"Well, young ladies," observed Miss Clements, "you may at least deduce one moral from the events of the evening. You find that it _is_ possible for officers to be extremely annoying, and to deport themselves in a manner that you would consider intolerable in citizens."
"It is intolerable in _them_, aunt," replied Harriet, "particularly when they are stiff and ungainly in all their movements, and dance shockingly."
"And if they are conceited, and prating, and ungenteel," added Caroline.
"Awkward in their expressions, and dull in their ideas," pursued Harriet.
"Talking ridiculously and behaving worse," continued Caroline.
"Come, come," said Sophia Clements, "candour must compel us to acknowledge that these two gentlemen are anything but fair specimens of their profession, which I am very sure can boast a large majority of intelligent, polished, and accomplished men."
"Be that as it may," replied Harriet, "I confess that my delight in the show and parade of war, and my admiration of officers, has received a severe shock to-night. 'My thoughts, I must confess, are turned on peace.'"
"I fear these pacific feelings are too sudden to be lasting," remarked Miss Clements, "and in a day or two we shall find that 'your voice is still for war.'"
The following morning the young ladies did more sewing than on any day for the last two years, sitting all the time in the back parlour. In the afternoon, Harriet read Coelebs aloud to her mother and aunt, and Caroline went out to do some shopping. When she came home, she told of her having stopped in at Mrs. Raymond's, and of her finding the family just going to tea with an officer as their guest. "They pressed me urgently," said she, "to sit down and take tea with them, and to remain and spend the evening; but I steadily excused myself, notwithstanding the officer."
"Good girl!" said Sophia.
"To be sure," added Caroline, "he was only in a citizen's dress."
"Ah!" said Mrs. Darnel, "that materially alters the case. Had he been in uniform, I am sure your steadiness would have given way."
In less than two days all their anti-military resolutions were overset, and the young ladies were again on the _qui vive_, in consequence of the promulgation of an order for the return of the volunteers from Camp Dupont, as, the winter having set in, the enemy had retired from the vicinity of the Delaware and Chesapeake. The breaking up of this encampment was an event of much interest to the inhabitants of Philadelphia, as there were few of them that had not a near relative, or an intimate friend among those citizen-soldiers.
On the morning that they marched home all business was suspended; the pavements and door-steps were crowded with spectators, and the windows filled with ladies, eager to recognise among the returning volunteers their brothers, sons, husbands, or lovers,--who, on their side, cast many upward glances towards the fair groups that were gazing on them.
The British General Riall, who had been taken prisoner at the battle of Niagara, chanced to be at a house on the road-side when this gallant band went by, on their way to Philadelphia. It is said that he remarked to an American gentleman near him, "You should never go to war with us--the terms are too unequal. Men like these are too valuable to be thrown away in battle with such as compose _our_ armies, which are formed from the overflowings of a superabundant population; while here I see not a man that you can spare."
And he was essentially right.
The volunteers entered the city by the central bridge, and came down Market street. All were in high spirits, and glad to return once more to their homes and families. But unfortunate were those who on that day formed the rear-guard, it being their inglorious lot to come in late in the afternoon, after the spectators had withdrawn, convoying, with "toilsome march, the long array" of baggage-wagons, which they had been all day forcing through the heavy roads of an early winter, cold, weary, and dispirited, with no music to cheer them, no acclamations to greet them. No doubt, however, their chagrin was soon dispelled, and their enjoyment proportionately great, when at last they reached their own domestic hearths, and met the joyous faces and happy hearts assembled round them.
A few days after the return of the volunteers, Mrs. Darnel received a letter from an old friend of hers, Mrs. Forrester, a lady of large fortune, residing in Boston, containing the information that her son, Colonel Forrester, would shortly proceed to Philadelphia from the Canada frontier, and that she would accompany him, taking the opportunity of making her a long-promised visit. Mrs. Darnel replied immediately, expressive of the pleasure it would afford her to meet again one of the most intimate companions of her youth, and to have both Mrs. Forrester and the colonel staying at her house.
The same post brought a letter to Sophia from Mr. Clements, her brother, in New York, who, after telling her of his having heard that Colonel Forrester would shortly be in Philadelphia, jestingly proposed her attempting the conquest of his heart, as he was not only a gallant officer, but a man of high character and noble appearance. Sophia showed this letter to no one, but she read it twice over,--the first time with a smile, the second time with a blush. She had heard much of Colonel Forrester, of whom "report spoke goldenly;" and several times in New York she had seen him in public, but had never chanced to meet him, except once at a very large party, when accident had prevented his introduction to her.
Harriet and Caroline were almost wild with delight at the prospect of an intimate acquaintance with this accomplished warrior; but their joy was somewhat damped by the arrival of a second letter from Mrs. Forrester, in which she designated the exact time when she might be expected at the house of her friend, but said that her son, having some business that would detain him several weeks in Philadelphia, would not trespass on the hospitality of Mrs. Darnel, but had made arrangements for staying at a hotel.
"He is perfectly right," said Sophia. "I concluded, of course, that he would do so. Few gentlemen, when in a city, like to stay at private houses, if they can be accommodated elsewhere."
"At all events," said Harriet, "his mother will be with us, and he _must_ come every day to pay his duty to her."
"That's some comfort," pursued Caroline; "and, no doubt, we shall see a great deal of him, one way or another."
Sophia Clements, though scarcely conscious of it herself, felt a secret desire of appearing to advantage in the eyes of Colonel Forrester. Her two nieces felt the same desire, except that they made it no secret.
They had worked up their imaginations to the persuasion that Colonel Forrester was the finest man in the army, and therefore the finest in the world, and they anticipated the delight of his being their frequent guest during the stay of his mother; of his morning visits, and his evening visits; of having him at dinner and at tea; of planning excursions with him to show Mrs. Forrester the lions of the city and its vicinity, when, of course, he would be their escort. They imagined him walking in Chestnut street with them, and sitting in the same box at the theatre. Be it remembered, that during the war, officers in the regular service were seldom seen out of uniform, and even when habited as citizens they were always distinguished by that "gallant badge, the dear cockade." Perhaps, also, Colonel Forrester and his mother might accompany them to a ball, and they would then have the glory of dancing with an officer so elegant as entirely to efface their mortification at their former military partners. We need not say that Messrs. Wilson and Thomson were again at a discount.
The girls were taken with an immediate want of various new articles of dress, and had their attention been less engaged by the activity of their preparations for "looking their very best," the time that intervened between the receipt of Mrs. Forrester's last letter and that appointed for their arrival, would have seemed of length immeasurable.
At last came the eve of the day on which these all-important strangers were expected. As they quitted the tea-table, one of the young ladies remarked:--
"By this time to-morrow, we shall have seen Col. Forrester and his mother."
"As to the mother," observed Mrs. Darnel, "I am very sure that were it not for the son, the expectation of _her_ visit would excite but little interest in either of you--though, as you have often heard me say, she is a very agreeable and highly intelligent woman."
"We can easily perceive it from her letters," said Sophia.
Mrs. Darnel, complaining of the headache, retired for the night very early in the evening, desiring that she might not be disturbed. Sophia took some needle-work, and each of the girls tried a book, but were too restless and unsettled to read, and they alternately walked about the room or extended themselves on the sofas. It was a dark, stormy night--the windows rattled, and the pattering of the rain against the glass was plainly heard through the inside shutters.
"I wish to-morrow evening were come," said Harriet, "and that the introduction was over, and we were all seated round the tea-table."
"For my part," said Caroline, "I have a presentiment that everything will go on well. We will all do _notre possible_ to look our very best; mamma will take care that the rooms and the table shall be arranged in admirable style--and if you and I can only manage to talk and behave just as we ought, there is nothing to fear."
"I hope, indeed, that Colonel Forrester will like us," rejoined Harriet, "and be induced to continue his visits when he again comes to Philadelphia."
"Much depends on the first impression," remarked Miss Clements.
"Now let us just imagine over the arrival of Colonel and Mrs.
Forrester," said Harriet.--"The lamps lighted, and the fires burning brightly in both rooms. In the back parlour, the tea-table set out with the French china and the chased plate;--mamma sitting in an arm-chair with her feet on one of the embroidered footstools, dressed in her queen's-gray lutestring, and one of her Brussels lace caps--I suppose the one trimmed with white riband. Aunt Sophia in her myrtle-green levantine, seated at the marble table in the front parlour, holding in her hand an elegant book--for instance, her beautiful copy of the Pleasures of Hope. Caroline and I will wear our new scarlet Canton crapes with the satin trimming, and our coral ornaments."
"No, no," rejoined Caroline; "we resemble each other so much that, if we are dressed alike, Colonel Forrester will find too great a sameness in us. Do you wear your scarlet crape, and I will put on my white muslin with the six narrow flounces headed with insertion.[75] I have reserved it clean on purpose; and I think Aunt Sophia had best wear her last new coat dress, with the lace trimming. It is so becoming to her with a pink silk handkerchief tied under the collar."
[Footnote 75: In those days, white muslin dresses were worn both in winter and summer.]
"Well," said Harriet, "I will be seated at the table also, not reading, but working a pair of cambric cuffs; my mother-of-pearl work-box before me."
"And I," resumed Caroline, "will be found at the piano, turning over the leaves of a new music-book. Every one looks their best on a music-stool; it shows the figure to advantage, and the dress falls in such graceful folds."
"My hair shall be _a la Grecque_," said Harriet.
"And mine in the Vandyke style," said Caroline.
"But," asked Sophia, "are the strangers on entering the room to find us all sitting up in form, and arranged for effect, like actresses waiting for the bell to ring and the curtain to rise? How can you pretend that you were not the least aware of their approach till they were actually in the room, when you know very well that you will be impatiently listening to the sound of every carriage till you hear theirs stop at the door. Never, certainly, will a visiter come _less_ unexpectedly than Colonel Forrester."
"But you know, aunt," replied Caroline, "how much depends on a first impression."
"Well," resumed Harriet, "I have thought of another way. As soon as they enter the front parlour let us all advance through the folding doors to meet them,--mamma leading the van with Aunt Sophy, Caroline and I arm in arm behind."
"No," said Caroline, "let us not be close together, so that the same glance can take in both."
"Then," rejoined Harriet, "I will be a few steps in advance of you. You, as the youngest, should be timid, and should hold back a little; while I, as the eldest, should have more self-possession. Variety is advisable."
"But I cannot be timid all the time," said Caroline; "that will require too great an effort."
"We must not laugh and talk too much at first," observed Harriet; "but all we say must be both sprightly and sensible. However, we shall have the whole day to-morrow to make our final arrangements; and I think I am still in favour of the sitting reception."