Her Letter, His Answer & Her Last Letter

HER LETTER

 
I'm sitting alone by the fire,
Dressed just as I came from the dance,
In a robe even you would admire, —
It cost a cool thousand in France;
I'm be-diamonded out of all reason,
My hair is done up in a cue:
In short, sir, "the belle of the season"
Is wasting an hour upon you.
 
 
A dozen engagements I've broken;
I left in the midst of a set;
Likewise a proposal, half spoken,
That waits – on the stairs – for me yet.
They say he'll be rich, – when he grows up, —
And then he adores me indeed;
And you, sir, are turning your nose up,
Three thousand miles off, as you read.
 
 
"And how do I like my position?"
"And what do I think of New York?"
"And now, in my higher ambition,
With whom do I waltz, flirt, or talk?"
"And isn't it nice to have riches,
And diamonds and silks, and all that?"
"And aren't they a change to the ditches
And tunnels of Poverty Flat?"
 
 
Well, yes, – if you saw us out driving
Each day in the Park, four-in-hand,
If you saw poor dear mamma contriving
To look supernaturally grand, —
If you saw papa's picture, as taken
By Brady, and tinted at that, —
You'd never suspect he sold bacon
And flour at Poverty Flat.
 
 
And yet, just this moment, when sitting
In the glare of the grand chandelier, —
In the bustle and glitter befitting
The "finest soirée of the year," —
In the mists of a gaze de Chambéry,
And the hum of the smallest of talk, —
Somehow, Joe, I thought of the "Ferry,"
And the dance that we had on "The Fork;"
 
 
Of Harrison's barn, with its muster
Of flags festooned over the wall;
Of the candles that shed their soft lustre
And tallow on head-dress and shawl;
Of the steps that we took to one fiddle,
Of the dress of my queer vis-à-vis;
And how I once went down the middle
With the man that shot Sandy McGee;
 
 
Of the moon that was quietly sleeping
On the hill, when the time came to go;
Of the few baby peaks that were peeping
From under their bedclothes of snow;
Of that ride, – that to me was the rarest;
Of – the something you said at the gate.
Ah! Joe, then I wasn't an heiress
To "the best-paying lead in the State."