Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 July 1878 — Drinking Brandy in England. [ARTICLE]

Drinking Brandy in England.

I took the train to Birmingham at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. My carriage companion was a beautiful woman, and her beauty impressed me the mare because of its delicate character, and because she was the first really pretty woman of her class that I had yet seen in England. She was just tall enough to be noticeably so, and the noble elegance of her figure could not be concealed by her traveling dress. This was a long garment of a soft texture and light color, buttoned from the throat to the lower hem with buttons of the same tint as that of the dress. Her hat, or her bonnet, was also of the same material, and without ornament of any kind. In her dainty ears were small dull-gold earrings, set with turquoises, which were matched by the brooch which confined the lace frill around her lovely throat. Her eyes were blue, her brow fair; her mouth had the child-like sweetness which Murillo gave to the lips of his virgins; in expression her face was cherubic. She apparently had no other luggage than a small Russia leather bag, which she put into the rack above our heads. We sat in silence, for there was no occasion for my speaking to her, and she looked mostly out of the window.

After we had passed one or two stations she took down the little hand-bag, opened it, took ont a bottle and a small silver cup, and, turning herself somewhat more to the window, poured something into the cup and drank it off at a draught. 1 did not see what she drank, but in an instant I knew. The perfume filled the whole carnage. It was brandy; and the overpowering odor with which I was surrounded told me of the strength of her draught as well as if I had mixed her grog myself, or had joined her in a sociable cup. At this I was not so much astonished as I should have been two or three days before, for at the Birmingham festival I had seen, during the interval between the two parts of a morning performance, potations of the same kind by ladies of whose respectability there could be no question.— Atlantic Month' ly jor July.