration.
The Colonel took a knife and assailed

the one at the head of the table. When he tried
to cut off a slice, it didn't seem to understand it,
however, and only tipped, as if it wanted to upset.
The Colonel attacked it on the other side
and it tipped just as badly the other way. It
was awkward for the Colonel. “Permit me,”
said the Judge, — and he took the knife and
struck a sharp slanting stroke which sliced off
a piece just of the right size, and offered it to
Mrs. Sprowle. This act of dexterity was much
admired by the company.

The tables were all alive again.

“Lorindy, here's a plate of ice-cream,” said
Silas Peckham.

“Come, Mahaly,” said a fresh-looking young
fellow with a saucerful in each hand, “here's
your ice-cream; — let's go in the corner and have
a celebration, us two.” And the old green de-laine,
with the young curves under it to make it sit
well, moved off as pleased apparently as if it had
been silk velvet with thousand-dollar laces over it.

“Oh, now, Miss Green! do you think it's safe
to put that cold stuff into your stomick?” said
the Widow Leech to a young married lady,
who, finding the air rather warm, thought a little
ice would cool her down very nicely. “It's jest
like eatin' snowballs. You don't look very rugged;
and I should be dreadful afeard, if I was
you” —

“Carrie,” said old Dr. Kittredge, who had overheard
this, — “how well you're looking this evening!

But you must be tired and heated; — sit
down here, and let me give you a good slice of
ice-cream. How you young folks do grow up, to
be sure! I don't feel quite certain whether it's
you or your older sister, but I know it's somebody
I call Carrie, and that I've known ever since” —

A sound something between a howl and an
oath startled the company and broke off the Doctor's
sentence. Everybody's eyes turned in the
direction from which it came. A group instantly
gathered round the person who had uttered it,
who was no other than Deacon Soper.

“He's chokin'! he's chokin'!” was the first
exclamation, — “slap him on the back!”

Several heavy fists beat such a tattoo on his
spine that the Deacon felt as if at least one of his
vertebræ would come up.

“He's black in the face,” said Widow Leech,
— “he's swallered somethin' the wrong way.
Where's the Doctor? — let the Doctor get to him,
can't ye?”

“If you will move, my good lady, perhaps I
can,” said Doctor Kittredge, in a calm tone of
voice. — “He's not choking, my friends,” the
Doctor added immediately, when he got sight of
him.

“It's apoplexy, — I told you so, — don't you
see how red he is in the face?” said old Mrs.
Peake, a famous woman for “nussin” sick folks,
— determined to be a little ahead of the Doctor.

“It's not apoplexy,” said Dr. Kittredge.

“What is it, Doctor? what is it? Will he die?
Is he dead? — Here's his poor wife, the Widow
Soper that is to be, if she a'n't a'ready” —

“Do be quiet, my good woman,” said Dr. Kittredge.
— “Nothing serious, I think, Mrs. Soper. —
Deacon!”

The sudden attack of Deacon Soper had begun
with the extraordinary sound mentioned above.
His features had immediately assumed an expression
of intense pain, his eyes staring wildly, and,
clapping his hands to his face, he had rocked his
head backward and forward in speechless agony.

At the Doctor's sharp appeal the Deacon lifted
his head.

“It's all right,” said the Doctor, as soon as he
saw his face. “The Deacon had a smart attack
of neuralgic pain. That's all. Very severe, but
not at all dangerous.”

The Doctor kept his countenance, but his diaphragm
was shaking the change in his waistcoat-pockets
with subterranean laughter. He had
looked through his spectacles and seen at once
what had happened. The Deacon, not being in
the habit of taking his nourishment in the congealed
state, had treated the ice-cream as a pudding
of a rare species, and, to make sure of doing
himself justice in its distribution, had taken a
large mouthful of it without the least precaution.
The consequence was a sensation as if a dentist
were killing the nerves of twenty-five teeth at
once with hot irons, or cold ones, which would
hurt rather worse.

The Deacon swallowed something with a spasmodic
effort, and recovered pretty soon and received
the congratulations of his friends. There
were different versions of the expressions he had
used at the onset of his complaint, — some of the
reported exclamations involving a breach of propriety,
to say the least, — but it was agreed that
a man in an attack of neuralgy wasn't to be
judged of by the rules that applied to other folks.

The company soon after this retired from the
supper-room. The mansion-house gentry took
their leave, and the two-story people soon followed.
Mr. Bernard had staid an hour or two,
and left soon after he found that Elsie Venner and
her father had disappeared. As he passed by the
dormitory of the Institute, he saw a light glimmering
from one of its upper rooms, where the
lady teacher was still waking. His heart ached,
when he remembered, that, through all these hours
of gayety, or what was meant for it, the patient
girl had been at work in her little chamber; and
he looked up at the silent stars, as if to see that
they were watching over her. The planet Mars
was burning like a red coal; the northern constellation
was slanting downward about its central
point of flame; and while he looked, a falling
star slid from the zenith and was lost.

He reached his chamber and was soon dreaming
over the Event of the Season.