Fashion and Famine

by Ann S. Stephens

For a week or two they hovered about her, much as two cautious trouts might coquette with a fly on the surface of a mountain pool. Both were afraid to dart at the fly, and yet each was vigilant to keep the other from securing the precious morsel.

Thus, while they were manœuvering around her, drawing public attention that way, Mrs. Gordon became an object of very general admiration, and bade fair, without an effort, and wholly against her will, to rival both the combatants, and like the dancing horse of a Russian chariot, to carry away all the admiration, while the other two bore the toil and burden of the road.

But a few days before the fancy ball, a new fly was cast into the fashionable current, that quite eclipsed anything that had appeared before. An English earl, fresh from the continent, came up to Saratoga, one day, in a train from New York, and would be present at the fancy ball.

Here was new cause for strife between the Nashes and the Sykeses. Which of these ladies should secure the nobleman for the fancy ball? True, the earl was very young, awkward as the school-boy he was, and really looked more like a juvenile horse-jockey than a civilized gentleman. But he was an earl; would assuredly have a seat in the House of Lords, if ever he became old enough; besides, he had already lost thirty thousand dollars at the gaming-table, and bore it like a prince.

Here was an object worth contending for. What American lady would be immortalized by leaning upon the arm of an earl as she entered the assembly room? No minor claims could be put in here. The earl undoubtedly belonged to Mrs. Nash or Mrs. Sykes—which should it be? This was the question that agitated all fashionable life at the Springs to its centre. Partisans were brought into active operation. Private ambassadors went and came from the gambling saloons to the drawing-rooms, looking more portentous than any messenger ever sent from the allied powers to the Czar.

The innocent young lord, who had escaped from his tutor for a lark at the Springs, was terribly embarrassed by so many attentions. Too young for any knowledge of society in his own land, he made desperate efforts to appear a man of the world, and feel himself at home in a country where men are set aside, while society is converted into a paradise for boys. It is rumored that some professional gentlemen took advantage of this confusion in the young lordling's ideas, and his losses at the gambling-table grew more and more princely.

But the important night arrived. The mysterious operations of many a private dressing-room became visible. A hundred bright and fantastic forms trod their way to music along the open colonnade of the hotel toward the assembly-room. The brilliant procession entered the folding-doors, and swept down the room two rivers of human life, flowing on, whirling and retiring, beneath a shower of radiance cast from the wall, and the chandeliers that seemed literally raining light. In her toilet, the American lady is not a shade behind our neighbors of Paris; and no saloon in the world ever surpassed this in picturesque effect and richness of costume. Diamonds were plentiful as dew-drops on a rose thicket. Pearls embedded in lace that Queen Elizabeth would have monopolised for her own toilet, gleamed and fluttered around those republican fairies, a decided contrast to the checked handkerchief that Ben. Franklin used at the European court, or the bare feet with which our revolutionary fathers trod the way to our freedom through the winter snows. After the gay crowd had circulated around the room awhile, there was a pause in the music, a breaking up of the characters into groups; then glances were cast toward the door, and murmurs ran from lip to lip. Neither Mrs. Nash or her rival had yet appeared; as usual their entrance was arranged to make a sensation. How Dodsworth's leader knew the exact time of this fashionable's advent, I do not pretend to say. Certain it is, just as the band struck up an exhilarating march, Mrs. Z. Nash entered the room with erect front and pompous triumph, holding the English earl resolutely by the arm. Mrs. Theodore Sykes came in a good deal subdued and crestfallen, after the dancing commenced. She was escorted by one of the most illustrious of our American statesmen, which somewhat diminished the bitterness of her defeat. Her fancy dress was one blaze of diamonds, and when Mrs. Nash sailed by, holding the young earl triumphantly by the arm, she seemed oblivious of the noble presence, but was smiling up into the eyes of her august companion, as if an American statesman really were some small consolation for the loss of a schoolboy nobleman, who looked as if he would give his right arm, which however, belonged to Mrs. Nash just then, to be safe at home, even with his tutor. When Mrs. Gordon entered the room, no one could have told. When first observed, she was sitting at an open window which looked into the public grounds. The light was striking aslant the white folds of a brocaded silk, and on the delicate marabout feathers in her hair, with the brilliancy of sunshine, playing upon wreaths of newly fallen snow. She evidently had no desire to enter into the spirited competition going on between the rival factions. When a crowd of admirers gathered around the window, she received them quietly, but without empressment. At length, as if weary with talking, she took the first arm offered, and sauntered into the crowd, searching it with her eyes, as if she feared or expected some one. The first dance had broken up; all was gay confusion, when unwittingly she came face to face with Mrs. Nash, who was sailing down the room with her captive. The young earl, who had remained awkwardly shy since his entrance, gave a start of recognition, his sullen features lighted up, and freeing his arm from the grasp of Mrs. Nash, with an unceremonious "Excuse me, Madam!" he advanced with both hands extended.

"My dear, dear lady, I am so glad to see you!"

The lady reached out her hand, smiling and cordial. "You, here?" she answered, shaking her head, "and alone, ah truant!"

"It wasn't my fault; I was deluded off—kidnapped—but by the best fellow in the world; I will tell you all about it." With a hurried bow to the party he was about to leave. The youth placed himself in a position to converse with Mrs. Gordon, as she passed with her previous escort, quite unconscious of her triumph, or of the rage it had occasioned. The lady bent her head with matronly grace, and resumed her walk. "And so you have run away from the good tutor?" she said.