Читать книгу Phemie Frost's Experiences - Ann S. Stephens - Страница 19

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TICKETS for the ball! Sent, no doubt, at the Grand Duke's request. Cousin Emily Elizabeth has got tickets too. We shall go together in the same carriage, and leaning on her husband's arm. Dempster is a handsome man, and really distingué looking. Excuse French; an educated person will break into it now and then.

The day has come. Cousin Emily has just sent me a bundle of things, with her compliments—a little box with a cake of lovely white chalk in it; another, smaller yet, filled with a pink powder that looks like ground rose-leaves, and a bottle with something liquid and dark in it, which does not seem as if it was good to drink. What on earth does Cousin E. E. expect me to do with these things?

Ah! pinned to the bundle, I find a letter, beginning "Dear Cousin Phœmie," and asking me to excuse her, but she sends the things, thinking that I may want to rejuvenate, and perhaps dye, before I go to the ball.

Rejuvenate! Does she mean to say that I'm not young enough? and if I wasn't, how are these things a-going to help me? I know that girls in school sometimes eat chalk and chew gum, but never heard that they got the younger for it. Then the pink powder—well, it's no use calculating about it, especially as she wants me to die after it. I wish Cousin E. E. would ever learn to spell. When a woman dies she does not do it with a "y" as a general thing.

Now what does all this mean?

I was doing my hair at the looking-glass, when Cousin E. E. came in, looking like a queen; her blue silk dress was all spotted with gold flowers, and it streamed out half across my bedroom. Over that she wore a long white cloak, with tassels to it, and her hair was looped in with pink roses that were not redder than her cheeks, which would have satisfied me that her health was first-rate, if it hadn't been for the shadows that lay around her eyes, which had grown awfully dark since I saw her at home.

"Oh!" says she, "I am just in time. Came early, thinking you might want help. Sit down; that will do. Now where is the you-know-what—those boxes—you understand?"

Here E. E. flung off her cloak and came to the glass. I declare to you the creature's neck was white as any snow-drift but uncovered to an extent that frightened me out of a week's growth. Her arms, too, were the same, and bare as her neck. She had a narrow pink shoulder-strap, and some lace between them, and that was all; only a string of white stones, that shone like a rainbow now and then, was around her neck and one arm; two or three of the same kind of stones hung down from her ears, and shot out light from her hair.

The whiteness of that neck astonished me, and made me look every which way.

E. E. didn't seem to mind that, but took off her long white gloves and laid them on the table; then she snatched up one of the boxes, and began to rub a handkerchief that lay on the bureau in it.

"There now; hold back your head a little," says she; "shut your eyes."

Here she began to rub my face and neck and arms with the handkerchief till they looked white as her own. Then she changed boxes, and I could feel her making soft dabs at my cheeks, which tickled a little.

"Now open your eyes," says she.

I opened them wide, she astonished me so; and, as true as you live, she began to tickle them with a tenty-tointy brush. After that she titivated my hair a little, washed her hands with some Cologne water, and snatching up my pink silk dress, which lay across the bed, just buried me in it. I declare it was scrumptious to feel the silk a-rustling round me, and a-settling down on the floor, wave on wave. Well, the bill was a damper, but I couldn't help enjoying it for all that.

"Now," says E. E., a-drawing on her long, white gloves, "just take a look, and let us be off—Dempster is waiting."

I did take a look, right straight in the glass, and couldn't help doing it again and again, the lady I saw there seemed so much like a magnificent stranger to me—so white, so blooming—so—. Forgive me, sisters—I forgot that modesty is a tender blossom that should be encouraged—and I will say no more, only this, Cousin Dempster's neck had a good deal more of it than mine, and that French dress-maker had given me a little chance of sleeves, while her's left them out altogether.

When she spread out my skirt, it half covered the room. All at once she saw just one little spot of rain on it, and held up both her hands.

"Why, you haven't worn this before? Good gracious! no lady in our set ever wears the same dress twice. The idea!"

I felt myself wilting, for she was sarcastic in her speech. Then I up and spoke for myself.

"Yes, I wore it once," says I; "but it was tucked up under my waterproof cloak, with the lining turned inside out, and nobody saw it—especially the great Grand Duke, who didn't come out of his own vessel."

"Oh," says she, "then it won't be an absolute disgrace to the family if you wear it. I began to be afraid to go with you. There, now, don't look pins and needles at me, but just put something round you, and let us be off, or he will be there before us."

That was enough. I huddled up that pink silk in my arms, and in less than two minutes Cousin Dempster's carriage was so choke full of his wife and me, that he took a seat with the driver.