"'Now did you ever! Oh, is that true? Why, you don't!'

"'Lucy Green saw him with her own eyes,' and she opens her own as big as saucers.

"'And what did Miss Mudge say?'

"'Well, upon my word,' said she, 'I wonder what you will do next,' and laughed so they nearly fell overboard.

"'Oh, what carryings on, ain't it, dear? But I wonder where Sarah Matilda is? I don't see her and Captain De la Cour. I am afraid she will get lost in the woods, and that would make people talk as they did about Miss Mudge and Doctor Vincent, who couldn't find their way out once till nine o'clock at night.'

"'They'll soon get back, dear,' sais the other, 'let them be; it looks like watching them, and you know,' laying an emphasis on you, 'you and I were young once ourselves, and so they will come back when they want to, for though the woods have no straight paths in them, they have short cuts enough for them that's in a hurry. Cupid has no watch, dear; his fob is for a purse,' and she smiles wicked on the mother of the heiress.

"Well, then, who can say this is not a pleasant day to both parties?

The old gentlemen have their nice snug business chat, and the old ladies have their nice snug gossip chat, and the third estate (as the head of the firm calls it, who was lately elected member for Grumble Town, and begins to talk parliamentary), the third estate, the young folks, the people of progression, who are not behind but rather ahead of the age they live in, don't they enjoy themselves? It is very hard if youth, beauty, health, good spirits, and a desire to please (because if people havn't that they had better stay to home), can't or won't make people happy. I don't mean for to go for to say that will insure it, because nothin' is certain, and I have known many a gall that resembled a bottle of beautiful wine. You will find one sometimes as enticin' to appearance as ever was, but hold it up and there is grounds there for all that, settled, but still there, and enough too to spile all, so you can't put it to your lips any how you can fix it.

What a pity it is sweet things turn sour, ain't it?

"But in a general way these things will make folks happy. There are some sword-knots there, and they do look very like woodsmen, that's a fact. If you never saw a forrester, you would swear to them as perfect. A wide-awake hat, with a little short pipe stuck in it, a pair of whiskers that will be grand when they are a few years older--a coa.r.s.e check or red flannel shirt, a loose neck-handkerchief, tied with a sailor's knot--a cut-away jacket, with lots of pockets--a belt, but little or no waistcoat--homespun trowsers and thick buskins--a rough glove and a delicate white hand, the real, easy, and natural gait of the woodman (only it's apt to be a little, just a little too stiff, on account of the ramrod they have to keep in their throats while on parade), when combined, actilly beat natur, for they are too nateral. Oh, these amateur woodsmen enact their part so well, you think you almost see the identical thing itself. And then they have had the advantage of Woolwich or Sandhurst, or Chobham, and are dabs at a bivouac, grand hands with an axe--cut a hop-pole down in half a day amost, and in the other half stick it into the ground. I don't make no doubt in three or four days they could build a wigwam to sleep in, and one night out of four under cover is a great deal for an amateur hunter, though it ain't the smallest part of a circ.u.mstance to the Crimea. As, it is, if a stick ain't too big for a fire, say not larger than your finger, they can break it over their knee, sooner than you could cut it with a hatchet for your life, and see how soon it's in a blaze. Take them altogether, they are a killing party of c.o.o.ns them, never miss a moose if they shoot out of an Indian's gun, and use a silver bullet.

"Well, then, the young ladies are equipped so nicely--they have uglies to their bonnets, the only thing ugly about them, for at a distance they look like huge green spectacles. They are very useful in the forest, for there is a great glare of the sun generally under trees; or else they have green bonnets, that look like eagle's skins; thin dresses, strong ones are too heavy, and they don't display the beauty of nature enough, they are so high, and the whole object of the party is to admire that. Their walking shoes are light and thin, they don't fatigue you like coa.r.s.e ones, and India-rubbers are hideous, they make your feet look as if they had the gout; and they have such pretty, dear little ap.r.o.ns, how rural it looks altogether--they act a day in the woods to admiration. Three of the officers have nicknames, a very nice thing to induce good fellowship, especially as it has no tendency whatever to promote quarrels. There is Lauder, of the Rifles, he is so short, they call him Pistol; he has a year to grow yet, and may become a great gun some of these days. Russel takes a joke good-humouredly, and therefore is so fortunate as to get more than his share of them, accordingly he goes by the name of Target, as every one takes a shot at him. Duke is so bad a shot, he has twice nearly pinked the marksman, so he is called Trigger. He always lays the blame of his want of skill on that unfortunate appendage of the gun, as it is either too hard or too quick on the finger. Then there is young Bulger, and as everybody p.r.o.nounces it as if it had two 'g's' in it, he corrects them and says, 'g' soft, my dear fellow, if you please; so he goes by the name of 'G' soft. Oh, the conversation of the third estate is so pretty, I could listen to it for ever.

"'Aunt,' sais Miss Diantha, 'do you know what gyp--gypsy--gypsymum--gypsymuming is? Did you ever hear how I stutter to-day? I can't get a word out hardly. Ain't it provoking?'

"Well, stammering is provoking; but a pretty little accidental impediment of speech like that, accompanied with a little graceful bob of the head, is very taking, ain't it?

"'Gypsuming,' sais the wise matron, 'is the plaster of Paris trade, dear. They carry it on at Windsor, your father says.'

"Pistol gives Target a wink, for they are honouring the party by their company, though the mother of one keeps a lodging-house at Bath, and the father of the other makes real genuine East India curry in London.

They look down on the whole of the townspeople. It is natural; pot always calls kettle an ugly name.

"'No, Ma,' sais Di--all the girls address her as Di; ain't it a pretty abbreviation for a die-away young lady? But she is not a die-away la.s.s; she is more of a Di Vernon. 'No, Ma,' sais Di, 'gipsey--ing, what a hard word it is! Mr Russel says it's what they call these parties in England. It is so like the gipsy life.'

"'There is one point,' sais Pistol, 'in which they differ.'

"'What's that?' sais Di.

"'Do you give it up?'

"'Yes.'

"'There the gipsy girls steal poultry; and here they steal hearts,'

and he puts his left hand by mistake on his breast, not knowing that the pulsation there indicates that his lungs, and not his gizzard is affected, and that he is broken-winded, and not broken-hearted.

"'Very good,' every one sais; but still every one hasn't heard it, so it has to be repeated; and what is worse, as the habits of the gipsies are not known to all, the point has to be explained.

"Target sais, 'He will send it to the paper, and put Trigger's name to it,' and Pistol says, 'That is capital, for if he calls you out, he can't hit you,' and there is a joyous laugh. Oh dear, but a day in the woods is a pleasant thing. For my own part, I must say I quite agree with the hosier, who, when he first went to New Orleens, and saw such a swad of people there, said, he 'didn't onderstand how on earth it was that folks liked to live in a heap that way, altogether, where there was no corn to plant, and no bears to kill.'

"'My, oh my!' sais Miss Let.i.tia, or Letkissyou, as Pistol used to call her. People ought to be careful what names they give their children, so as folks can't fasten nicknames on 'em. Before others the girls called her Letty, and that's well enough; but sometimes they would call her Let, which is the devil. If a man can't give a pretty fortune to his child, he can give it a pretty name at any rate.

"There was a very large family of Cards wunst to Slickville. They were mostly in the stage-coach and livery-stable line, and careless, reckless sort of people. So one day, Squire Zenas Card had a christenin' at his house.

"'Sais the Minister, 'what shall I call the child?'

"'Pontius Pilate,' said he.

"'I can't,' said the Minister, 'and I won't. No soul ever heerd of such a name for a Christian since baptism came in fashion.'

"'I am sorry for that,' said the Squire, 'for it's a mighty pretty name. I heard it once in church, and I thought if ever I had a son I'de call him after him; but if I can't have that--and it's a dreadful pity--call him Trump;' and he was christenened Trump Card.

"'Oh my!' sais Miss Let.i.tia, lispin', 'Captain De la Cour has smashed my bonnet, see, he is setting upon it. Did you ever?'

"'Never,' said Di, 'he has converted your cottage bonnet into a country seat, I do declare!'

"Everybody exclaimed, 'That is excellent,' and Russel said, 'Capital, by Jove.'

"'That kind of thing,' said De la Cour, 'is more honoured in the breach than the observance;' and winked to Target.

"Miss Di is an inveterate punster, so she returns to the charge.

"'Letty, what fish is that, the name of which would express all you said about your bonnet?--do you give it up? A bon-net-o!' (Boneto).

"'Well, I can't fathom that,' sais De la Cour.

"'I don't wonder at that,' sais the invincible Di; 'it is beyond your depth, for it is an out-of-soundings fish.'

"Poor De la Cour, you had better let her alone, she is too many guns for you. Scratch your head, for your curls and your name are all that you have to be proud of. Let her alone, she is wicked, and she is meditating a name for you and Pistol that will stick to you as long as you live, she has it on the tip of her tongue--'The babes in the wood.'

"Now for the baskets--now for the spread. The old gentlemen break up their Lloyds' meeting--the old ladies break up their scandal club--the young ladies and their beaux are busy in arrangements, and though the cork-screws are nowhere to be found, Pistol has his in one of the many pockets of his woodsman's coat, he never goes without it (like one of his mother's waiters), which he calls his young man's best companion; and which another, who was a year in an attorney's office, while waiting for his commission, calls the crown circuit a.s.sistant; and a third, who has just arrived in a steamer, designates as the screw propeller. It was a sensible provision, and Miss Di said, 'a corkscrew and a pocket-pistol were better suited to him than a rifle,' and every one said it was a capital joke that--for everybody likes a shot that don't hit themselves.

"'How tough the goose is!' sais G soft. 'I can't carve it.'

"'Ah!' sais Di, 'when Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug of war.'

"Eating and talking lasts a good while, but they don't last for ever.

The ladies leave the gentlemen to commence their smoking and finish their drinking, and presently there is a loud laugh; it's more than a laugh, it's a roar; and the ladies turn round and wonder.

"Letty sais, 'When the wine is in, the wit is out.'

"'True," sais Di, 'the wine is there, but when you left them the wit went out.'

"'Rather severe,' said Letty.

"'Not at all,' sais Di, 'for I was with you.'

"It is the last shot of poor Di. She won't take the trouble to talk well for ladies, and those horrid Mudges have a party on purpose to take away all the pleasant men. She never pa.s.sed so stupid a day. She hates pic-nics, and will never go to one again. De la Cour is a fool, and is as full of airs as a night-hawk is of feathers. Pistol is a bore; Target is both poor and stingy; Trigger thinks more of himself than anybody else; and as for G soft, he is a goose. She will never speak to Pippen again for not coming. They are a poor set of devils in the garrison; she is glad they are to have a new regiment.

"Letty hasn't enjoyed herself either, she has been devoured by black flies and musquitoes, and has got her feet wet, and is so tired she can't go to the ball. The sleeping partner of the head of the firm is out of sorts, too. Her crony-gossip gave her a sly poke early in the day, to show her she recollected when she was young (not that she is so old now either, for she knows the grave gentleman who visits at her house is said to like the mother better than the daughter), but before she was married, and friends who have such wonderful memories are not very pleasant companions, though it don't do to have them for enemies.

But then, poor thing, and she consoles herself with the idea the poor thing has daughters herself, and they are as ugly as sin, and not half so agreeable. But it isn't that altogether. Sarah Matilda should not have gone wandering out of hearing with the captain, and she must give her a piece of her mind about it, for there is a good deal of truth in the old saying, 'If the girls won't run after the men, the men will run after them;' so she calls out loudly, 'Sarah Matilda, my love, come here, dear,' and Sarah Matilda knows when the honey is produced, physic is to be taken, but she knows she is under observation, and so she flies to her dear mamma, with the feet and face of an angel, and they gradually withdraw.

"'Dear ma, how tired you look.'