PRESENTED AT COURT.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2272, 14 July 1881, Page 4

PRESENTED AT COURT.

Have my readers ever thought they would like to attend a drawing-room and be presented at Court ? Then they will read with interest the following account of a first presentation. We will suppose all the momentous questions of dress and toilette have been settled, and that the weary waitings in a close and stuffy carriage are over. At length yon are within the palace, and form one of a welldressed mob patiently waiting, like Sunday school girls at a treat, for the signal to “move on.” At lost it comes. “The crowd moved on. We were all getting tired, so we began to push just like a common mob. Mamma and I got on very well, because she is tall and I have sharp elbows, but one lady sat down, ,and then another, in the surging flood of people, collapsed into her lap. Apparently she found it comfortable, for she did not attempt to move, until the human cushion remarked plaintively, “ Please get up —I did not come hero to nurse you.’ We all tittered like so many school-girls ; in fact, the whole exhibition was very childish. Then we began to push and shove harder than ever. I gathered up all my skirts and set to work with a will. The pin of my veil came out, and my bracelet with a bit of Charlie’s hair in it fell off. It was such a scramble to find it. Just then a lady fainted. She was a poor, pale-looking creature, and was hustled by some of the attendants into another room. And now we were close.

“One by one wo uncurled our tails,and the trains were spread out behind ns—‘To be presented.’ I saw a gorgeous official, who took my card ; an ocean of black plumes and rustling robes and sparkle of diamonds half blinded me. I 'made a confused curtsey, and struggled to kiss the Queen’s hand, or she kissed mine, I really can’t tell which ; made another curtsey, heard a kind of dim murmur like the sea all round me, when suddenly my train was thrown unceremoniously over my arm, and I was almost pushed out. It was over. In that brief moment I received my brevet rank of young lady at the Queen’s hands, and had inhaled the atmosphere of royalty. It was very awful, and I was very glad to stand still and smooth my ruffled plumes. “ Mamma said I had got through it very well. My shoe was half off, my gown torn, my hair untidy, my flowers crushed, my veil unpinned, and my arms scratched and bleeding; so it must have been a very|severo skirmish, and I almost felt to have deserved the Victoria Cross. I don’t think I was in a worse plight the day my horse made a mistake and I fell into a ditch full of brambles, to be sure a habit is more trustworthy than a court dress, but then I cut my nose. “ We talked a little, stared a little, and then made the best of our way to the exit. Then began the pleasures of society. With a cutting wind, almost sweeping us away, wo sat shivering on the marble steps waiting for two long hours. Men looked fussed and flurried, and called excitedly for their wives’ carriages. Women looked pale, and cross, and tired, and old dowagers grumbled incessantly. Mamma began to scold me—she always does when she is bored —and no one had time to attend to us. I saw some lovely dresses on ugly people and beautiful jewels on old ones, and I think that beauty unadorned is not adorned the most. We got home about six o’clock. Mamma had tea and fell asleep, and I made up my mind that a gallop out hunting was worth ton Drawing rooms ; but then, of course, I am only a girl, and don’t know much of life, but I’m more determined than ever, if I can’t have Charlie, to marry nobody but a sporting squire.”—V,,in the “Whitehall Review.”