"Very well done, my brilliant son!" said the mother. "Next in order comes my second jewel. Now Dulcinea Ophelia Ambrosia Josephine, my adored remembrance of Don Quixote, Shakspeare, the Naiads, and the mighty Napoleon, advance to greet your cousin!"
And this living remembrance of the immortal dead sprang from her stool, and, running to Alice, threw both arms round her neck, and, kissing her on either cheek, exclaimed, "O, Cousin Alice! I'm glad you are come, for now I shall have some one good-natured enough to talk to and go to school with every day; for, by your pretty, angel-face, I know you are a sweet-tempered thing."
During this volubly-uttered harangue, the mother was making helpless gestures to Thisbe for the nerve-reviver; but the graceless wench never heeded one of them, so intently was she gazing with distended eyes and gaping mouth on Miss Pheny's somewhat boisterous, but really warm-hearted greeting of her Cousin Alice. Pheny was a universal favorite among the servants, "for that she was a smilin', good-natured young lady, and not a bit nervousy," as they declared.
At length poor Mrs. Camford uttered a faint cry, which called Thisbe's attention back to the spot from whence it never should have strayed,—her mistress' cushioned chair,—and she rushed in a sort of frenzy for the nerve-reviver, and applied it to the trembling lady's nostrils; whereupon that delicately-constituted specimen of the genus feminine uttered a stentorian shriek and flounced about the room like an irate porcupine, greatly to the terror of Alice, who had never witnessed such a scene before. But neither the brilliant son nor jewel daughters seemed in the least alarmed, and in a few moments the mother regained possession of her chair and senses, when her first act of sanity was to hurl the bottle Thisbe had applied to her nostrils at the poor woman's head with such force, that, had she not dodged the missile, it must have inflicted a severe contusion.
"There, you blundering black brute!" she exclaimed, "see if you'll bring your master's hartshorn headache-dispenser again, when I send for my nerve-reviver. The idea of a delicate woman like me having a bottle of hartshorn bobbed under her nose! The wonder is I am not dead; yes, dead by your hand, you brutal black nigger! But where was I in my presentation? O, I recollect! That mad-cap girl, my second jewel, so horrified me. I dare not yet refer to it lest my nerves become spasmodic again. Pray excuse her, Miss Orville, and I will proceed to my youngest, my infant-jewel! Eldora Adelaide Maria Suzette, greet your cousin, love, as you ought."
The child arose, made a stiff bend of her shoulders, and said, "I hope to see you well, Miss Alice Orville."
Alice returned her salute with a graceful courtesy, and all resumed their seats.
"Now," said Mrs. Camford, "this dreaded ceremony of presentation is over, I hope we may get on well together. I'm desirous, Miss Orville, that you should commence tuition at the seminary immediately. I shall have no pains spared to afford you a fashionable education. As my deceased brother's only child, I would have this much done at my own expense. I always told Ernest, though he married a poor girl from the north, and went off there to live with her, much against the wishes of our parents, that I would never see a child of his suffer."
"I have never suffered, madam!" said Alice, quickly.
"For food and clothes I suppose not, Miss Orville," said Mrs. Camford, loftily; "but my nerves are all shattered by this long confab, and I will now retire, leaving you young people to cultivate each other's acquaintance. Thisbe, carry me to my private apartment!"