SKETCHES AND ANECDOTES.
My dear Nephews:
In accordance with the promise with which I concluded my last letter, I will give you, in this, narrated in my homely way, some anecdotes, illustrative of the opinions I have expressed upon the subject of DRESS.
Liking, sometimes, to amuse myself by a study of the masses, in holyday attire and holyday humor,—to see the bone and sinew of our great country, the people who make our laws, and for whose good they are administered by their servants, enjoying a jubilee, and wishing also to meet some old friends who were to be there (among others, Gen. Wool, who, though politicians accused him of going to lay pipe for the presidency, is a right good fellow, and the very soul of old-fashioned hospitality), I went on one occasion to a little city in western New York, to attend a State Fair.
On the night of the fête that concluded the affair, your cousins, Grace and Gerté, to whom you all say I can refuse nothing, however unreasonable, insisted that I should be their escort, and protested warmly against my remonstrances upon the absurdity of an old fellow like me being kept up until after midnight to watch, like a griffin guarding his treasures, while two silly girls danced with some "whiskered Pandoor," or some "fierce huzzar," who would be as much puzzled to tell where he won his epaulettes as was our (militia) Gen. ——, of whom, when he was presented to that sovereign, on the occasion of a court levee, Louis Philippe asked, "where he had served!"
It would not become me to repeat half the flattering things by which their elegant chaperon, Mrs. B. seconded the coaxing declarations of your cousins, that they would be "enough more proud to go with Uncle Hal than with all the half-dozen beaux together," whose services had been formally tendered and accepted for the occasion.
"Yes, indeed," cried Gerté, "for Uncle Hal is a real soldier!" And I believe the wheedling rogue actually pressed her velvety lips to the ugly sabre scar that helps to mar my time-worn visage.
"Col. Lunettes is too gallant not to lay down his arms when ladies are his assailants!" said Mrs. B. with one of her conquering smiles. "Well, ladies," said I, "I cry you mercy—
"'Was ever colonel by such sirens wooed,
Was ever colonel by such sirens won!'"