sat, overcome with
mortification. At length, I arose, and said with an effort,

"Walk in, ladies! How are you this morning? I'm pleased to see you.
Take chairs. My niece, Mrs. Williams, and Mrs. Glenn. I hope you
will excuse us. We were--"

"Oh, no apologies, Mrs. Smith," returned one of the ladies, with a
quiet smile, and an air of self-possession. "Pardon this intrusion.
We understood the servant that you were not at home."

"Engaged, she meant," said I, a deeper crimson suffusing my face.
"The fact is, we are working for dear life, to get the children
ready for a party to-night, and wished to be excused from seeing any
one."

"Certainly--all right," returned Mrs. Williams, "I merely came in to
say to your domestic (I had forgotten it at the door) that my sister
expected to leave for her home in New York in a day or two, and
would call here with me, to-morrow afternoon."

"I shall be very happy to see her," said I,--"very happy. Do come in
and sit down for a little while. If I had only known it was you."

Now that last sentence, spoken in embarrassment and mental
confusion, was only making matters worse. It placed me in a false
and despicable light before my visitors; for in it was the savor of
hypocrisy, which is foreign to my nature.

"No, thank you," replied my visitors. "Good morning!"

And they retired, leaving me so overcome with shame, mortification,
confusion, and distress, that I burst into tears.

"To think that I should have done such a thing!" was my first
remark, so soon as I had a little recovered my self-possession; and
I looked up, half timidly, into the face of my niece. I shall not
soon forget the expression of surprise and pain that was in her fair
young countenance. I had uttered a falsehood in her presence, and
thus done violence to the good opinion she had formed of me. The
beautiful ideal of her aunt, which had filled her mind, was blurred
over; and her heart was sad in consequence.

"Dear Aggy!" said I, throwing my work upon the floor, and bending
earnestly towards her.--"Don't think too meanly of me for this
little circumstance. I never was guilty of that thing before--never!
And well have I been punished for my thoughtless folly I spoke from
impulse, and not reflection, when I told Mary to say that I was not
at home, and repented of what I had done almost as soon as the words
passed my lips."

Agnes looked at me for some moments, until her eyes filled with
tears. Then she said