Page:The Galaxy, Volume 6.djvu/83



OU find us, in humble imitation of Mr. Turveydrop," still using our little arts to 'polish—polish!'" said Jessie Kirke, mimicking the famous trowel gesture of the professor of deportment, as Orrin Wyllys entered Mrs. Baxter's drawing-room on the evening of the 4th of January.

The lady president's "collegiate reunions," on the first and third Thursday of each month during term time, had, up to this winter, been voted a nuisance by the class for whose benefit she had inaugurated the series, to wit, the graceless, homeless students, whose intellectual training had been committed to her husband and his confrères, while their polite education was left to fate and the hap-hazard culture of promiscuous society. Now, promiscuous society—the phrase is Mrs. Baxter's, not mine—in Hamilton, although less detrimental to the principles, manners, and conversational powers of unguarded youth than the same foe would have been in a region more remote from the great humanizing and refining centre expressed to the visual organs by the square, cream-colored mansion at the right of the college campus, was yet inimical to the best interests—another stolen phrase—of the aforesaid matriculated youngsters. To counteract the evil, the presidential residence was converted, on the evenings I have designated, into a social reformatory, and the mistress put forth her utmost energy to render the process of amelioration pleasant to the subjects thereof. The success of her system, which had gone into operation two years before, had been less than indifferent up to the date of her young kinswoman's arrival. Simultaneously with her appearance at the pillared portal of the cream-colored centre, the cause of elegant deportment and colloquial accomplishments began to look up in the contiguous halls of learning. The "reception" on the ensuing Thursday was well attended; the second was a "crush"—the supply of sponge-cake and lemonade inadequate to the demand.

This was the third, and the hostess, elate with past and sanguine of prospective victories, had, with the assistance of her guest, bedecked her rooms with New Year's garlands and floral legends. As an ingenious tribute to the learning of the major portion of the assembly, Mrs. Baxter had accomplished a Latinization of certain stock phrases of welcome, and was immensely proud of the "classic air" imparted to her saloon by these.

"I suppose they are all right," Jessie said, dubiously, to Orrin, when he inspected them. "My knowledge of the learned tongue is confined to "E pluribus unum" and "Mirabile dicta."

"Salve!" blossomed into being in heather and pink-and-white paper roses over the mantel opposite the door of the front parlor. Over that in the back,