Page:A hairdresser's experience in high life.djvu/221

Rh jewelry on this rich lady, and others in the house. She said it was for charity, as there were numerous poor, destitute families in her neighborhood, whom she wished to relieve. She got some twenty dollars out of this widow, and some two or three each, from the other ladies and gentlemen. This occurrence took place before the colonel's illness. The following summer this widow met the colonel in New York, and received a great deal of attention from him, she introducing him to a great many of her friends as a great French colonel, and very wealthy. I was at Saratoga that season. There was a lady came there from New York, and who said to me:

"Oh! Iangy, I am going on to France this winter with a friend of mine, who is going to be married to a French colonel who stood beside the emperor at the christening of his son. He is going to present us to the emperor and empress, and give us an introduction at the palace." I said, "Oh, very likely, all red breeches are not royal; so I stood up with the queen of England, at the christening of the Prince of Wales, but it was outside the palace, leaning against the walls, to hear the beautiful music inside."

This colonel, at last, became a great bore to the widow, so much so that she became disgusted, and returned to Cincinnati. After a little while she received a letter from the colonel, asking her for a loan of a thousand dollars. She wrote him she would not send it. He wrote again, demanding it, and threatening in case of a refusal, he would try to make it appear she was engaged to him. She consulted an eminent lawyer, and finding he could not do anything, wrote him a decided refusal, positively declaring she would 19