F. Colburn (Francis Colburn) Adams
Chapter 45
it!"
"I am truly glad it's nothing worse. There has been so much scandal
got up by vulgar people against our St. Cecilia."
"Worse, Madam?" interpolates our hero, ere she has time to conclude
her sentence, "the worst is to come yet."
"And I'm a member of the society!" Mrs. Swiggs replies with a
languishing sigh, mistaking the head of the cat for her Milton, and
apologizing for her error as that venerable animal, having got well
squeezed, sputters and springs from her grasp, shaking his head,
"elected solely on the respectability of my family."
Rather a collapsed member, by the way, Mr. Soloman thinks,
contemplating her facetiously.
"Kindly proceed-proceed," she says, twitching at her cap strings, as
if impatient to get the sequel.
"Well, as to that, being a member of the St. Cecilia myself, you
see, and always-(I go in for a man keeping up in the
world)-maintaining a high position among its most distinguished
members, who, I assure you, respect me far above my real merits,
(Mrs. Swiggs says we won't say anything about that now!) and honor
me with all its secrets, I may, even in your presence, be permitted
to say, that I never heard a member who didn't speak in high praise
of you and the family of which you are so excellent a
representative."
"Thank you-thank you. O thank you, Mr. Soloman!" she rejoins.
"Why, Madam, I feel all my veneration getting into my head at once
when I refer to the name of Sir Sunderland Swiggs."
"But pray what came of the young Baronet?"
"Oh!--as to him, why, you see, he was what we call-it isn't a polite
word, I confess-a humbug."
"A Baronet a humbug!" she exclaims, fretting her hands and
commencing to rock herself in the chair.
"Well, as to that, as I was going on to say, after he had beat the
bush all around among the young birds, leaving several of them
wounded on the ground-you understand this sort of thing-he took to
the older ones, and set them polishing up their feathers. And having
set several very respectable families by the ears, and created a
terrible flutter among a number of married dames-he was an adept in