I never saw a large party of
prettier or better chosen toilettes. The dresses were generally of rich
brocaded silk, but there was nothing to criticise, and all were in
perfect taste. We assembled in a long drawing-room carpeted, and
sufficiently supplied with chairs, but there being neither tables nor
curtains, the room had rather a bare appearance, though it was well
lighted and looked brilliant. Towards ten o'clock we were handed into
the dining-room, where there was a standing supper of oysters,--the
"institution" of oysters as they justly call it,--hot quails, ham, ices,
and most copious supplies of their beloved Catawba champagne, which we
do not love, for it tastes, to our uninitiated palates, little better
than cider. It was served in a large red punch-bowl of Bohemian glass in
the form of Catawba cobbler, which I thought improved it; but between
the wine and the quails, which, from over hospitable kindness, were
forced on poor papa, he awoke the next morning with a bad headache, and
did not get rid of it all day.
The weather during our stay at Cincinnati was so wet that, with the
exception of a drive which Mr. Anderson took us to some little distance
on the heights above, and a long visit which we paid to the school under
Mr. King's auspices, we had little out-door work to occupy us.
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