This was the way we went. Cousin Dempster has made a good deal of money in Washington--contracting, or something--and he got a spick-span new open carriage for this high occasion--a carriage made soft as a bird's nest with brown satin cushions, and that glittered outside like a crow's back whenever the sun struck it. We had a great big fellow, in new plum-colored clothes on the driver's seat, and another genteel youngster by his side--all plum-color and hat-band, like the coachman. Inside, there was Cousin E. E. with a pea-green dress on, all flounces and fringe, and overskirts piled up so high behind that she couldn't lean back, and your missionary, Miss Phœmie Frost, in her pink silk (turned again), and the white hat with plumes of snow, which bespoke at once her good taste and her most sacred political preferences, which would keep going on both sides all I could do. There, in the front seat, with his back to the horses and his face to us, sat Dempster, looking out with envy and bitter feelings on the men in buggies, that were laughing like fun, and smoking like New England stone chimneys. At such times I do not think that Dempster appreciates all the sweet benefits of female society. Last and least, I am sorry to say, was that child, Cecilia, with a pink parasol about as big as a good-sized toadstool, fluttering before her face, and all in a storm of flounces above her knees, with nothing but kid boots and silk stockings below. I do wonder what possesses Dempster and E. E. to train that child along wherever they go! She is just the aggravation of my life. Well, with our open carriage yeasting over with green, pink, white, and blue, which Dempster broke up with a lean streak of black, we rolled through the gate of the race-grounds and came up, with a magnificent sweep, to the back door of the club house, when E. E. and I gave a neat little jump, and tipped gracefully around the long stoop, right into the upper crust society of New York. Sisters, it was like wading right into a flower-bed! Everybody there had on her good clothes--I may say, her bettermost clothes of all. Red, green, purple, blue, white, black--every color or shade of color to be found in the sky, in flowers, in fruit, or in water, rustled against each other. Sisters, it was gorgeous! But one thing struck me as peculiar--most of these female ladies had the loveliest pink color in their cheeks all the time. While my face was turning red and white, as I grew warm or comfortable, theirs kept one steady pink. Ladies with hair as yellow as gold had ink-black eyebrows and lashes--things we never see together in the country. I don't understand it. Well, we had but just got seats on the largest stoop when the people below us let off a squad of horses that seemed to fly; for the mud was soft as mush on the road, and their hoofs made no more noise than as if they had trod on velvet.