E., for we all felt the
glory that had settled down on us in a reflected way, and longed to
enjoy it before folks. So down we went, trying to look as if nothing was
the matter, but feeling the smiles quivering and playing about our lips
like lady-bugs about an open rose.

The parlors were full. Everybody had something to say. Some were
smiling, some looked ready to cry, and others looked grim as gunlocks;
but most of the faces we saw were beaming like a harvest moon.

As for me, I felt--yes, as the poet says, "I felt--I felt like a morning
star."

"Well, Miss Frost, how do you like it?" says a little mite of a woman,
with pink ribbons spreading out on her bosom. "What do you think of the
nomination?"

"Think?" says I. "Why, this is what I think--the sun will rise and set
on the top of the Green Mountains like a crown of glory, after this."

"Will Vermont go for him?" says another, cutting in.

"Will the mountains stand on their old rocky base?" says I. "What a
question!"

"Then you think it will?"

"Think! I know it will. When did that glorious old State neglect one of
her own sons?"

"But it's so strange!" snivelled the little woman.

"Strange!" says I; "what is strange?"

"Why, that Mr. Greeley should be nominated."

"Well," says I, with cutting irony, "do you think it strange that the
people of this country should choose an honest man once in a while?
ain't we always ready to reward merit? Haven't we done it in the
military way with General Grant? Haven't we a right to go into a new
field? First the sword, now the pen."

"Oh! not that; but--but--"

"Well, but what?"

"He's so--so peculiar."

"Yes, he is," says I, "if integrity, simple good faith, and sound sense
is peculiar--and I begin to think it is."

"Do you know him, Miss Frost?"

I drew myself up, and that feeling I have spoken of came over me. It was
a temptation, and--well, I and Mrs. Eve are a little alike in our
feminine weaknesses; I'm glad I have Bible support in the disposition to
fib a little that comes over me.

"Do I know him?" said I. "Yes, intimately."

"Ah!" says she.

"You can judge how intimately," says I, smitten with compunction, and
craw-fishing down into a deceiving truth, "when I tell you that I was an
honored guest at his birthday party."

"You don't say so!" says she.

I didn't feel bound to remind her that I had said so, and only drew
myself up a trifle, and waved my fan back and forth with a dignified
mo