Grace, they are not
likely to exist any where, except as taverns, or hospitals, or
manufactories. But what have we to do, coz, with a century ahead of
us? young as we both are, we cannot hope to live that time."

Grace would have been puzzled to account satisfactorily to herself,
for the strong desire she felt that neither of her companions should
expect to see such a house as their senses so plainly told them did
not exist in the place; but her foot moved in the bottom of the
carriage, for she was not half satisfied with her cousin's answer.

"All I mean. Eve," she said, after a pause, "is, that one ought not
to expect in a town as new as this, the improvements that one sees in
an older state of society."

"And have Mademoiselle Viefville, or I, ever been so weak as to
suppose, that New-York is Paris, or Rome, or Vienna?"

Grace was still less satisfied, for, unknown to herself, she _had_
hoped that Mrs. Houston's ball might be quite equal to a ball in
either of those ancient capitals; and she was now vexed that her
cousin considered it so much a matter of course that it should not
be. But there was no time for explanations, as the carriage now
stopped.

The noise, confusion, calling out, swearing, and rude clamour before
the house of Mrs. Houston, said little for the out-door part of the
arrangements. Coachmen are nowhere a particularly silent and civil
class; but the uncouth European peasants, who have been preferred to
the honours of the whip in New-York, to the usual feelings of
competition and contention, added that particular feature of humility
which is known to distinguish "the beggar on horseback." The imposing
equipages of our party, however, had that effect on most of these
rude brawlers, which a display of wealth is known to produce on the
vulgar-minded; and the ladies got into the house, through a lane of
coachmen, by yielding a little to a _chevau de frise_ of whips,
without any serious calamity.

"One hardly knows which is the most terrific," said Eve,
involuntarily, as soon as the door closed on them--"the noise within,
or the noise without!"

This was spoken rapidly, and in French, to Mademoiselle Viefville,
but Grace heard and understood it, and for the first time in her
life, she perceived that Mrs. Houston's company was not composed of
nightingales. The surprise is that the discovery should have come so
late.

"I am delighted at having got into this house," said Sir George, who,
having t