spend all the morning with Mrs. Skates, congratulating her on having emerged from a living burial in the country, welcoming her to the unutterable delights of a city life, and giving her lessons in gentility, while Mr. Skates went out into the street to look up some kind of “genteel business;” for he was made distinctly to under stand, that none other would answer his purpose, though his simple ideas were at the lowest possible ends concerning the boundary lines between a genteel and an ungenteel occupation. But Sophronia assured him that such as he was in pursuit of was “plenty as quails,” and he supposed it must be of course, if he had only been sufficiently acquainted in the city to know where to look for it. Everywhere he inquired he was informed by the industrious and laborious business men, that “they did not keep the article,” and he came to his hotel from his unsuccessful tour quite discouraged and disheartened. But he was soon called to forget his ill success in obtaining employment, by the necessity of preparation for dinner. Cousin Sophronia had apprised Mrs. Skates that “folks did not dress much for breakfast, but dinner at hotels and fashionable bordin’ houses” was a great affair, and conducted with a marvellous display of state and ceremony—that they must be dressed in their very best and gayest clothes, and be on the alert to “see just how other folks did,” or coming from the country so fresh, they would be liable to some gross violations of dinner-table etiquette, and the “folks would think so strange of it.”
Katy felt less apprehension for her own ability to manage than she did for her husband and children. Mr. Skates was mortally awkward, there was no disputing, and the children would be most likely to do as children always will behave worst when they are put upon their best behaviour—cry when it is indispensable they should be quiet,—seize upon things they should let alone, and sometimes, by the simplest prattle, uncover family secrets it takes the practised ingenuity of parents to conceal—the plain-spoken little wretches!
Mr. Skates was sent to the barber to get himself shaved after the most approved fashion, and then he was trimmed out in his new suit of blue broadcloth, with his fancy silk vest and his new blue
