When father had written his sermon he resumed work on an unfinished
volume of historical sketches which he prepared for future
publication.
Meantime mother, who was busy with a pleasanter task was
correspondingly cheerful. She altered father's "Prince Albert" into a
stately full-dress coat, ripping up its waist-seams, and pinned back
the skirts of the coat into the proper claw-hammer shape.
Then she took that other garment which goes with the long waistcoat
and the full-dress coat of a courtier's suit, in hand.
This article had not been mentioned before by anyone, as there was a
goodly supply of it known to be in mother's wardrobe. Deftly cutting
the lace away, a few inches above the knees she placed some
mother-of-pearl buttons and bows of ribbons and with few stitches
fashioned a beautiful pair of courtier's small clothes, or
knickerbockers, for father's use.
Father had begun a description of the battle of Waterloo, for nothing
so touched a responsive chord in his mind as the recording of a most
fearful catastrophe, the direst calamity known to history, nor served
as well to alleviate by comparison his mind's distress and
mortification.
Just as he wrote the sentence, "Alas for Napoleon, here set his lucky
star; not only was his misfortune repeated, but also his final
downfall accomplished when Blucher's tardy cavalry appeared on the
field, turning the tide of battle in favor of the British"--in came
mother with happy, triumphant laughter, unfolding and flaunting to
the breeze the so anxiously wished-for full-dress suit.
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