“Do you know that girl?” demanded a young lady, who had just stopped dancing, loud enough for her to hear.
“I never saw her before in my life, I am sure,” replied the ballerina who had been addressed, with a toss of her head; “do you know her?”
“Indeed I don’t; I wonder how she got here!” resumed the first.
Here a third lady walked up, and examined the dress of the stranger; then, joining a small circle, “I am sure,” said she, in an audible whisper, “it’s not worth seventy-five cents a yard.”
“And who is that unlicked cub that’s with her?” demanded another lady.
“Heaven alone knows!” answered a voice; “I dare say, just come from the woods!”
“With his mouth full of tobacco!”
“I hope she isn’t going to dance; if she does, I shall leave the room.”
“I sha’n’t stay either.”
One half of this conversation the poor girl must have heard, as she was standing close to the speakers, and could not even escape from the sting of their remarks through the crowd that obstructed the passage; for it is the custom in America, as in England, for people who give parties to invite as many persons as possible, in order to have the satisfaction of a full room. She was on the point of bursting into tears; and yet the young, fashionable tigresses, of from sixteen to twenty years of age, had not feeling enough to take pity on her. I am aware that, in describing that of which I was an eye-witness, I shall scarcely be believed by my English or German readers, because it is almost impossible for an educated European to conceive the degree of rudeness, insolence, and effrontery, and the total want of consideration for the feelings of others, which I have often seen practised in what is called the “first society” of the United States. I have seen in Boston, or rather in Nahant, a small watering-place in the neighbourhood of that city, two girls,—one the daughter of a president of an insurance-office, and the other the child of a merchant,—supporting their heads with their elbows, and in this position staring at each other for several minutes across a public table; each believing that her standing in society entitled her to the longest stare, and that the other, being the daughter of a man of less consideration and property, should have modesty enough to cast down her eyes.