Sublime Wretchedness of Watering-Places

Ll the world may be divided into two classes — those who go to waterincro o

places, and those who wish they could. In summer, the unemployed trunks, valises, and carpet-bags up in the attic, swell with envy until they almost burst their straps, pry off their lids, or demolish their buckles, as the expresswagons rattle the street, piled up with baggage marked for Lake George, Newport, or Clifton Springs. If the “castle in the air” that many of our business-men are building should alight, it would probably come down on the Beach, or at the Springs. Give me fifteen glasses of fresh Congress water before breakfast, or I die!

For tens of thousands of our people the

SUBLIME WRETCHEDNESS, ETC. 26/

most delectable event in their home-life is their going away. Nothing must interfere with this. Papa’s business may have been poor during the year, and every dollar may be necessary to keep the firm from a capsize, but walk the beach with the Hardings they ought, climb Mount Washington they must, sip sulphur water they will.

There are three orders of American nobility. To the highest belong those who spend all the summer away. Give them full swing! Feel honored if they tread on your corns. They hold in their hand letters patent of nobility, namely, a hotel bill for eight or ten weeks’ board at Bedford Springs. The second order are those who stay two or three weeks. Let them be honored! They were at six “hops,” rode out twice to the races, and formed the acquaintance of the nephew of one of the staff officers of General Burnside. All hail! Put down a strip of carpet from carriage to doorstep as they come back. Make way for them on the church aisle. Here they come after three weeks at Ballston Spa. The lowest order are those who can only say that they were gone ‘* a few days.” We would not by any means class them with those who stay at home, or merely go into the country, for they. are on the way up, and in a few years may compass a whole month away. Many who once had no better prospects than they, have lived to spend six weeks in an attic at five dollars a day. Many people, no doubt, gain great physical and mental advantages from their stay at watering-places. Toiling men and women find here a respite, make valuable acquaintance, and come home with stronger and steadier pulse. But there are a multitude that crowd these places, unhappy while they stay, and sick when they come home. What with small rooms, and tight clothes, and late hours, and slights, and heart-burnings, and nothing to do, it makes up what we call the sublime wietchedness of watering-places.

The Simingtons lived in a perfect palace on Rittenhouse Square. There was not a stone, or nail, or panel, or banister in all the house that seemed to be in anywise related to the nails, stones, panels, or banisters of the houses of common people. There was an air of pride and pomp in the mortar of the foundation — a very aristocracy of mud. The halls were wide, and ran straight through, ample enough to allow a military company to march and wheel. The stairs were mahogany, uncarpeted, but guarded by elaborately twisted rails, at every turn revealing a bust of marble looking at you from the niche in the wall. The exact size of the rooms had been sent to Axminster, with an order that the loom must do its best. The walls blossomed and bloomed with masterpieces. Bronze, with wing of chandelier, shook down the light. The golden links that drooped about the burners, in a gust of evening air zigzagged — the chain-lightning of uppertendom. There was a bewitching perfume which filled the house, and made you think that the wreaths in the plush and on the silvered paper of the wall were living flowers that held in their urns the ashes of all past generations of posies. The curtains stooped about the window graceful as the veil of a bride. The sleeping apartments were adorned with canopy, and embroidered pillow, and lounges, and books, and toilet -table of tinged marble, on which lay brushes and other apparatus with which heiresses smoothed, or frizzled, or curled, or twisted, or knotted, or waved, or crimped, or coiled, or bunched, or flumixed their hair.

In a word, it was a great house, and ordinary people seldom saw the inside of it, save when passing, as the door opened to let out a party to the flashing carriage that wheeled restlessly about the door. Indeed, on our small street we all tried to do as the Simingtons did. We saw how they wore their cravats, and that was the way we tied ours. They told us at the cane - store that Simington had just bought a peculiar handle, and we took one just like it. Our wives and daughters, instead of treading straieht on as once when we took them to church, surprised us by a peculiar gait made up of teeter, swing, and waddle, which made us look down, and, in fear of their sudden paralysis, ask, “What is the matter?” but we instantly saw that they were only taking on the way of the Simingtons, and so we excused them.

It was the first day of June, and the back room of the second story of that house looked as if It had been tossed of a whirlwind. Two dress - makers of the first order were busy in preparing an outfit for the young ladies and their mother, who were soon to start for the watering - place. The floor, and table, and chairs, and divans were covered with patterns, and scissors, and fragments of silk, and flakes of cotton, and smoothing irons, and spools, and buttons, and tassels, and skeins of silk, and rolls of goods from which the wrapping had just been torn, riding-habits green and black and flamboyant, pearl pendants and pipings of satin glittering with steel, bugles, and beads, and rings, and ribbons, sky-blue, grass -green or fire - tipped, and chenille and coral for the hair, and fringes, and gimps, and pufls, and flutings, and braids, and bands, and bracelets, and necklets, and collars, and cuffs, and robes of mohair, and dresses adorned with Cluny lace and Chambery gauze, and grenadines, and organdines, and tarlatanes, and moreens, a package of Ivins’s Patent Hair Crimper, and bandelets of straw bells, and a great variety of hats — shell hats, soup - plate hats, sailor hats, hats so small that they looked as if the bird lodged in die trimming were carrying diem off, and hats that would not be taken for hats at all, a bottle of Upham’s Freckle and Tan Banisher, and a vial of Swarthout’s Pimple Extinguisher, and a box of Cruickshank’s Wart Exterminator, and a hundred other things the use of which you could not Imagine, unless they were weapons with which to transfix hard-hearted bachelors, or lassos with which to haul In unmanageable coquettes. All these things were to be matched, made up, fixed, sewed together, cut apart, organized, and packed in trunks.

Matilda, the elder daughter, and Blanche, were flushed with the excitement of the great undertakinor. Blanche had heard that Florence, the only daughter of the next - door neighbor, was going to make her first appearance that year at the Springs, and the idea of being surpassed by that young snip, as Blanche called her, was a thing not to be borne. Every few moments the door -bell was rung by errandboys from the stores on Chestnut Street, and while the servant was attending the door, Blanche would drop the patterns, and run up and down the room In a state of nervousness that would have been unjustifiable were it not for the important preparations that were being made.

Matilda was plainer, and more self- reliant. The fact was that her childhood had been schooled in some hardships. The Simingtons had not always lived on Rittenhouse Square. The father had belonged to that class of persons who have to work for a living, and Matilda had at one time been obliged to run of errands, scour the front steps, and wait on the door, while her mother did her own work. Now it is well known that while there may be romance about a maiden with sleeves rolled back from dimpled arms, wringing clothes in a mountain stream by the rude cabin of her father, there never has been and never will be any romance about a wash-tub In a city kitchen, the air hot and steamed, the apron soaked, the sweat running to the tip of nose and chin, and the whole scene splashed with a magnitude of soapsuds, soda ash, and bags of bluing. Burns picked up poetry out of a mouse’s nest, and Ralph Waldo Emerson can squeeze juice from a

,^BLIME WRETCHEDNESS

oasket of chips, but no one has ever plucked up a canto from the depths of a wash-tub, or been able to measure poetic feet with a bar of soap. Who would think of rinsing clothes in the Aganippe? To this day Mrs. Simington’s knuckles are big, and there is an unseemlyhealthiness about her cheek which three years of dissipation in very high life have been unable to conquer.

Amid such uncomely circumstances, Matilda had nearly come to a practical, robust womanhood, when her father, Jephthah Simington, was invited into an oil speculation. (Jephthah was the Christian name given him by an ancestor who had a passion for Scripture names, although now he writes it simply J. Simington.) By an evening lamp six gentlemen met, made out a map of Venango County, located the oilwells, ran creeks through wherever they ought to be, ag-reed on the number of shares, and appointed a committee to visit Elder Stringham of the Presbyterian church, and induce him to accept the presidency of the company, overcoming his scruples at entering an enterprise of which he knew nothing, by offering him a large number of shares; and by the same process securing as directors Deacon Long of the Baptist church, trustee Wilkinson of the Methodist, and vestryman Powell of the Episcopal. The shares flew. At the door of the company’s office, for several days, the people stood in rows, taking their chance, and one old gentleman had a rib broken by a woman of Celtic origin with iron elbows, who crashed into his side as the Merrimac into the Cumberland, shouting: “You murtherin’ wretch, git back. What do you mane by runnin’ foriiinst a poor woman “with five orphan children?”

In this, as in several other projects of the kind, Simington went in on the “ground floor,” and came out through “the cellar.” All the people on our street were outraged and disgusted, for nearly all belonged to some of the three thousand companies organized for the development of oil, and they all supposed that they had gone in on the’ “ground floor,” but found that they had only entered the garret. It always shocks people’s moral sensibilities when they find others successfully doing that which they failed in. But there were three or four little enterprises of this kind that bothered Simington at night when he said his prayers. Indeed, one night, as he came to the sentence, “If I should die before I wake,” he bounded up from his knees, and sat down at the table, and drew a check for a hundred dollars for the Missionary Society, that Bibles might be sent to Ethiopia to make all the colored people honest; also a check for a hundred dollars for the printing of tracts on the sin of dancing; and another for the same amount to the fund for the relief of ‘the destitute, some of them having been the victims of “those who devour widows’ houses.” Whereupon he felt better, went immediately to sleep, and dreamed of a heaven in which the rivers rolled oil, and the rocks gushed oil, and the trees dripped oil, and the skies rained oil, and, on a throne made out of “Slippery Rock,” sat the prince of stockauctioneers, crying: “And a half! and a ‘alf! going! gone!”

No wonder the Simingtons so soon moved into a palace. But they had a world of trouble with their old acquaintances. It seemed impossible to shake off the nuisance. Blanche could hardly pass down the steps with Antonio Grimshaw, on the way to the opera, without having some woman in ordinary apparel ask: “How do you do, Blanche? “Whereupon she would frown, and stare, and almost look the offender down through the sidewalk; and when Antonio said, ‘’Who was that?” Blanche would answer, “I don’t know the horrid creature! It is probably our servant-girl’s dressmaker!” It seemed to the Simingtons as if their life would be extinguished with the impudence of people. Oh! the disgrace of having a hack drive to the door, and a distant relative from the country dismount, holding a faded carpet-bag, the handles tied together by a rope; to go down to the parlor and have a gawk of a niece come up with a hat all over her head, and give you a great smack, as though she had a right to kiss the Simingtons!

But people have mostly learned to know their place by this time, and, unmolested by such untimely calls and disgusting remembrances, the dresses are being fitted. Matilda’s shape had, by early industries, been made too robust for present circumstances, and the dress - maker had an awful time with her. All the ingenuity of the house had been expended in trying to diminish her waist. The dress-maker pinched, and pulled, and twisted, and laced, and punched, and shook the stubborn Matilda, who, in the painful process of being fitted, looked red, and pale, and blue, once in a while giving an outcry of distress, which finally brought her mother to the rescue. “Matilda! “cried Mrs. Simington,” how can you go on so? You shall be left at home if you don’t look out! .You are a great awkward thing. Why, when I was your age I could completely span my waist with my two hands! “” Oh, mother! mother! “answered Matilda,” it is not my fault. The trouble is, there is not strencrth enough in the corsets!’’

The first day of July had come, and eleven trunks were lifted into the express-wagon: one for the father, three for the mother, one for Frank, the only son, a young man of twenty-one, and six for Blanche and Matilda. Added to this was a bundle belonging to Rose, the black waitino;-maId. It was a hot mornlnor, the thermometer eighty-five In the shade. The cars were fi-ill of people, and the SImlngtons were obliged to sit on the sunny side. None were willing to give up their seats, although Mrs. SImlngton for some seconds looked daggers at a gentleman who, she thought, might be more polite, and, not making any Impression upon him, ran the point of her parasol accidentally into his eye, and with a sudden swing of her skirts upset his valise. “What horrid creatures!” said Blanche. “How pleasant It would be to find som.e real gentleman!” It was the morning for an excursion. There were six extra cars, and all of themi crowded. The rushing back and forward of such a herd of working-people pained the sensibilities of the whole SImlngton family, Matilda excepted. She looked thoroughly placid, and said, “Other people have as good a right to travel as we; and this hot weather. Instead of making you pout, my dear sister, ought to fill us with thanksgiving to God, for it will ripen the harvest, and make bread cheap for the poor.” “Hush up, Matilda!” said Mrs. SImlngton;

28o SUBLIME WRETCHEDNESS

“you will never get over your early mixing with those Methodists. We are going out to have a good time, and I don’t want to hear any more of your religious comments. Blanche was right. The weather is awful. Frank! what has become of your shirt-collar? Wilted out of sight, I declare!” The dust flew with every revolution of the wheels. Frank had all the family by turns looking into his eye for a cinder, and was so outraged that he went out on the platform to have what he called “a good swear,” felt somewhat relieved, and came back, and, pulling down the lower lid of his eye, had his mother blow into it. But no cinder was to be found. Blanche said she did not believe there was anything the matter with It: whereupon Frank called her a name not at all eulogistic, and Blanche responded In terms more emphatic than complimentary.

J. Simington sat quiet, for he felt thoroughly exhausted. His anxieties about the trunks, his misunderstanding with the porters, his confusion about the checks, and the purchase of five through tickets, had besweated him amazingly. When the agent cried out, “Show your tickets!” the old gentleman missed one of them, felt In his coat-pocket, In his vest. In his duster, looked In his hat, looked under the seat, took out his pocket-book, had all the people rise and move their carpet-bags, and the ladles shake out their dresses, and repeated the whole process several times, till the agent lost his patience and made the perplexed traveller pay again. What with the heat, and the dust, and the cinders, and the bad breath of the common people, the annoyance would have been unbearable to the SImlngtons, had It not been for the self-control and Imperturbable demeanor of Matilda, and the assurance which every now and then came to their minds that they were off on the especial business of having a good time.

After much fatigue our party reach the watering-place, and go from the cars to a first-class hotel. While the family are waiting in the reception-room, J. Simlngton, Esquire, Is at the clerk’s desk reoisterlnor the names. He writes them In full hand, supposing that a decided sensation will be produced among the

guests and hotel officials:
24^

J. Simington,
Mrs. J. Simington,
Frank Simington,
Matilda Simington,
Blanche Simington,
And waiting -maid.

Surely such signatures upon the register will secure princely accommodations. “Give me three capacious rooms adjoining each other, on the first floor, sufficiently distant from all house -bells, in a place where there will be no children passing the door, and free from all the odors of the dining-room, the windows commanding a fine landscape!” The clerk responded, “We will do the best we can for you, and will put down your name on a private list for better apartments when there is a vacancy. It is our pride to make the guests comfortable. John! show these people up to 397, 398, 399.”

The procession start for the centre of the building, and go up this flight of stairs, up another, higher, higher, through this hall, out on that porch, higher, higher, around this corner, through that dark entry, higher, higher, the wrath of the Simingtons rising with every

Step of elevation, until, as the attendant opens the three doors and throws the shawls, umbrellas, and satchels on the bed, the guests are almost speechless with rage. Old Simington says: “This is outrageous! They do not know who I am!” His wife says nothing, for she is out of breath from the exertion of climbing. Blanche bursts into tears. Frank exclaimed, with several unsavory prefixes, “What a place to roost!” Matilda sat down and said, “Well, this is funny! but I guess we can make out. We will be rambling in the fields all da.y, and at night we can up here sleep so much nearer heaven.” “Hush! you Methodist!” cried Mrs. Simington with her first gasp of utterance; “you will kill me yet with your religion. The top of a mean, dirty hotel, with the thermometer at three hundred, and no place to turn, or sit, or lay, is no place for moralizing.” At this she gave a tremendous pull to the bell, and shouted at the servant “What kind of a place do you call this? Dirty pillow-cases; damp sheets; no soap; thimbleful of water; one towel, and no ice -water. Who would have thought I could ever come to this! J. Simlngton! why did you bring me here?” “My dear!” interrupted the husband, as he began to make an explanation — “Be still!” cried Mrs. Simlngton; “you did it a-purpose! How could you treat in this way the companion of your bosom?”

The fact was that the best roomxS had all been taken. They always have been. We have known a great many people who went to watering-places, and we never knew of but one man who had rooms that entirely suited him. We have his photograph. The clerk at the hotel had never heard of the Simingtons. There are a great many rich people in the world, and a man must have a pile of dollars like an Astor or the Barings to be greatly distinguished. You see that m.oney is a very uncertain thing, for many who have but little act as though they had m.uch, and the really affluent often make but little pretension, and people are worth so much more after they fail than before they fail. The hotel clerks had no idea of what kind of a house the Simingtons lived in, nor how many servants they kept, nor what mottled bays with silver bits moved in their flashing “turn-out.” The hotel proprietors knew not but that, notwithstanding their appearance, these guests might really be as poor as the storied turkey that belonged to the “man of Uz.” It might be possible that the Simingtons belonged to that class of people who, living at home in a small house, blacking their own boots, and doing the millinery of their own hats, and making their own dresses from patterns which they copy from a shop-window, come into hotels to order people about, and complain of their apartments, of the waiters, of the table-cloth — trying by their “air” to give everybody the idea that they are accustomed to having things better. Depend upon it those who at the public table insult the waiters, and send back the spring chicken three times before they get one of a proper shade of brown, and slash things around conspicuously, at home their greatest luxury is hash, which they eat off of a table-cloth in need of soap, because they do their own washing; and that they seldom see a spring chicken except in a cheap wood-cut, or at their frugal breakfast in a grocery egg which some worthy hen had for three weeks tried to hatch out, but In grief had surrendered to the huckster, who wanted just one more to make a dozen. Those who in public places never say “Thank you!” to the waiters, at home you may be sure have no waiters to thank. Considering what they have to suffer, we had rather be anything on earth than a hotelwaiter, excepting always the position of a mule on a tow-path, drawing a second-class canal-boat.

But the Simingtons really had it better at home. We wonder not that they noticed a contrast. From a house with fourteen spacious apartments, they had come to three about as large as the rooms of a travelling photographist, who on four wheels carries from village to village art -gallery, bed -room, parlor, kitchen, and a place to dry clothes. There was no canopy to the bed, no embroidery to the pillows, no gilt on the lips of the pitcher. The window-shades would not work. The slats of the blinds were disordered, the carpet was faded, the drawers would not open, the atmosphere was musty, the flies were multitudlnous, and nodiing cooled die temper of die father, or regulated the respiration of the mother, or moderated the sarcastic ebullitions of Frank, or relieved Blanche’s hysterics, but the potent consideration that they were, individually and collectively, having a good time.

But never mind. Their names were down on the private list of those who had applied for better rooms when there were any vacated. We have all had our names down on that list. We have to-day the satisfaction of knowing that our names are down on several such lists at Long Branch, Cape May, Saratoga, Bellows Falls, Niagara, and the White Mountains. It is a roll of honor ever increasinor. We have for the last five years been liable any moment to hear that there was at last for us a capacious room on the first floor, sufficiently distant from all the house-bells, in a place where there would be no children passing the door, and free from all the odors of the dining-room, the windows commanding a fine landscape. We hereby advise all who go to these places to see to it immediately on arrival that their names are recorded on this private register.

The fatigues of the day disposed the Shningtons to sound sleep at night. But the heat was intolerable. Mrs. Simington got up, and sat by the window, and said she should die; and Simington, disturbed by her frequent moonlight excursions about the room, declared he hoped she would. The previous occupants of the room had come thither on a sleepingcar, the beds of which had been infested by travellers who always take a free passage, and who often become so attached to people on a short acquaintance that they cannot consent to part. These little, innocent, previous occupants of the bed at the watering-place, were evidently provoked that their lodgings had been intruded upon by the Simlngtons, and the latter, in maintaining a war against these creatures, were ofttlmes put to the scratch. Mrs. Simington at midnight compelled her husband to sit up on a chair, while she shook the sheets, and with weapons deadly as Mrs. Surratt’s “shooting- irons” pursued the insectlferous Amalekites, and frorn a bottle found on the shelf anointed them with an excellent oil that broke their heads, and in a fit of terrible humor, that was Hable to seize her on very untoward occasions, asked her husband why that bed was like a light carnage drawn by one horse; and Simincrton for the first time in his life guessed right, and answered, “Because it’s buggy.” At which Mrs. Simington gave a Satanic laugh, (she seldom laughed except at her own jokes,) and said she did not care so much for the discomfort produced by these litde things, but what she most thought of was her complexion.

At last the morning dawned, and the whole family started to take a drink at the Springs before breakfast. The fountains were surrounded by a great crowd of people, and the test was who should drink the most. Now, J. Simington was physically almost as much in latitude as longitude, and therefore had unusual capacity. He unbuttoned his vest and threw back the lapels of his coat, and seemed to take down a whole glass at one swallow. Blanche made a wry face, and said such stuff as that would kill her, but Antonio Grimshaw had told her of the twenty -four glasses he took before breakfast, and so she resolved to do her best. 25 T

Out of glasses from which scores of scrofulous, bad - breathed, dropsical people had been refreshing themselves, the Simingtons, who had not for the last two years been willing to drink out of anybody else’s tumbler, took down the disagreeable beverage. Matilda drank two or three glasses, and said she thought there was reason in all things, and that she had enough. But the rest of the family took ten apiece before they began to discuss the question of stopping. Then they made several turns about the grass - plot, and came back able to take more. They sipped the liquid health. They poured it down. They plunged their face into the glass till their nose dripped with it. They drank for a while standing on one foot, then they resumed standing on the other. They quaffed the nectar of the hills till the dippingboys were confounded. Others handed the glasses back, the contents only half taken, these drained the last drop at the bottom. They rolled the water under their tongue as though it were perfect sweetness. They took up the brimming cups carefully, so as not to spill the precious liquid. After most of the healthseekers had left the fountain, Mrs. Simlngton cried out, “More! more! Here, boy! attend to your business!” And when at last they wended their way toward the hotel, they feared they had not fully improved their privileges.

For some reason they all day felt miserable, and had no appetite, felt faint, and chilly, and nauseated, so that before noon Blanche went to her bed and had a doctor. But that nieht was to come off the “hop” of the season, and sick or well she meant to eo to it. Durine the forenoon Matilda nursed her sister, and answered her fears by prophecy that she would soon feel better. As the hour for the “hop” drew near, the sick one recovered. Takinor only a short while for her own toilet, Matilda gave her chief time to the adornment of Blanche and her mother. All the trunks were opened, and out came all the splendor of the SImlngtons, the numberless items of which I have already named. Matilda selected for the evenine the tamer colors; but Mrs. Slmineton exclaimed, “Matilda! you shall not make a Methodist of your sister.”

The ornamentation went on until ten o’clock

The elder Simington had got himself Into a profuse perspiration in trying to tie Mrs. Simington’s corsets, and in the effort to bring together the fastenings of Blanche’s dress the energies of the whole family were taxed. But, the work done, they start for the ball - room. Such a cavalcade seldom descended at the watering - place. Blanche was in perpetual dread lest some one should tread on her dress, and her mother worried lest her own head-gear should not be appreciated. The music of the orchestra rose to their ears, and with a feeling of pride and jubilance that surpassed everything the Simingtons had felt, they march into the brilliant circle. The mother was well pleased to see Matilda take a chair in an inconspicuous place, instead of joining the dance, for, notwithstanding all that maternal kindness could effect, Matilda would walk naturally, and took no pains to hide her unfashionable waist, and blushed so red on the least provocation that her cheek was as ruddy as a mountain lass who had never done anything to improve her complexion. But Frank, with Blanche on his arm, promenaded the room that all mloht admire his sister’s beauty.

The rustle of silks, the tap of a hundred feet, the quick pulsations of flutes and horns, the magnificent burst of harmonies, the ringing voice of the manager, the blaze of diamonds on head and hand and neck, the bow, the whirl, the laughter, the transport, were beyond anticipation. At the close of the first “set,” Mrs. Simington, in manner naive as any girl, and with silk fan patting her lip, stood before a bashful young man, whom she had thoroughly cornered with her outspread immensity of skirts, engaged in conversation, chiefly conducted by herself, in which were most f)rominent the words, “Really,” “Indeed,” “Delightful,” “So nice,” ‘’Yes!” “My stars,” and similar expressions, suggestive of affluence of thought and profundity of investigation. But it must be acknowledged that this lady produced that night no pleasing impression. She was set down as one of that class of women who may always be seen in such places, and who, having outlived their youthfulness, have an idea that by extra lace, skirt, slipper, and mincing they can make themselves perfectly killing. One of the worst - looking birds that we know of is a peacock after it has lost its feathers.

The handsomest man on the floor was Dallas Clifford. His walk, his glance, his dress, his talk were a perpetual sensation. For several summers he made the tour of the watering-places, now stopping at the Falls, then at the Springs, and concluding at the sea-shore. He had long done as he pleased, his father from a princely purse furnishing him all he desired. His hands had never been hardened by toil, nor his brow paled with thought. He had been expelled the first year of his college course for indolence and occasional dissipation. He had no regard for God or man, but great admiration for the ladies. That night as he moved in the dance there were scores who exclaimed, “Such eyes!” “Such lips!” “Such gait!” “Who ever saw the equal?”

During the day, Frank Simington, while taking a drink at the bar, had been introduced to this pet of the watering-places. They were immediately congenial, found they liked the same kind of wines, the same kind of fast horses, and the same style of feminine beauty. So they drank each other’s health, and before a week had passed, drank it in sulphur water at the Springs, drank it in Hock, drank it in Cognac, drank it in Burgundy, drank it in Madeira, drank it in Swan gin, drank it in Heidsieck, drank it in Champagne, drank it in Cliquot.

Frank was resolved that at the “hop ‘’ his sister Blanche should have the advantage of an acquaintance with Dallas Clifford. In the making up of the first” set “the introduction took place, and Clifford offered his arm, and accompanied Blanche in all the dances of the evening. Together they bounded in the “gallop,” and bowed in “The Lancers,” and stepped in “The Redowa,” and whirled in the “waltz.” If there really were darts in jealous eyes, Blanche would have been transfixed with a hundred. It seemed almost a unanimous opinion that she was not fit to dance with such a prodigy. There were many who would have been glad to hear her dress rip, or see her false hair tumble. An envious mamma, who had for three hours been arranging her own daughter with especial reference to the capture of Chfford, remarked in quite loud voice, hoping that Blanche would hear it, “I knew her father when he sold fish in the market! “‘’Yes,” says another, “the Simingtons always were vulgar!” But Blanche’s mother looked on with an admiration she did not try to conceal. She thought: “How beautiful they look together! Both young; both handsome; both rich. It would be just the thing.” She looked at Simington, and Simington looked at her with a joy equal to that which he felt on the day when from the top of “Slippery Rock” he tumbled into a fortune.

While the Simingtons returned to their rooms in a state of delectation, there were many who left the ball - room with hearts far from happy. Their splendor of dress had not been appreciated. They had not danced with those whose company they most desired. Others not half so attractive as themselves had carried off the spoils, and the “hop” had kindled more heart - burnings, jealousies, scandals, revenges, satires, and backbitings than will ever be told of. Some wished diey were home. Others wished they had been dressed differently. Still others wished they had gone to some other watering-place, where they would have been appreciated. They denounced the music, and the manager, and the ball - room. The men were all ‘’ gawks,” and the ladles all “flirts,” and the whole evening a vexation. They never before saw such miserable head-dresses, or such ridiculous slippers, or so many paste diamonds. Some of the more tenderly nervous, as soon as they reached their rooms, sat down and cried. They had been neglected. They took such coldness on the part of gentlemen as a positive insult. They threw their satin slippers into the corner with a vengeance, and, in perfect recklessness as to consequences, tossed a two - pound ball of hair against the looking-glass, and vowed they would never go again.

Not so with Blanche, for. she dreamed all night of castles, and parks of deer, and galleries of art, and music, and gobelin tapestry, and of gondolas putting out from golden sands, on sapphire waters, angel-beckoned. But the next morning the whole Simington family gathered themselves together to attend to Matilda. The evening before, instead of whirling In the dance, she had sat and looked on, much of the time talking to a long, lean, cadaverous gentleman, who had somehow obtained acquaintance with her. The gentleman, having just graduated from the law school, had come to recruit from exhaustion of protracted study, and was staying at “The Brodwell House,” a cheap but respectable hotel, on one of the less prominent streets. He was plainly dressed, had neither diamond breast - pin, nor kid gloves, nor whisk cane, nor easy manners. He came in that evening to see what he could learn of the gay world, and sat studying character while looking at the “hop.” The Simingtons felt outraged at Matilda’s behavior. How could she sit there and talk with a man who was stopping at the Brodwell House! He would never be. anything. He had actually appeared in bare hands, and they were big. How could she throw herself away, and forget her father’s name, and her mother’s entreaty, and her sister’s prospects! “But,” said Matilda, “he was intelligent, and the tones of his voice indicated a kind disposition, and the ideas he expressed were elevated, and positively Christian.” “Dear me!” said her mother; “Matilda! I expect you will pass your whole life in saying your prayers and talking religion. I despair of ever making you anything worthy of the Simingtons!” “More than that,” said Matilda, “his conversation was very improving, and we have engaged to walk to-day to Cedar Grove, and examine the peculiar flora which he says abound in that region. We are both very fond of botany.”

While Matilda and the law student were out on the floral excursion, and talking- of all the subjects kindred to flowers, Dallas Clifford and Blanche were arm - in - arm promenading the piazza, or at the piano; while Miss Simington was making up for her lack of musical skill by great exuberance of racket, Clifford was turning for her the leaves, and, between his favorite selections, uttering various sentimentalities, and interlarding his conversation with all the French phrases he knew — such as toit-t eiisemble, valet de chambie, hors du combat, a la belle etoile.

chateau en Espagne, till several persons standing near felt so sick they had to leave the room and take a little soda to settle their stomachs. Meanwhile, from day to day, and from week to week, Mr. and Mrs. Simington wandered about, not knowing what to do with themselves. They had no taste for reading, although on Rittenhouse Square they had a costly library; indeed they owned ten thousand dollars’ worth of books. Through a literary friend empowered to make selection, J. Simington had secured all the standard works of history, poetry, romance, art, and ethics. Although acquainted with none of the dead languages, he owned ^schylus, Lucian, Sophocles, Strabo, Pindar, and Plautus. He rejoiced in possessing so many square feet of brains, and realized that Aristophanes ought to feel honored to stand on the shelf of the Simingtons. Several times he had looked at the pictures in Don Quixote, and took the engraving of the traveller in Pilgrim’s Progress to be the sketch of some unfortunate traveller in the oil regions, and supposed that Macaulay’s History was merely a continuance of the wonderful escapes of

Robinson Crusoe, and that “Young’s Night Thoughts” was the story of some dream which that worthy had experienced after a late supper of boiled crabs. Nevertheless, there were whole shelves of books in richest foreign bindings, printed on vellum, tipped with gold, set off with exquisite vignettes. Among these a copy of the Scriptures, upon which all the wealth of typology, etching, and book-bindery had displayed itself — a Bible so grandly gotten up, that if the inspired fishermen had come in, and, with their hands yet harS from the fishing-tackle, had attempted to touch it, they would have been kicked out.

Mr. and Mrs. Simington had not brought with them any of these standard ^^orks, but for purposes of light reading had bought from the news - boy on the cars five volumes, entitled, “The Revenge,” “The Bloody Tinge,” •’ Castles on Fire,” “The Frightful Leap,” and “The Murderess on Trial.” But they had no taste even for such fascinating literature. Mrs. Simington, with ‘’The Frightful Leap” under her arm, walked from bedroom to parlor, and

from parlor to hall, and from hall to piazza, wonderi-ng when dinner would be ready. She tried to sleep in the daytime, but the bed was hard, and she felt restless. She met on the stairs a lady who like herself was afflicted with restlessness, and said that the day was hot, or dusty, or asked the other lady how many glasses of water she could take before breakfast, and then passed on. She sat down and groaned without any apparent cause. She walked in front of the long mirror to see how her shawl looked, and then walked back again, then stepped up face to face with the looking-glass, gave a twist to one of her curls, drew her face into a pucker, surveyed the room to see if any one was observing, and then sat down agn. She jogged her foot uneasily, and thumped her fingers on the table, and looked for the twentieth time at the pictures in “The Frightful Leap,” and, without any especial feeling of hunger, longed for the doors of the dining-hall to open, that she might have something to do. She found no relief from this feeling in looking at others, for nine-tenths of all the ladies were wanderinor about in the same perplexity. They differed in many other

OF WAT£ RING- PLACES. 303

things. Some had fans, and some were without fans. Some wore white, and some black. Some had curls, and some no curls. Some roomed in the third story, and some in the fourth. Some took soup, and some did not. But whatever might be their differences, they nearly all agreed in a feeling of unrest, longed for something to do, studied where they had better go next, agonized for something to see, and wondered when dinner would be ready.

Mr. Simington exhibited in a different way the same feeling. At home he was a man of business. Thouo-h owning a larre estate, he had the peculiarity of wanting more. The change from the active commercial circles in which he was accustomed to mingle, to his present entire cessation from business, was unbearable. He walked about with the solemnity, but without the resignation of a martyr. He bothered the clerk of the hotel by incessant asking, “Is the mail in?” He wondered whether gold was up or down. Wondered whether his firm had heard from that man out West. Wondered if they were working off that old stock of goods. He walked over to the billiard saloon; went down to the bowlingalley; felt thankful as he met a little Indian boy with arrows wanting a penny put up to be shot at; walked round the block, came back and asked, “Is the mail in?”

But there was another form of amusement in which J. Simington frequently found relief, and that was in the examination of the hotel register. It was such a pleasant thing to go up and read the arrivals for the last month, and study the chirography of distinguished individuals. The only hindrance to this was the fact that a dozen other gentlemen with nothing else to do were wanting to examine the record at the same time, those standing in front somewhat vexed at having so many people looking over their shoulder.

Although possessing large means, he whiled away much of the time by denouncing the extortion of hotel -keepers, and the extortion of boot -blacks, and the extortion of porters, and the extortion of livery-men. As to the waiters, he said you were sure to get maccaroni soup when you ordered mock -turtle, or blue “fish when you ordered sheep’s-head.

What was worse for a nervous man, there were so many sick people who had gone there for their health. But this imposition, which J. Simington bore in silence, his wife openly condemned. “How can I stand it?” she cried, “this everlasting wheezing of asthmatics, and hobbling of cripples, and dropsical swellings, and jaundiced complexions, and display of sores!” She did not know why such people were allowed to come there. It was perfectly outrageous. The place for sick people was at home. Once she lay all night with two pillows and a shawl on her ear, so as not to hear the coughing in an adjoining apartment.

At last the day for the long-expected horse-race arrived, and although J. Simington and his wife did not much approve of horse-racing, they hired a carriage at ten dollars an hour (vehicles were that day so much in demand) and went out to the course. The dust flew till Mrs. Simington’s eyes and mouth and nose were full, and two fast gentlemen, with their horses at full run, dashed into the carriage of our friends, and almost upset them. But Mr.

Simington soothed his wife’s consternation, 26* u and calmed her feelings, by bidding her remember that they were having a good time. The platforms were crowded, sporting hats were numerous, all the adjplning stables crowded with fine horses, which were being rubbed down and blanketed. And to put themselves under the treatment of the elevating influences of the race -course, there came in gamblers, pickpockets, thieves, horse -jockeys, bloats, and libertines. It was high carnival for rum, onions, tobacco -spit, long hair thick with bear s-grease and ox-marrow, strong cigars, poor cologne, banter, and blasphemy. You could no more doubt the high morality of the races if you looked at the horses, for they were well - dressed, drank nothing but water, and used no bad lano-uaoe. When the two favorite race-horses sped round the track, nostril to nostril, flank to flank, Mrs. Simington wanted to bet, and Mr. Simington threw up his hat, and she said, “Did you ever?” and he answered, “No! I never did!”

That night, as they were about to retire, a loud rap was heard at their door. Frank, in a state of beastly intoxication was ushered in by

Dallas Clifford, himself only a few degrees less damaged. They had bodi been at die horse-race, and since dieir return had tarried at the bar. As Frank’s hat fell off, there was seen across his forehead a long gash made by the glass of an enraged comrade, because Frank, having lost a bet, had refused to pay up. Some one had relieved him of his gold watch, and, splashed with mud and vomit, he fell over at the feet of his father and mother, the only son of the Simingtons. The truth was, that during all the weeks of their stay, Frank, in order to throw off e7i7iui and keep up his spirits, had made frequent visits to the bar-room, drinking with all his new acquaintances. Dallas Clifford drank even more, but had a constitution not so easily capsized. Indeed, after his fifth glass of old Otard he won a bet by successfully walking a crack in the floor.

We have noticed around many of our watering-places a class of fast young men with faces flushed, and eyes bloodshot, and hair excessively oiled, and whiskers extremely curled, and handkerchief furiously perfumed, and breath that dashes the air with odors of mint-julep and a destroyed stomach. They watch about the door for new-comers, make up their mind whether a young man has money, invite him to drink, coax him to throw dice, smite his ear with uncleanness, poison his imagination, undermine his health, and plunge their vulturous beak into the vitals of his soul. Frank, through expectation of heiring large property, had for some time been going down, and the six weeks passed at the fashionable watering-place fastened on him a chain which he was never to break. He was going with lightning speed on a down grade, spent the most of the next six months at saloons, and died of delirium tremens on Rittenhouse Square, his last moments haunted by such terrors, that to drown his shrieks, the neighbors for a block around held their ears, and prayed God that their own sons might be saved from the dissipations of fashionable watering-places.

But I must not go so fast. You want to know whether the law -student and Matilda ever got back from their floral excursion? No, never; they are hunting flowers yet, and always finding them in pairs; plucking them in all the walks of life, by streams of gladness, on hills of joy, in shady nooks. They could find nettles, and wasps, and colopendra, if so they desired. They are not hunting for these. They are looking for flowers; and so there is the breath of the evening primrose in their conversation, and the distillation of sweet-alyssum in their demeanor, and the aroma of phlox in their disposition. They are hunting flowers to-day In the door-yard of a plain house on the outskirts of the village. Last night, he, who was a year ago a law-student, plead in the court-room for a man’s life, and plead in such tones of surpassing tenderness and power, that this morning his table was covered with congratulatory notes from old members of the bar, saying that the like of it they had never heard, and prophesying topmost eminence In ‘his profession; and people who have wrongs to right, and estates to settle, and causes to plead, have been coming in all day to give him retainers. The young man is as modest now as on the evening when he wandered up with his big hands from the Brodwell House to witness the “hop.” And Matilda talks so

3IC SUBLIME WRETCHEDNESS

much of the kindness of God that her mother still calls her a Methodist. Indeed, when this young husband and wife go out to hunt flowers, they do not look for anything large or pretentious, but, strolling along on the grass, are apt to come upon a nest of violets.

Do you want to know the sequel of Dallas Clifford’s demeanor? At the Springs he never appeared before Blanche until his breath had been properly disguised, and the last mark of rowdyism was brushed off. At the close of the six weeks, and a few days before the Simingtons took their departure, affairs between Dallas and Blanche came to a settlement. Much of the talk about blushes, awful silences, and faintings at such a crisis is an invention of story -writers. The last time a sham lady would faint is at such a juncture, especially if it were a good offer.

But one thing was certain: about two months afterward, the mansion on Rittenhouse Square was lighted for a wedding. The carriages reached a block each way. Everybody said that Blanche looked beautiful. Dallas Clifford took her hand, and vowed before Almighty God, and a great cloud of witnesses, that he would love, cherish, and protect.

The wine poured from the bottles, and foamed in the beakers, and glowed under the chandeliers. Dallas Clifford drank with all; drank again and again. Drank with old and young. Drank with brothers and sisters. Drank until Blanche besought him to take no more. Drank till his tongue was thick, and his knees weakened, and the banquet swam away from his vision, and he was carried up stairs, struggling, hooping, and cursing. Oh! there was an unseen Hand writing on that gilded wall terrible meanings. There was a serpent that put its tongue from that basket of grapes on the table. On the smoke of the costly viands an evil spirit floated. Instead of the ring in the bride’s cake, there was an iron chain. Those red drops on the table were not so much spilled wine as blood. Louder than the guffaw of laughter arose the hiccough of despair.