orse
than all, even the mirror made similar reflections a little--the only
difference being that the ladies and gentlemen said so behind her back,
but the mirror expressed it before her face. One by one her sisters and
companions ripened and were plucked by the admiring crowd, but Ann
Harriet remained untouched. No one even pinched her to see if she were
good. And finally, as the throng were rapidly passing on, it became her
settled conviction that she must shake herself into some one's hands, or
she would be left to wither forsaken on the ancestral tree.

Ann Harriet, like some patent medicines, was not bad to take. True,
children did not cry for her as they did for the famous cough lozenges
of old; but the fact was, that in Peonytown most of the people were
homoeopathists, and preferred small doses; therefore Ann Harriet, who
was popularly reported to weigh three hundred and one pounds--_vires
acquirit eundo_--was altogether too large a dose for any gentleman of
the homoeopathic persuasion. Possibly, if Ann Harriet could have been
divided into twin sisters of about one hundred and fifty pounds each,
her matrimonial chances would have greatly increased; for however it may
have been in years past, this putting two volumes into one is not at all
popular at the present _duo_-decimal time.

Business, too, was dull in Peonytown, and the men could not afford to
marry a wife who would require twenty-five yards for a dress, when they
could get one that ten yards would cover up.

Miss Hobbs's twenty-sixth birthday was approaching. She could see it in
the dim distance, and she knew too well that the twenty-seventh was
ready to follow it up; and that Time stepped heavier than he used
to--the clumsy fellow; for, 'handsome' as she was, she could see the
marks of his feet on her face.

Ann Harriet had an uncle residing in Boston, whom she had never seen,
but had often heard him favorably spoken of by her mother, whose only
brother he was. Ann therefore determined that she would write to her
Uncle Farnsworth, and ask him if it would be agreeable should she visit
him for a few weeks.

Her letter met with a cordial response from the old gentleman, who
expressed himself 'highly gratified at the prospect' of seeing his
sister's daughter; named the day for her to come, and said that Gregory,
his son, would meet her at the railroad station in Boston, when the
train arrived.

Ann Harriet had never been in Boston, and the thoughts of