II. Our New Livery, And Other Things

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_ A LETTER FROM MRS. POTIPHAR TO MISS CAROLINE PETTITOES.

NEW YORK, April.

MY DEAR CAROLINE,--Lent came so frightfully early this year, that I was very much afraid my new bonnet a l'Imperatrice would not be out from Paris soon enough. But fortunately it arrived just in time, and I had the satisfaction of taking down the pride of Mrs. Croesus, who fancied hers would be the only stylish hat in church the first Sunday. She could not keep her eyes away from me, and I sat so unmoved, and so calmly looking at the Doctor, that she was quite vexed. But, whenever she turned away, I ran my eyes over the whole congregation, and would you believe that, almost without an exception, people had their old things? However, I suppose they forgot how soon Lent was coming. As I was passing out of church, Mrs. Croesus brushed by me:

"Ah!" said she, "good morning. Why bless me! you've got that pretty hat I saw at Lawson's. Well, now, it's really quite pretty; Lawson has some taste left yet; what a lovely sermon the Doctor gave us. By the by, did you know that Mrs. Gnu had actually bought the blue velvet? It's too bad, because I wanted to cover my prayer-book with blue, and she sits so near, the effect of my book will be quite spoiled. Dear me! there she is beckoning to me; good-bye, do come and see us; Tuesdays, you know. Well, Lawson really does very well."

I was so mad with the old thing, that I could not help catching her by her mantle and holding on while I whispered loud enough for everybody to hear:

"Mrs. Croesus, you see I have just got my bonnet from Paris. It's made after the Empress's. If you would like to have yours made over in the fashion, dear Mrs. Croesus, I shall be so glad to lend you mine."

"No, thank you, dear," said she, "Lawson won't do for me. Bye-bye."

And so she slipped out, and, I've no doubt, told Mrs. Gnu that she had seen my bonnet at Lawson's. Isn't it too bad? Then she is so abominably cool. Somehow, when I am talking with Mrs. Croesus, who has all her own things made at home, I don't feel as if mine came from Paris at all. She has such a way of looking at you, that it's quite dreadful. She seems to be saying in her mind, "La! now, well done, little dear." And I think that kind of mental reservation (I think that's what they call it) is an insupportable impertinence. However, I don't care, do you?

I've so many things to tell you that I hardly know where to begin. The great thing is the livery, but I want to come regularly up to that, and forget nothing by the way. I was uncertain for a long time how to have my prayer-book bound. Finally, after thinking about it a great deal, I concluded to have it done in pale blue velvet, with gold clasps, and a gold cross upon the side. To be sure, it's nothing very new. But what is new now-a-days? Sally Shrimp has had hers done in emerald, and I know Mrs. Croesus will have crimson for hers, and those people who sits next us in church (I wonder who they are; it's very unpleasant to sit next to people you don't know; and, positively, that girl, the dark-haired one with large eyes, carries the same muff she did last year; it's big enough for a family) have a kind of brown morocco binding. I must tell you one reason why I fixed upon the pale-blue. You know that aristocratic-looking young man, in white cravat and black pantaloons and waistcoat, whom we saw at Saratoga a year ago, and who always had such a beautiful sanctimonious look, and such small white hands; well, he is a minister, as we supposed, "an unworthy candidate, and unprofitable husbandman," as he calls himself in that delicious voice of his. He has been quite taken up among us. He has been asked a good deal to dinner, and there was hope of his being settled as colleague to the Doctor, only Mr. Potiphar (who can be stubborn, you know) insisted that the Rev. Cream Cheese, though a very good young man, he didn't doubt, was addicted to candlesticks. I suppose that's something awful. But, could you believe anything awful of him? I asked Mr. Potiphar what he meant by saying such things.

"I mean," said he, "that he's a Puseyite, and I've no idea of being tied to the apron-strings of the Scarlet Woman."

Dear Caroline, who is the Scarlet Woman? Dearest, tell me, upon your honor, if you have ever heard any scandal of Mr. Potiphar?

"What is it about candlesticks?" said I to Mr. Potiphar. "Perhaps Mr. Cheese finds gas too bright for his eyes; and that's his misfortune, not his fault.

"Polly," said Mr. Potiphar, who will call me Polly, although it sounds so very vulgar, "please not to meddle with things you don't understand. You may have Cream Cheese to dinner as much as you choose, but I will not have him in the pulpit of my church."

The same day Mr. Cheese happened in about lunch-time, and I asked him if his eyes were really weak.

"Not at all," said he, "why do you ask?"

Then I told him that I had heard he was so fond of candlesticks.

Ah! Caroline, you should have seen him then. He stopped in the midst of pouring out a glass of Mr. P.'s best old port, and holding the decanter in one hand, and the glass in the other, he looked so beautifully sad, and said in that sweet low voice:

"Dear Mrs. Potiphar, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." Then he filled up his glass, and drank the wine off with such a mournful, resigned air, and wiped his lips so gently with his cambric handkerchief (I saw that it was a hem-stitch), that I had no voice to ask him to take a bit of the cold chicken, which he did, however, without my asking him. But when he said in the same low voice, "A little more breast, dear Mrs. Potiphar," I was obliged to run into the drawing room for a moment, to recover myself.

Well, after he had lunched I told him that I wished to take his advice upon something connected with the church, (for a prayer-book is, you know, dear,) and he looked so sweetly at me, that, would you believe it, I almost wished to be a Catholic, and to confess three or four times a week, and to have him for my confessor. But it's very wicked to wish to be a Catholic, and it wasn't real much, you know; but somehow I thought so. When I asked him in what velvet he would advise me to have my prayer-book bound, he talked beautifully for about twenty minutes. I wish you could have heard him. I'm not sure that I understood much of what he said--how should I?--but it was very beautiful. Don't laugh, Carrie, but there was one thing I did understand, and which, as it came pretty often, quite helped me through: it was, "Dear Mrs. Potiphar;" you can't tell how nicely he says it. He began by telling me that it was very important to consider all the details and little things about the church. He said they were all Timbales or Cymbals--or something of that kind; and then he talked very prettily about the stole, and the violet and scarlet capes of the cardinals, and purple chasubles, and the lace edge of the Pope's little short gown; and--do you know it was very funny--but it seemed to me, somehow, as if I was talking with Portier or Florine Lefevre, except that he used such beautiful words. Well, by and by, he said:--

"Therefore, dear Mrs. Potiphar, as your faith is so pure and childlike, and as I observe that the light from the yellow panes usually falls across your pew, I would advise that you cymbalize your faith (wouldn't that be noisy in church?) by binding your prayer-book in pale blue; the color of skim-milk, dear Mrs. Potiphar, which is so full of pastoral associations."

Why did he emphasize the word "pastoral?" Do you wonder that I like Cream Cheese, dear Caroline, when he is so gentle and religious--and such a pretty religion too! For he is not only well-dressed, and has such aristocratic hands and feet, in the parlor, but he is so perfectly gentlemanly in the pulpit. He never raises his voice too loud, and he has such wavy gestures. Mr. Potiphar says that may be all very true, but he knows perfectly well that he has a hankering for artificial flowers, and that, for his part, he prefers the Doctor to any preacher he ever heard "because," he says, "I can go quietly to sleep, confident that he will say nothing that might not be preached from every well-regulated pulpit; whereas, if we should let Cream Cheese into the desk, I should have to keep awake to be on the look-out for some of these new-fangled idolatries: and, Polly Potiphar, I, for one, am determined to have nothing to do with the Scarlet Woman."

Darling Caroline--I don't care much--but did he ever have anything to do with a Scarlet Woman?

After he said that about artificial flowers, I ordered from Martelle the sweetest sprig of immortelle he had in his shop, and sent it anonymously on St. Valentine's day. Of course I didn't wish to do anything secret from my husband, that might make people talk, so I wrote--"Rev. Cream Cheese; from his grateful Skim-milk." I marked the last words, and hope he understood that I meant to express my thanks for his advice about the pale-blue cover. You don't think it was too romantice, do you, dear?

You can imagine how pleasantly Lent is passing since I see so much of him: and then it is so appropriate to Lent to be intimate with a minister. He goes with me to church a great deal; for Mr. Potiphar, of course, has no time for that, except on Sundays; and it is really delightful to see such piety. He makes the responses in the most musical manner; and when he kneels upon entering the pew, he is the admiration of the whole church. He buries his face entirely in a cloud of cambric pocket-handkerchief, with his initial embroidered at the corner; and his hair is beautifully parted down behind, which is very fortunate, as otherwise it would look so badly, when only half his head showed. I feel so good when I sit by his side; and when the Doctor (as Mr. P. says) "blows up" those terrible sinners in Babylon and the other Bible towns, I always find the Rev. Cream's eyes fixed upon me, with so much sweet sadness, that I am very, very sorry for the naughty people the Doctor talks about. Why did they do so, do you suppose, dear Caroline? How thankful we ought to be that we live now with so many churches, and such fine ones, and with such gentlemanly ministers as Mr. Cheese. And how nicely it's arranged that, after dancing and dining for two or three months constantly, during which, of course, we can only go to church Sundays, there comes a time for stopping, when we're tired out, and for going to church every day, and (as Mr. P. says) "striking a balance;" and thinking about being good, and all those things. We don't lose a great deal, you know. It makes a variety, and we all see each other, just the same, only we don't dance. I do think it would be better if we took our lorgnettes with us, however, for it was only last Wednesday, at nine o'clock prayers, that I saw Sheena Silke across the church in their little pew at the corner, and I am sure that she had a new bonnet on; and yet, though I looked at it all the time trying to find out, prayers were fairly over before I discovered whether it was really new, or only that old white one made over with a few new flowers. Now, if I had had my glass, I could have told in a moment, and shouldn't have been obliged to lose all the prayers.

But, as I was saying, those poor old people in Babylon and Nineveh! only think, if they had had the privileges of prayers for six or seven weeks in Lent, and regular preaching the rest of the year, except, of course, in the summer--(by the by, I wonder if they all had some kind of Saratoga or Newport to go to?--I mean to ask Mr. Cheese)--they might have been good, and all have been happy. It's quite awful to hear how eloquent and earnest the Doctor is when he preaches against Babylon. Mr. P. says he likes to have him "pitch into those old sinners; it does 'em so much good;" and then he looks quite fierce. Mr. Cheese is going to read me a sermon he has written upon the maidenhood of Lot's wife. He says that he quotes a great deal of poetry in it, and that I must dam up the fount of my tears when he reads it. It was an odd expression for a minister, wasn't it? and I was obliged to say, "Mr. Cheese, you forget yourself." He replied, "Dear Mrs. Potiphar, I will explain;" and he did so; so that I admired him more than ever.

Dearest Caroline,--if you should only like him! He asked one day about you; and when I told him what a dear, good girl you are, he said: "And her father has worldly possessions, has he not?"

I answered, yes; that your father was very rich. Then he sighed, and said that he could never marry an heiress unless he clearly saw it to be his duty. Isn't it a beautiful resignation?

I had no idea of saying so much about him, but you know it's proper, when writing a letter in Lent, to talk about religious matters. And, I must confess, there is something comfortable in having to do with such things. Don't you feel better, when you've been dancing all the week, and dining, and going to the opera, and flirting and flying around, to go to church on Sundays? I do. It seems, somehow, as if we ought to go. But I do wish Mrs. Croesus would sit somewhere else than just in front of us, for her new bonnets and her splendid collars and capes makes me quite miserable: and then she puts me out of conceit of my things by talking about Lawson, or somebody, as I told you in the beginning.

Mr. Potiphar has sent out for the new carpets. I had only two spoiled at my ball, you know, and that was very little. One always expects to sacrifice at least two carpets upon occasion of seeing one's friends. That handsome one in the supper room was entirely ruined. Would you believe that Mr. P. when he went downstairs the next morning, found our Fred and his cousin hoeing it with their little toes? It was entirely matted with preserves and things, and the boys said that they were scraping it clean for breakfast. The other spoiled carpet was in the gentlemen's dressing-room where the punch-bowl was. Young Gauche Boosey, a very gentlemanly fellow, you know, ran up after polking, and was so confused with the light and heat that he went quite unsteadily, and as he was trying to fill a glass with the silver ladle (which is rather heavy), he somehow leaned too hard upon the table, and down went the whole thing, table, bowl, punch, and Boosey, and ended my poor carpet. I was sorry for that, and also for the bowl, which was a very handsome one, imported from China by my father's partner--a wedding gift to me--and for the table, a delicate rosewood stand, which was a work table of my sister Lucy's--whom you never knew, and who died long and long ago. However, I was amply repaid by Boosey's drollery afterward. He is a very witty young man, and when he got up from the floor, saturated with punch (his clothes I mean), he looked down at the carpet and said:

"Well, I've given that such a punch it will want some lemon-aid to recover."

I suppose he had some idea about lemon acid taking out spots.

But, the best thing was what he said to me. He is so droll that he insisted upon coming down, and finishing the dance just as he was. The funny fellow brushed against all the dresses in his way, and, finally said to me, as he pointed to a lemon-seed upon his coat:

"I feel so very lemon-choly for what I have done."

I laughed very much (you were in the other room), but Mr. P. stepped up and ordered him to leave the house. Boosey said he would do no such thing; and I have no doubt we should have had a scene, if Mr. P. had not marched him straight to the door, and put him into a carriage, and told the driver where to take him. Mr. P. was red enough when he came back.

"No man shall insult me or my guests, by getting drunk in my house," said he; and he has since asked me not to invite Boosey nor "any of his kind," as he calls them, to our house. However, I think it will pass over. I tell him that all young men of spirit get a little excited with wine sometimes, and he mustn't be too hard upon them.

"Madame," said he to me, the first time I ventured to say that, "no man with genuine self-respect ever gets drunk twice; and, if you had the faintest idea of the misery which a little elegant intoxication has produced in scores of families that you know, you would never insinuate again that a little excitement from wine is an agreeable thing. There's your friend Mrs. Croesus (he thinks she's my friend, because we call each other 'dear'!); she is delighted to be a fashionable woman, and to be described as the 'peerless and accomplished Mrs. Croesus' in letters from the Watering-places to the Herald; but I tell you, if anything of the woman or the mother is left in the fashionable Mrs. Croesus, I could wring her heart as it never was wrung--and never shall be by me--by showing her the places that young Timon Croesus haunts, the people with whom he associates and the drunkenness, gambling, and worse dissipations of which he is guilty.

"Timon Croesus is eighteen or nineteen, or, perhaps, twenty years old; and Polly, I tell you, he is actually blase, worn out with dissipation, the companion of blacklegs, the chevalier of Cyprians, tipsy every night, and haggard every morning. Timon Croesus is the puny caricature of a man, mentally, morally, and physically. He gets 'elegantly intoxicated' at your parties; he goes off to sup with Gauche Boosey; you and Mrs. Croesus think them young men of spirit,--it is an exhilarating case of sowing wildcats, you fancy,--and, when, at twenty-five, Timon Croesus stands ruined in the world, without aims or capacities, without the esteem of a single man or his own self-respect--youth, health, hope, and energy, all gone forever--then you and your dear Mrs. Croesus will probably wonder at the horrible harvest. Mrs. Potiphar, ask the Rev. Cream Cheese to omit his sermon upon the maidenhood of Lot's wife, and preach from this text: 'They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind.' Good heavens! Polly, fancy our Fred growing up to such a life! I'd rather bury him to-morrow!"

I never saw Mr. P. so much excited. He fairly put his handkerchief to his eyes, and I really believe he cried! But I think he exaggerates these things: and as he had a very dear friend that went worse and worse, until he died frightfully, a drunkard, it is not strange he should speak so warmly about it. But as Mrs. Croesus says:

"What can you do? You can't curb these boys, you don't want to break their spirits, you don't want to make them milk-sops."

When I repeated this speech to Mr. P., he said to me with a kind of solemnity:

"Tell Mrs. Croesus that I am not here to judge nor dictate: but she may be well assured, that every parent is responsible for every child of his to the utmost of the influence he can exert, whether he chooses to consider himself so or not; and if not now, in this world, yet somewhere and somehow, he must hear and heed the voice that called to Cain in the garden, 'Where is Abel, thy brother?'"

I can't bear to hear Mr.P. talk in that way; it sounds so like preaching. Not precisely like what I hear at church but like what we mean when we say "preaching," without referring to any particular sermon. However, he grants that young Timon is an extreme case: but, he says, it is the result that proves the principle, and a state of feeling which not only allows, but indirectly fosters, that result, is frightful to think of.

"Don't think of it then, Mr. P.," said I. He looked at me for a moment with the sternest scowl I ever saw upon a man's face, then he suddenly ran up to me, and kissed me on the forehead (although my hair was all dressed for Mrs. Gnu's dinner), and went out of the house. He hasn't said much to me since, but he speaks very gently when he does speak, and sometimes I catch him looking at me in such a singular way, so half mournful, that Mr. Cheese's eyes don't seem so very sad after all.

However, to return to the party, I believe nothing else was injured except the curtains in the front drawing-room, which were so smeared with ice-cream and oyster gravy, that we must get new ones; and the cover of my porcelain tureen was broken by the servant, though the man said he didn't really mean to do it, and I could say nothing; and a party of young men, after the German Cotillion, did let fall that superb cut-glass Claret, and shivered it, with a dozen of the delicately engraved straw-stems that stood upon the waiter. That was all, I believe--oh! except that fine "Dresden Gallery," the most splendid book I ever saw, full of engravings of the great pictures in Dresden, Vienna, and the other Italian towns, and which was sent to Mr. P. by an old friend, an artist, whom he had helped along when he was very poor. Somebody unfortunately tipped over a bottle of claret that stood upon the table, (I am sure I don't know how it got there, though Mr. P. says Gauche Boosey knows,) and it lay soaking into the book, so that almost every picture has a claret stain, which looks so funny. I am very sorry, I am sure, but as I tell Mr. P., it's no use crying for spilt milk. I was telling Mr. Boosey of it at the Gnus' dinner. He laughed very much, and when I said that a good many of the faces were sadly stained, he said in his droll way, "You ought to call it L'Opera di Bordeaux; Le Domino rouge." I supposed it was something funny, so I laughed a good deal. He said to me later: "Shall I pour a little claret into your book--I mean into your glass?"

Wasn't it a pretty bon-mot?

Don't you think we are getting very spirituel in this country?

I believe there was nothing else injured except the bed-hangings in the back room, which were somehow badly burnt and very much torn in pulling down, and a few of our handsomest shades that were cracked by the heat, and a few plates, which it was hardly fair to expect wouldn't be broken, and the colored glass door in my escritoire, against which Flattie Podge fell as she was dancing with Gauche Boosey; but he may have been a little excited, you know, and she, poor girl, couldn't help tumbling, and as her head hit the glass, of course, it broke, and cut her head badly, so that the blood ran down and naturally spoiled her dress; and what little escritoire could stand against Flattie Podge? So that went, and was a good deal smashed in falling. That's all, I think, except that the next day Mrs. Croesus sent a note, saying that she had lost her largest diamond from her necklace, and she was sure that it was not in the carriage, nor in her own house, nor upon the sidewalk, for she had carefully looked everywhere, and she would be very glad if I would return it by the bearer.

Think of that.

Well, we hunted everywhere, and found no diamond. I took particular pains to ask the servants if they had found it, for if they had, they might as well give it up at once, without expecting any reward from Mrs. Croesus, who wasn't very generous. But they all said they hadn't found any diamond: and our man John, who you know is so guileless,--although it was a little mysterious about that emerald pin of mine,--brought me a bit of glass that had been nicked out of my large custard dish, and asked me if that was not Mrs. Croesus's diamond. I told him no, and gave him a gold dollar for his honesty. John is an invaluable servant; he is so guileless.

Do you know I am not so sure about Mrs. Croesus's diamond!

Mr. P. made a great howling about the ball. But it was very foolish, for he got safely to bed by six o'clock, and he need have no trouble about replacing the curtains, and glass, etc. I shall do all that, and the sum total will be sent to him in a lump, so that he can pay it.

Men are so unreasonable. Fancy us at seven o'clock that morning, when I retired. He wasn't asleep. But whose fault was that?

"Polly," said he, "that's the last."

"Last what?" said I.

"Last ball at my house," said he.

"Fiddle-dee-dee," said I.

"I tell you, Mrs. Potiphar, I am not going to open my house for a crowd of people who don't go away till daylight; who spoil my books and furniture; involve me in a foolish expense; for a gang of rowdy boys, who drink my Margaux, and Lafitte, and Marcobrunner, (what kind of drinks are those, dear Caroline?) and who don't know Chambertin from liquorice-water,--for a swarm of persons few of whom we know fewer, still care for me, and to whom I am only 'Old Potiphar,' the husband of you, a fashionable woman. I am simply resolved to have no more such tomfoolery in my house."

"Dear Mr. P.," said I, "you'll feel much better when you have slept. Besides, why do you say such things? Mustn't we see our friends, I should like to know; and if we do, are you going to let your wife receive them in a manner inferior to old Mrs. Podge or Mrs. Croesus? People will accuse you of meanness, and of treating me ill; and if some persons hear that you have reduced your style of living, they will begin to suspect the state of your affairs. Don't make any rash vows, Mr. P.," said I, "but go to sleep."

(Do you know that speech was just what Mrs. Croesus told me she had said to her husband under similar circumstances?)

Mr. P. fairly groaned, and I heard that short, strong little word that sometimes inadvertently drops out of the best regulated mouths, as young Gooseberry Downe says when he swears before his mother. Do you know Mrs. Settum Downe? Charming woman, but satirical.

Mr. P. groaned, and said some more ill-natured things, until the clock struck nine, and he was obliged to get up. I should be sorry to say to anybody but you, dearest, that I was rather glad of it; for I could then fall asleep at my ease; and these little connubial felicities (I think they call them) are so tiresome. But everybody agreed it was a beautiful ball; and I had the great gratification of hearing young Lord Mount Ague (you know you danced with him, love) say that it was quite the same thing as a ball at Buckingham Palace, except, of course, in size, and the number of persons, and dresses, and jewels, and the plate, and glass, and supper, and wines, and furnishing of the rooms, and lights, and some of those things, which are naturally upon a larger scale at a palace than in a private house. But, he said, excepting such things, it was quite as fine. I am afraid that Lord Mount Ague flatters; just a little bit you know.

Yes; and there was young Major Staggers, who said that "Decidedly it was the party of the season,"

"How odd," said Mrs. Croesus, to whom I told it, and, I confess, with a little pride. "What a sympathetic man: that is, for a military man, I mean. Would you believe, dear Mrs. Potiphar, that he said precisely the same thing to me two days after my ball?"

Now, Caroline, dearest, perhaps he did!

With all these pleasant things said about one's party, I cannot see that it is such a dismal thing as Mr. P. tries to make out. After one of his solemn talks, I asked Mr. Cheese what he thought of balls, whether it was so very wicked to dance, and go to parties, if one only went to church twice a day on Sundays. He patted his lips a moment with his handkerchief, and then he said,--and, Caroline, you can always quote the Rev. Cream Cheese as authority,--

"Dear Mrs. Potiphar, it is recorded in Holy Scripture that the King danced before the Lord."

Darling, if anything should happen, I don't believe he would object much to our dancing.

What gossips we women are, to be sure! I meant to write you about our new livery and I am afraid I have tired you out already. You remember when you were here, I said that I meant to have a livery, for my sister Margaret told me that when they used to drive in Hyde Park, with the old Marquis of Mammon, it was always so delightful to hear him say, "Ah! there is Lady Lobster's livery."

It was so aristocratic. And in countries where certain colors distinguish certain families, and are hereditary, so to say, it is convenient and pleasant to recognize a coat-of-arms, or a livery, and to know that the representative of a great and famous family is passing by.

"That's a Howard, that's a Eussell, that's a Dorset, that's de Colique, that's Mount Ague," old Lord Mammon used to say as the carriages whirled by. He knew none of them personally, I believe, except de Colique and Mount Ague, but then it was so agreeable to be able to know their liveries.

Now why shouldn't we have the same arrangement? Why not have the Smith colors, and the Brown colors, and the Black colors, and the Potiphar colors, etc., so that the people might say, "Ah! there goes the Potiphar arms."

There is one difficulty, Mr. P. says, and that is, that he found five hundred and sixty-seven Smiths in the Directory, which might lead to some confusion. But that was absurd, as I told him, because everybody would know which of the Smiths was able to keep a carriage, so that the livery would be recognized directly the moment that any of the family were seen in a carriage. Upon which he said, in his provoking way, "Why have any livery at all, then?" and he persisted in saying that no Smith was ever the Smith for three generations, and that he knew at least twenty, each of whom was able to set up his carriage and stand by his colors.

"But then a livery is so elegant and aristocratic," said I, "and it shows that a servant is a servant."

That last was a strong argument, and I thought Mr. P. would have nothing to say against it; but he rattled on for some time, asking me what right I had to be aristocratic, or, in fact, anybody else;--went over his eternal old talk about aping foreign habits, as if we hadn't a right to adopt the good usages of all nations, and finally said that the use of liveries among us was not only a "pure peacock absurdity," as he called it, but that no genuine American would ever ask another to assume a menial badge.

"Why!" said I, "is not an American servant a servant still?"

"Most undoubtedly," he said; "and when a man is a servant, let him serve faithfully; and in this country especially, where to-morrow he may be served, and not the servant, let him not be ashamed of serving. But, Mrs. Potiphar, I beg you to observe that a servant's livery is not, like a general's uniform the badge of honorable service, but of menial service. Of course, a servant may be as honorable as a general, and his work quite as necessary and well done. But, for all that, it is not so respected nor coveted a situation, I believe; and, in social estimation, a man suffers by wearing a livery, as he never would if he wore none. And while in countries in which a man is proud of being a servant (as every man may well be of being a good one), and never looks to anything else, nor desires any change, a livery may be very proper to the state of society, and very agreeable to his own feelings, it is quite another thing in a society constituted upon altogether different principles, where the servant of to-day is the senator of to-morrow. Besides that, which I suppose is too fine-spun for you, livery is a remnant of a feudal state, of which we abolish every trace as fast as we can. That which is represented by livery is not consonant with our principles."

How the man runs on, when he gets going this way! I said, in answer to all this flourish, that I considered a livery very much the thing; that European families had liveries and American families might have liveries;--that there was an end of it, and I meant to have one. Besides if it is a matter of family, I should like to know who has a better right? There was Mr. Potiphar's grandfather, to be sure, was only a skilful blacksmith and a good citizen, as Mr. P. says, who brought up a family in the fear of the Lord.

How oddly he puts those things!

But my ancestors, as you know, are a different matter. Starr Mole, who interests himself in genealogies, and knows the family name and crest of all the English nobility, has "climbed our family tree," as Staggers says, and finds that I am lineally descended from one of those two brothers who came over in some of those old times, in some of those old ships, and settled in some of those old places somewhere. So you see, dear Caroline, if birth gives any one a right to coats of arms and liveries, and all those things, I feel myself sufficiently entitled to have them.

But I don't care anything about that. The Gnus, and Croesuses, and Silkes, and the Settum Downes, have their coats of arms, and crests, and liveries, and I am not going to be behind, I tell you. Mr. P. ought to remember that a great many of these families were famous before they came to this country; and there is a kind of interest in having on your ring, for instance, the same crest that your ancestor two or three centuries ago had upon her ring. One day I was quite wrought up about the matter, and I said as much to him.

"Certainly," said he, "certainly; you are quite right. If I had Sir Philip Sidney to my ancestor, I should wear his crest upon my ring, and glory in my relationship, and I hope I should be a better man for it. I wouldn't put his arms upon my carriage, however, because that would mean nothing but ostentation. It would be merely a flourish of trumpets to say that I was his descendant, and nobody would know that, either, if my name chanced to be Boggs. In my library I might hang a copy of the family escutcheon as a matter of interest and curiosity to myself, for I'm sure I shouldn't understand it. Do you suppose Mrs. Gnu knows what gules argent are? A man may be as proud of his family as he chooses, and, if he has noble ancestors, with good reason. But there is no sense in parading that pride. It is an affectation, the more foolish that it achieves nothing--no more credit at Stewart's--no more real respect in society. Besides, Polly, who were Mrs. Gnu's ancestors, or Mrs. Croesus's, or Mrs. Settum Downe's? Good, quiet, honest, and humble people, who did their work, and rest from their labors. Centuries ago, in England, some drops of blood from 'noble' veins may have mingled with the blood of the forefathers; or even, the founder of the family name may be historically famous. What then? Is Mrs. Gnu's family ostentation less absurd? Do you understand the meaning of her crest, and coats of arms, and liveries? Do you suppose she does herself? But in forty-nine cases out of fifty, there is nothing but a similarity of name upon which to found all this flourish of aristocracy."

My dear old Pot is getting rather prosy, Carrie. So when he had finished that long speech, during which I was looking at the lovely fashion plates in Harper, I said:

"What colors do you think I'd better have?"

He looked at me with that singular expression, and went out suddenly, as if he were afraid he might say something.

He had scarcely gone before I heard:

"My dear Mrs. Potiphar, the sight of you is refreshing as Hermon's dew."

I colored a little; Mr. Cheese says such things so softly. But I said good morning, and then asked him about liveries, etc.

He raised his hand to his cravat, (it was the most snowy lawn, Carrie, and tied in a splendid bow.)

"Is not this a livery, dear Mrs. Potiphar?"

And then he went off into one of those pretty talks, in what Mr. P. calls the "language of artificial flowers," and wound up by quoting Scripture,--"Servants, obey your masters."

That was enough for me. So I told Mr. Cheese that as he had already assisted me in colors once, I should be most glad to have him do so again. What a time we had, to be sure, talking of colors, and cloths, and gaiters, and buttons, and knee-breeches, and waistcoats, and plush, and coats, and lace, and hatbands, and gloves, and cravats, and cords, and tassels, and hats. Oh! it was delightful. You can't fancy how heartily the Rev. Cream entered into the matter. He was quite enthusiastic, and at last he said, with so much expression, "Dear Mrs. Potiphar, why not have a chasseur? "

I thought it was some kind of French dish for lunch, so I said:

"I am so sorry, but we haven't any in the house."

"Oh," said he, "but you could hire one, you know."

Then I thought it must be a musical instrument--a Panharmonicon, or something of that kind, so I said in a general way--

"I am not very, very fond of it."

"But it would be so fine to have him standing on the back of the carriage, his plumes waving in the wind, and his lace and polished belts flashing in the sun, as you whirled down Broadway."

Of course I knew then that he was speaking of those military gentlemen who ride behind carriages, especially upon the Continent, as Margaret tells me, and who in Paris are very useful to keep the savages and wild beasts at bay in the Champ Elysees, for you know they are intended as a guard.

But I knew Mr. P. would be firm about that, so I asked Mr. Cheese not to kindle my imagination with the Chasseur.

We concluded finally to have only one full-sized footman, and a fat driver.

"The corpulence is essential, dear Mrs. Potiphar," said Mr. Cheese. "I have been much abroad; I have mingled, I trust, in good, which is to say, Christian society: and I must say, that few things struck me more upon my return than that the ladies who drive very handsome carriages, with footmen, etc., in livery, should permit such thin coachmen upon the box. I really believe that Mrs. Settum Downe's coachman doesn't weigh more than a hundred and thirty pounds, which is ridiculous. A lady might as well hire a footman with insufficient calves, as a coachman who weighs less than two hundred and ten. That is the minimum. Besides, I don't observe any wigs upon the coachmen. Now, if a lady sets up her carriage with the family crest and fine liveries, why, I should like to know, is the wig of the coachman omitted, and his cocked hat also? It is a kind of shabby, half-ashamed way of doing things--a garbled glory. The cock-hatted, knee-breeched, paste-buckled, horse-hair-wigged coachman, one of the institutions of the aristocracy. If we don't have him complete, we somehow make ourselves ridiculous. If we do have him complete, why then"--

Here Mr. Cheese coughed a little, and patted his mouth with his cambric. But what he said was very true. I should like to come out with the wig--I mean upon the coachman; it would so put down the Settum Downes. But I'm sure old Pot wouldn't have it. He lets me do a great deal. But there is a line which I feel he won't let me pass. I mentioned my fears to Mr. Cheese.

"Well," he said, "Mr. Potiphar may be right. I remember an expression of my carnal days about 'coming it too strong.' which seems to me to be applicable just here."

After a little more talk, I determined to have red plush breeches, with a black cord at the side--white stockings--low shoes with large buckles--a yellow waistcoat, with large buttons--lappels to the pockets--and a purple coat, very full and fine, bound with gold lace--and the hat banded with a full gold rogette. Don't you think that would look well in Hyde Park? And, darling Carrie, why shouldn't we have in Broadway what they have in Hyde Park?

When Mr. P. came in, I told him all about it. He laughed a good deal, and said, "What next?" So I am not sure that he would be so very hard upon the wig. The next morning I had appointed to see the new footman, and as Mr. P. went out he turned and said to me, "Is your footman coming to-day?"

"Yes," I answered.

"Well," said he, "don't forget the calves. You know that everything in the matter of livery depends upon the calves."

And he went out laughing silently to himself, with--actually, Carrie--a tear in his eye.

But it was true, wasn't it? I remember in all the books and pictures how much is said about the calves. In advertisements, etc., it is stated that none but well-developed calves need apply, at least it is so in England, and, if I have a livery, I am not going to stop half-way. My duty was very clear. When Mr. Cheese came in, I said I felt awkward in asking a servant about his calves,--it sounded so queerly. But I confessed that it was necessary.

"Yes, the path of duty is not always smooth, dear Mrs. Potiphar. It is often thickly strewn with thorns," said he, as he sank back in the fautteuil, and put down his petit verre of Marasquin.

Just after he had gone the new footman was announced. I assure you, although it is ridiculous, I felt quite nervous. But when he came in, I said calmly--

"Well, James, I am glad you have come."

"Please, ma'am, my name is Henry," said he.

I was astonished at his taking me up so, and said, decidedly--"James, the name of my footman is always James. You may call yourself what you please, I shall always call you James."

The idea of the man's undertaking to arrange my servants' names for me!

Well, he showed me his references, which were very good, and I was quite satisfied. But there was the terrible calf business that must be attended to. I put it off a great while, but I had to begin.

"Well, James!"--and there I stopped.

"Yes, ma'am," said he.

"I wish--yes--ah!"--and I stopped again.

"Yes, ma'am," said he.

"James, I wish you had come in knee-breeches."

"Ma'am?" said he in great surprise.

"In knee-breeches, James," repeated I.

"What be they, ma'am? what for, ma'am?" said he, a little frightened, as I thought.

"Oh! nothing, nothing; but--but--"

"Yes, ma'am," said James.

"But--but, I want to see--to see--"

"What ma'am?" said James.

"Your legs," gasped I; and the path was thorny enough, Carrie, I can tell you. I had a terrible time explaining to him what I meant, and all about the liveries, etc. Dear me! what a pity these things are not understood: and then we should never have this trouble about explanations. However, I couldn't make him agree to wear the livery. He said:

"I'll try to be a good servant, ma'am, but I cannot put on those things and make a fool of myself. I hope you won't insist, for I am very anxious to get a place."

Think of his dictating to me. I told him that I did not permit my servants to impose conditions upon me (that's one of Mrs. Croesus's sayings), that I was willing to pay him good wages and treat him well, but that my James must wear my livery. He looked very sorry, said that he should like the place very much,--that he was satisfied with the wages, and was sure that he should please me, but he could not put on those things. We were both determined, and so parted. I think we were both sorry; for I should have to go all through the calf-business again, and he lost a good place.

However, Caroline dear, I have my livery and my footman, and am as good as anybody. It's very splendid when I go to Stewart's to have the red plush and the purple, and the white calves springing down to open the door, and to see people look, and say, "I wonder who that is?" And everybody bows so nicely, and the clerks are so polite, and Mrs. Gnu is melting with envy on the other side, and Mrs. Croesus goes about saying, "Dear little woman, that Mrs. Potiphar, but so weak! Pity, pity!" And Mrs. Settum Downe says, "Is that the Potiphar livery? Ah, yes, Mr. Potiphar's grandfather used to shoe my grandfather's horses!"--(as if to be useful in the world, were a disgrace,--as Mr. P. says) and young Downe, and Boosey, and Timon Croesus come up and stand about so gentlemanly, and say, "Well Mrs. Potiphar, are we to have no more charming parties this season?"--and Boosey says, in his droll way, "Let's keep the ball a-rolling!" That young man is always ready with a witticism. Then I step out and James throws open the door, and the young men raise their hats, and the new crowd says, "I wonder who that is!" and the plush and purple, and calves spring up behind, and I drive home to dinner.

Now, Carrie, dear, isn't that nice?

Well, I don't know how it is--but things are so queer. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, in my room, which I have had tapestried with fluted rose silk, and lie thinking, under the lace curtains; although I may have been at one of Mrs. Gnu's splendid parties the night before, and am going to Mrs. Silke's to dinner, and to the opera and Mrs. Settum Downe's in the evening, and have nothing to do all the day but go to Stewart's, or Martelle's or Lefevre's, and shop, and pay morning calls;--do you know, as I say, that sometimes I hear an old familiar tune played upon a hand-organ far away in some street, and it seems to me in that half-drowsy state under the laces, that I hear the girls and boys singing it in the fields where we used to play. It is a kind of dream, I suppose, but often, as I listen, I am sure that I hear Henry's voice again that used to ring so gayly among the old trees, and I walk with him in the sunlight to the bank by the river, and he throws in the flower--as he really did--and says, with a laugh, "If it goes this side of the stump I am saved; if the other, I am lost;" and then he looks at me as if I had anything to do with it, and the flower drifts slowly off and off, and goes the other side of the old stump, and we walk homeward silently, until Henry laughs out, and says, "Thank heaven, my fate is not a flower;" and I swear to love him for ever and ever, and marry him, and live in a dingy little old room in some of the dark and dirty streets in the city.

Then I doze again: but presently the music steals into my sleep, and I see him as I saw him last standing in his pulpit, so calm and noble, and drawing the strong men as well as the weak women by his earnest persuasion; and after service he smiles upon me kindly, and says, "This is my wife, and the wife, who looks like the Madonna in that picture of Andrea Del Sarto's, which you liked so at the gallery, leads us to a little house buried in roses, looking upon a broad and lovely landscape," and Henry whispers to me as a beautiful boy bounds into the room, "Mrs. Potiphar, I am very happy."

I doze again until Adele comes in and opens the shutters. I do not hear the music any more; but those days I do somehow seem to hear it all the time. Of course, Mr. P. is gone long before I wake, so he knows nothing about all this. I generally come in at night after he is asleep, and he is up and has his breakfast, and goes down town before I wake in the morning. He comes home to dinner, but he is apt to be silent; and after dinner he takes his nap in the parlor over his newspaper, while I go up and let Adele dress my hair for the evening. Sometimes Mr. P. groans into a clean shirt and goes with me to the ball; but not often. When I come home, as I said, he is asleep, so I don't see a great deal of him, except in the summer, when I am at Saratoga or Newport; and then, not so much, after all, for he usually only passes Sunday, and I must be a good Christian, you know, and go to church. On the whole, we have not a very intimate acquaintance; but I have a great respect for him. He told me the other day that he should make at least thirty thousand dollars this year.

My darling Carrie--I am very sorry I can't write you a longer letter. I want to consult you about wearing gold powder like the new Empress. It would kill Mrs. Croesus if you and I should be the first to come out in it; and don't you think the effect would be fine, when we were dancing, to shower the gold mist around us! How it would sparkle upon the gentlemen's black coats! ("Yes," says Mr. P., "and how finely Gauche Boosey, and Timon Croesus, and young Downe will look in silk tights and small clothes!") They say it's genuine gold ground up. I have already sent for a white velvet and lace--the Empress's bridal dress, you know. That foolish old P. asked me if I had sent for the Emperor and the Bank of France too.

"Men ask such absurd questions," said I.

"Mrs. Potiphar, I never asked but one utterly absurd question in my life," said he, and marched out of the house.

Au revoir, chere Caroline. I have a thousand things to say, but I know you must be tired to death.

Fondly yours,

POLLY POTIPHAR.

P. S.--Our little Fred. is quite down with the scarlet fever. Potiphar says I mustn't expose myself, so I don't go into the room; but Mrs. Jollup, the nurse, tells me through the keyhole how he is. Mr. P. sleeps in the room next the nursery, so as not to carry the infection to me. He looks very solemn as he walks down town. I hope it won't spoil Fred's complexion. I should be so sorry to have him a little fright! Poor little thing!

P. S. 2d.--Isn't it funny about the music? _

Read next: III. A Meditation By Paul Potiphar, Esq.

Read previous: I. "Our Best Society"

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