Strim stram promedidle larabob rig
Rigdum bulamitty kimo!
This was deemed a clever satire on the unintelligible Italian words of recent songs, and ran through several verses, describing the Frog's courtship of Mistress Mouse, who seems to have been a fair lady with domestic habits who lived in a mill and was occupied with her spinning.
I was full of anticipation on the great day of the dinner-party. Mrs. Rives, Ella Page her niece, and little Amélie Rives—named for her godmother the queen of France—were the only invited guests. The house was spick and span. I filled a bowl with damask roses from the garden, sparing the microphylla clusters that hung so prettily over the front porch. The dinner was to be at two o'clock.
A few minutes before two a sable horseman galloped up to the door, dismounted, and, scraping his foot backward as he bared a head covered with gray wool, presented a note which my aunt read aloud:—
"Castle Hill, Wednesday noon.
"Dear Cousin Betsey:—I know you will be amiable enough to pardon me when I tell you how désolée I am to find the hours have flown unheeded by, and we are too late for your dinner! The young ladies and I were reading Byron together, and you know how
"'Noiseless falls the foot of time
That only treads on flowers.'