I lifted my forefinger in gentle warning; for, with all her fashionable crotchets, E. E. is a good soul as ever lived, and I don't want to be hard on her, feeling that great minds should be forbearing, especially in religious matters. So we parted good friends, and I went into my room to get ready for the solemn occasion.

I took out my pink silk dress--for the alpaca was a little rusty--and laid it out on the bed. Then I ripped some black velvet ribbon from another old dress, and tied it up into bows that looked scrumptious as new. After that I brushed my hair out straight, and braided it in an austere fashion appropriate to the occasion. Not a friz or a curl was to be seen; for this once I threw aside the other woman's hair, and was from head to foot myself again.

"Neat, yet genteel," says I to myself, when my dress was on and the black bows in place. "Nothing flash or frivolous, though everything refinedly elegant. No minister, be he ever so strict a disciplinarian, can find fault with me. I suppose the critics of all the religious papers will be there. Well, let them draw my portrait; I am ready for the ordeal."

With these high thoughts in my mind I went downstairs; but the sight of my cousin made me step back with both hands thrown up. She was just on fire with jewelry and precious stones. They flamed out on her neck, twinkled in her ears, and shot fiery arrows through her hair. Her cheeks were rosy red, and her eyes had shadows about them that had come since she went down to dinner. Perhaps she had taken a nap in a dark room, though. The dress she wore was soft and white and floating, like a cloud in the sky; and there was black lace mixed with it, and roses tangled up with that. I declare to you, sisters, if that woman had been going to a worldly party, she couldn't have been t.i.tivated off more than she was.

It riled me to look at her.

Advice scorned isn't to be offered again. I said nothing, but let E. E.

go on in her frivolous career.

LV.

FOREIGN MINISTERS.

Dear sisters:--We entered the carriage, where Dempster took the front seat, just buried up in his wife's dress, and sat there like an exclamation-point gone astray. As for me, I sat upright and thoughtful, resolved to do my duty in spite of their shortcomings.

We reached a large brick house; before it a line of carriages kept moving like a city funeral, only people were all the time a-getting out and walking under a long tent that sloped down from the front door.

"There will be a full Conference," says I, in my heart, for I was too much riled up by E. E.'s dress for any observation to her.

One thing struck me as peculiar. None of the ladies wore their bonnets, and a good many had white cloaks on, huddled up around them as if they had been going to a party.

If I hadn't known the house belonged to foreign ministers, I really should have thought from the look of things that we had lost our way, and got into somebody's common reception. As it was I got out of the carriage, and went up the steps with my bonnet on, and holding up the train of my pink silk, feeling that so much appendage was out of place.

A colored person in white gloves opened the door, and waving his hand like a Grand Duke--oh, how that word goes to my heart--said:

"Front door, second story."

Another time I should have known that this meant that I could take off my things there. But now I felt almost certain that the ministers were holding a prayer-meeting, or conference, or something in "the front room, second story," so I went upstairs with a slow and solemn tread, feeling that the rustle of my pink silk was almost sacrilege.

I went into the room and looked around. It was full of women, wonderfully dressed women, all in low necks and short sleeves, and white shoes--laughing, giggling women, who looked over each others naked shoulders into a great broad looking-gla.s.s crowded full of faces that couldn't seem to admire themselves enough.

I stopped at the door. I scarcely breathed. What could all those rosy-cheeked, bare-armed ladies be doing in that house?

I asked this question, of course, of Cousin Dempster, who came into the hall a-pulling his white gloves on.

"Dempster," says I, in a low voice, "what does this mean? Where are the ministers?"

"Oh, they are in the back room. You didn't expect them to be turned in with the ladies, did you?"

"Well," says I, "it is customary in our State now, though it was not formerly, when the men sat on one side at prayer-meetings, and the girls on the other, but I didn't think that notion had got to foreign parts."

I don't think Dempster heard me clearly, for that minute his wife came out of the room, blazing like the whole milky-way of stars.

"Why, Phmie," says she, a-holding up both the white kid gloves she had just b.u.t.toned on, "you don't mean to go down with that bonnet on?"

"I should think you would be ashamed to go into a conference or a prayer-meeting with it off," says I, severely.

E. E. stared at Dempster, and he stared at her. Then he hitched up his shoulders, and she gave her hands a little toss in the air.

I didn't seem to notice their antics, but went with them downstairs, where I heard the sound of music, which didn't strike me as so sacred as it ought to be. Besides, there was a buzz and a hum like a hive of bees swarming, which was puzzling.

When we went into the great, long room, that seemed running over with light, the crowded state of the congregation astonished me. There wasn't seats enough for one quarter of the worshippers.

Sisters, I was the only one present who had studied the sacred decencies of a bonnet and shawl. The rest were dressed--well, they weren't dressed at all about the arms and shoulders, which shocked me dreadfully; the mere presence of a lot of ministers ought to have made women more decorous.

Would you believe it, the people round the doors stared at me as if they had never seen a beehive bonnet, with feathers floating over it, before.

Some people might have felt shocked at so many eyes turned on them, but I was in the straight and narrow path of duty, and their looks pa.s.sed by me like the idle wind. If they didn't understand the solemnity of the occasion, I did.

"There is the Minister," says Dempster, "let us pay our respects."

"Why," says I, "there don't seem to be either a reading desk or pulpit here!"

I don't think Dempster heard me, for he began to edge our way through the crowd, till we got clear into the room, which was so full of flowers and lights and music that I began to think the foreign ministers were keeping up Easter-Sunday yet.

A gentleman was standing near the door with some ladies around him.

Dempster took us straight up to him.

"Your Excellency," says he, "Miss Frost. Miss Phmie Frost, of Vermont."

I didn't think that exactly a proper place to be introducing people in, and measured off my bow accordingly, and pa.s.sed on without troubling myself about the ladies around him, who seemed to wonder at it. As if I wanted to know them!

When we got into the crowd again, I whispered to Dempster:

"Do tell me where the foreign ministers are!"

"The Ministers! Why you have just been presented to the very highest of them," says Dempster.

"What, that man," says I, "with precious stones a-twinkling on his shirt-bosom, and a bit of red ribbon in his b.u.t.ton-hole, who seems to have cut up his words with a chopping knife? You couldn't make me believe that, Dempster!"

"But it is, upon my honor, Phmie; and those gentlemen standing around him are all Ministers, or persons sent out with them. Almost every civilized nation is represented here to-night."

I looked around at the persons Dempster pointed out--some were young, some old, some you could understand, others you couldn't; most of them were talking and laughing with the ladies around them. I didn't see a downright serious face in the whole crowd.

"Them ministers!" I said, scorning Dempster's attempt to deceive me.

"Every one of them is a Minister now, or means to be."

"Dempster, I don't believe you."

"Well, ask some one else whom you can believe," says he, a-turning red.

"Here is Miss ----, she can tell you."