Volume I Part 27 (2/2)

SHAKSPEARE.

{William Shakespeare, ”All's Well That Ends Well”, I.iii.218-219}

MISS TAYLOR paid her visit to Miss Lawrence. One morning at breakfast she informed her parents that she intended to make an excursion to Boston. ”Whom was she going to see?” asked her father. ”Miss Lawrence, a young lady who had pa.s.sed three days at the Springs, at the hotel where they stayed, and with whom she had become very intimate.” ”How long was she going to be absent?”

inquired her mother. ”She thought of remaining a fortnight; perhaps three weeks, if she found it very pleasant. Mr. Powell, the young gentleman who was to be her escort, had been introduced to her the evening previous at a ball, and she thought him sufficiently fas.h.i.+onable in his appearance, to have the honour of taking charge of herself and her baggage.” Her father observed that he would bring a supply of money for her, when he came home to dinner; her mother offered to look over her stockings.

Everything thus settled, the next morning Mr. Taylor and Miss Adeline drove to the East-River wharf, where the Boston boat lay: here they met with a slight difficulty; the gentleman engaged as an escort could not be found; something had interfered with his journey. Nothing was easier than to pick up another, however. Mr.

Taylor looked about him, saw a face he knew slightly, and remembered the name that belonged to it.

”Good morning, sir; are you going to Boston, Mr. Hopkins?”

Mr. Hopkins bowed, and declared that he was going to Boston.

”I have a daughter on board, sir; and the young gentleman who was to be her escort is not here; will you be so good as to look after her?”

Mr. Hopkins would be very happy to take charge of Miss Taylor.

But Adeline was almost in despair when she saw him. How could one of the most das.h.i.+ng belles in New York, consent to sit, in view of all the pa.s.sengers, side-by-side with such a fat, rusty, snuffy, little old gentleman, who more green spectacles, and had a red silk handkerchief spread on his knee? Suppose he should ask her to walk, how could she pace up and down the promenade-deck arm-in-arm with such a figure? She, Adeline Taylor, whose travelling dress was faultless, and who had expected to have a charming flirtation with Albert Powell! What could she do? The fates, and the warning bell, decided the question; it was too late to look out for some better-looking escort. Mr. Taylor had hardly time to shake hands with his daughter, and jump on the wharf, ere the whizzing of the steam had ceased, and the plas.h.i.+ng of the wheels was heard. Adeline sank on a bench beside the rusty old gentleman for a moment, but soon fled to the ladies' cabin for refuge.

During the whole jaunt, the fat, snuffy Mr. Hopkins was kind and good-natured to Adeline, whenever she would allow him. He thought she must be lonely, and she had been obliged to confess that she knew no one on board; so the old gentleman held it inc.u.mbent on him to be sociable. He took some pea-nuts out of his pocket, and offered her a handful; he gave her a couple of newspapers to read; asked her questions about her family, brothers and sisters, and seemed to look upon her as a school-girl. He was not the least impressed with her elegance and finery, and quite unaware of her belle-s.h.i.+p; he even once called her ”my dear.” Then, the red silk handkerchief was always either on his knee, or in his hand! It would he difficult to say whether Adeline would have survived the mortification of such an escort, had it not been for two circ.u.mstances, which changed the current of her thoughts.

There were several elegantly dressed young ladies on board, and she soon succeeded in getting up an intimacy with two of them; they exchanged cards and invitations to each other's houses, and through the same means Adeline was introduced to a couple of beaux. Between breakfast and dinner, these new bosom-friends and herself were inseparable, but, unfortunately, they were only going half-way. The grief of separation was, however, somewhat a.s.suaged with Miss Taylor by sea-sickness, which, as every one knows, is very destructive to sentiment and sensibility. As long as they were tossing about near Point Judith, the snuffy old gentleman, who was not in the least sea-sick himself, was very faithful in his inquiries after Adeline, and proposed several remedies to her, through the stewardess. At length they reached Boston. As they drove to the door of Miss Lawrence's father, Mr.

Hopkins asked ”how long she intended to remain in Boston?” ”About a fortnight,” Adeline replied.

{”Point Judith” = prominent cape on the coast of Rhode Island, south of Narragansett}

”I shall be going back to New York about the same time, my dear, and if you have not got some one more to your taste, I'll take care of you on your way home, with pleasure,” said the fat old gentleman, sprinkling a handful of snuff on Miss Taylor's grey silk, and brandis.h.i.+ng the red handkerchief at the same time.

Adeline's thanks were very faintly uttered; but grat.i.tude is not a fas.h.i.+onable virtue. It was fortunately so dark that the rusty old gentleman could scarcely be seen as he took leave of the elegant Miss Taylor at Mr. Lawrence's door, and thus the young lady's mortification was over.

At the end of the three weeks, Adeline returned home, bringing glowing accounts of the delights of Boston, and talking a great deal about several ”delightful young gentlemen,” and occasionally mentioning a certain Theodore St. Leger. She had heard that the Boston people were all BLUE; but it must be a calumny to say so, for she had had a very lively time--plenty of fun and flirtation.

Miss Lawrence returned with her, and of course a party was given in her honour; there were some eighty persons present, all free from the shackles of matrimony, apparently to give the Boston young lady an opportunity of meeting a representation of her peers, the marriageable portion only of the New York community.

The evening was p.r.o.nounced delightful by Miss Lawrence; but all the guests were not of the same opinion.

{”BLUE” = literary or learned, from ”blue-stocking”}

”What an absurd custom it is, to have these young people parties,” said Harry Hazlehurst, who was on one of his frequent visits to New York at the time, and was sitting in Mrs. Graham's drawing-room, with that lady, Jane, and Mrs. Stanley.

”I agree with you; it is a bad plan,” observed Mrs. Stanley.

”The first of the kind that I went to, after we came home, made me feel ashamed of myself; though Dr. Van Horne, I suppose, would accuse me of high-treason for saying so.”

”But most young people seem to enjoy them,” said Mrs. Graham.

”It is paying us but a poor compliment to say so. One would think the young people were afraid to laugh and talk before their fathers and mothers. I really felt the other night as if we were a party of children turned into the nursery to play, and eat sugar-plums together, and make as much noise as we pleased, without disturbing our elders. It is a custom that appears to me as unnatural as it is puerile. I hope you don't like it,” he added, turning to Jane.

”I care very little about it.”

”I am glad, at least, you do not defend it.”

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