e everywhere. I
shudder to think of it! With a constitution made strong with fresh air
from the Green Mountains, and morals consolidated in the oldest
congregation of the State, I feel afraid of myself and almost weary of
well-doing. It has become so miserably unfashionable to be honest, that
people seem to think me crazy when I speak my mind.

Do not start and say that Phoemie Frost is ready to give up her mission;
because she isn't of that sort. Her hand is on the plough--they spell it
_plow_ here, which takes away half the strength of that agricultural
word--on the plough, is she, a female, to turn back because rocks and
roots choke up the furrow? Not if Miss Frost knows anything of herself!

Speaking of female modesty, between my little cousin and that marble
girl, the poor naked creature seemed to have the most of it. She did
scrouch down and try to hide herself behind herself, as if she was
ashamed that the man who made her had forgot to cover her up a little.
But the live girl did not seem to feel for her a mite; in fact, I think
she enjoyed seeing her scrouch, because of the foreshortenings, you
know.

It's of no use denying it, I did feel down in the mouth about this girl;
and seeing my duty clear, determined to do it or perish in the attempt.

Once more I stood in front of that "palatial residence," and, with a
hand made firm by a powerful sense of duty, pulled the silver knob in
the jamb of the door. The same finified youngster came and asked me with
his saucy eyes what I wanted there. This time I had written out a square
piece of paper, on which he had the pleasure of reading: "Miss Phoemie
Frost, Home Missionary and Special Plenipotentiary from the Society of
Infinite Progress, Sprucehill, Vermont." "Think," says I, when I handed
him the paper, "if this don't fetch them all down a notch or two,
nothing will."

And it did!

Yes, I have the pleasure of saying pretension and pomposity do have a
wonderful effect here in New York. I don't know whether it was the
missionary or the plenipotentiary that brought my cousin to her oats,
but rather think it was the latter--having a foreign twang to it, of
course, it impressed her aristocratically.

The waiter-man took me into the drawing-room, as he called it, but why,
no human being could have told; for there wasn't a sign of drawing
paper, pencil, nor painting things in sight. In fact, it was the
self-same room that I went into the last time I was there. A li