summer season.

"It is too large a sum to throw away now. So I think you had all
better conclude at once not to go from home this summer," said Mr.
Ludlow.

A gush of tears from Emily and Adeline followed this annunciation,
accompanied by a look of decided disapprobation from the mother. Mr.
Ludlow felt deeply tried, and for some moments his resolution
wavered; but reason came to his aid, and he remained firm. He was
accounted a very rich merchant. In good times, he had entered into
business, and prosecuted it with great energy. The consequence was,
that he had accumulated money rapidly. The social elevation
consequent upon this, was too much for his wife. Her good sense
could not survive it. She not only became impressed with the idea,
that, because she was richer, she was better than others, but that
only such customs were to be tolerated in "good society," as were
different from prevalent usages in the mass. Into this idea her two
eldest daughters were thoroughly inducted. Mr. Ludlow, immersed in
business, thought little about such matters, and suffered himself to
be led into almost anything that his wife and daughters proposed.
But Mrs. Ludlow's brother--Uncle Joseph, as he was called--a
bachelor, and a man of strong common sense, steadily opposed his
sister in her false notions, but with little good effect. Necessity
at last called into proper activity the good sense of Mr. Ludlow,
and he commenced the opposition that has just been noticed. After
reflecting some time upon the matter, he resolved not to assent to
his family leaving home at all during the summer.

All except Florence were exceedingly distressed at this. She
acquiesced with gentleness and patience, although she had much
desired to spend a few weeks at Saratoga. But Mrs. Ludlow, Emily,
and Adeline, closed up the front part of the house, and gave
directions to the servants not to answer the door bell, nor to do
anything that would give the least suspicion that the family were in
town. Then ensconcing themselves in the back buildings of their
dwelling, they waited in gloomy indolence for the "out of the city"
season to pass away; consoling themselves with the idea, that if
they were not permitted to join the fashionables at the Springs, it
would at lest be supposed that they had gone some where into the
country, and thus they hoped to escape the terrible penalty of
losing _caste_ for not conforming to an indispensable rule of high
life.

Mr. Ludlo