heard
the garden gate swing, and beheld Mrs. Edson approaching in her little
white sun-bonnet and spotted muslin dressing-gown, open from the waist
downwards, revealing a fine cambric skirt, wrought in several rows of
vines and deep scolloped edges. Mrs. Stanhope met her visitor on the
porch.

"Good-morning," said she, extending her hand; "I am happy to see
you:--how beautiful and eloquent you are looking!"

"O, this glorious, sweet-breathed morning, with its birds and flowers,
is enough to brighten the most torpid thing into animation!" exclaimed
Louise, grasping her friend's hand warmly. "You don't know how I love
everything and everybody to-day, Mrs. Stanhope," she continued, in a
tone of earnest enthusiasm, as she entered the little parlor, still
holding the good woman by one hand, while she extended the other to
Miss Pinkerton, who rose from her work to receive her, and drew an
old-fashioned, straight-backed rocking-chair, cushioned and lined with
gay copperplate, up before the window for her comfort. "I must not sit
long," said Louise, assuming the proffered seat, "for I have left my
house quite alone; the servants having gone out on errands for
themselves. I tried one thing and another to divert myself, but the
birds sang so sweetly, the sun was so bright, and everything seemed to
say, up and away. So I donned my sun-bonnet and ran over here as the
nicest, quietest little nook I could fly to; and where I should be as
welcome in my morning-gown as in full dress of ruffles and satins."

"And even more so, if possible," answered Mrs. Stanhope; "simple people
like us are always a good deal put out and embarrassed by grandeur and
display. It has something awful and unapproachable in our eyes."

"It has something servile and contemptible in mine," said Louise; "I
always shrink from a woman flaunted out in rustling silks, great,
glaring rings on her fingers, and alarming jewels swinging like
ponderous pendulums from her ears. I think what a poor, little, pinched,
narrow-contracted, poverty-stricken soul is there, that seeks to atone
for the lack within, by rigging her poor body out like a veritable queen
of harlots."

Mrs. Stanhope and Miss Martha burst into a cordial fit of laughter, as
Louise, with a good deal of spirit and sarcasm, delivered herself of the
preceding speech; and, before their merriment had subsided, a knock was
heard at the inner door, and Col. Malcome stepped in, bowing gracefully,
with a pleas