University of Virginia Library

HOME AGAIN.

[ILLUSTRATION] [Description: 628EAF. Page 227. In-line Illustrations. The first image is of people riding in horse-drawn carriages. The second image is of an entryway with columns around it, and the words, "Back to Gotham."]

Fifth Avenue Hotel,
September 10th.

I am glad to get back to the city
again—glad to get back where they
wear nice clothes and smoke good
cigars. I am pleased to be where I
can mingle in the festive crowd of
devoted church-goers — on Fifth
Avenue, where young men keep the
Sabbath religiously, and where beautiful
young ladies are to be seen regularly
going to and returning from divine
worship in India shawls, rich laces, and beautiful pungee.

In the Park I meet the same dashing tandems which used to
“stun” everybody at the Springs, the same swell fellows, and
the same beautiful ladies. The chronic old bachelors of the
Clarendon still ride alone, and young wives with old husbands,
who used to flirt with natty beaux on the balconies, now meet
their young lovers on the Park—the Realto of the lovers and
the loved.

[ILLUSTRATION] [Description: 628EAF. Page 228. In-line Illustrations. The first image is of a young lady looking up at the stars, with the caption, "ASTRONOMY AND LOVE." The second image is of a dog sitting up on its hind legs smoking a ciggarette, with the caption "FIDO."]

Many young ladies and
gentlemen who used to
wander in the Saratoga
grave-yard, or leave the
festive round dances to
study astronomy and love
in retired balcony nooks,
now pass, arm in arm, to
church. She has a quiet,
submissive look, and he,
alas! is oblivious to the
rest of the world.

Engaged!

The sentimental young
lady who gazed with admiration
upon the stars, never noticing
what the sentimental young fellow was
doing with her hands, is still gazing from
her Fifth Avenue window. Her lover
has gone away to Europe, and again her
thoughts are sic itur ad astra. Her only
solace is Fido, the lovely little dog which
Eugene gave her when she returned from
the Springs. As she sits and watches
the spirit of her lover among the stars, so
Fido watches with a sentimental reverence
for his mistress.

At the Fifth Avenue I meet the same
old ladies—heads of “flirtation,” “income”
and “pedigree” committees, who used to
watch the Clarendon balconies. We spend many social hours
talking over the romances of the summer—talking over the conquests
of love and, alas! the scandal cases. They say several
old husbands have committed suicide, and that Baron Flourens

[ILLUSTRATION] [Description: 628EAF. Page 229. In-line Illustration. Image of a woman holding a fan. The caption reads, "WED OR CEASE TO WOO!"] was finally killed by a jealous rival. Then they tell me all
about the engagements.

The golden-haired blonde who flung her arms around me that
dark night when the gas went out, begging me with love's young
tears not to dance with Lizzie Smith, is here with the rest. She
is still flirting with Albert. Like the other Clarendon beaux, he
still looks sweetly, but he does not propose. Sometimes he looks
mournfully in her face, and murmurs—

“Darling Julia, do you love me a little?”

“Yes, Albert—so much! you know I do.”

“I am too happy,” he says, “for I like to be loved,” but he
does not propose.

Julia now plays and sings a sweet air in the little ante-room,
with the door half-closed.

It is a sweet plaintive melody, and, as Albert leans forward to
turn the leaves, Julia's mother glances through the half-open
door, as she promenades by with Colonel Knight.

“Julia looks happy to-night,” she remarks to the Colonel; “I
think Albert has proposed.”

But alas! Julia's mother had too much confidence in human
nature. Albert was a flirt.

[ILLUSTRATION] [Description: 628EAF. Page 230. In-line Illustration. Image of a woman with one hand on her head and the other over her heart. The caption reads, "JULIA'S UNREQUITED LOVE."]

As the frost touched the autumn leaves, and the trunks were
packed for Philadelphia, Julia's mother called her aside.

“My poor child,” she sighed, “I fear we have lost our summer.
To-morrow we go back to Philadelphia with ruined hopes.