ays Cousin Dempster, stamping down
among the fur robes, and mashing my foot under the sole of his boot.

I said nothing, but sat in dignified silence, wishing those two persons
to feel that it was impossible the creature could mean me, but I
trembled all over with righteous indignation, and wondered why that
Bible benefactor, King Herod, had limited himself to boys, when he had
such a glorious chance to sweep creatures like that out of existence in
the female line. Oh! if I had been a Bible potentate!

"She was so anxious to go, being born in Vermont," says Cousin Emily
Elizabeth; "it seems as if she knew Mr. Greeley."

"Reads the _Tribune_ every day," chimes in Cousin Dempster, giving me a
pleading look.

"I'll thank you to take the heel of your boot off my foot, if you have
held it there long enough," says I, with the firmness of a martyr and
the dignity of an empress.

This wilted the whole party into silence, and we drove on, with the hail
pelting against the windows, and lowering clouds inside.

All at once we got into a long line of carriages, and moved on as if we
were going to a funeral instead of a birthday. Then the carriage
stopped, the door was flung open, and we stepped under a long tent that
stretched from the front door down a flight of stone steps and across
the sidewalk. A carpet ran down the steps to the carriage, and we walked
up that into the house; then through a hall, and upstairs, where we took
off our cloaks and titivated up a little in a room half full of ladies,
and blocked up with cloaks and things. I let down Cousin E. E.'s dress,
and she let down mine; then we shook each other out, took an observation
of each other from head to foot, tightened the buttons of our gloves,
and went into the hall.

There stood Cousin Dempster, with his white gloves on, and a white
cravat with lace edges around his neck, looking _so_ gentlemanly. We
went downstairs Indian file, for a stream of people were going down on
one side all crimlicued off most gorgeously; and another stream was
going up, with cloaks and hoods on, so there was no locking arms till we
got into the lower hall. Then we just tackled in. I took one arm, E. E.
took the other, and _that creature_ followed after, looking like an
infantile Black Crook in her short muslin skirts and bunched-up sash.

XXIX.

MR. GREELEY'S BIRTHDAY PARTY.

The parlors were large and light, and crowded full. Just beyond the door
I saw a man standing