A BONA DEA.
In animated converse with her guests during the half-hour ere dinner is announced, the mistress of Holmnest makes a picture one's eyes dwell on—the folds of her soft summer gown hang gracefully, while fitting her figure like the glove of a Frenchwoman; fond of a new sensation—as is the way of mortals—this of playing the hostess to a few chosen friends in a home of her own once more, is pleasurable excitement; there is a softness of expression, a tenderness in the dark eyes, engendered by the fact of her sympathy having been acted upon by the leave-taking, on such an errand too, of her friend Cole, which lends to her an additional charm. The consciousness also that she is looking well, gives, as is natural to most women, a pleasurable feeling in whatever is on the tapis, with the knowledge also, that her little dinner will be perfect, her guests harmonious—save one.
"So you think Toronto is rather a fair matron after all, Mrs. Dale, and that your New York robes blend harmoniously with the other effects at the Queens?"
"I reckon I do, Mrs. Gower; you did not say a word too much in her praise; I remember saying to Henry before we started, my last season's gowns would do."
"And you like Toronto also, Mr. Dale," continued his hostess.
"Yes, better than any other Canadian town I have visited; it is very simply laid out, one couldn't lose oneself if one tried."
"It is laid out like a what do you call it, like a chess-board," said Captain Tremaine, an Irishman.
"Yes, not unlike," continued Dale, "and as to quiet, one would think the curfew rang; I noticed it particularly coming from the Reform Club the other night."
"We all notice how quiet our streets are at night, and after your London and New York City, we must seem to you as if we had taken a sedative," said Mrs. Gower, taking his arm to the dining-room; "but where is Miss Crew, Mr. Dale?"
"She was too fatigued to come, she foolishly overtaxed her strength, taking my boy to the Industrial Home, at Mimico, I think she said."
"That's correct, it's a pet scheme of Mayor Howland's, and a worthy one too."
"Yes, so she said; they also visited your Normal School, and talked of the Cyclorama of Sedan."
"Indeed! they have overtaxed the brain and memory, I fear; what does Garfield say to it all?"
"Chatters like a magpie over the superior glories of New York, but is honestly pleased after all."
"I expect your little son is English only in name."
"Yes, and in his love for a good dinner," he said, laughingly.
"Well, from all we Canadians hear, there is every reason he should, an English dinner is enough 'to tempt even ghosts to pass the Styx for more substantial feasts,'" she said, gaily.
"Mrs. Gower is always up to the latest in remembering the tastes of her guests," said Mrs. Dale to her left-hand neighbor, Mr. Buckingham, as tiny crescents of melon preceded the soup.
"That she is," he said, complacently; "no man would sigh for his club dinner, did our hostess cater for him."
"Goodness knows what Henry would do if our bank stopped payment, or our Pittsburg foundries shut down; for I know no more about cooking than Jay Gould's baby," she said, discussing a plate of delicious oyster soup.
"He, I expect, makes himself heard on the feeding bottle," said lively Mrs. Smyth.
"But you are unusually candid as to your short-comings, Mrs. Dale," continued Buckingham, amusedly.
"Because I can afford to be; were I poor, I reckon I should pawn off my mamma's tea-cakes on my young man as my own, as men in love believe anything—they are as dull as Broadway without millinery."
"By the way, Mrs. Dale, talking of millinery, where are your bonnets going to, they are three stories and a mansard at present?"
"Oh, only a cupola, Mr. Buckingham, on which birds will perch."
"How so; I was under the impression the bird hunt is a thing of the past?"
"No, indeed! not while there are men in the field."
"How so; I do not follow you?"
"Stupid, you are born huntsmen, our bonnets are a perch for a decoy, and," she added, looking at him archly, "our faces are under them."
Here there was merry laughter from Mrs. Gower and Captain Tremaine, the former saying gaily,
"You would not accomplish it, the strength of will of one of the party would keep the whole uppermost. I appeal to Mr. Smyth."
"I am with you, Mrs. Gower; Tremaine must go under, even though he is an Irishman."
"Irish questions always do get muddled, eh, Smyth?" said Dale, jokingly, seeing that Smyth, intent on dinner, had not heard the argument.
"That they do, Dale. Which is it, Mrs. Gower, the Coercion Bill or Home Rule?"
"Neither," she said, laughingly, "we were on the 'Peace Party' (you remember the meeting at the Gardens, on last Sunday); and I have been suggesting that the Body Guard bury their pretty uniforms, and Captain Tremaine raises the war-cry of, 'bury the Peace Party, chairman and all, first.'"
"Oh, that's it! Tremaine knows the indomitable will of one of them would cause more dust to be kicked up than one sees on a March day on Yonge Street."
"Out-voted, Captain Tremaine, we weep 'salt tears' over your becoming uniform; but seriously speaking, though a High Court of Arbitration would be a grand spectacle, it will be only after years of evolution, and when, as Mr. Blake, the chairman said, 'the voice of the private soldier, instead of the general officer, is heard.'"
"If I should ever have the ill-fortune to be drafted," said Smyth, laughingly, "I should fight to the death against my enrolment; an hospital nurse, like the Quaker-love, would suit me better; such rations as a man gets on the field."
"I know for a fact," said Dale; "that recruiting during the present year in England, has been far below the average of the last few years."
"Indeed! I was not aware," said Buckingham.
"By the way, Smyth," said Tremaine, "have you seen, what do you call him, 'Henry Thompson,' in his defence or answer to his critics?"
"I have, and he was able for them every time."
"Are you speaking of the journalist who went to jail in the interests of the Globe?" asked Dale.
"Yes."
"His defence was capital, I thought," said Dale, "and I especially liked the way he stands up for his craft. 'There is no class of men,' he says bravely, 'in existence, animated by more humane motives than working newspaper men.'"
"I also read his reply with pleasure," said Mrs. Gower, "and reading it, thought what a clever and original fellow he must be."
"Talmage and Silcox have been lauding the power of the press to the skies," said Smyth; "they made me wish I surveyed the earth from an editor's chair, rather than from a tree I climbed to escape York mud."
"Have you heard how the Grand is going to cater to our dramatic taste this coming season, Mr. Buckingham?" asked Mrs. Gower.
"Just a whisper, Mrs. Gower, as to Emma Juch, Langtry and Siddons."
"Yes; so far so good. Have you heard that the rail makes no special rates for travelling companies?"
"I have; so you may expect that those who will pay the high toll, will be those of the highest standard."
"Then I suppose (though it seems selfish) we should be content with the rail rates as they are."
"You will enjoy the debates, Dale," said Smyth, "in the Local House during the session; Meredith is just the man to lead our party."
"But I am not sure that it is our party, Smyth; I scarcely know how I should vote here; if Meredith is right, why doesn't he prove to Ontario that Mowat has held the reins too long?"
"So he will before next election," replied Smyth, with a satisfied air.
"Don't be too sure, Mr. Smyth, eloquent though he be," said his hostess; "while that clever Demosthenes of his party, Hon. C. F. Frazer, says him nay."
"Do you meditate a long stay, Buckingham, in this the white-washed city of the Dominion?" asked Tremaine.
"Yes, off and on all winter; you know I intend to purchase some of your mineral lands, since you allow them to lie undeveloped," he added, jestingly.
"You see, Capt. Tremaine," said Mrs. Gower, merrily, "the American Eagle done in silver is not as yet plenty with us."
"Don't despair, Tremaine, Commercial Union is looming up," said Buckingham.
"Treason! treason!" laughed Tremaine, "for we know what it would father."
"Hear, hear," cried Smyth.
"Oh, I don't know," laughed Mrs. Gower, "they say it is the Main-e idea for settling; here's a pretty mess! here's a pretty mess—of fish!"
"We can wait," said Buckingham, quietly, "evolution will bring about the Maine idea, with you also."
"Did you say you are going to Maine, Mr. Buckingham, we cannot do without you now," said pretty Mrs. St. Clair, caressingly.
"Thank you, Mrs. St. Clair, I do not go; but even if so, you would, I fear, miss me less than your latest fad in the pet quadruped."
"How severe you are, Mr. Buckingham. Are all New York men so, Mrs. Dale?" She sighed, having a penchant for him.
"It's annexation, Mrs. St. Clair," said Mrs. Dale, mischievously.
"Annexation! is Mr. Buckingham going to be married?"
"I believe so." At this juncture Master Noah St. Clair, who had come instead of his father, was interested in other than his plate, while his mother said reproachfully:
"It cannot be true, Mr. Buckingham."
"Mrs. Dale is disposed to be facetious, Mrs. St. Clair; you must not swear by everything she says."
"That is an evasive answer, and I am dying to know; tell me, dear Mrs. Dale, what it means?"
"Which, annexation, or Mr. Buckingham?" said her tormentor.
"Oh, both, of course," she said, breathlessly.
"Both; well, when I come to take a good look at him, Mrs. St. Clair, he looks important rather than severe, his reason is, he believes, the best part of Canada pines for annexation; comprenez vous?"
"Oh, is that what you meant," she replied, with a relieved air, when, catching her son's eye, she said, with assumed carelessness, "I do miss my men friends so much when they marry."
"He is as cold as ice," whispered Mr. Cobbe, who, though a man of birth and breeding, prides himself upon being a flirt; "he is an icicle, I wonder you waste your warmth upon him."
"Nice man," she thought, "and only the second time I've met him; he must be in love with me, too, poor fellow," and, in an undertone, she says, "That's the way all you men speak of each other, but he is only so before people."
"You had better throw him over, an Irish heart is warmer than an American," he said, in his deep tones, into her ear.
"But the poor fellow would break his heart," she whispered, her cheeks flushing; he, equally vain, continued:
"Not he, a successful speculation would console him; and I—and I would console you."
"Are you always so susceptible?" she asked, turning her pretty enamelled face around to be admired.
"No, indeed; but a man doesn't meet as pretty a woman as you every day, as your mirror must tell you."
"How you gentlemen flatter," well aware that he is admiring her pretty hand and delicate wrist, as she holds aloft a bunch of transparent grapes.
"Not you," and for the moment he meant it; the particular she of the hour feasting on the nectar her soul loves, never dreaming that the next passable looking female in propinquity with him will be also steeped to the lips in the same food, "not you," he said, with a fond look.
"Thank you," she said, prettily, and with the faith of her early teens, "I must tell you a pretty compliment a gentleman paid me at the 'Kirmiss' last season, he said 'I was a madrigal in Dresden china.'"
"Too cold, too cold," he said, thickly, managing to press her fingers as they rose from the table, ere she laid her hand on the arm of Mr. Smyth, to whom she had been allotted, but who never spoiled his dinner by giving beauty her natural food.
On Mr. Dale declining to linger, leading his hostess back to her pretty drawing-room, she said in his ear:
"You have dubbed me queen of Holmnest, therefore must obey when I bid you back to the dining-room for a smoke."