Dear sisters:--Would you believe it? Cousin Dempster had hardly got down to his business after the ball, when a telegram--I think that is the name of the thing that he said came flying over the wires--called him to Washington again. Cousin E. E. made up her mind to go with him this time, and nothing would satisfy her but that I must join in and cut a dash with them. After the strange way in which that majestic man in the black cloak had gone off with the yellowhammer of a female, I had felt so down in the mouth that nothing seemed to pacify me. If it really was the great Grand Duke, his conduct was just abominable. I wouldn't have believed it of him; taking off a lady's handkerchief in his bosom, and that the best one she had in the world, and not bringing it back again. Such conduct may be imperial, but it isn't polite, that I must say, though it wrings my heart to find fault with him. If he had brought it back the next day, of course it would have been different; but he didn't, and there I sat and sat, waiting like patience on a--on a stone wall, smiling, but wanting to cry all the time. "It'll do you good, and cheer you up," says Cousin E. E. "Maybe it will," says I, drawing a heavy breath, "but I don't seem to expect much. February is gone, and no answer to--" I bit my tongue, and cut off what it was going to say about that valentine, for that was a secret breathed only to you, as a Society, in the strictest confidence. "This time," says Cousin E. E., "there shall be no secrecy. The whole world shall know that the rising genius of the age is with us. The day we start, all the morning papers will announce that Mr. and Mrs. Dempster, of ----, have gone to Washington, accompanied by that celebrated authoress, Miss Phœmie Frost, who cannot fail to meet with every attention from the statesmen and high fashion of the Capital." "But how are the papers going to know?" says I. E. E. laughed. "Oh, Dempster will manage that; he's hand-and-glove with ever so many city editors," says she. "Oh!" says I. "There are some things that even genius itself don't know how to manage," says E. E., nodding her head, and smiling slyly; "but they can be done. As soon as we get to Washington, all the papers there will catch fire from New York, and the Senate will get up another committee, and vote you a seat in the diplomatic gallery by ballot. We'll break right into the Japanese furore, and carry off the palm," says she, kindling up like a heap of pine shavings when a match touches it. I began to feel the proud Frosty blood melting in my bosom. "The woman who writes is more than equal to the man who votes," says she. "There is no comparison," says I. "Women are women and men are men--nobody thinks of comparing rose-bushes and oak-trees--one makes timber and the other perfume; we shelter the roses, and let the oaks battle for themselves. So it ought to be with men and women--" Cousin E. E. cut me short.