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162 



AUDUBON 



kindness of manner, life in his eye, and benevolence in 

 his heart. My case was soon explained ; he took my 

 paper, read it, and said if I would allow him to keep it, 

 he would make one or two alterations and return it in 

 good time. Back to my lodgings and hungry by this 

 time, and cooled off, my mind relieved, my painting 

 finished, I dressed more carefully and walked to the 

 Royal Institution, and was pleased at seeing there a good 

 deal of company. But the disagreeable part of my day 

 is yet to come. I had to dine at Professor Graham's,' it 

 was five o'clock when I reached there, a large assembly 

 of ladies and gentlemen were there, and I was intro- 

 duced to Mrs. Graham only, by some oversight I am sure, 

 but none the less was my position awkward. There I 

 stood, motionless as a Heron, and when I dared, gazed 

 about me at my surroundings, but no one came near me. 

 There I stood and thought of the concert at Manchester; 

 but there was this difference : there I was looked at rudely, 

 here I was with polite company ; so I waited patiently for 

 a change of situation, and the change came. A woman, 

 aye, an angel, spoke to me in such a quiet, easy way that in 

 a few moments my mal aise was gone ; then the ringing 

 of a bell summoned us to the dining-room ; I sat near the 

 blue satin lady (for her name I do not know) who came 



to my rescue, and a charming young lady, Miss M , was 



my companion. But the sumptuous dinners of this coun- 

 try are too much for me. They are so long, so long, that 

 I recall briefer meals that I have had, Vt'ith much more 

 enjoyment than I eat the bountiful fare before me. This 

 is not a goUter with friend Bourgeat on the Flat Lake, 

 roasting the orange-fleshed Ibis, and a few sun-perch; 

 neither is it on the heated banks of Thompson's Creek, on 

 the Fourth of July, swallowing the roasted eggs of a large 

 Soft-shelled Turtle ; neither was I at Henderson, at good 



1 Robert Graham, Scottish physician and botanist, bom at Stirling, 17861 

 died at Edinburgh, 1845. 



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