e 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-glass 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