ubled with an epidemic
of youth and beauty. It is an awful omission in the laws, but these
dignified chaps can't get up young and dashing wives for the occasion,
when a great high potentate from over seas shines down upon us in the
dancing way. I haven't a doubt they would like to sacrifice themselves
and astonish the world by so doing, but common people would be apt to
call it bigamy. So they have to do the very best they can with such
wives as they have got, and furbish them up with diamonds, laces,
flounces, and a dancing-master, till they answer to begin with.

I don't mean to be hard or sarcastical on this subject, but in these
times, when it is so easy for a man to put away his wife, couldn't this
official potentate get a temporary divorce just for the occasion,
especially if the kingly visitor happens to be young and very fond of
dancing. It would give us young girls a chance.

Don't think that I am putting on airs, or that I don't feel reverential
when age is mentioned, but Emperors' sons don't come to our free land of
liberty every day, and girls are so plenty that old folks ought to stand
back. Far be it from Phoemie Frost, on her own humble merits, to build
upon opening that ball with the Imperial Duke of all the Russias; but a
Society like ours has its social, moral, and scientific claims. As for
literature, since my reports have been honored by publication, I must
maintain the dignity of the position. If dignity and age is to lead in
this grand ceremonial, I have kept school, and--well, yes--no, one could
say that I--in fact, as to years, am I not competent to open the ball
with any prince that can come across the ocean, be he boy or patriarch?
There, that sentence is off my mind, and I can go on without a hitch of
the pen.

In other respects I have been silently but surely preparing myself. The
Society has been liberal, and most of my savings were in the bank,
rolling up interest beautifully, when I came from my childhood's home.
Then there was a handsome profit on the donation of eggs and butter and
maple-sugar which came in the freight train before I started. I attended
to the sale myself at the market, and had nothing to do with that Mr.
Middleman people talk so awfully about as a cheat and a general grabber.
Well, I dickered the things off at a good price, as I was a-saying, and
have got the money safe in my bosom--a hiding-place sacred to myself
alone.

Thus lifted above all mercenary anxieties, I