Page:A hairdresser's experience in high life.djvu/105

Rh would have wished for some other way of getting down besides walking.

I am always delighted to see elegant houses, but more particularly when there are elegant ladies to grace them, which is the case here; for in every house I have been in, in New York, there were elegant ladies to adorn them.

I remember, while in England, once going with the ladies' maid of a countess to see the splendid mansion of her mistress. Before leaving I wished to see the lady who graced such a mansion. To my surprise, on reaching the door, I found an elegant carriage, coachman and footman, with certainly the queerest looking little lady, all shriveled up, that I ever saw. It made me wish I was a fairy, that I could transfer some of the fine-looking ladies from my country to grace such a mansion.

The next day I commenced by going on Eighth-street, but, in consequence of sickness, I did not go through the house. On entering I found the house and grounds more like France than any place I had seen in New York. From there I went to Mrs. S.'s elegant and princely mansion. It was a large double house, with two parlors on one side and a large reception room on the other. Everything in the house is chaste and elegant; everything in these parlors is magnificent. The chandeliers are the most beautiful of any I ever saw. One in the principal parlor has sixteen burners. There are beautiful branches over the mantles, and at each side, with brilliant lights. These, with the pure white of the velvet-papered walls, give, at night some idea of an earthly paradise. The dining-room is also a most beautiful room. On