his head
supported on his hands, she exclaimed, "What does this mean?" Mr. Pimble
looked up vacantly; Peggy turned round from her occupation of washing the
dinner dishes, and Dilly kept to her wash-tub. No one seemed to
understand to whom the stately mistress addressed her brief
interrogatory. "Have you all lost your tongues?" at length exclaimed Mrs.
Pimble, in a louder tone; and, seizing her husband's chair, she gave it a
rough jerk, and demanded, "Are you dumb, Peter Pimble? What is that
beggar-woman,"--pointing toward Dilly,--"doing here?"

"Don't you see she is washing?" returned the husband, rather ironically.

"Well, by whose leave?"

"Mine."

"Yours?--and why have you brought a washerwoman into the house in my
absence, and without my permission?"

"Because all my linen was dirty."

"What if it was?"

"I wanted it washed."

"What for?"

"Because the spring courts are held in Olneyville next week."

"What if they are?"

"I would like to attend."

"You would, would you? No doubt, and confine me at home to superintend
the domestic affairs. No, Mr. Pimble, you don't enslave me in that
manner. I'm a free woman, and acknowledge no man master. I'll see if I'm
not mistress in my own house. Here, Dilly Danforth, take your hands out
of that wash-tub, and pack off home, instanter. There will be no more
washing done in my house to-day, or ever again, unless I order it done.
And you, Peggy Nonce, make a pea soup and broil a nice steak, with all
the appropriate dishes, and have a dinner prepared in half an hour, to
serve myself and guests."

There was an instant commotion in the kitchen, and the mistress swept
back to her guests in the parlor.

CHAPTER III.

"She is a saucy wench,
Somewhat o'er full
Of pranks, I think--but then with growing years
She will outgrow her mischief and become
As staid and sober as our hearts could choose."

OLD PLAY.

Mr. Salsify Mumbles was a grocer in a small way, and his good wife took
boarders,--young ladies and gentlemen from different parts of the
country, who came to attend Cedar Hill Seminary, a school of high repute
and extended celebrity. Her number was limited to three this summer,
because she conceived her health to be delicate, and because Mr. Salsify
had communicated to her in private that he was certainly