usin Dempster who spoke; he had been searching for me high and
low, and was shocked to find me sitting there alone. I said nothing,
but, like that Spartan boy, gathered the yellow waves of my cloak over
the vulture that knawed at my poor heart, and followed my cousin out of
the crowd--still looking eagerly for that one noble figure, but looking
in vain.

XXXVII.

HOW DID THE PAPERS KNOW?

Dear sisters:--Would you believe it? Cousin Dempster had hardly got down
to his business after the ball, when a telegram--I think that is the
name of the thing that he said came flying over the wires--called him to
Washington again. Cousin E. E. made up her mind to go with him this
time, and nothing would satisfy her but that I must join in and cut a
dash with them. After the strange way in which that majestic man in the
black cloak had gone off with the yellowhammer of a female, I had felt
so down in the mouth that nothing seemed to pacify me. If it really was
the great Grand Duke, his conduct was just abominable. I wouldn't have
believed it of him; taking off a lady's handkerchief in his bosom, and
that the best one she had in the world, and not bringing it back again.
Such conduct may be imperial, but it isn't polite, that I must say,
though it wrings my heart to find fault with him. If he had brought it
back the next day, of course it would have been different; but he
didn't, and there I sat and sat, waiting like patience on a--on a stone
wall, smiling, but wanting to cry all the time.

"It'll do you good, and cheer you up," says Cousin E. E.

"Maybe it will," says I, drawing a heavy breath, "but I don't seem to
expect much. February is gone, and no answer to--"

I bit my tongue, and cut off what it was going to say about that
valentine, for that was a secret breathed only to you, as a Society, in
the strictest confidence.

"This time," says Cousin E. E., "there shall be no secrecy. The whole
world shall know that the rising genius of the age is with us. The day
we start, all the morning papers will announce that Mr. and Mrs.
Dempster, of ----, have gone to Washington, accompanied by that
celebrated authoress, Miss Phoemie Frost, who cannot fail to meet
with every attention from the statesmen and high fashion of the
Capital."

"But how are the papers going to know?" says I.

E. E. laughed.

"Oh, Dempster will manage that; he's hand-and-glove with ever so many
city editors," says she.

"Oh!" says I.

"There