DEAR SISTERS:—We entered the carriage, where Dempster took the front seat, just buried up in his wife's dress, and sat there like an exclamation-point gone astray. As for me, I sat upright and thoughtful, resolved to do my duty in spite of their shortcomings.

We reached a large brick house; before it a line of carriages kept moving like a city funeral, only people were all the time a-getting out and walking under a long tent that sloped down from the front door.

"There will be a full Conference," says I, in my heart, for I was too much riled up by E. E.'s dress for any observation to her.

One thing struck me as peculiar. None of the ladies wore their bonnets, and a good many had white cloaks on, huddled up around them as if they had been going to a party.

If I hadn't known the house belonged to foreign ministers, I really should have thought from the look of things that we had lost our way, and got into somebody's common reception. As it was I got out of the carriage, and went up the steps with my bonnet on, and holding up the train of my pink silk, feeling that so much appendage was out of place.

A colored person in white gloves opened the door, and waving his hand like a Grand Duke—oh, how that word goes to my heart—said:

"Front door, second story."

Another time I should have known that this meant that I could take off my things there. But now I felt almost certain that the ministers were holding a prayer-meeting, or conference, or something in "the front room, second story," so I went upstairs with a slow and solemn tread, feeling that the rustle of my pink silk was almost sacrilege.

I went into the room and looked around. It was full of women, wonderfully dressed women, all in low necks and short sleeves, and white shoes—laughing, giggling women, who looked over each others naked shoulders into a great broad looking-glass crowded full of faces that couldn't seem to admire themselves enough.

I stopped at the door. I scarcely breathed. What could all those rosy-cheeked, bare-armed ladies be doing in that house?

I asked this question, of course, of Cousin Dempster, who came into the hall a-pulling his white gloves on.

"Dempster," says I, in a low voice, "what does this mean? Where are the ministers?"

"Oh, they are in the back room. You didn't expect them to be turned in with the ladies, did you?"

"Well," says I, "it is customary in our State now, though it was not formerly, when the men sat on one side at prayer-meetings, and the girls on the other, but I didn't think that notion had got to foreign parts."

I don't think Dempster heard me clearly, for that minute his wife came out of the room, blazing like the whole milky-way of stars.

"Why, Phoemie," says she, a-holding up both the white kid gloves she had just buttoned on, "you don't mean to go down with that bonnet on?"

"I should think you would be ashamed to go into a conference or a prayer-meeting with it off," says I, severely.

E. E. stared at Dempster, and he stared at her. Then he hitched up his shoulders, and she gave her hands a little toss in the air.

I didn't seem to notice their antics, but went with them downstairs, where I heard the sound of music, which didn't strike me as so sacred as it ought to be. Besides, there was a buzz and a hum like a hive of bees swarming, which was puzzling.

When we went into the great, long room, that seemed running over with light, the crowded state of the congregation astonished me. There wasn't seats enough for one quarter of the worshippers.

Sisters, I was the only one present who had studied the sacred decencies of a bonnet and shawl. The rest were dressed—well, they weren't dressed at all about the arms and shoulders, which shocked me dreadfully; the mere presence of a lot of ministers ought to have made women more decorous.

Would you believe it, the people round the doors stared at me as if they had never seen a beehive bonnet, with feathers floating over it, before.

Some people might have felt shocked at so many eyes turned on them, but I was in the straight and narrow path of duty, and their looks passed by me like the idle wind. If they didn't understand the solemnity of the occasion, I did.

"There is the Minister," says Dempster, "let us pay our respects."

"Why," says I, "there don't seem to be either a reading desk or pulpit here!"

I don't think Dempster heard me, for he began to edge our way through the crowd, till we got clear into the room, which was so full of flowers and lights and music that I began to think the foreign ministers were keeping up Easter-Sunday yet.

A gentleman was standing near the door with some ladies around him. Dempster took us straight up to him.

"Your Excellency," says he, "Miss Frost. Miss Phoemie Frost, of Vermont."

I didn't think that exactly a proper place to be introducing people in, and measured off my bow accordingly, and passed on without troubling myself about the ladies around him, who seemed to wonder at it. As if I wanted to know them!

When we got into the crowd again, I whispered to Dempster:

"Do tell me where the foreign ministers are!"

"The Ministers! Why you have just been presented to the very highest of them," says Dempster.

"What, that man," says I, "with precious stones a-twinkling on his shirt-bosom, and a bit of red ribbon in his button-hole, who seems to have cut up his words with a chopping knife? You couldn't make me believe that, Dempster!"

"But it is, upon my honor, Phoemie; and those gentlemen standing around him are all Ministers, or persons sent out with them. Almost every civilized nation is represented here to-night."

I looked around at the persons Dempster pointed out—some were young, some old, some you could understand, others you couldn't; most of them were talking and laughing with the ladies around them. I didn't see a downright serious face in the whole crowd.

"Them ministers!" I said, scorning Dempster's attempt to deceive me.

"Every one of them is a Minister now, or means to be."

"Dempster, I don't believe you."

"Well, ask some one else whom you can believe," says he, a-turning red. "Here is Miss ——, she can tell you."

I didn't hear the name clear, but Dempster introduced me to a young lady that had just sat down by me.

"Are those men who are chatting and laughing so, really ministers?" says I to her.

"Most of them are; the rest are connected with the Legation," says she. "Elegant, don't you think so?"

Before I could ask her what newfangled society had been got up under the name of Legation, a young gentleman with a round gold glass screwed into one eye, came out from the hive of ministers, and walked toward us, moving along slow and lazy, as if walking were too much for him.

The girl was all in a flutter when she saw him a-coming our way. She looked at me as if I had a seat that she wanted for some one else, but I didn't move; and after shaking out her dress as a cross hen flutters its feathers, she pretended to look the other way, as if she didn't care a mite whether the young minister came up or not.

Oh, the airs some of these school-girls put on is disgusting.

The young divinity student came up with a sort of half-dancing step.

"Miss," says he, a-bowing and chewing up his words as if he'd a piece of sweet flag-root in his mouth, "delighted to—aw—aw—have the honor of seeing you here—am, indeed."

She bowed, she prismed up her mouth, waved her fan a trifle, and says she—

"Of course you ought to have expected me. I am a little exclusive, but always make a point of coming here."

The young—no, he wasn't over young, but did his best to look so. Well, this foreign student just turned his glass on me, his impudent little eye stared right through at my bonnet. Then he looked at that finefied girl, and they both smiled at each other.

This riled me.

Then a couple of young ladies crowded by us, laughing a little. The divinity student turned his glass—eye and all—upon them, then he turned to the young creature by my side, and says he, curling up his wisp of a mustache:

"Now, really, miss, what is the reason all the American young ladies have the manners of chambermaids?"

I felt my Yankee heart spring straight up into my New England mouth; but the foreign snipe wasn't speaking to me, so I sat still and listened for what that young creature would say.

"The manners of chambermaids!" says she, "did you mean that?"

"Really—yes—I think they have, you know."

"Well, I will not contradict you, for you generally are right," says she, as meek as Moses—yes, Moses in the bulrushes, "but not quite all, I hope."

The mean thing couldn't keep from trying to wring a compliment for herself out of this insult to the general American female.

The fellow had sense enough to see what she wanted, and he gave it to her.

"Aw—aw—of course there are a few lovely exceptions, you know," says he, a-bowing so low that his eye-glass dropped out of his poor little eye that looked like a green gooseberry without it. "I speak of American women, generally, as having the manners of chambermaids."

I couldn't hold in one minute more. No coffee-grounds, twice soaked, ever riled up like my temper.

"If you find American ladies acting like chambermaids," says I, "it's because they feel compelled to adapt themselves to the company they are in."

Here I bent my head with a low, dignified bow, and waved my fan with a calm but decided motion.

That little humbug of a young lady looked half scared to death. The divinity student ground his glass into his eye, looked at me from head to foot, and says he:

"Aw, aw!" and walked away.

The girl looked after him as if she wanted to cry, but just then a great whirl of music burst from the next room, and I thought the meeting was about to organize, when a tall fellow, with his mustache quirled up like an ox-horn, came tetering up to the young female by my side.

"May I have the honor?" says he.

The girl turned her head sideways, and rolled up her eyes like a pullet drinking.

"It is a quadrille, Count," says she, "and I never join in one."

"A quadrille, pardonne! You are right. When you daunce—if you daunce—why, of course, you daunce a round daunce."

The fellow flung out his white hands, making a little dive forward with each word; then he saw my face, which must have spoken volumes, and slacked off his antics. I don't think he liked the cut of my smile, for, crooking up his elbow, he leaned forward, and says he:

"May I be honored with a promenade?"

She took his arm, and the two fluttered off into the crowd, which was pouring off into a large room beyond the one we were in.

"The meeting is going to commence now in good earnest," I thought. "I'll try and get a seat where I can hear."

Cousin Dempster and E. E. came up, and I joined in. The lecture-room was long, and lighted up beautifully. Right in front of the door was the singers' gallery, hung round with red cloth, and over that hung great wreaths of flowers, but I saw neither pulpit nor reading-desk.

"Where will the minister be?" I whispered to Cousin Dempster.

"Oh, he will open the ball."

"Open the ball! What do you mean?" says I. "A minister dancing! I won't believe it."

"Why, they all do," says he, innocent as a lamb. "No better dancers in Washington."

Sisters, what do you think of that? Was I to blame when I insisted on leaving that house at once? Would you have had me sit by and witness this degradation? "No," says I to Cousin Dempster, "I won't stay. If ministers of the Gospel will do such things, I, as a New England woman—girl I mean—would be committing a sin to look on."

"But you do not understand. They are Foreign Ministers, sent here by other nations, which they represent."

"So much the worse—how dare they set such examples?" says I.

"Ambassadors! can't you understand?"

"Of course I understand. All ministers are ambassadors from the Lord; but I never heard of their dancing, except that Shaking Quakers do now and then, which is a part of their religion, and they are only elders, anyhow."

"But there is no religion in these things!"

"I should rather think not," says I, a-walking resolutely toward the door. "Now it's of no use explaining and apologizing to me. Dancing ministers ain't of my sort. I'm going right straight home."

Sisters, I went.