The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851

LIFE AT A WATERING-PLACE

THE LIONNE

By Charles Astor Bristed

One day at Oldport Springs went off pretty much like another. There was the same continual whirl, and flurry, and toiling after pleasure—never an hour of repose—scarcely enough cessation for the two or three indispensable meals. When they had walked, and flirted, and played ten-pins, and driven, and danced all day, and all night till two in the morning, the women retired to their rooms, and the men retired to the gambling-house (which being an illegal establishment had, on that account, a greater charm in their eyes), and kept it up there till broad daylight; notwithstanding which, they always contrived to appear at breakfast a few hours after as fresh as ever, and ready to begin the same round of dissipation. Indeed it was said that Tom Edwards and his most ardent followers among the boys never went to bed at all, but on their return from "fighting the tiger," bathed, changed their linen, and came down to the breakfast-room, taking the night's sleep for granted. It was a perpetual scene of excitement, relieved only by the heavy and calm figure of Sumner, who, silent and unimpassioned, largely capacious of meat and drink, a recipient of every diversion, without being excited by any, went through all the bowling, and riding, and polking, and gambling, with the gravity of a commis performing the national French dance at the Mabille. There was much rivalry in equipages, especially between Ludlow, Benson, and Löwenberg, who drove the three four-in-hands of the place, and emulated one another in horses, harness, and vehicles—even setting up attempts at liveries, in which they found some imitators (for you can't do any thing in America, however unpopular, without being imitated): and every horse, wagon, man-servant, and livery, belonging to every one, was duly chronicled in the Oldport correspondence of the Sewer and the Jacobin, which journals were wont one day to Billingsgate the "mushroom aristocracy of wealth," and the next to play Jenkins for their glorification. Le Roi, who owned no horses, and had given up dancing as soon as he found that there were many of the natives who could out-dance him, and that the late hours were bad for his complexion, attached himself to any or every married lady who was at all distinguished for beauty or fortune; and then went about asking, with an ostentatious air of mystery,—"Est-ce qu' on parle beaucoup de moi et Madame Chose?" Sometimes he deigned to turn aside for an heiress; and as he was a very amusing and rather ornamental man, the girls were always glad to have his company; but the good speculations took care not to fall in love with him, or to give him sufficient encouragement (although a Frenchman does not require a great deal) to justify a declaration on his part. Perhaps the legend about the mutual-benefit subscription club hurt his prospects, or it may have been his limited success in dancing. The same reason—as much, at least, as the assumed one of their vulgarity—kept Mr. Simpson, and other "birds" of his set, out of the exclusive society. For dancing was the one great article in the code of the fashionables to which all other amusements or occupations were subordinate. There was a grand dress-ball once a week at one or other of the hotels, and two undress-balls—hops they were called: but most of the exclusives went to these also in full dress, and both balls and hops usually lasted till three or four in the morning. Then on the off-nights "our set" got up their own little extempore balls in the large public parlor, to the music of some volunteer pianist, and when the weather was bad they danced in the same place all day; when it was good these informal matinées did not generally last more than two or three hours. Then there were serenades given about day-break, by young men who were tired of "the tiger"—nominally to some particular ladies, but virtually, of course, to the whole hotel, or nearly so—and the only music they could devise for these occasions were waltzes or polkas. Ashburner made a calculation that, counting in the serenades, the inhabitants of Oldport were edified by waltz, polka, and redowa music (in those days the Schottisch was not), eleven hours out of the twenty-four, daily. And at last, when Mr. Monson, the Cellarius of New-York, came down with various dancing-girls, native and imported, to give lessons to such aspiring young men as might desire it, first Mrs. Harrison and other women, who, though wealthy and well-known, were not exactly "of us," used to drop in to look at the fun; and, finally, all the exclusives, irresistibly attracted by the sound of fiddles and revolving feet, thronged the little room up-stairs, where the dancing class was assembled, and from looking on, proceeded to join in the exercises. Ladies, beaux, and dancing-girls, were all mingled together, whirling and capering about in an apartment fifteen feet square, which hardly gave them room to pass one another. Benson was the only person who entered his protest against the proceeding. He declared it was a shame that his countrywomen should degrade themselves so before foreigners; but his expostulations were only laughed at: nor could he even persuade his wife and sister-in-law to quit the place, though he stalked off himself in high dudgeon, and wrote a letter to the Episcopal Banner, inveighing against the shameless dissipation of the watering-places. For Harry was on very good terms with the religious people in New-York, and was professedly a religious man, and had some sort of idea that he mixed with the fashionables to do them good; which was much like what we sometimes hear of a parson who follows the hounds to keep the sportsmen from swearing, and about as successful. Trying with all his might to serve God, and to live with the exclusives, he was in a fair way to get a terrible fall between two stools.

Talking of religion brings us naturally to Sunday, which at Oldport was really required as a day of rest. But whether it would have been so or not is doubtful, only that the Puritan habits of the country made dancing on that day impossible. It was a violation of public opinion, and of the actual law of the land, which no one cared to attempt. The fashionables were thus left almost without resource. The young men went off to dine somewhere in the vicinity, not unfrequently taking with them some of Mr. Monson's dancing-girls; the wearied men, and the women generally, were in a sad state of listlessness. Some of them literally went to bed and slept for the rest of the week; others, in very despair of something to do, went to church and fell asleep there. Ashburner took advantage of the lull to fill up his journal, and put down his observations on the society about him, in which he had remarked some striking peculiarities, apart from the dancing mania and other outward and open characteristics.

The first thing that surprised him was the great number of misunderstandings and quarrels existing among the not very large number of people who composed the fashionable set. They seemed to quarrel with their relatives in preference, as a matter of course; and to admit strangers very readily to the privilege of relatives. The Robinsons were at feud with all their cousins: Benson with most of his, except Ludlow. Ludlow, White, Sumner, every man he knew, had his set of private enemies, with whom he was not on speaking or bowing terms. Mrs. Harrison, who was very friendly to most of the men, scarcely spoke to a single woman in the place; but this was, perhaps, only carrying the war into Africa, as the ladies of "our set" generally had intended not to recognize her as one of them. These numberless feuds made it very difficult to arrange an excursion, or to get up a dinner at the restaurant of a "colored gentleman," whose timely settlement in Oldport had enabled Mr. Grabster's guests to escape in some measure the pangs of hunger. On studying the cause of these disagreeable hostilities, he found that, among relatives, they were often caused by disputes upon money matters; that between persons not related they frequently sprung from the most trivial sources—frivolous points of etiquette, petty squabbles at cards, imaginary jealousies—but that in both cases the majority of them could be traced to the all-pervading spirit of scandal. His purely intellectual education, if it had not made him somewhat of a misogynist, had at least prevented him from gaining any accurate knowledge or appreciation of women: he set them down en masse as addicted to gossip, and was not surprised to find in the American ladies what he assumed as a characteristic of the whole sex. But he was surprised to find the same quality so prevalent among the men. Not that they were in the habit of killing reputations to give themselves bonnes fortunes, as Frenchmen might have done under similar circumstances; their defamatory gossip was more about men than about women, and seemed to arise partly from a general disbelief in virtue, and partly from inability to maintain an interesting conversation on other than personal topics. And though much of this evil speaking was evidently prompted by personal enmities, much also of it seemed to originate in no hostile feeling at all; and it was this that particularly astonished Ashburner, to find men speaking disparagingly of their friends—those who were so in the real sense of that much-abused term. Thus there could be no reasonable doubt that the cousins, Benson and Ludlow, were much attached to each other, and fond of each other's society; that either would have been ready to take up the other's quarrel, or endorse his notes, had circumstances required it. Yet Harry could never refrain from laughing before third parties at Gerard's ignorance of books, and making him the hero of all the Mrs. Malaprop-isms he could pick up or invent; or, as we have seen, speaking very disrespectfully of the motives which had led him to commit matrimony; and Gerard was not slow to make corresponding comments on various foibles of Harry. But the spirit of detraction was most fully developed in men who were not professionally idle, but had, or professed to have, some little business on hand. Of this class was Arthur Sedley, an old acquaintance and groomsman of Benson, and a barrister—(they are beginning to talk about barristers now in New-York, though it is a division of labor not generally recognized in the country)—of some small practice. Really well educated, well read, and naturally clever, his cleverness and knowledge were vastly more disagreeable than almost any amount of ignorance or stupidity could have been. When he cut up right and left every man or woman who came on the tapis, his sarcasms were so neatly pointed that it was impossible to help laughing with him; but it was equally impossible to escape feeling that, as soon as your back was turned, he would be laughing at you. Riches and rich people were the commonest subject of his sneers, yet he lost no opportunity of toadying a profitable connection, and was always supposed to be on the look-out for some heiress.

The next thing which made Ashburner marvel was the extreme youth of the fashionable set, particularly the male portion of it; or, to speak more critically, the way in which the younger members of the set had suppressed their elders, and constituted themselves the society. A middle-aged man, particularly if, like Löwenberg, he happened to be rich, might be admitted to terms of equality, but the papas and mammas were absolutely set aside, and became mere formulas and appendages. The old people were nowhere; no one looked after their comfort in a crowd, or consulted them about any arrangement till after the arrangement was made. They had no influence and no authority. When Miss Friskin rode a wild colt bareheaded through the streets of Oldport, or danced the Redowa with little Robinson in so very château-rouge a style that even Mrs. Harrison turned away, poor Mrs. Friskin could interpose no impediment to the young lady's amusement; and even her father, the respected senior of the wealthy firm, Friskin & Co., who must have heard from afar of his daughter's vagaries (for all these things were written in the note-book of the Sewer), seemed never to have dreamed of the propriety or possibility of coming up to Oldport to put a stop to them. When Tom Edwards was squandering his fortune night after night at the faro-table, and his health day after day in ceaseless dissipation, there was no old friend of his family who dared to give him advice or warning, for there was none to whose advice or warning he would have listened. Once when Ashburner was conversing with Benson on some subject which brought on a reference to this inverse order of things, the latter gave his explanation of it, which was to this effect:—

"The number of foreigners among us, either travelling for pleasure or settled for purposes of business, is so great that they become an appreciable element in our society. It is, therefore, requisite that a fashionable should be able to associate easily with foreigners; and for this it is necessary that he or she should have some knowledge of foreign customs and languages, and, in the first place, of the French language. Now, if we go back a generation, we shall find that the men of that day were not educated to speak French. Go into the Senate Chamber at Washington, for instance, and you will not meet with many of the honorable senators who can converse in the recognized language of courts. Many of our most distinguished statesmen and diplomats can speak no tongue but their own. And to descend to private life, with which we have more particularly to do, when a foreigner presents himself with his letters at the dwelling of an old city merchant or professional man, it is generally the younger branches of the family who are called on to amuse him and play interpreters for the rest. This gives the young people a very decided advantage over their elders, and it is not surprising that they have become a little vain of it. And similarly with regard to foreign dresses, dances, cookery, and habits generally. The young men, having been the latest abroad, are the freshest and best informed in these things. It does not require any great experience or wisdom to master them, only some personal grace and aptitude for imitation to start with, and an à plomb to which ignorance is more conducive than knowledge. Hence the standard of excellence has become one of superficial accomplishment, and the man of matured mind who enters into competition with these handsome, showy, and illiterate boys, puts himself at a discount. Look at Löwenberg. All his literary acquirements and artistic tastes (and he really has a great deal of both) go for nothing. The little beaux can speak nearly as many languages as he can, and dance and dress better. The only thing they can appreciate about him is his money, and the horses and dinners consequent thereon. If little Robinson, there, with his ne plus ultra tie and varnished shoes, were to have the same fortune left him to-morrow, he would be the better man of the two, because he can polk better, and because, being neither a married man nor the agent of a respectable house, he can gamble and do other things which Löwenberg's position does not allow him to do."

This was a great confession for Benson to make against the country; nevertheless, it was not perfectly satisfactory to Ashburner, who thought that it did not explain all the phenomena of the case. It seemed to him that there was at work a radical spirit of insubordination, and a principle of overturning the formerly recognized order of domestic rule. The little children ate and drank what they liked, went to bed when they liked, and altogether were very independent of their natural rulers. Benson's boy rode rough-shod over his nurse, bullied his mother, and only deigned to mind his father occasionally. The wives ruled their husbands despotically, and acted as if they had taken out a patent for avenging the inferiority of their sex in other parts of the world. Benson did not like dancing: he only danced at all because he thought it his business to know a little of every thing, and because society thought it the duty of every young man who was not lame to understand the polka. But his wife kept him going at every ball for six hours, during five of which he was bored to death. Ludlow, whose luxurious living made violent exercise necessary for his health, and who, therefore, delighted in fencing, boxing, and "constitutionals" that would have tired a Cantab, was made to drive about Mrs. Ludlow all day till he hated the sight of his own horses. As to Mrs. Harrison, she treated her husband, when he made his appearance at Oldport (which was not very often) as unceremoniously as one would an old trunk, or any other piece of baggage which is never alluded to or taken notice of except when wanted for immediate use.

Ashburner first met this lady a very few days after his arrival at Oldport; indeed, she was so conspicuous a figure in the place that one could not be there long without taking notice of her. About mid-day there was usually a brief interval between the ten-pin bowling and the informal dance; and during one of these pauses he perceived on the smoking-piazza where ladies seldom ventured, a well-dressed and rather handsome woman smoking a cigarette, and surrounded by a group of beaux of all sizes, from men like White and Sumner to the little huge-cravated boys in their teens. She numbered in her train at least half-a-dozen of these cavaliers, and was playing them off against one another and managing them all at once, as a circus-rider does his four horses, or a juggler his four balls. In a country where beauty is the rule rather than the exception, she was not a remarkable beauty—at least, she did not appear such to Ashburner, from that distance; nor was her dress, though sufficiently elegant and becoming, quite so artistically put on as that of Mrs. Benson and the other belles of the set; still there was clearly something very attractive and striking about her, and he was immediately induced to inquire her name, and, on learning that she was a real lady (though not of "our set" of ladies), to request an introduction to her. But Benson, to whom he first applied, instead of jumping at the opportunity with his usual readiness to execute or anticipate his friend's wishes, boggled exceedingly, and put off the introduction under frivolous and evidently feigned pretences. It was so uncommon for Benson to show any diffidence in such matters, and his whole air said so plainly, "I will do this out of friendship for you if you wish it, but for my own part I would rather not," that Ashburner saw there was something in the wind, and let the subject drop. Ludlow, to whom he next had recourse, told him, with the utmost politeness but in very decided terms, that "his family" (he was careful not to insist on his own personality in the affair) "had not the honor of Mrs. Harrison's acquaintance." The next man who happened to come along was Mr. Simpson, and to him Ashburner made application, thinking that, perhaps, the fair smoker might more properly belong to the "second set," though so surrounded by the beaux of the first. But even Simpson, though the last man in the world to be guilty of any superfluous delicacy, hesitated very much, and made some allusion to Mrs. Simpson; and then Ashburner began to comprehend the real state of the case,—that most of the married women had declared war against Mrs. Harrison, that she had retaliated upon them all, and that the husbands were drawn into their wives' quarrels, and obliged to fight shy of her before strangers. It was clear, then, that he must apply to a bachelor; and accordingly he waylaid Sumner, who "was too happy" to introduce him at once in due form.

As Ashburner came up to Mrs. Harrison she began to play off her eyes at him, and he then perceived that they constituted her chief beauty. They were of that deep blue which, in certain lights, passes for black,—large, expressive, and pleasing; the sort of eyes that go right through a man and look him down to nothing. Indeed, they had such effect on him that he lost all distinctive idea of her other features. Her manner, too, had something very attractive, though he could not have defined wherein it consisted. She did not exhibit the empressement with which most of her countrywomen seek to put a stranger at his ease at once; or the exigence of a spoiled lady waiting to be amused; or the haughtiness of a great lady, who does not care if she is amused herself and deigns no effort to amuse others. Neither did she attack him with raillery and irony, as Mrs. Benson had done on their first meeting. But she behaved as if she were used to seeing men like Ashburner every day of her life, and was willing to meet them half-way and be agreeable to them, if they were so to her, without taking any particular trouble, for there was no appearance of effort to please, or even of any strong desire to please, in her words and gestures; yet she did please and attract very decidedly.

"So I saw you in Mrs. Harrison's train!" said Benson, when they next met.

"Yes, and I fancy I know why you hesitated to introduce me."

As Ashburner spoke he glanced towards the parlor, where "our set"—Mrs. Benson, of course, conspicuous among them—were engaged in their ordinary occupation of dancing.

"Oh, I assure you, madame is not disposed to be jealous, nor am I a man to take part in women's quarrels. I don't like the lady myself, to begin with; and were I a bachelor, should have as little to say to her as I have now. In the first place she is too old–"

"Too old! she cannot be thirty."

"Of course a lady never is thirty, until she is fifty, at least; but at any rate I may say, without sacrilege, that Mrs. H. is pretty high up in the twenties. Now, at that age a woman ought—not to give up society, that would be an absurdity in the other extreme, but—to leave the romping dances and the young men to the girls, who want them more and whom they become better. Then I don't like her face. You must have taken notice that all the upper part of it is fine and intellectual, and she has glorious eyes–"

"Yes," said Ashburner.

"But all the lower part is heavy and over-sensuous. Now, not only does this, in my opinion, entirely disfigure a woman's looks, but it suggests unpleasant ideas of her character. A man may have that ponderous chin and voluptuous mouth, without their disturbing the harmony of an otherwise handsome face. I do not think a woman can; and as in the physical so in the moral. A man can stand a much greater amount of sensuousness in his composition than a woman. I do not mean to allude to the different standards of morality for the two sexes admitted by society; for I don't admit it, and think it very unjust; and I am proud to say that our people generally entertain more virtuous as well as more equitable views on this point than the Europeans. I mean literally that a man having so many opportunities for leading an active life, and being able to reason himself into or out of a great many things to or from which a woman's only guide is her feelings, may be very sensuous without its doing any positive harm to himself or others; but with a woman, who is compelled to lead a comparatively idle life, such an element predominating in her character is sure to bring her into mischief."

"Do you mean to say, then, that–" and Ashburner stopped short, but his look implied the remainder of his interrupted question.

"Do you ask me from a personal motive?"

Ashburner colored, and was proceeding to disclaim any such motive with an air of injured innocence.

"No, I don't mean any thing of the sort," said Benson, who felt that he had gone rather too far, and might unintentionally have slandered his countrywoman. "I believe the lady is as pure as—as my wife, or any one else. The number of her beaux, and the equality with which she treats them, prove conclusively to my mind that her flirting never runs into any thing worse. I don't think a woman runs any danger of that kind when she has such a lot of cavaliers; they keep watch on her and on one another. I remember when my brother lived in town, he once was away from home for two or three weeks, and when he came back an old maid who lived in his street, and used to keep religious watch over the goings-out and comings-in of every one in the vicinity, said to him, "How very gay your wife is, Mr. Benson! she has been walking with a different gentleman every day since you were gone.' 'Dear me!' says Carl; 'a different man every day! How glad I am! If you had told me she was walking with the same man every day I might have been a little scared.' But a woman may be perfectly chaste herself, and yet cause a great deal of unchasteness in other people. Here is this Mrs. Harrison, smoking cigarettes—and cigars, too, sometimes, in the open air; drinking grog at night, and sometimes in the morning; letting Tom Edwards and the foolish boys who imitate him talk slang to her without putting them down; always ready for a walk or drive with the last handsome young man who has arrived; and utterly ignoring her husband, except when she makes some slighting mention of him for not sending her money enough: what is the effect of all this upon the men? The foreigners; there are plenty of them here every season; I wonder there are so few this time: instead of one decent Frenchman like Le Roi, you usually find half-a-dozen disreputable ones; Englishmen many, not always of the best sort; Germans, Russians, and Spaniards, occasionally: they all are inclined to look upon her—especially considering her belligerent attitude towards the rest of the female population—as something très légère, and to attempt to go a little too far with her. Then she puts them down fast enough, and they in spite say things about her, the discredit of which extends to our ladies generally—in short, she exposes the country before foreigners. Then for the natives, she catches some poor boy just loose upon the world, dances with, flatters him—for she has a knack of flattering people without seeming to do so, especially by always appearing to take an interest in what is said to her,—keeps him dangling about her for a while; then some day he says or does something to make a fool of himself, and she extinguishes him. The man gets a check of this sort at his entry into society that is enough to make him a misogynist for life. And the little scenes that she used to get up last summer with married men, just to make their wives jealous!"

"Which, I suppose, is the reason none of your wives will let you speak to her?" said Ashburner, who began to feel, he hardly knew why, a sentiment of partisanship for Mrs. Harrison. "But granting that her face, as you describe it, is an index of her character, I should draw from that exactly the opposite inference. I believe that the women who make mischief in the way you mention are your unsensuous and passionless ones—that the perfect flirt, single or married, must be a perfectly cold woman, because it is only one of such a temperament who can thus trifle with others without danger to herself. I speak hesitatingly, for all women are a mystery, and my experience is as yet very limited; but such opportunities of observation as have fallen to my lot confirm me in the theory."

Somewhat to Ashburner's surprise his friend made no attempt to controvert his argument. He only turned it aside, saying,–

"Well, I don't like her, at any rate. If I had no other reason, the way she talks of her husband would be enough to make me."

"Oh, there is a Mr. Harrison, then? One hears so little of him–"

"And sees so nothing of him, you may say."

"Exactly—that I took him for a mythological personage—a cousin of our Mrs. Harris."

"Nevertheless I assure you Mr. Harrison exists very decidedly—a Wall-street speculator, and well known as such by business people, a capital man behind a trotter, an excellent judge of wine. Probably he will come here from the city once or twice before we leave, and I shall find an opportunity to introduce you to him, for he is really worth knowing and considerable of a man, as we say—no fool at all, except in the way he lets his wife bully him."

"If he made an unsuitable match that does not show his wisdom conspicuously."

"It was an unsuitable match enough, Heaven knows! But when he proposed he was in the state of mind in which sensible people do the most foolish things. He was a great man in stocks—controlled the market at one time—had been buying largely just before the election of '44, when we all expected Henry Clay would get in with plenty to spare. When Polk was elected, great was the terror of all respectable citizens. My brother caught such a fright then that I don't think he has fairly recovered from it to this day. How the stocks did tumble down! Harrison had about nine millions on his hands; he couldn't keep such a fund, and was forced to sell at any price, and lost just one third. Just as he was beginning to pick himself up after the shock and wonder, like the sailor whom the conjurer blew up, what was to come next? Mr. Whitey of the Jacobin, now the honorable Pompey Whitey—and one doesn't see why he shouldn't be, for after all an editor is not, generally speaking, a greater blackguard than most of our Congressmen—Whitey, I say, who for our sins is nominally attached to the Conservative party, conceived the bright idea of overbidding the enemy for popular favor, and proposed—no, he didn't actually propose in so many words, but only strongly hinted at the desirableness of the measure—that there should be no more paying rent, and a general division of property. I am not sure but there were some additional suggestions on the expediency of abolishing the Christian religion and the institution of matrimony, but that has nothing to do with politics. This last drop in the bucket quite overflowed poor Harrison; so, as if he had said to himself, "Let us eat and drink and get married, for to-morrow we shall have a proscription and novæ tabulæ," he rushed off and proposed to Miss Macintyre."

"Then, if she accepted him after he lost his fortune, it shows she did not marry for money, at any rate."

"There you have missed it. He lost the whole of a fortune, but not the whole of his. He must have a million of dollars left, and a man with that is not poor in any country—certainly it was a great catch for Miss Macintyre, without a red cent of her own. She jilted a Frenchman for him: the unfortunate, or fortunate cast-off had ordered much jewelry and other wedding presents, and when left in the lurch he quietly proposed that, as he had no longer any use for the articles, Harrison, who had, should take them off his hands; and this offer was accepted. Very French in him to make it—don't you think so?—and rather American in the other to take it. Well, I hope Harrison will come this way soon; I should really like you to know him."

One or two days after this conversation Ashburner met his friend walking up and down the interminable piazza of the Bath Hotel, arm-in-arm with a middle-aged man, who presented as great a contrast to Benson's usual associates, and to Benson himself, as could well be imagined. The new-comer was short of stature and square-built, rather ugly, and any thing but graceful; he wore very good clothes, but they were badly put on, and looked as if they had never undergone the brush since leaving the tailor's hands; he wore no gloves, and in short had altogether an unfashionable appearance. But though indubitably an unfashionable man, he did not give you the impression of a vulgar one; there was nothing snobbish or pretentious in his ugliness, and his cavernous black eye could have belonged only to an intelligent and able man. Benson was joking or pressing upon him some matter which he seemed unwilling to explain.

"But do tell me," said Harry, as they passed Ashburner, "what have you been doing to yourself? Sprained your finger by working too hard the night before last packet day? or tumbled down from running too fast in Wall-street, and not thinking which way you were going?" And he took in his own delicate white hand the rough paw of the stranger, which was partly bound up as if suffering from some recent injury.

"If you must know," said the other, stopping short his walk, "I broke my knuckles on an Irish hackman's teeth. Last week the fellow drove me from the North River boat to my house in Union Square, and I offered him seventy-five cents. He was very insolent and demanded a dollar. If I had had a dollar-note about me I might have given it to him, but it happened that I had only the six shillings in change; and so, knowing that was two shillings more than his legal fare, I became as positive as he. At last he seized my trunk, and then I could not resist the temptation of giving him a left-hander that sent him clean down the steps into the gutter."

"And then?

"He made a great bawling, and was beginning to draw a crowd about the house, when I walked off to the nearest police-station; and as it turned out that my gentleman was known as a troublesome character, they threatened to take away his license and have him sent to Blackwell's Island if he didn't keep quiet; so he was too glad to make himself scarce."

"By Jove, you deserve a testimonial from the city! I once got twenty dollars damages from an omnibus-driver for running into my brougham, knocking off a wheel, and dumping my wife and child into the street; and I thought it was a great exploit, but this performance of yours throws me into the shade."

Just then Benson caught sight of Ashburner, and excusing himself to the other, rushed up to him.

"Let me tell you now, before I forget it. We are going over to the glen to-morrow to dine, and in fact spend the day there. You'll come, of course?"

"With great pleasure," said Ashburner; "but pray don't let me take you away from your friend."

"Oh, that's only Harrison."

We meant, of course, our set, with such foreign lions as the place afforded, foremost among whom stood Ashburner and Le Roi. Benson, Ludlow, and some of the other married men undertook to arrange it, always under the auspices of the Robinsons.

These Robinsons were evidently the leaders in every movement of the fashionables, but why they were so was not so clear—at least, to Ashburner, though he had abundant opportunities of studying the whole family. There was a father in some kind of business, who occupied the usual position of New-York fathers; that is to say, he made the money for the rest of the family to spend, and showed himself at Oldport once a fortnight or so—possibly to pay the bills. There was a mother, stout and good-humored, rather vulgar, very fussy, and no end of a talker: she always reminded Ashburner of an ex-lady-mayoress. There were three or four young men, sons and cousins, with the usual amount of white tie and the ordinary dexterity in the polka; and two daughters, both well out of their teens. The knowing ones said that one of these young ladies was to have six thousand a year by her grandfather's will, and the other little or nothing; but it was not generally understood which was the heiress, and the old lady manœuvred with them as if both were. This fact, however, was not sufficient to account for their rank as belles, since there were several other girls in their circle quite as well, or better off. Nor had their wit or talent any share in giving them their position; on the contrary, people used to laugh at the bêtises of the Robinsons, and make them the butt of real or imaginary good stories. And, in point of birth, they were not related to the Van Hornes, the Bensons, the Vanderlyns, or any of the old Dutch settlers; nor like White Ludlow, and others of their set, sprung from the British families of long standing in the city. On the very morning of the proposed excursion Sedley was sneering at them for parvenus, and trying to amuse Ashburner at their expense with some ridiculous stories about them.

"And yet," said the Englishman, "these people are your leaders of fashion. You can't do any thing without them. They are the head of this excursion that we are just going upon." Benson tells me "the Robinsons are to be there," as if that settled the propriety and desirability of my being there also."

"As to that," replied Sedley, "fashionable society is a vast absurdity anywhere, and it is only natural that absurd people should be at the head of it. The Robinsons want to be fashionable—it is their only ambition—they try hard for it; and it is generally the case that those who devote themselves to any pursuit have some success in it, and only right that it should be so. Then they are hopelessly good-natured folks, that you can't insult or quarrel with." Sedley had so little of this quality himself that he looked on the possession of it as a weakness rather than a virtue. "Then they are very fond of good living."

"Yes, I remember hearing Benson say that he always liked to feed Mrs. Robinson at a ball,—it was a perfect pleasure to see her eat; and that when Löwenberg, in the pride of his heart, gave a three-days' déjeûner, or lunch, or whatever it was, after his marriage, she was seen there three times each day."

"And he might have told you that they are as liberal of their own good things as fond of those of others. Old Robinson has some first-rate Madeira, better by a long chalk than that Vanderlyn Sercial that Harry Benson is always cramming down your throat—metaphorically, I mean, not literally. The young men like to drop in there of an evening, for they are sure to find a good supper and plenty of materials ready for punch and polka. Then they always manage to catch the newest lions. When I first saw you in their carriage along-side of Miss Julia, I said to myself, "That Englishman must be somebody, or the Robinsons would not have laid hold of him so soon." But their two seasons in Paris were the making of them,—and the unmaking, too, in another sense; for they ate such a hole in their fortune—or, rather, their French guests did for them—that it has never recovered its original dimensions to this day. They took a grand hotel, and gave magnificent balls, and filled their rooms with the Parisian aristocracy. My uncle, who is an habitué of Paris, was at the Jockey Club one day, and heard two exquisites talking about them. "Connaissez-vous ce Monsieur Robinson?" asked one. "Est-ce que je le connais!" replied the other, shrugging his shoulders. "Je mange ses dîners, je danse à ses bals; v'la tout." Voilà tout, indeed! That is just all our people get by keeping open house for foreigners."