A RECEPTION MORNING:

OR PEOPLE IN GLASS HOUSES, ETC.

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BY F. E. F., AUTHOR OF “A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE,” ETC.

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Je m’oublie,

Tu t’oublies,

Il ou elle s’oublis, etc.

Verb S’oublier.

“Why were you not at Elliot’s last night, Mrs. Fortesque?” asked Mrs. Lyman.

“We do not visit,” replied Mrs. Fortesque, with a slight shade of mortification.

“Not visit!” repeated her friend in an accent of surprise, and fixing her eyes as she spoke with a prolonged look of astonishment that caused Mrs. Fortesque to color. “Is it possible! It was an elegant party—very select—the handsomest I have been at this winter. Indeed, the party of the season.”

“It could scarcely surpass Rawley’s,” said Mrs. Fortesque with smothered indignation. “I am sure there was nothing spared there, and their house is larger than Elliot’s.”

“Yes. But it was such a jam at Rawley’s,” replied Mrs. Lyman, in the tone of one oppressed even by the recollection of the crowd—“and such a mêlée—all sorts of people! This paying off debts in this way is, in my opinion, very vulgar. Now at Elliot’s it was so different. Just every body you would wish to meet and no more. Room to see and be seen—and the ladies so beautifully dressed—no crowd—every thing elegant and recherché.”

“The dressing at Rawley’s was as elegant as possible,” remarked Mrs. Fortesque, evidently piqued that the party she had just been describing to Miss Appleton with no small degree of complacency as so fashionable, should now be spoken of as a mêlée.

“Did you think so?” said Mrs. Lyman, with affected surprise. “It was very inferior to that of last night. Indeed in such a crowd there’s no inducement to wear any thing handsome; but last night the ladies really came out. I never saw such dressing—and the supper was exquisite.”

“It seems to me that all suppers are alike,” said one of the Miss Appletons, with true girlish ignorance.

“Oh, my dear!” exclaimed both ladies in a breath.

“The difference between such a supper as we had at Elliot’s and such a one as at Rawley’s,” continued Mrs. Lyman, “is immense. The exquisite china, the plate, and then the natural flowers! Such a supper as you can only have at a select party.”

Mrs. Fortesque looked very angry. The Rawleys were rather her grand people, and as she had not been at Elliot’s she did not like this being set down in the crowd of “any bodies” invited.

“I am fairly tired out,” pursued Mrs. Lyman languidly, “with this succession of parties. I do wish people would be quiet for a little while and let one rest. The girls too are quite jaded and fagged with this dancing night after night.”

“Oh, it’s too much,” said Emma Appleton. “I never go more than two or three times a week. I wonder you do,” turning to Miss Lyman.

“How can you help it, my dear?” said Mrs. Lyman, in the tone of one bewailing a great hardship. “You give such offence if you decline.”

“I decline whenever it suits me,” replied Miss Appleton, “and people bear the disappointment very philosophically,” she added, smiling.

“You may well say that, Emma,” said Mrs. Fortesque, with an emphasis meant at Mrs. Lyman. “Society is so large now that I at least never find offence is taken when I decline.”

“But you cannot refuse a first invitation,” pursued Mrs. Lyman. “Now the Elliots for instance. They have just called upon us, we could not decline. Are you going to Hammersley’s to-morrow, Emma?”

“No,” said Emma, “we are not invited. Are you?”

“Yes; it’s a small party. We shall go there first and afterwards to Lascelles’.”

“I saw you all at the opera on Monday,” remarked Emma.

“Yes, we were there the first two acts—we went from there to Shaw’s. By the way, did you call upon the bride yesterday?”

“No,” replied Emma. “I have never visited the Halseys.”

“But as Hamilton’s friends,” pursued Mrs. Lyman, “I called on his account.”

“No,” said Emma carelessly, “I hate bridal receptions and avoid them whenever I possibly can.” Mrs. Lyman had risen while she was speaking, and she said, “Oh don’t go! Why are you in such a hurry?”

“I must, my dear,” replied Mrs. Lyman. “The Armstrongs and Ringolds receive to-day, and then I must call at Meredith’s. We have not been there since the party. And Cadwaladers too, Mary,” she said, turning to her daughter, “don’t forget them. We have been owing that visit so long—and the Harrisons, and I don’t know how many,” she continued, as if quite oppressed with the weight of fashionable cares. “I don’t suppose we shall get through with the half of them. Come Mary,” and so bidding Emma and her friends good morning, she withdrew.

The door had hardly closed upon her, when Mrs. Fortesque, still wrathy at the manner in which Mrs. Lyman had spoken of Rawleys, and angrier still at finding she was going to Hammersley’s, vented some of her indignation exclaiming —

“How that woman does work for society!”

“One would think she had been at court to hear her talk of Elliots,” said Emma laughing.

“Just so, Emma,” said Mrs. Fortesque, in a tone of bitter satisfaction at the young lady’s laughing satire. “It’s too absurd! And as to saying the Elliots called first, I don’t believe it. They, strangers here, and people of their fortune, are not likely to go about making first calls.”

“What’s that?” said Charlotte Appleton, who had been engrossed in conversation with a gentleman on the opposite side of the room. “What’s that about the Elliots making first calls.”

“I was saying it was rather remarkable that they should have called first on Mrs. Lyman,” replied Mrs. Fortesque.

“They did not,” exclaimed Charlotte. “Of course, as strangers, you know, Mrs. Fortesque, they would not, and I know the Lymans called upon them some time ago.”

“Are you sure of that, Charlotte?” asked Mrs. Fortesque, with the triumphant manner of one securing an important fact.

“Certainly,” replied Charlotte, “for she asked mamma and myself to call and introduce her, but we were engaged that morning, and she said it was no matter, she would leave her card and be introduced the first time they met.”

“I thought so!” said Mrs. Fortesque exultingly, “It’s just like her!”

“There’s no reason why she should not have called, Mrs. Fortesque,” said Emma.

But Mrs. Fortesque did not look assenting at this; she only said, however —

“Perhaps so. But I don’t like calling on these people for their parties—for it amounts to that, when you can’t return them.”

“But, my dear Mrs. Fortesque,” said Emma, “then only the rich would know the rich. And there are a great many charming people in society who cannot afford to entertain, and who the Elliots and others are delighted to have.”

“Oh, my dear,” returned the lady with much excitement of manner, “that’s all very well when you have happened to know them; but I would not go out of my way to make their acquaintance. There’s nobody of any consequence in society, or who entertains, that Mrs. Lyman does not make it a point of knowing. Now, her calling on the bride yesterday as one of Hamilton’s friends. Why, she knows Hamilton just as you and I and half the town do—a slight bowing acquaintance—but now he is marrying a rich fashionable girl, she finds out that it is incumbent on her as ‘one of his friends’ to call on his bride! So absurd! And she wont effect her object by this sort of thing either,” she added spitefully. “The young men are tired of seeing those two ugly girls of hers at every place they go.”

“Oh, Mrs. Fortesque!” said Emma expostulatingly, yet half laughing.

“Of course, my dear,” returned Mrs. Fortesque warmly. “Every body sees that, and she’ll fail.”

“Well, if that is the object—” said Emma.

“And it is,” persisted Mrs. Fortesque decidedly.

“I don’t agree with you in thinking she’ll fail,” continued Emma, without noticing the interruption. “I think the Lymans are nice girls and generally liked.”

“No beauties, you’ll admit,” said Mrs. Fortesque, scornfully.

“No, not beauties,” replied Emma, “but they get on quite as well as if they were. Besides, really Mrs. Fortesque, to do Mrs. Lyman justice, I never saw any thing about her like a match-making mother.”

“Oh, my dear!” ejaculated Mrs. Fortesque. “She is very anxious to marry them off. And well she may be. The other two are growing up as fast as they can. I only think she is taking the wrong course. And then such a labor as she makes of it! She’s somewhere every night.”

“Oh yes. Sometimes at two parties beside the opera,” said Charlotte. “There’s no pleasure in society at such a rate. They have an idea that it is tonish I believe.”

“Too absurd!” repeated Mrs. Fortesque, who had evidently not yet discharged all her wrath. But being obliged to make other calls she rose, and as Lady Teazle says, “left her character behind her,” for she was not fairly out of the room before Emma laughed and said —

“Poor Mrs. Fortesque! She cannot get over the Lymans getting on so well in society. To be sure they do push for it, but they get it. And their being at Elliot’s where she was not invited and does not visit, seems to have capped the climax of her vexation.”

“And to speak slightingly of Rawleys’ party,” said Charlotte. “That really was unkind in Mrs. Lyman, for she knows how much Mrs. Fortesque thinks of the Rawleys.”

“That was the reason of course,” replied Emma laughing. “She knows the Rawleys are Mrs. Fortesque’s grandees. For there’s no one that thinks so much of fine people as Mrs. Fortesque.”

“No. How droll it is,” said Charlotte. “Every invitation is taken as such a compliment, and every omission as a particular slight.”

“That struck me very much,” remarked Mrs. Henry Willing who happened to be present, but who had not joined much in the conversation hitherto, “for I have always looked upon Mrs. Fortesque as a person who rather pinned her faith upon fashionable people, and who rated her acquaintance very much according to their consequence in society.”

“Oh she does, decidedly,” said both the girls in a breath.

“It’s that,” continued Emma, “that makes her so angry with Mrs. Lyman. They are intimate, and Mrs. Lyman is always ahead of her in making fine acquaintances, and in getting invited to parties that are rather exclusive. Now you will see that Mrs. Fortesque does not rest until she visits and is invited at Elliot’s too.”

“But I think she is really unjust, Emma,” said Charlotte, “in saying her object is to get the girls married.”

“To be sure she is,” replied Emma. “But the fact is, her own head is so full of anxiety on the subject of marrying Cornelia, that she thinks every other mother’s head must be the same.”

“The Lymans are no beauties,” said Charlotte, “but they are quite as handsome as Cornelia Fortesque.”

“And a great deal pleasanter,” replied Emma. “They have something at least, but poor Cornelia has nothing.”

As the Appletons were “at home” that morning, the conversation was here interrupted by other visiters.

Elliot’s party was again the theme under discussion, the display of wealth and beauty on the occasion giving rise to much animated remark.

“One of the most striking persons there was your friend Mrs. Norton, Miss Appleton,” said Mrs. Henry Willing.

“I never saw her look more beautiful,” remarked another.

“Nor more beautifully dressed,” said Mrs. Willing quietly, but with meaning.

Emma colored at this, for she felt the innuendo. Mr. Norton had failed not very long since, and the extravagance of his pretty wife had not escaped its due portion at least of animadversion.

“What was it?” asked Emma.

“A very rich blue silk, with flounces of superb lace almost to the hips,” replied Mrs. Willing in a tone that conveyed as much reprehension as tones could convey.

“Oh, that’s the same lace she has worn these three years,” said Emma, vexed that her pretty friend could not even wear her old things without exciting unkind remarks.

“It does not look well, Emma,” remarked Mrs. Grayson. “Though it is not new, it is expensive, and not in keeping with their present circumstances, it’s in bad taste.”

Emma looked disconcerted, and said she thought that a matter of very little importance when every body knew the lace almost as well as they did Mrs. Norton herself.

Mrs. Willing however did not think so. “Every body knew the expense attendant on society, and she thought it altogether indiscreet in Mrs. Norton to be out as constantly as she was. It excited much remark.”

Whereupon an animated discussion ensued in which poor Mrs. Norton was well pulled to pieces. Emma however defended her bravely, though driven from point to point. That she was very expensive, if not extravagant, seemed however to be settled beyond dispute, and Mrs. Willing was not inclined to make any allowance for her youth and inexperience, nor permit her grace and beauty any weight at all in extenuating her imprudence. Emma was for overlooking every thing, Mrs. Willing nothing, and the discussion was certainly as warm as is ever deemed allowable among ladies, when Mrs. Willing rose to leave. No one remaining, fortunately for Emma, but Mrs. Grayson, with whom the Appletons were very intimate, and so she gave unrestrained vent to her indignation almost before Mrs. Willing was out of hearing.

“She is a pretty one!” she exclaimed, “to find fault with Mrs. Norton! She is just as expensive as her means will allow, without Mrs. Norton’s excuse of youth and beauty.”

“But, my dear,” interposed Mrs. Grayson, “her husband has not failed.”

“No,” said Emma, “for he is not a merchant. But every body knows their circumstances. He’s over head and ears in debt, and yet they entertain and give dinners, and she’s forever at the opera. But because she’s not a beauty and does not care particularly for dress, she is very virtuous about poor Mrs. Norton.”

“Very true,” said Mrs. Grayson laughing. “I could not but be amused while she was talking to think how much that she was saying would apply equally well to herself. But people never think of that when they are laying down the law for others. But have you heard this story, girls, about Mrs. Crawford?”

“No. What?” they both asked.

And then followed a piece of scandal that had just burst upon the town, too naughty to repeat.

“Shocking!” and “Can it be true?” they exclaimed.

“No doubt of it,” returned Mrs. Grayson. “No one will visit her,” and with much interest she continued to add circumstance and suspicion one on top of the other without mercy or stint.

All minor gossip was forgotten in the engrossing interest of the new subject. Mrs. Grayson talked on till the French clock on the mantel-piece struck the dinner hour, when starting up, she exclaimed —

“So late! Is it possible? You’ve been so agreeable girls I had quite forgotten the hour, and my husband is waiting for me, I suppose,” and off she hurried.

“She has had all the talk,” said Emma, “and that’s what she calls finding us agreeable. But this story is very bad, if it is true.”

“Yes, but I don’t believe half of it,” said Charlotte. “Mrs. Grayson you know always puts the worst construction upon every thing. She is so very harsh in her judgments.”

“And she of all others should have mercy upon those in trouble,” observed Mrs. Appleton, who had just then came into the room. “But what were you talking of girls?”

And with great animation they related Mrs. Grayson’s bit of gossip to their mother.

“Strange!” said Mrs. Appleton, “that Mrs. Grayson should be the first to tell it.”

“Why, mamma?” asked both daughters at once.

“Because just such an affair occurred in her own family.”

“In hers! When?” exclaimed they in astonishment. “I never heard that before!”

“Oh, years ago—you can hardly remember it. Indeed it was just after I was married.”

“Then,” said Charlotte laughing, “it’s not surprising we do not remember the circumstance.”

“I had forgotten it was so long ago,” said their mother. “It made a great talk at the time.” And then scandal that had been buried for years and years was revived and listened to with no small interest.

“Strange!” said Emma, “that Mrs. Grayson should talk of Mrs. Crawford.”

“I should think she would avoid all such stories as carefully as possible,” said Charlotte.

“I suppose she thought we knew nothing about it,” pursued Emma.

“But if we did not, she must,” replied Charlotte. “People cannot forget such things themselves.”

“Mrs. Grayson has gone through severe trials and mortifications in life,” observed their mother.

“Then it ought to give her some charity for others,” said Charlotte. “But she is the hardest woman I know.”

“It appears to me that’s always the case,” said Emma. “One would think that suffering would soften and purify—but it does not.”

“Not that kind of suffering,” remarked their mother. “That which comes of mortification, and which we experience at the hands of our fellow men, there are few natures fine enough not to grow hard under it.”

Emma heard her mother afterward in a low voice telling their father the story she had just heard from her daughters, and giving Mrs. Grayson as authority.

“The less she says about it the better,” drily remarked Mr. Appleton.

“You remember, my dear,” continued his wife, “that affair of her sister.”

“To be sure,” he replied. “A bad business. I always wondered how they got over it.”

And then Mr. and Mrs. Appleton had a long, comfortable, cosy talk, in which things long past and forgotten were brought to life, as the old couple warmed up in their reminiscences of “old times.” Emma soon tired, and gave up trying to keep the thread of grandmothers and great-aunts, particularly as her father and mother frequently confounded the present with the past generation, and she found that the “young Tom Somebody,” that they were talking of, was now the “old Tom,” of present times; the “young Tom” being a middle-aged man, with a Tom junior treading fast on his heels.

Charlotte and Emma were now talking over their morning visiters, and Emma again spoke with some warmth of Mrs. Willing’s remarks on Mrs. Norton, who happened to be Emma’s particular admiration, her extravagance being, in her opinion, “very natural.”

“I can conceive,” she added, “of people’s

‘Compounding sins they are inclined for,

By damning those they have no mind for,’

but to abuse people for doing what you are doing yourself, is rather too much.”

“It’s the old principle, I suppose,” said Charlotte, “of ‘Lord, I thank thee that I am not as other men.’ ”

“Yes, but,” persisted Charlotte, “when you are like as other men.”

“Well, then—not so bad, then,” said Charlotte, laughing—“Mrs. Willing takes comfort in thinking she is only expensive, while Mrs. Norton is extravagant. Every body has their besetting sin it seems.”

“I wonder what ours is,” said Emma.

“If we have one,” said Charlotte, laughing. “For my part, I think we approach perfection as near as possible—‘Sans peur et sans reproche.’ ”

“Sans peur, certainly,” said Emma, in the same tone of playful mockery, “if not sans reproche. Well, but what do we abuse others most for?” she added. “For, depend upon it, that’s the particular weakness we are given to ourselves.”

“What do we most criticise others for?” said Charlotte. “Why, for abusing others, I think. And we are called satirical, you know. ‘People in glass houses should not throw stones.’ ”

“No,” said Emma carelessly. “That is, if they care about having their windows broken.”

“Nobody likes to have their windows broken,” said Mrs. Appleton gravely, who, just entering, caught the last part of the sentence, which she took literally, with a true housekeeper’s feeling.

“That’s true, mother,” said the girls, laughing at the odd application of her remark. “It’s very true, though you did not mean it.”

But whether they remembered these sage reflections and kept them the next “reception morning,” we think very doubtful.