Lela was married last winter, but she and her handsome French husband are yet in the honeymoon, which will last, I fancy, forever—certainly the former Queen of Hearts seems now to care for only one heart. She says:
"You must be having a lovely time in such a charming place. We have been to Saratoga. It was stupid enough to send your worst enemy there."
June 17.
This week has been quite lost, so far as study is concerned, for nearly every day has been interrupted by visitors.
Looking out of the window this morning, I saw a carriage containing two strange young ladies stop before the house. In answer to their inquiry for Miss Greeley and Miss Gabrielle, Minna informed them, in her broken English, that they were both in the city for the day. They looked quite aghast upon receiving this information, for they had already dismissed their carriage, in which they had driven from Pleasantville, and knew probably that there was no down train till 4.45, so quite helplessly they inquired if no members of the family were at home. Learning that Mrs. Cleveland and her daughters were here, one of the young ladies, a stylish girl in mourning, desired Minna to announce Miss Hempstead and her cousin. I puzzled a little over the name while glancing in the mirror to see that my crape ruffle was properly adjusted, and my hair in tolerable order. The name seemed familiar, and yet I knew that no friend of mine bore it.
I found the young ladies in the music room. Miss Hempstead introduced herself by saying:
"Perhaps you may have heard my name, although you do not know me. My brother was a friend of Mrs. and Miss Greeley, and was purser of the Missouri."
I was then somewhat surprised that I had not divined Miss Hempstead's identity from the name and her black dress; but the burning of the Missouri made scarce any impression upon me at the time, surrounded as I was last fall by such heavy family afflictions; and the name of the young purser, whose tragic fate then filled the newspapers, had since then almost entirely passed from my memory.
An ordinary passenger ship is wrecked or burned, "Extras" are issued, a three days' excitement follows, and it is then a thing of the past; but as the Missouri bore, on this memorable voyage, not indeed Caesar and his fortunes, but the supposed fiancé of dear Ida, its loss is an event still interesting to the gossiping public. It was useless to try to convince any one that no engagement had ever existed between Mr. Hempstead and Ida: no one would credit my most solemn protestations. Many people not personally acquainted with us, but who knew the facts "upon the best authority," as outsiders usually do, said that the marriage was to have taken place before the election, but after Aunt Mary's death it was postponed for three months. Before two weeks had elapsed, however, Mr. Hempstead was, in the poetic language of the journals, "sleeping beneath the coral wave," and poor Ida received as many well-meant condolences over his death as over Aunt Mary's.
When the tragedy of last autumn was all over, the interest of the public was greater than ever, and Ida, "who had within four short weeks lost mother, lover, and father," formed the subject of many a pathetic editorial and sermon. A London journal styled Ida the "maiden widow," spoke of uncle's fond attachment to Mr. Hempstead, and announced that the loss of his prospective son-in-law was an affliction that precipitated Mr. Greeley's death.