Shortly afterward, Mrs. McLean withdrew for
an improvement in her toilet, and soon returning, found them comparing
notes as to the condition of the country, tender bonds of the Union, and
relative merits of rival candidates, for all which neither of them cared
a straw.
"How do you find me, Sir?" she asked of her cousin.
"Radiant, rosy, and rarely arrayed."
"I see that your affections are to be won, and I proceed accordingly,
by making myself charming, in the first place. And now, will you be
cheered, but not inebriated, here under the trees, in company with
dainty cheese-cakes compounded by these hands, and jelly of Helen
Heath's moulding, and automatic trifles that caught an ordaining
glimpse of Mrs. Laudersdale's eye and rushed madly together to become
almond-pasty?"
"With a method in their madness, I hope."
"Yes, all the almonds not on one side."
"In company with cheese-cakes, jelly, and pasty, simply,--I should have
claret and crackers at home, Capua willing. Will it pay?"
"You shall have Port here, when Mrs. Laudersdale comes."
"Not old enough to be crusty yet, Kate," said her husband.
"Very good, for you, John!"
"Mrs. Laudersdale is your housekeeper?" asked her cousin.
"Mrs. Laudersdale? That is rich! But I should never dare to tell
her. Our housekeeper? Our cynosure! She is our argent-lidded Persian
Girl,--our serene, imperial Eleanore;--
"'Whene'er she moves,
The Samian Here rises, and she speaks
A Meinnon smitten with the morning sun.
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