the remark founded thereon. Continuing her attitude of
attention, she overheard Mrs. Crane and her two daughters conversing in
the attiring-room, up one flight.

"How fine everything is in the great house!" said Mrs. Crane,--"jest
look at the picters!"

"Matildy Sprowle's drawin's," said Ada Azuba, the eldest daughter.

"I should think so," said Mahala Crane, her younger sister,--a
wide-awake girl, who had n't been to school for nothing, and performed a
little on the lead pencil herself. "I should like to know whether that's
a hay-cock or a mountain!"

Miss Matilda winced; for this must refer to her favorite monochrome,
executed by laying on heavy shadows and stumping them down into mellow
harmony,--the style of drawing which is taught in six lessons, and the
kind of specimen which is executed in something less than one hour.
Parents and other very near relatives are sometimes gratified with these
productions, and cause them to be framed and hung up, as in the present
instance.

"I guess we won't go down jest yet," said Mrs. Crane, "as folks don't
seem to have come."

So she began a systematic inspection of the dressing-room and its
conveniences.

"Mahogany four-poster;--come from the Jordans', I cal'la,te. Marseilles
quilt. Ruffles all round the piller. Chintz curtings,--jest put up,--o'
purpose for the party, I'll lay ye a dollar.--What a nice washbowl!"
(Taps it with a white knuckle belonging to a red finger.) "Stone
chaney.--Here's a bran'-new brush and comb,--and here's a scent-bottle.
Come here, girls, and fix yourselves in the glass, and scent your
pocket-handkerchers."

And Mrs. Crane bedewed her own kerchief with some of the eau de Cologne
of native manufacture,--said on its label to be much superior to the
German article.

It was a relief to Mrs. and the Miss Cranes when the bell rang and the
next guests were admitted. Deacon and Mrs. Soper,--Deacon Soper of
the Rev. Mr. Fairweather's church, and his lady. Mrs. Deacon Soper was
directed, of course, to the ladies' dressing-room, and her husband to
the other apartment, where gentlemen were to leave their outside
coats and hats. Then came Mr. and Mrs. Briggs, and then the three Miss
Spinneys, then Silas Peckham, Head of the Apollinean Institute, and Mrs.
Peckham, and more after them, until at last the ladies' dressing-room
got so full that one might have thought it was a trap none of them could
get out of. In truth, they all felt a little awkwardly. N