"
"That handkerchief, Mrs. Sandford--" Hamilton, said softly.
"Yes. Frederica, your hand with the pocket-handkerchief,--it is not
quite the thing."
"Why not?"
"You hold it like a New York lady."
"How _should_ I hold it?"
"Like a French queen, whose Austrian fingers may hold anything any way."
This was Hamilton's dictum.
"But how _do_ I hold it?"
"You have picked it up in the middle, and shew all the flower work in
the corners."
"You hold it too daintily, Frederica," said Theresa. "You must grasp
it--grasp it loosely--but as the distinguished critic who has last
spoken has observed."
Frederica dropped her handkerchief, and picked it up again exactly as
she had it before.
"Try again--" said Mrs. Sandford. "Grasp it, as Theresa says. Never mind
how you are taking it up."
"Must I throw it down again?"
"If you please."
"Take it up any way but in the middle," said Hamilton.
Down went the handkerchief on a chair, and then Frederica's fingers took
it up, delicately, and with a little shake displayed as before what
Hamilton called the flowers in the corners. It was the same thing. They
all smiled.
"She can't hold a handkerchief any but the one way--I don't believe,"
said her brother Alexander.
"Isn't it right?" said Frederica.
"Perfect, I presume, for Madison Square or Fifth Avenue--but not exactly
for a revolutionary tribunal," said Hamilton.
"What is the difference?"
"Ah, that is exactly what it is so hard to get at.
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