DEAR SISTERS:—Cousin E. E. had invited a lot of her friends to a stupendous dinner-party on Christmas Day, and she wanted me there for a lion, she said, though what on earth a great roaring lion had to do at a dinner-table I couldn't begin to think. The idea made me fidgety; but I didn't think it consistent with the dignity of our Society to ask questions, or let any one know that I didn't understand everything just as well as folks that have lived in York all their lives. Still I couldn't help trying to circumvent Cousin E. E. into telling me what I wanted to know in a way that some people might call femininely surreptitious.
"A lion!" says I. "Are such animals invited to a city dinner as a general thing?"
"Oh! not at all," says she; "the most difficult thing in the world to get hold of is a real, genuine lion; that is, one the whole world knows about, and wants to see."
"Why," says I, "if folks are so anxious about it, why don't they go up to the Rink and see Mr. Barnum's great monster animal. It don't cost much; besides, there are camels and monkeys, and lots and lots of things, thrown in."
Cousin Emily Elizabeth laughed till tears come into her eyes.
"Oh! Cousin Phœmie," says she, "you are so delightfully satirical."
"Do you think so?" says I, awfully puzzled.
"Yes," says she, "I do; but to me the eccentricities of genius are always interesting. To be an attractive lion one must say bright things, no matter how hard they cut."
"I wasn't aware," says I, "that lions were given to much talking."