Goodness gracious, what a female woman that is! No willow tree was ever half so graceful, and, as for manners, the nicest woman I ever saw is nowhere to her. Her dress--well, I really cannot say that it didn't pull an even yoke with mine--at any rate the contrast between us was striking, nothing could have been more so. But I can say, without vanity, the crowd as it came in stopped to look at mine quite as much as it did at hers. Original taste, you know, sisters, is everything; then literary genius united with taste isn't easily matched. Still, Mrs. Sprague's dress was well worth noticing. "What did she wear?" I hear you say. Sisters, your wishes are laws to me. This lady, for she _is_ a lady, every inch of her, as I have said, was a complete contrast to your missionary. Her dress had three colors; blue satin in front, wreathed across with a wreath of rosebuds and leaves over each flounce. Running up each side were other wreaths, fastening down the edges of a long train of white silk, that was fastened in a wide box-plait at the back of the neck, and swept away to the carpet, where it fell and floated like a snow-drift scattered over with roses, for they were done in needle work all over the white robe, and seemed to grow there. The dress was cut square about the neck, and filled in with lace. She had half-sleeves, too, a thing I was glad to see, for some of the stuck-up persons who came there with no sleeves, and their dresses cut short about the neck, might have taken it for a rebuke. Thank goodness, I didn't. Mrs. Sprague wore some jewelry. A wreath of blue stones with white ones that shone like rain-drops in the sunshine, was fastened in her hair, and hung quivering in her ears. She had gold bands, full of fiery stones, on her arms, and some gold thing fell down to her bosom, set with something that looked to me like half-ripe cherries. Pink coral, E. E. said it was. There now, you have Mrs. Sprague's dress, and you have mine. I say nothing. Certainly hers was handsome. I am not the person to draw comparisons, but, from the notice given to mine, I had no reason to be dissatisfied. Chief Justice Chase stood by his daughter, and shook hands with me in the most friendly manner--he was quite impressed, I can assure you. He was large and tall--in fact, grand in his appearance. His smile was enough to make any one long to know more of him. It reminded me a little of the great Grand Duke's, which made my heart beat a little sadly. We moved into the crowd. There I saw a lot of those foreign ministers. One of them bowed to me. I gave him a dignified bend of the head. This messing-up of divinity and parties goes against my ideas of propriety. A Vermont minister would be turned out of his pulpit if he ventured to show himself in a worldly gathering like that. "What are you so dignified about, Cousin Phœmie?" says Dempster. "Didn't you see the minister bowing to us?"