cheerful cosmopolitan must have been dining with Mr. Midas, and must
have sat much too long at table. What a pity that so pleasant a man
should permit himself such excesses! There was, however, but one
course for a self-respecting woman to pursue--Mrs. Grundy had left him
alone.




DICKENS READING. [1867.]


When, hereafter, some chance traveller picks up this odd number of an
old magazine and opens to this very page, let him know that the
evening of Dickens's first reading in New York was bright with
moonlight veiled in a soft gray snow-cloud. The crowd at the entrance
was not large. The speculators in tickets were not troublesome,
because all the tickets had been long sold. The police, as usual, were
polite and efficient; and going up the steep staircase, and passing
through the single door, we were all quietly and pleasantly seated by
eight o'clock. The floor of Steinway Hall is level, so that the
audience is lost to itself; but it was easy for all of us to perceive,
by scanning our neighbors, that we were a very fine body of people. At
least everybody who was present said so. We all remarked that the
intelligence and distinction of the city were present, and that it
must be extremely gratifying to Mr. Dickens to be welcomed by the most
intellectual and appreciative audience that could be assembled in New
York.

The details of the arrangement upon the platform, the screen behind,