Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/353

Rh smoke by way of a parting token, she rose up and went into her own apartment. The power of cultivation had gained the victory over rudeness; the gods had conquered the giants.

We shall now proceed on our way, but by land, and not by water. Our heavily-laden vessel cannot pass the shallows. It must be unloaded here. The passengers must proceed by carriages about fifteen or sixteen miles along the Iowa shore to a little city where they may take a fresh steamer, and where there are no longer any impediments in the river. My new friends from Connecticut will take me under their wing.

&emsp; I am now at St. Louis, on the western bank of the river, deliberating whether or not to go to a bridal party to which I am invited, and where I should see a very lovely bride and “the cream of society” in this great Mississippi city, the second after New Orleans. I saw the bridegroom, this forenoon, as well as the bride's mother; he is a very rich planter from Florida, and very much of a gentleman, an agreeable man; the bride's mother is a young-elderly beauty, polite but artificial; somewhat above fifty, with bare neck, bare arms, rouged cheeks, perfumed, and with a fan in her hand; a lady of fashion and French politeness. They have invited me for the evening. An agreeable and kind acquaintance of Mr. Downing's, to whom I had a letter, would conduct me thither in company with his wife, but—but—I have a cold, and I feel myself too old for such festivals, at which I am besides half killed with questions; so that the nearer it approaches the hour of dressing, the clearer becomes it to my own mind that I must remain quietly in my own room. I like to see handsome ladies and beautiful toilettes, but—I can have sufficient descriptions of these, and I have seen enough of the beau monde in