XXIX.
MR. GREELEY'S BIRTHDAY PARTY.
THE parlors were large and light, and crowded full. Just beyond the door I saw a man standing, with both hands at work, shaking out welcomes to his friends, as a chestnut bough rattles down nuts after a rousing frost.
There he stood—the honored son of our dear old State—looking benign as Mr. Benjamin Franklin, and sweet-tempered as if he had fed on native maple-sugar all his life. I looked eagerly for his "old white coat," but he had on a bran-new black one; his hair, long and snow-white, fell down almost to his shoulders, that were rather broad than otherwise, which is needful considering the burdens that have been piled on them. I really think any stranger, going in there, would have known that this man owned a birthday by his face, it was so radiant with good-nature.
By and by we hustled our way to the door. A man that stood there whispered something to Cousin Dempster, who whispered back. Then the man sung out—
"Mr. and Mrs. Dempster—Miss Phœmie Frost!"
Mercy on me, wasn't there a fluttering when that name rang through the crowd, as if blown by the trumpet of Fame. I felt myself blushing from head to foot, my heart rose into my mouth. I clung with feminine reliance on my cousin's arm, and, thus supported, prepared to endure the hundreds of admiring eyes bent upon me.
Mr. Greeley came forward. The moment he heard that name he seized the two whitely gloved hands that I held out to him.
"Miss Frost, of Vermont," says he.
I pressed his hands. I could not speak. A little address, full of poetry, that I had been thinking over in my mind, melted into chaos. I could only murmur something about birthdays and long lives. Then some new people crowded me away, and I felt myself alone long enough to take a look at the rooms. They were gorgeous with pictures and flowers; radiant with gas, which fell like August sunshine through a thicket of vines, and flowers woven in among the burners in the chandelier, and dropping down half way to the floor.