A BONA DEA.
In animated converse with her guests during the half-hour ere dinner is
announced, the mistress of Holmnest makes a picture one's eyes dwell
on--the folds of her soft summer gown hang gracefully, while fitting her
figure like the glove of a Frenchwoman; fond of a new sensation--as is
the way of mortals--this of playing the hostess to a few chosen friends
in a home of her own once more, is pleasurable excitement; there is a
softness of expression, a tenderness in the dark eyes, engendered by the
fact of her sympathy having been acted upon by the leave-taking, on such
an errand too, of her friend Cole, which lends to her an additional
charm. The consciousness also that she is looking well, gives, as is
natural to most women, a pleasurable feeling in whatever is on the
_tapis_, with the knowledge also, that her little dinner will be
perfect, her guests harmonious--save one.
"So you think Toronto is rather a fair matron after all, Mrs. Dale, and
that your New York robes blend harmoniously with the other effects at
the Queens?"
"I reckon I do, Mrs. Gower; you did not say a word too much in her
praise; I remember saying to Henry before we started, my last season's
gowns would do."
"And you like Toronto also, Mr. Dale," continued his hostess.
"Yes, better than any other Canadian town I have visited; it is very
simply laid out, one couldn't lose oneself if one tried."
"It is laid out like a what do you call it, like a chess-board," said
Captain Tremaine, an Irishman.
"Yes, not unlike," continued Dale, "and as to quiet, one would think the
curfew rang; I noticed it particularly coming from the Reform Club the
other night."
"We all notice how quiet our streets are at night, and after your London
and New York City, we must seem to you as if we had taken a sedative,"
said Mrs. Gower, taking his arm to the dining-room; "but where is Miss
Crew, Mr. Dale?"
"She was too fatigued to come, she foolishly overtaxed her strength,
taking my boy to the Industrial Home, at Mimico, I think she said."
"That's correct, it's a pet scheme of Mayor Howland's, and a worthy one
too."
"Yes, so she said; they also visited your Normal School, and talked of
the Cyclorama of Sedan."
"Indeed! they have overtaxed the brain and memory, I fear; what does
Garfield say to it all?"
"Chatters like a magpie over the superior glories of New York, but is
honestly pleased after all."
"I expect your little son is English only in name."
"Yes, and in his love for a good dinner," he said, laughingly.
"Well, from all we Canadians hear, there is every reason he should, an
English dinner is enough 'to tempt even ghosts to pass the Styx for more
substantial feasts,'" she said, gaily.
"Mrs. Gower is always up to the latest in remembering the tastes of her
guests," said Mrs. Dale to her left-hand neighbor, Mr. Buckingham, as
tiny crescents of melon preceded the soup.
"That she is," he said, complacently; "no man would sigh for his club
dinner, did our hostess cater for him."
"Goodness knows what Henry would do if our bank stopped payment, or our
Pittsburg foundries shut down; for I know no more about cooking than Jay
Gould's baby," she said, discussing a plate of delicious oyster soup.
"He, I expect, makes himself heard on the feeding bottle," said lively
Mrs. Smyth.
"But you are unusually candid as to your short-comings, Mrs. Dale,"
continued Buckingham, amusedly.
"Because I can afford to be; were I poor, I reckon I should pawn off my
mamma's tea-cakes on my young man as my own, as men in love believe
anything--they are as dull as Broadway without millinery."
"By the way, Mrs. Dale, talking of millinery, where are your bonnets
going to, they are three stories and a mansard at present?"
"Oh, only a cupola, Mr. Buckingham, on which birds will perch."
"How so; I was under the impression the bird hunt is a thing of the
past?"
"No, indeed! not while there are men in the field."
"How so; I do not follow you?"
"Stupid, you are born huntsmen, our bonnets are a perch for a decoy,
and," she added, looking at him archly, "our faces are under them."
Here there was merry laughter from Mrs. Gower and Captain Tremaine, the
former saying gaily,
"You would not accomplish it, the strength of will of one of the party
would keep the whole uppermost. I appeal to Mr. Smyth."
"I am with you, Mrs. Gower; Tremaine must go under, even though he is an
Irishman."
"Irish questions always do get muddled, eh, Smyth?" said Dale, jokingly,
seeing that Smyth, intent on dinner, had not heard the argument.
"That they do, Dale. Which is it, Mrs. Gower, the Coercion Bill or Home
Rule?"
"Neither," she said, laughingly, "we were on the 'Peace Party' (you
remember the meeting at the Gardens, on last Sunday); and I have been
suggesting that the Body Guard bury their pretty uniforms, and Captain
Tremaine raises the war-cry of, 'bury the Peace Party, chairman and all,
first.'"
"Oh, that's it! Tremaine knows the indomitable will of one of them would
cause more dust to be kicked up than one sees on a March day on Yonge
Street."
"Out-voted, Captain Tremaine, we weep 'salt tears' over your becoming
uniform; but seriously speaking, though a High Court of Arbitration
would be a grand spectacle, it will be only after years of evolution,
and when, as Mr. Blake, the chairman said, 'the voice of the private
soldier, instead of the general officer, is heard.'"
"If I should ever have the ill-fortune to be drafted," said Smyth,
laughingly, "I should fight to the death against my enrolment; an
hospital nurse, like the Quaker-love, would suit me better; such rations
as a man gets on the field."
"I know for a fact," said Dale; "that recruiting during the present year
in England, has been far below the average of the last few years."
"Indeed! I was not aware," said Buckingham.
"By the way, Smyth," said Tremaine, "have you seen, what do you call
him, 'Henry Thompson,' in his defence or answer to his critics?"
"I have, and he was able for them every time."
"Are you speaking of the journalist who went to jail in the interests of
the _Globe_?" asked Dale.
"Yes."
"His defence was capital, I thought," said Dale, "and I especially liked
the way he stands up for his craft. 'There is no class of men,' he says
bravely, 'in existence, animated by more humane motives than working
newspaper men.'"
"I also read his reply with pleasure," said Mrs. Gower, "and reading it,
thought what a clever and original fellow he must be."
"Talmage and Silcox have been lauding the power of the press to the
skies," said Smyth; "they made me wish I surveyed the earth from an
editor's chair, rather than from a tree I climbed to escape York mud."
"Have you heard how the Grand is going to cater to our dramatic taste
this coming season, Mr. Buckingham?" asked Mrs. Gower.
"Just a whisper, Mrs. Gower, as to Emma Juch, Langtry and Siddons."
"Yes; so far so good. Have you heard that the rail makes no special
rates for travelling companies?"
"I have; so you may expect that those who will pay the high toll, will
be those of the highest standard."
"Then I suppose (though it seems selfish) we should be content with the
rail rates as they are."
"You will enjoy the debates, Dale," said Smyth, "in the Local House
during the session; Meredith is just the man to lead our party."
"But I am not sure that it is our party, Smyth; I scarcely know how I
should vote here; if Meredith is right, why doesn't he prove to Ontario
that Mowat has held the reins too long?"
"So he will before next election," replied Smyth, with a satisfied air.
"Don't be too sure, Mr. Smyth, eloquent though he be," said his hostess;
"while that clever Demosthenes of his party, Hon. C. F. Frazer, says him
nay."
"Do you meditate a long stay, Buckingham, in this the white-washed city
of the Dominion?" asked Tremaine.
"Yes, off and on all winter; you know I intend to purchase some of your
mineral lands, since you allow them to lie undeveloped," he added,
jestingly.
"You see, Capt. Tremaine," said Mrs. Gower, merrily, "the American Eagle
done in silver is not as yet plenty with us."
"Don't despair, Tremaine, Commercial Union is looming up," said
Buckingham.
"Treason! treason!" laughed Tremaine, "for we know what it would
father."
"Hear, hear," cried Smyth.
"Oh, I don't know," laughed Mrs. Gower, "they say it is the Main-e idea
for settling; here's a pretty mess! here's a pretty mess--of fish!"
"We can wait," said Buckingham, quietly, "evolution will bring about the
Maine idea, with you also."
"Did you say you are going to Maine, Mr. Buckingham, we cannot do
without you now," said pretty Mrs. St. Clair, caressingly.
"Thank you, Mrs. St. Clair, I do not go; but even if so, you would, I
fear, miss me less than your latest fad in the pet quadruped."
"How severe you are, Mr. Buckingham. Are all New York men so, Mrs.
Dale?" She sighed, having a penchant for him.
"It's annexation, Mrs. St. Clair," said Mrs. Dale, mischievously.
"Annexation! is Mr. Buckingham going to be married?"
"I believe so." At this juncture Master Noah St. Clair, who had come
instead of his father, was interested in other than his plate, while his
mother said reproachfully:
"It _cannot_ be true, Mr. Buckingham."
"Mrs. Dale is disposed to be facetious, Mrs. St. Clair; you must not
swear by everything she says."
"That is an evasive answer, and I am dying to know; tell me, _dear_ Mrs.
Dale, what it means?"
"Which, annexation, or Mr. Buckingham?" said her tormentor.
"Oh, both, of course," she said, breathlessly.
"Both; well, when I come to take a good look at him, Mrs. St. Clair, he
looks important rather than severe, his reason is, he believes, the best
part of Canada pines for annexation; _comprenez vous_?"
"Oh, is that what you meant," she replied, with a relieved air, when,
catching her son's eye, she said, with assumed carelessness, "I do miss
my men friends so much when they marry."
"He is as cold as ice," whispered Mr. Cobbe, who, though a man of birth
and breeding, prides himself upon being a flirt; "he is an icicle, I
wonder you waste your warmth upon him."
"Nice man," she thought, "and only the second time I've met him; he must
be in love with me, too, poor fellow," and, in an undertone, she says,
"That's the way all you men speak of each other, but he is only so
before people."
"You had better throw him over, an Irish heart is warmer than an
American," he said, in his deep tones, into her ear.
"But the poor fellow would break his heart," she whispered, her cheeks
flushing; he, equally vain, continued:
"Not he, a successful speculation would console him; and I--and I would
console you."
"Are you always so susceptible?" she asked, turning her pretty enamelled
face around to be admired.
"No, indeed; but a man doesn't meet as pretty a woman as you every day,
as your mirror must tell you."
"How you gentlemen flatter," well aware that he is admiring her pretty
hand and delicate wrist, as she holds aloft a bunch of transparent
grapes.
"Not you," and for the moment he meant it; the particular she of the
hour feasting on the nectar her soul loves, never dreaming that the next
passable looking female in propinquity with him will be also steeped to
the lips in the same food, "not you," he said, with a fond look.
"Thank you," she said, prettily, and with the faith of her early teens,
"I must tell you a pretty compliment a gentleman paid me at the
'Kirmiss' last season, he said 'I was a madrigal in Dresden china.'"
"Too cold, too cold," he said, thickly, managing to press her fingers as
they rose from the table, ere she laid her hand on the arm of Mr. Smyth,
to whom she had been allotted, but who never spoiled his dinner by
giving beauty her natural food.
On Mr. Dale declining to linger, leading his hostess back to her pretty
drawing-room, she said in his ear:
"You have dubbed me queen of Holmnest, therefore must obey when I bid
you back to the dining-room for a smoke."