Pencil Sketches: or, Outlines of Character and Manners

"Well, Miss Darnel," said Mr. Wilson, who had just joined them, "how do you like your field-officer?"

"Need you ask me?" replied Harriet. "In future I shall hate the sight of two silver epaulets."

"And I of one gold one," added Caroline.

"I will not trust you," said Mr. Thomson, with a smile.

"We shall see," said Mr. Wilson.

"Well, young ladies," observed Miss Clements, "you may at least deduce one moral from the events of the evening. You find that it is possible for officers to be extremely annoying, and to deport themselves in a manner that you would consider intolerable in citizens."

"It is intolerable in them, aunt," replied Harriet, "particularly when they are stiff and ungainly in all their movements, and dance shockingly."

"And if they are conceited, and prating, and ungenteel," added Caroline.

"Awkward in their expressions, and dull in their ideas," pursued Harriet.

"Talking ridiculously and behaving worse," continued Caroline.

"Come, come," said Sophia Clements, "candour must compel us to acknowledge that these two gentlemen are anything but fair specimens of their profession, which I am very sure can boast a large majority of intelligent, polished, and accomplished men."

"Be that as it may," replied Harriet, "I confess that my delight in the show and parade of war, and my admiration of officers, has received a severe shock to-night. 'My thoughts, I must confess, are turned on peace.'"

"I fear these pacific feelings are too sudden to be lasting," remarked Miss Clements, "and in a day or two we shall find that 'your voice is still for war.'"

The following morning the young ladies did more sewing than on any day for the last two years, sitting all the time in the back parlour. In the afternoon, Harriet read Cœlebs aloud to her mother and aunt, and Caroline went out to do some shopping. When she came home, she told of her having stopped in at Mrs. Raymond's, and of her finding the family just going to tea with an officer as their guest. "They pressed me urgently," said she, "to sit down and take tea with them, and to remain and spend the evening; but I steadily excused myself, notwithstanding the officer."

"Good girl!" said Sophia.

"To be sure," added Caroline, "he was only in a citizen's dress."

"Ah!" said Mrs. Darnel, "that materially alters the case. Had he been in uniform, I am sure your steadiness would have given way."

In less than two days all their anti-military resolutions were overset, and the young ladies were again on the qui vive, in consequence of the promulgation of an order for the return of the volunteers from Camp Dupont, as, the winter having set in, the enemy had retired from the vicinity of the Delaware and Chesapeake. The breaking up of this encampment was an event of much interest to the inhabitants of Philadelphia, as there were few of them that had not a near relative, or an intimate friend among those citizen-soldiers.

On the morning that they marched home all business was suspended; the pavements and door-steps were crowded with spectators, and the windows filled with ladies, eager to recognise among the returning volunteers their brothers, sons, husbands, or lovers, – who, on their side, cast many upward glances towards the fair groups that were gazing on them.

The British General Riall, who had been taken prisoner at the battle of Niagara, chanced to be at a house on the road-side when this gallant band went by, on their way to Philadelphia. It is said that he remarked to an American gentleman near him, "You should never go to war with us – the terms are too unequal. Men like these are too valuable to be thrown away in battle with such as compose our armies, which are formed from the overflowings of a superabundant population; while here I see not a man that you can spare."

And he was essentially right.

The volunteers entered the city by the central bridge, and came down Market street. All were in high spirits, and glad to return once more to their homes and families. But unfortunate were those who on that day formed the rear-guard, it being their inglorious lot to come in late in the afternoon, after the spectators had withdrawn, convoying, with "toilsome march, the long array" of baggage-wagons, which they had been all day forcing through the heavy roads of an early winter, cold, weary, and dispirited, with no music to cheer them, no acclamations to greet them. No doubt, however, their chagrin was soon dispelled, and their enjoyment proportionately great, when at last they reached their own domestic hearths, and met the joyous faces and happy hearts assembled round them.

A few days after the return of the volunteers, Mrs. Darnel received a letter from an old friend of hers, Mrs. Forrester, a lady of large fortune, residing in Boston, containing the information that her son, Colonel Forrester, would shortly proceed to Philadelphia from the Canada frontier, and that she would accompany him, taking the opportunity of making her a long-promised visit. Mrs. Darnel replied immediately, expressive of the pleasure it would afford her to meet again one of the most intimate companions of her youth, and to have both Mrs. Forrester and the colonel staying at her house.

The same post brought a letter to Sophia from Mr. Clements, her brother, in New York, who, after telling her of his having heard that Colonel Forrester would shortly be in Philadelphia, jestingly proposed her attempting the conquest of his heart, as he was not only a gallant officer, but a man of high character and noble appearance. Sophia showed this letter to no one, but she read it twice over, – the first time with a smile, the second time with a blush. She had heard much of Colonel Forrester, of whom "report spoke goldenly;" and several times in New York she had seen him in public, but had never chanced to meet him, except once at a very large party, when accident had prevented his introduction to her.

Harriet and Caroline were almost wild with delight at the prospect of an intimate acquaintance with this accomplished warrior; but their joy was somewhat damped by the arrival of a second letter from Mrs. Forrester, in which she designated the exact time when she might be expected at the house of her friend, but said that her son, having some business that would detain him several weeks in Philadelphia, would not trespass on the hospitality of Mrs. Darnel, but had made arrangements for staying at a hotel.

"He is perfectly right," said Sophia. "I concluded, of course, that he would do so. Few gentlemen, when in a city, like to stay at private houses, if they can be accommodated elsewhere."

"At all events," said Harriet, "his mother will be with us, and he must come every day to pay his duty to her."

"That's some comfort," pursued Caroline; "and, no doubt, we shall see a great deal of him, one way or another."

Sophia Clements, though scarcely conscious of it herself, felt a secret desire of appearing to advantage in the eyes of Colonel Forrester. Her two nieces felt the same desire, except that they made it no secret. They had worked up their imaginations to the persuasion that Colonel Forrester was the finest man in the army, and therefore the finest in the world, and they anticipated the delight of his being their frequent guest during the stay of his mother; of his morning visits, and his evening visits; of having him at dinner and at tea; of planning excursions with him to show Mrs. Forrester the lions of the city and its vicinity, when, of course, he would be their escort. They imagined him walking in Chestnut street with them, and sitting in the same box at the theatre. Be it remembered, that during the war, officers in the regular service were seldom seen out of uniform, and even when habited as citizens they were always distinguished by that "gallant badge, the dear cockade." Perhaps, also, Colonel Forrester and his mother might accompany them to a ball, and they would then have the glory of dancing with an officer so elegant as entirely to efface their mortification at their former military partners. We need not say that Messrs. Wilson and Thomson were again at a discount.

The girls were taken with an immediate want of various new articles of dress, and had their attention been less engaged by the activity of their preparations for "looking their very best," the time that intervened between the receipt of Mrs. Forrester's last letter and that appointed for their arrival, would have seemed of length immeasurable.

At last came the eve of the day on which these all-important strangers were expected. As they quitted the tea-table, one of the young ladies remarked: —

"By this time to-morrow, we shall have seen Col. Forrester and his mother."

"As to the mother," observed Mrs. Darnel, "I am very sure that were it not for the son, the expectation of her visit would excite but little interest in either of you – though, as you have often heard me say, she is a very agreeable and highly intelligent woman."

"We can easily perceive it from her letters," said Sophia.

Mrs. Darnel, complaining of the headache, retired for the night very early in the evening, desiring that she might not be disturbed. Sophia took some needle-work, and each of the girls tried a book, but were too restless and unsettled to read, and they alternately walked about the room or extended themselves on the sofas. It was a dark, stormy night – the windows rattled, and the pattering of the rain against the glass was plainly heard through the inside shutters.

"I wish to-morrow evening were come," said Harriet, "and that the introduction was over, and we were all seated round the tea-table."

"For my part," said Caroline, "I have a presentiment that everything will go on well. We will all do notre possible to look our very best; mamma will take care that the rooms and the table shall be arranged in admirable style – and if you and I can only manage to talk and behave just as we ought, there is nothing to fear."

"I hope, indeed, that Colonel Forrester will like us," rejoined Harriet, "and be induced to continue his visits when he again comes to Philadelphia."

"Much depends on the first impression," remarked Miss Clements.

"Now let us just imagine over the arrival of Colonel and Mrs. Forrester," said Harriet. – "The lamps lighted, and the fires burning brightly in both rooms. In the back parlour, the tea-table set out with the French china and the chased plate; – mamma sitting in an arm-chair with her feet on one of the embroidered footstools, dressed in her queen's-gray lutestring, and one of her Brussels lace caps – I suppose the one trimmed with white riband. Aunt Sophia in her myrtle-green levantine, seated at the marble table in the front parlour, holding in her hand an elegant book – for instance, her beautiful copy of the Pleasures of Hope. Caroline and I will wear our new scarlet Canton crapes with the satin trimming, and our coral ornaments."

"No, no," rejoined Caroline; "we resemble each other so much that, if we are dressed alike, Colonel Forrester will find too great a sameness in us. Do you wear your scarlet crape, and I will put on my white muslin with the six narrow flounces headed with insertion.75 I have reserved it clean on purpose; and I think Aunt Sophia had best wear her last new coat dress, with the lace trimming. It is so becoming to her with a pink silk handkerchief tied under the collar."

"Well," said Harriet, "I will be seated at the table also, not reading, but working a pair of cambric cuffs; my mother-of-pearl work-box before me."

"And I," resumed Caroline, "will be found at the piano, turning over the leaves of a new music-book. Every one looks their best on a music-stool; it shows the figure to advantage, and the dress falls in such graceful folds."

"My hair shall be à la Grecque," said Harriet.

"And mine in the Vandyke style," said Caroline.

"But," asked Sophia, "are the strangers on entering the room to find us all sitting up in form, and arranged for effect, like actresses waiting for the bell to ring and the curtain to rise? How can you pretend that you were not the least aware of their approach till they were actually in the room, when you know very well that you will be impatiently listening to the sound of every carriage till you hear theirs stop at the door. Never, certainly, will a visiter come less unexpectedly than Colonel Forrester."

"But you know, aunt," replied Caroline, "how much depends on a first impression."

"Well," resumed Harriet, "I have thought of another way. As soon as they enter the front parlour let us all advance through the folding doors to meet them, – mamma leading the van with Aunt Sophy, Caroline and I arm in arm behind."

"No," said Caroline, "let us not be close together, so that the same glance can take in both."

"Then," rejoined Harriet, "I will be a few steps in advance of you. You, as the youngest, should be timid, and should hold back a little; while I, as the eldest, should have more self-possession. Variety is advisable."

"But I cannot be timid all the time," said Caroline; "that will require too great an effort."

"We must not laugh and talk too much at first," observed Harriet; "but all we say must be both sprightly and sensible. However, we shall have the whole day to-morrow to make our final arrangements; and I think I am still in favour of the sitting reception."

"Whether he has a sitting or a standing reception," said Caroline, "let the colonel have as striking a coup d'œil as possible."

Their brother Robert had gone to the theatre by invitation of a family with whose sons he was intimate; and Sophia Clements, who was desirous of finishing a highly interesting book, and who was not in the least addicted to sleepiness, volunteered to sit up for him.

"I think," said she, "as the hour is too late, and the night too stormy to expect any visiters, I will go and exchange my dress for a wrapper; I can then be perfectly at my ease while sitting up for Robert. I will first ring for Peter to move one of the sofas to the side of the fire, and to place the reading-lamp upon the table before it."

She did so; and in a short time she came down in a loose double wrapper, and with her curls pinned up.

"Really, Aunt Sophy," said Harriet, "that is an excellent idea. Caroline, let us pin our hair here in the parlour before the mantel-glass; that will be better still – our own toilet table is far from the fire."

"True," replied Caroline, "and you are always so long at the dressing-glass that it is an age before I can get to it, – but here, if there were even four of us, we could all stand in a row and arrange our hair together before this long mirror."

They sent up for their combs and brushes, their boxes of hair pins, and their flannel dressing-gowns, and placed candles on the mantel-piece, preparing for what they called "clear comfort;" while Sophia reclined on the sofa by the fire, deeply engaged with Miss Owenson's new novel. The girls, having poured some cologne-water into a glass, wetted out all their ringlets with it, preparatory to the grand curling that was to be undertaken for the morrow, and which was not to be opened out during the day.

Harriet had just taken out her comb and untied her long hair behind, to rehearse its arrangement for the ensuing evening, when a ring was heard at the street-door.

"That's Bob," said Caroline. "He is very early from the theatre; I wonder he should come home without staying for the farce."

Presently their black man, with a grin of high delight, threw open the parlour-door, and ushered in an elegant-looking officer, who, having left his cloak in the hall, appeared before them in full uniform, – and they saw at a glance that it could be no one but Colonel Forrester.

Words cannot describe the consternation and surprise of the young ladies. Sophia dropped her book, and started on her feet; Harriet throwing down her comb so that it broke in pieces on the hearth, retreated to a chair that stood behind the sofa with such precipitation as nearly to overset the table and the reading-lamp; and Caroline, scattering her hair-pins over the carpet, knew not where she was, till she found herself on a footstool in one of the recesses. Alas! for the coup d'œil and the first impression! Instead of heads à la Grecque, or in the Vandyke fashion, their whole chevelure was disordered, and their side-locks straightened into long strings, and clinging, wet and ungraceful, to their cheeks. Instead of scarlet crape frocks trimmed with satin, or white muslin with six flounces, their figures were enveloped in flannel dressing-gowns. All question of the sitting reception, or the standing reception was now at an end; for Harriet was hiding unsuccessfully behind the sofa, and Caroline crouching on a footstool in the corner, trying to conceal a large rent which in her hurry she had given to her flannel gown. Resolutions never again to make their toilet in the parlour, regret that they had not thought of flying into the adjoining room and shutting the folding-doors after them, and wonder at the colonel's premature appearance, all passed through their minds with the rapidity of lightning.

Sophia, after a moment's hesitation, rallied from her confusion; and her natural good sense and ease of manner came to her aid, as she curtsied to the stranger and pointed to a seat. Colonel Forrester, who saw at once that he had come at an unlucky season, after introducing himself, and saying he presumed he was addressing Miss Clements, proceeded immediately to explain the reason of his being a day in advance of the appointed time. He stated that his mother, on account of the dangerous illness of an intimate and valued friend, had been obliged to postpone her visit to Philadelphia; and that in consequence of an order from the war-office, which required his immediate presence at Washington, he had been obliged to leave Boston a day sooner than he intended, and to travel with all the rapidity that the public conveyances would admit. He had arrived about eight o'clock at the Mansion House Hotel, where a dinner was given that evening to a distinguished naval commander. Colonel Forrester had immediately been waited upon by a deputation from the dinner-table, with a pressing invitation to join the company; and this (though he did not then allude to it) was the reason of his being in full uniform. Compelled to pursue his journey very early in the morning, he had taken the opportunity, as soon as he could get away from the table, of paying his compliments to the ladies, and bringing with him a letter to Miss Clements from her brother, whom he had seen in passing through New York, and one from his mother for Mrs. Darnel.

Grievously chagrined and mortified as the girls were, they listened admiringly to the clear and handsome manner in which the colonel made his explanation, and they more than ever regretted that all their castles in the air were demolished, and that after this unlucky visit he would probably have no desire to see them again, when he came to Philadelphia on his return from Washington.

Sophia, who saw at once that she had to deal with a man of tact and consideration, felt that an apology for the disorder in which he had found them was to him totally unnecessary, being persuaded that he already comprehended all she could have said in the way of excuse; and, with true civility, she forbore to make any allusion which might remind him that his unexpected visit had caused them discomfiture or annoyance. Kindred spirits soon understand each other.

The girls were amazed to see their aunt so cool and so much at her ease, when her beautiful hair was pinned up, and her beautiful form disfigured by a large wrapper. But the colonel had penetration enough to perceive that under all these disadvantages she was an elegant woman.

Harriet and Caroline, though longing to join in the conversation, made signs to Sophia not to introduce them to the colonel, as they could not endure the idea of his attention being distinctly attracted towards them; and they perceived that in the fear of adding to their embarrassment he seemed to avoid noticing their presence. But they contrived to exchange signals of approbation at his wearing the staff uniform, with its golden-looking bullet buttons, and its shining star on each extremity of the coat skirts.

Colonel Forrester now began to admire a picture that hung over the piano, and Sophia took a candle and conducted him to it, that while his back was towards them, the girls might have an opportunity of rising and slipping out of the room. Of this lucky chance they instantly and with much adroitness availed themselves, ran up stairs, and in a shorter time than they had ever before changed their dresses, they came back with frocks on, – not, however, the scarlet crape, and the six-flounced muslin, – and with their hair nicely but simply arranged, by parting it on their foreheads in front, and turning it in a band round their combs behind. Sophia introduced them to the colonel, and they were now able to speak; but were still too much discomposed by their recent fright to be very fluent, or much at their ease.

In the mean time, their brother Robert had come home from the theatre; and the boy's eyes sparkled, when, on Miss Clements presenting her nephew, the colonel shook hands with him.

Colonel Forrester began to find it difficult to depart, and he was easily induced to stay and partake of the little collation that was on the table waiting the return of Robert; and the ease and grace with which Sophia did the honours of their petit souper completely charmed him.

In conversation, Colonel Forrester was certainly "both sprightly and sensible." He had read much, seen much, and was peculiarly happy in his mode of expressing himself. Time flew as if

" – birds of paradise had lentTheir plumage to his wings,"

and when the colonel took out his watch and discovered the lateness of the hour, the ladies looked their surprise, and his was denoted by a very handsome compliment to them. He then concluded his visit by requesting permission to resume their acquaintance on his return from Washington.

As soon as he had finally departed, and Robert had locked the door after him, the girls broke out into a rhapsody of admiration, mingled with regret at the state in which he had surprised them, and the entire failure of their first impression, which they feared had not been retrieved by their second appearance in an improved style.

"Well," said Bob, "yours may have been a failure, but I am sure that was not the case with Aunt Sophia. It is plain enough that the colonel's impression of her turned out very well indeed, notwithstanding that she kept on her wrapper, and had her hair pinned up all the time. Aunt Sophy is a person that a man may fall in love with in any dress; that is, a man who has as much sense as herself."

"As I am going to be a midshipman," continued Robert, "there is one thing I particularly like in Colonel Forrester, which is, that he is not in the least jealous of the navy. How handsomely he spoke of the sea-officers!"

"A man of sense and feeling," observed Sophia, "is rarely susceptible of so mean a vice as jealousy."

"How animated he looked," pursued the boy, "when he spoke of Midshipman Hamilton arriving at Washington with the news of the capture of the Macedonian, and going in his travelling dress to Mrs. Madison's ball, in search of his father the secretary of the navy, to show his despatches to him, and the flag of the British frigate to the President, carrying it with him for the purpose. No wonder the dancing ceased, and the ladies cried."

"Did you observe him," said Harriet, "when he talked of Captain Crowninshield going to Halifax to bring home the body of poor Lawrence, in a vessel of his own, manned entirely by twelve sea-captains, who volunteered for the purpose?"

"And did not you like him," said Caroline, "when he was speaking of Perry removing in his boat from the Lawrence to the Niagara, in the thickest of the battle, and carrying his flag on his arm? And when he praised the gallant seamanship of Captain Morris, when he took advantage of a tremendous tempest to sail out of the Chesapeake, where he had been so long blockaded by the enemy, passing fearlessly through the midst of the British squadron, not one of them daring, on account of the storm, to follow him to sea and fight him."