"Splendid!" said the Widow,
--and to tell the truth, she was not far out of the way, and with
Helen Darley as a foil anybody would know she must be foudroyant and
pyramidal,--if these French adjectives may be naturalized for this one
particular exigency.
So the Widow sent out her notes. The black grief which had filled her
heart and overflowed in surges of crape around her person had left a
deposit half an inch wide at the margin of her note-paper. Her seal was
a small youth with an inverted torch, the same on which Mrs. Blanche
Creamer made her spiteful remark, that she expected to see that boy of
the Widow's standing on his head yet; meaning, as Dick supposed, that
she would get the torch right-side up as soon as she had a chance. That
was after Dick had made the Widow's acquaintance, and Mrs. Creamer had
got it into her foolish head that she would marry that young fellow,
if she could catch him. How could he ever come to fancy such, a
quadroon-looking thing as that, she should like to know?
It is easy enough to ask seven people to a party; but whether they will
come or not is an open question, as it was in the case of the "vasty
spirits." If the note issues from a three-story mansion-house, and goes
to two-story acquaintances, they will all be in an excellent state of
health, and have much pleasure in accepting this very polite invitation.
If the note is from the lady of a two-story family to a three-story one,
the former highly respectable person will find that an endemic complaint
is prevalent, not represented in the weekly bills of mortality, which
occasions numerous regrets in the bosoms of eminently desirable parties
that they _cannot_ have the pleasure of and-so-forth-ing.
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