g could be more ridiculous than the
idea of a great, big, magnificent wild beast, with a swinging walk, and
a tuft on the end of his tail, being showed off at a dinner-table. I for
one shouldn't have a mite of appetite with such a creature prowling
round."

"My dear, dear cousin, I'm speaking of human lions."

"Human lions! I always thought the creatures were awfully inhuman," says
I; "nothing but a jackal can be worse."

"I mean great people--celebrated for something--bravery, literature, the
arts, sciences," says she.

"Well, what of them?" says I.

"In society we sometimes call them lions."

"O--oh!" says I, drawing the word out to give myself time. "So you
really thought I didn't understand. Why, of course. Dear me! cousin, how
easy it is to cheat you!"

"Oh!" says she, "one must get up early to match you women of genius, I'm
aware of that. What dry humor you have, now, looking so innocent and
earnest, too!"

I smiled benignly upon Cousin E. E.; if she could find any humor in what
we'd been a-talking about, it was more than I could. Lions! Where does
the joke come in, when human beings are called such names as that? Wild
beasts, indeed!

"How really modest you are!" says Cousin E. E. "Anybody else, who could
write as you do, would have known that she was meant when I mentioned
lions."

I dropped my eyes, and folded both hands.

"It will be the great feature of our party," says she. "Our friends will
know that you are a blood relation, and that pleases Dempster; besides,
you converse so beautifully, too."

"Do I?" says I, folding one hand over the other, and back again.

"And look so--so distinguished."

I drew my figure upright, and looked into the glass opposite. My cousin
had chosen her words well; there was something imposing in the bend of
that head. I say nothing; but she was right. Indeed, so far as I am
concerned, she generally is.

Early in the morning I sent down for my pink silk dress. Cousin E. E.
looked as if she was going to say something against it, at first; but,
after a little, her face cleared up, and I heard her muttering:

"This is the third time. Nothing on earth but a woman of genius could
stand that; but she has got enough to carry it off."

I said nothing, but thought of that bill, and just made a calculation of
how much it would cost a woman to rig herself out if she went to many
parties, and only wore a dress that cost five hundred dollars once.

Well, sisters, Christ