"
I took the trouble to give my American friend a lengthy description of
our drawing-room receptions, in which she became ardently interested,
never interrupting me until I had come to the end. She then surprised
me with the question.
"Don't you have any refreshments?" put in a high key.
"Not until we get home," said I laughing. "The ceremony is virtually
over when the people have been presented."
This rather disappointed her, I am afraid, but what could I do? She
dismissed the subject summarily by touching upon another new one--that
of our winter sports. I had to describe the tobogganing costumes,
their effect at night when bonfires were burning in the vicinity of
the hills, the sensation of going down, and the excitement of trudging
back again to the top. She listened admirably and seemed thoroughly
appreciative of my generous effort to entertain her. When I had
finished, she remarked very quietly.
"It must be real nice, and ever such good fun, but I could never try
it. It would smother me right there--I'm always under doctors' orders,
you know," she added in a subdued, confidential whisper, "I've got
seven diseases?"
"Have you indeed?" I exclaimed in genuine consternation. "You don't
look as if you had," I continued by way of encouragement, but without
effect, for she interrupted me, fretfully saying:
"Oh, yes I do! Anyone would know I had anaemia, I am so pale, and
dyspepsia, for I eat so few things, and such a little at a time; then
there's dyscrasia, comes from poverty of the blood, and my
palpitations, that prevent me from having any pleasures worth calling
so, besides these," she added, putting her reckoning finger upon her
thumb, "I suffer from neuralgia, and acute rheumatism, and," (on the
second finger of the other, hand, which represented seven) "an
inflammation of the spine.
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