At length we were set free, and made our way to a large apartment, where we were divested of our wraps, and left in costumes better adapted to late June than to early March, or mid-December. We were then ordered to advance. We were driven from one bitterly cold room to another, until we knew not whether the blood was circulating in our veins, or had frozen. We had many fellow-sufferers, and these poor creatures pushed against us, and fought with us. The great object of everyone was to get to the end of our journey!
She staggered bravely along, until at last they took away the yards of satin she carried round her arm, and spread it out behind. Then her name was uttered, or, rather, mispronounced. She sank on her knees; and, on regaining her feet, was hustled away, to follow a number of fellow-victims who had been treated with like indignity.
Once more there was the bitter cold. This time the draughts were met in that hall, and endured, until the conveyance arrived to move us on—she to stand for a couple of hours amidst gossiping friends, and I to go to bed.
But the seeds of death were sown! She never recovered the shock, and an addition to the inscriptions above the family-vault tells of her early decease!
And who was this poor girl? A homeless one, wandering the streets of London? or a political prisoner, on her way to Siberia? Neither! She was merely a débutante, attending her first (and last) Spring Drawing-room at Buckingham Palace!
NOTE (by Our Own Noodle).—Father Buonaparte, at the Olympic, judging from the account of it in the Times, seems to consist of "a part" for our WILSON BARRETT, the remainder being skeletonish, or "boney."
