age, and the touching of them up previously,
was a task of no inconsiderable difficulty or importance.

'There was a very snug little party, consisting of Maria Lobbs and her
cousin Kate, and three or four romping, good-humoured, rosy-cheeked
girls. Nathaniel Pipkin had ocular demonstration of the fact, that the
rumours of old Lobbs's treasures were not exaggerated. There were the
real solid silver teapot, cream-ewer, and sugar-basin, on the table, and
real silver spoons to stir the tea with, and real china cups to drink it
out of, and plates of the same, to hold the cakes and toast in. The only
eye-sore in the whole place was another cousin of Maria Lobbs's, and a
brother of Kate, whom Maria Lobbs called "Henry," and who seemed to
keep Maria Lobbs all to himself, up in one corner of the table. It's
a delightful thing to see affection in families, but it may be carried
rather too far, and Nathaniel Pipkin could not help thinking that Maria
Lobbs must be very particularly fond of her relations, if she paid as
much attention to all of them as to this individual cousin. After tea,
too, when the wicked little cousin proposed a game at blind man's buff,
it somehow or other happened that Nathaniel Pipkin was nearly always
blind, and whenever he laid his hand upon the male cousin, he was sure
to find that Maria Lobbs was not far off. And though the wicked little
cousin and the other girls pinched him, and pulled his hair, and pushed
chairs in his way, and all sorts of things, Maria Lobbs never seemed to
come near him at all; and once--once--Nathaniel Pipkin could have sworn
he heard the sound of a kiss, followed by a faint remonstrance from
Maria Lobbs, and a half-suppressed laugh from her female friends. All
this was odd--very odd--and there is no saying what Nathaniel Pipkin
might or might not have done, in consequence, if his thoughts had not
been suddenly directed into a new channel.

'The circumstance which directed his thoughts into a new channel was
a loud knocking at the street door, and the person who made this loud
knocking at the street door was no other than old Lobbs himself, who had
unexpectedly returned, and was hammering away, like a coffin-maker;
for he wanted his supper. The alarming intelligence was no sooner
communicated by the bony apprentice with the thin legs, than the girls
tripped upstairs to Maria Lobbs's bedroom, and the male cousin
and Nathaniel Pipkin were thrust into a couple of closets in the
si