The principal of the school, Miss Eudoxia Tish—­associated with—­er—­er—­Miss Prinkwell—­is—­er—­remarkably gifted woman; and as I was present at one of the school exercises, I had the opportunity of testifying to her excellence in—­er—­short address I made to the young ladies.”  From such glittering but unsatisfying generalities as these I prefer to turn to the real interview, gathered from contemporary witnesses.

It was the usual cloudless, dazzling, Californian summer day, tempered with the asperity of the northwest trades that Miss Tish, looking through her window towards the rose-embowered gateway of the seminary, saw an extraordinary figure advancing up the avenue.  It was that of a man slightly past middle age, yet erect and jaunty, whose costume recalled the early water-color portraits of her own youthful days.  His tightly buttoned blue frock coat with gilt buttons was opened far enough across the chest to allow the expanding of a frilled shirt, black stock, and nankeen waistcoat, and his immaculate white trousers were smartly strapped over his smart varnished boots.  A white bell-crowned hat, carried in his hand to permit the wiping of his forehead with a silk handkerchief, and a gold-headed walking stick hooked over his arm, completed this singular equipment.  He was followed, a few paces in the rear, by a negro carrying an enormous bouquet, and a number of small boxes and parcels tied up with ribbons.  As the figure paused before the door, Miss Tish gasped, and cast a quick restraining glance around the classroom.  But it was too late; a dozen pairs of blue, black, round, inquiring, or mischievous eyes were already dancing and gloating over the bizarre stranger through the window.

“A cirkiss—­or nigger minstrels—­sure as you’re born!” said Mary Frost, aged nine, in a fierce whisper.

“No!—­a agent from ‘The Emporium,’ with samples,” returned Miss Briggs, aged fourteen.

“Young ladies, attend to your studies,” said Miss Tish, as the servant brought in a card.  Miss Tish glanced at it with some nervousness, and read to herself, “Colonel Culpeper Starbottle,” engraved in script, and below it in pencil, “To see Miss Pansy Stannard, under favor of Miss Tish.”  Rising with some perturbation, Miss Tish hurriedly intrusted the class to an assistant, and descended to the reception room.  She had never seen Pansy’s guardian before (the executor had brought the child); and this extraordinary creature, whose visit she could not deny, might be ruinous to school discipline.  It was therefore with an extra degree of frigidity of demeanor that she threw open the door of the reception room, and entered majestically.  But to her utter astonishment, the colonel met her with a bow so stately, so ceremonious, and so commanding that she stopped, disarmed and speechless.