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Love, or the Countess and the Serf, by J. Sheridan Knowles I see that still as the blazonry of one of them, just as I see Miss Emily Mestayer, large, red in the face, coifed in a tangle of small, fine, damp-looking short curls and clad in a light-blue garment edged with swans-down, shout at the top of her lungs that a "pur-r-r-se of gold" would be the fair guerdon of the minion who should start on the spot to do her bidding at some desperate crisis that I forget.
She moved to the door and opened it, and as she did so a knock sounded along the tiny passage from the door that opened into the street. Eileen Cavendish was busy in front of the glass, and half turned, holding a diminutive powder-box in one hand and a scrap of swans-down in the other. "Yes," they heard the voice of Mrs. Gascoigne saying in the passage, "I'm here is that for me?"
Her slippers were white kid, her gloves had just a cream tint, and Miss Cynthia brought her own opera cloak, which was light brocaded silk, wadded and edged with swans-down. Joe looked just splendid, the little girl decided. If she could only have seen Dolly! The Beekman coach was sent up for Margaret, who kissed her little sister and went off like Cinderella!
As their chief spoke loudly, Marcus caught sight through the haze of snow which seemed to hold the darkness of night above, the head of a column of the foot soldiers making a steady advance, looking as if they were wearing a fresh form of decoration, every man's helmet plume being increased in size by a trimming of the purest, whitest swans-down or filmy, flocculent silver itself.
The Indian priest then stepped forward and poured upon her head the oil of venison, and placed a crown of roses, intermixed with swans-down, to give it a snowy-white appearance, and crowned her, in the name of the tribe, Queen of Niagara. "A more beautiful or graceful being could not be found to offer up her life for her friends.
An entire grove of palm-trees in tubs reared their foliage in this hall, and in their midst was seated a gigantic Buddha in gold. At the foot of the god sat a shabbily dressed old woman reading the Bible. I was still dazzled by these many marvels when the purple hangings were raised and Miss Morgan appeared in a white peignoir trimmed with swans-down.
On her head she wore a small net of the finest golden filigree, and her tiny feet were thrust into a pair of bright blue slippers bordered with swans-down. "Am I to come back?" her obedient father had asked. But he had been told not to come back, not quite at present. "It is not that I want your absence," she had said, "but he may.
She had some sort of scarlet pelisse with white swans-down about her neck, and she held the reins slack in her hands, while the pony wandered from side to side of the road as the fancy took him. Each time the chaise swayed, her head with the great hat swayed also, so that sometimes we saw the crown of it and sometimes the brim. "What a dreadful sight!" cried my mother.
She was enveloped from head to foot in a cloak of something like swans-down covering her whole figure, loose, like the ordinary outer garments of both sexes, and gathered in at the waist by a narrow zone of silver, with a sort of clasp of some bright green jewel; and a veil of white satin-looking material covered the whole head and face, and fell half-way to the waist.
She would have embarked in a noble barge, and lain upon couches of swans-down, and ample awnings of silk would have sheltered her from the sun, while the beautiful craft floated away down the river, its crimson hangings here and there just touching the rippling waters. "Ought we to take tickets?"
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