ies; as I very sweetly assured him, 'I couldn't
understand, didn't see the drift, couldn't connect the links.' Leon says
ancient history is a fable, and Herodotus a myth, and all because a
_woman_ sat upon the tripod at Delphi, and because a _woman_ wore the
helmet and carried the shield of wisdom.'

'What's the matter, Harry?' asked Fanny, compassionately, as her small
fingers were stretched like infant grid-irons before her eyes, and a
silence ensued.

'My new bonnet, Fanny dear, I am wondering what it shall be; we must go
down this very morning and decide.'

Did you ever think, Narcissus, and you, Gustav, and all of you boys,
when you are engaged in your small diplomacies and _coups de main_, and
feeling like giants in intellect beside the dear little girls who play
polkas for you of evenings and sing sweet ballads, that _pour bien juger
les grands, il faut les approcher_? I thought so that morning, as I
heard the animated discussion that succeeded Henrietta's monologue; a
discussion into which all sorts of delicate conceits of lace and flowers
entered largely, and which savored about as much of the preceding
elements as last night's Charlotte Russe of this morning's coffee.

Since Henrietta's oration, I am more than ever afraid of a Vulcan. It is
very plain that our most fashionably cut suits and most delicately
perfumed billets are not all powerful,--that the dear creatures are
either waking or we have been asleep. _Reveillons!_

'_Aux armes, citoyens!_'

Now, while I was writing that last word, a heavy hand was laid on my
shoulder, and looking up, I saw--Nap. I love Nap. I have a girlish
weakness (let some lady arraign me for this hereafter) for him; so I
shouted out and grasped his hands.

'How are the boys?'

'Flourishing. Come to stay?

'Yes, old fellow.'

'Stocks up?'

'To the sky.'

'The governor?'

'All right.'

_I_ haven't any governor. Nap has; and one that saw fit to persecute him
from twenty to thirty, because he declined to take 'orders.' _Per
Bacco!_ Never mind, a fit of paralysis has shaken the opposition out of
the old gentleman at last, and Nap is in sunshine in consequence, and
rushes around Wall street like a veteran.

But I didn't promise to tell you about Nap, or the girls either; it was
only a few rays of light I had to dash over 'our beaux;' so where is
your mother, belle Beatrice? I must make my adieux.

What say you, little one? You like Henrietta; you want to see her a