Letitia counted on five dress-suits, at least, including the author's and my own. Mine I must wear, she said, or she would be shamed forever; so I put it on when the night arrived, wormed my way cautiously into its outgrown folds, only to find then, to my pain, that an upright posture alone could preserve its dignity and mine.
The hour arrived, and with it the Buxtons, old friends and neighbors; Dr. Jamieson, homœopathic but otherwise beyond reproach, and Miss Jamieson, his daughter, who could read Browning before breakfast, much, I suppose, as some robust men on empty stomachs smoke strong cigars; the Gallowses, not wanted over-much, but asked to keep the white wings of peace hovering in our hills; the Jewells, and some one I've forgotten, and then the Buhls—Mr. Buhl smiling, but unobtrusive to the ear, Mrs. Buhl radiant and gracious, and pervading the assemblage with a dowagerial rustling of lavender silk. To my mind the quieter woman in the plain black gown adorned only by an old-lace collar and antique pin, her hair the whiter for her cheeks now rosy with agitation, her eyes shining with the joy of the first great function she had ever given, was the loveliest figure among them all.
Last came two plain, unassuming folk, though proud enough of that only son of theirs, and then—
"Oh!" cries Mrs. Buhl, so suddenly, so ecstatically that the hum ceases and every head is turned. "Mister St. John!"
It is indeed the author of Sleepington Fair. And behold the lion!—a slight and faltering figure, pausing upon the threshold, burrless indeed, but oh!—in that old sack suit of gray!
Letitia bore the shock much better than might be expected. She changed color, it is true, but the flush came back at once, and, standing loyally at his side, she led the lion into the room.
It was a trying moment. He was an Author—he had written a Book—but we were thirteen to his one, and four dress-suits besides! Thirteen to one, if you omit his parents, and four dress-shirts, remember, bulging and crackling before his dazzled eyes! New York wavered and fell back, and the first skirmish was Grassy Ford's.
At the same instant it was whispered anxiously in my ear that the ices had not arrived, but I counselled patience, and dinner was proclaimed without delay. The lion and Letitia led the procession to the feast, and I have good reason for the statement that he was a happier lion when we were seated and he had put his legs away. Still, even then he could scarcely be called at ease. Once only did he talk as if he loved his theme, and then it was solely with Letitia, who had mentioned Troublesome, out of the goodness of her heart, as I believe. His face lighted at the name, and he talked so gladly that all other converse ceased. What was the lion roaring of so gently there? Startled to hear no other voices, he stopped abruptly, and, seeing our curious faces all about him, dropped his eyes, abashed, and kept them on his plate. Then Mrs. Buhl, famous in such emergencies, came to the rescue.
"Oh, Mr. St. John," she said, while we all sat listening, "I've wanted to ask you: how did you come to write Sleepington Fair?"
"Oh," he replied, reddening, "I—I wanted to—that was all."