xcellency," says he, "Miss Frost. Miss Phoemie Frost, of
Vermont."

I didn't think that exactly a proper place to be introducing people in,
and measured off my bow accordingly, and passed 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 button-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, Phoemie; 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."

I didn't hear the name clear, but Dempster introduced me to a young lady
that had just sat down by me.

"Are those men who are chatting and laughing so, really ministers?" says
I to her.

"Most of them are; the rest are connected with the Legation," says she.
"Elegant, don't you think so?"

Before I could ask her what newfangled society had been got up under the
name of Legation, a young gentleman with a round gold glass screwed into
one eye, came out from the hive of ministers, and walked toward us,
moving along slow and lazy, as if walking were too much for him.

The girl was all in a flutter when she saw him a-coming our way. She
looked at me as if I had a seat that she wanted for some one else, but I
didn't move; and after shaking out her dress as a cross hen flutters its
feathers, she pretended to look the other way, as if she didn't care a
mite whether the young minister came up or not.

Oh, the airs some of these school-girls put on is disgusting.

The young divinity st