It was soon arranged that your fair cousins should accompany me to the Empire City in a few days, and I, accordingly, sat down at once, and wrote to the "Metropolitan" for rooms.
"What glorious times mother and I will have," I overheard William exclaim. "I shall take Julé under my especial protection, and hear her French lessons regularly."
"No you won't, either," returned that young lady, with great spirit; "and I wish you'd stop tying my curls together, and mind your own affairs. No doubt you'll make noise enough to kill ma and me, while Corné and Dade are gone, drumming on the piano, and spouting your Latin speech before the drawing-room glass. All I wish is, that uncle Hal wasn't going away—he never lets you torment me."
As we were entering the dining-room of our hotel, on the day of our arrival, our friend Governor S—— joined us, and, after shaking hands, in his usual cordial way, with us all, said, as he courteously took Cornelia's hand and folded it within his arm, "Will you allow me to attend you, Miss Lunettes? Colonel, by your leave. Miss Ida, will you let a lonely old fellow join your party? Where do you sit, Colonel?"
"We have but just arrived," I replied, "but our seats are, of course, reserved; let me secure a seat for you with us, if possible. Ida, remain here a moment with Cornelia and Governor S——;" and presently, finding the proper person, the steward, or whatever the man of dining-room affairs is called, I arranged with him to seat us together, without interfering with other parties.
While I was taking my soup, I became suddenly conscious that something was annoying your cousin Cornelia, who sat between me and S——. Glancing at her face, I saw there, in addition to a heightened color, an expression of mingled constraint and hauteur, quite inconsistent with her usual graceful self-possession and animation.
Making some general remark to her, and showing no signs of curiosity, I began quietly to cast about me for the cause of this unwonted disturbance. Turning my head towards Ida, I overheard her saying, playfully, though in an undertone, to the senator, with whom she was already embarked upon the tide of talk: "He reminds me of an exquisite couplet in an old valentine of mine:
'Are not my ears as long as other asses', pray?
Don't I surpass all other asses at a bray?'"
I was not long in detecting the secret cause of Cornelia's averted face and Ida's sportive quotation.
"See here, John, get me some col' slaw and unions, will you—right off," shouted a young man seated a little below us, on the opposite side of the table.