Page:A hairdresser's experience in high life.djvu/150

152 All at once I saw her jump up and, with the woman, go into a small room, called the ladies' dressing-room; in a few moments she came out, laughing, and I saw she had changed her dress. I then went up to her and asked her why she changed her dress; she said, "By George, I had a good chance to sell it, and I sold it. I have worn it for a year or so, and I got as much as I gave for it. It wont be long till the cars are in Philadelphia, and I have got a waist and long sleeves under my shawl, and then the girls will have plenty of new dresses for me from the mantuamakers." She went to Philadelphia, and I did not see anything of her till about in the middle of the season, when she came to Saratoga. The salute I got from her was, "Halloo, Iangy!" When I turned around and saw it was her ladyship, I told her she looked very well. She said, "Yes; I come here to drink water, recruit, and get a husband." I asked her where she had been all this time; she said she had been in the New York Hotel, she and the girls, raising the devil, and having more fun than a little. "Now," says she, "I have come here, and the girls are going to be belles here, I can tell you that. Moreover, Pet has got a rich beau, but he is so old he can hardly stand straight," and she laughed at the top of her voice.

She made her youngest daughter make the old man believe she was desperately in love with him, and the mother pretended to give her consent. She could find no other way to speculate, so she speculated with her daughter's hand. The old man gave her a diamond ring worth several hundred dollars, an old family relic, they say. It was an expensive and elegant ring. She made him settle a large amount of property on her