Oh, sisters! I thought that I should have died with shame.
He looked from me to the young lady, and she looked at him. I looked first at one, then at the other, from under my drooping lashes.
She smiled, she touched her lip with one finger; he touched his, the mite of court-plaster stuck on his finger. Then she began to laugh, and so did he; the chairs shook under them. They made no noise, and the redness of their faces was lost in the shadow cast by the beer-bottles to every one but me.
Cousin Dempster was busy trying to crowd an extra candle into one of the wine-bottles that had just been emptied, while he sat before the chair I ought to have been sitting in.
"We must have a little more elegance at this end of the table," says he.
"Wax candles and champagne bottles for this lady."
He stooped down, expecting me to answer him; when he saw _her_ face all glowing with blushes.
"Ah!" says he, laughing, "we have got a little mixed here, Cousin Frost. It will never answer to come between man and wife in this fashion, especially when they have been only three weeks married. Supposing we change round again?"
I arose--she arose--we exchanged glances, then exchanged seats.
The lights from these beer bottles were numerous, but not brilliant. Under the shadows we concealed the emotions which disturbed us.
He looked funnily penitent, whenever his eyes caught mine, which was often, for somehow I could not keep looking on my plate all the time.
As for that young creature, she seemed to be brimming over with fun.
After a little, I began to feel myself smiling. It really was droll, but not so _very_ unpleasant.
Dear sisters:--After all, this city of New York is a wonderful institution. Vermont has its specialties, such as maple-sugar, pine shingles, and education; but in such things as style, fashion, and general gentilities, I must say this great Empire City isn't to be sneezed at, even by a Green Mountainer. Of course we are ahead in religion, morality, decorum, and a kind of politics that consolidates all these things into great moral ideas--as rusticoats, greenings and Spitzenbergen apples are ground down into one barrel of such sweet cider as we used to steal through the bunghole with a straw. You will recollect the straws--a Down-east invention, which these degenerated Yorkers have stolen, and are now using unblushingly for mint-juleps, sherry-cobblers, and such awful drinks as New England has put her foot down against with a stamp that makes inebriating individuals shake in their boots. But New York won't put her foot down, and the encroachment upon our patent-right for straws is just winked at.