Page:A hairdresser's experience in high life.djvu/212

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214
a hair-dresser's experience

there to suffer unheard of tortures, too great to admit of their coming before the public view.

I must confess it was to me more of a disgusting than amusing sight, to see children, not more than one year old, led up by their parents, young boys, ladies and gentlemen, all going up to Kossuth, with from one to fifty dollars each to present to him as a token of their good will, and to show their sympathy with his oppressed country—while Kossuth, as I said before, did not seem to mind the speeches they made, so that he got the money from them.

There was stopping at the Burnet House a lady of great wealth; unlike most ladies, she did not dress and dash about, but, like all good mothers, took care of her children. She was in the hotel some four weeks, and none of the ladies looked at her, or seemed to notice her at all.

There was a meeting of the ladies every week—they met in the different ladies' rooms, to make clothes for orphans and poor children—and on these occasions they would have a regular frolic; and the ladies who came to stay the season, or any length of time, would by that means get acquainted with each other.

One day, after the meeting was over, I went to comb one of my ladies; another lady was in the room while I was at my work. I asked how it happened there was a lady in the house extremely wealthy, of high standing and good family, to whom they paid not the slightest attention. "Why," said one of the ladies, "I did not know there was any such person in the house." I then mentioned two or three of the families of high standing that she visited in the city.

The two ladies were considerably astonished, and,