Now something else happened. The old man in gray got his mind again and turned out to be Mignon's father (have I told you that was her name?). He was a rich old fellow, with a house furnished with gilt chairs, and everything sumptuous--so, of course, the fellow in boots stuck to her more than ever. I don't know what became of the woman in yellow, but as for this other girl, she came out first best in every respect; especially at the end, when ever so many flowers and baskets and things were just poured down upon her. For my part, I thought the yellow girl ought to have had full half of these things, for I liked her quite as well, if not better than the vagabondess. Well, the green curtain went down for good, and the whole congregation got up to go out. "How do you like Nilsson?" says Cousin E. E., as she was fastening her fur mantle. "Nilsson!" says I, "I haven't seen her yet." "Why, yes you have--she just came out." "What!--that girl-boy?" "Yes, Mignon." "You don't say so," says I. "Who then was the girl in yellow?" "Oh! she is Duval." "Well, I like her at any rate, poor thing; it was a shame to treat her so." That moment I felt that the great Grand Duke was gone. Not one more glance. It was hard! XXV. THE BLACK CROOK. Sisters:--Since my intimacy with Imperial Royalty, Cousin Emily Elizabeth Dempster has been as proud as a peacock of our relationship, and speaks about the Court of all the Russias as if she expected to have an ice-palace built on the Neva for her, every winter, for the rest of her life. This may be natural--I dare say it is; but I'm afraid that Russia--being an awful despotism--wouldn't stand too many of one's relations crowding into the Imperial corn-crib, that being a free-born institution peculiar to high moral ideas which my great Grand Duke did not stay in Boston long enough to imbibe. Still, being a relation and born under the star-spangled banner, why shouldn't she have her own little hopes? I ask myself this and resolve to do my best for her. Being a first cousin she has her rights. This morning E. E. sent down a little straw-colored letter with a picture on the envelop just where it seals, and asked me to go with her and Dempster to see "The Black Crook," which she wrote was a spectacle worth looking at. They had got seats at Niblo's to see it after ever so much trouble, and were sure that I would be delighted. Delighted! What about! I never hankered much for eye-glass or spectacles. I wish cousin E. E. would be a little more particular about her spelling--that sometimes makes goose-pimples creep all over me--but a spectacle, singular, spelt with an "a," gives one just a tantalizing sense of growing old, more provoking than saying the thing right out. I can't see any more sense in one spectacle than in half a pair of scissors, but maybe she can. At any rate I don't mean to go gadding down to Mr. Niblo's theatre just to see that.