Page:The Author of Beltraffio, Pandora, Georgina's Reasons, The Path of Duty, Four Meetings (Boston, James R. Osgood & Co., 1885).djvu/136

132 a poem. I wish she would read it here; would n't it do as well?"

This lady, arriving, signified to Pandora the necessity of their moving on. But Miss Day's companions had various things to say to her before giving her up. She had an answer for each of them, and it was brought home to Vogelstein, as he listened, that, as she said, she had advanced a great deal. Daughter of small burghers, as she was, she was really brilliant. Vogelstein turned away a little, and, while Mrs. Steuben waited, asked her a question. He had made her, half an hour before, the subject of that inquiry to which Mrs. Bonnycastle returned so ambiguous an answer; but this was not because he had not some direct acquaintance with Mrs. Steuben, as well as a general idea of the esteem in which she was held. He had met her in various places, and he had been at her house. She was the widow of a commodore, a handsome, mild, soft, swaying woman, whom every one liked, with glossy bands of black hair, and a little ringlet depending behind each ear. Some one had said that she looked like the queen in "Hamlet." She had written verses which were admired in the South, wore a full-length portrait of the commodore on her bosom, and spoke with the accent of Savannah. She had about her a positive odor of Washington. It had certainly been very superfluous in Vogelstein to question Mrs. Bonnycastle about her social position.

"Do kindly tell me," he said, lowering his voice,