F. Colburn (Francis Colburn) Adams
Chapter 43
mothers did their very best in arraying the many accomplishments of
their consignable daughters, setting forth in the most foreign but
not over-refined phraseology, their extensive travels abroad--"
"Yes!" interrupts Mrs. Swiggs, nervously--"I know how they do it.
It's a pardonable weakness." And she reaches out her hand and takes
to her lap her inseparable Milton.
"And the many marked attentions-offers, in fact-they have received
at the hands of Counts and Earls, with names so unpronounceable that
they have outlived memory--"
"Perhaps I have them in my book of autographs!" interrupts the
credulous old woman, making an effort to rise and proceed to an
antique sideboard covered with grotesque-looking papers.
Mr. Soloman urbanely touches her on the arm-begs she will keep her
seat. The names only apply to things of the past. He proceeds,
"Well-being a dashing fellow, as I have said-he played his game
charmingly. Now he flirted with this one, and then with that one,
and finally with the whole society, not excepting the very flirtable
married ladies;--that is, I mean those whose husbands were simple
enough to let him. Mothers were in a great flutter generally, and
not a day passed but there was a dispute as to which of their
daughters he would link his fortunes with and raise to that state so
desirable in the eyes of our very republican first families-the
State-Militant of nobility--"
"I think none the worse of 'em for that," says the old woman,
twitching her wizard-like head in confirmation of her assertion. "My
word for it, Mr. Soloman, to get up in the world, and to be above
the common herd, is the grand ambition of our people; and our State
has got the grand position it now holds before the world through the
influence of this ambition."
"True!--you are right there, my dear friend. You may remember, I have
always said you had the penetration of a statesman, (Mrs. Swiggs
makes a curt bow, as a great gray cat springs into her lap and curls
himself down on her Milton;) and, as I was going on to say of this