"rising in his
profession;" and the quick-sighted lady foresaw the day speedily
approaching when she would no longer be obliged to perplex herself with
so ungrateful a class of beings as boarders, but should roll through the
streets of Wimbledon in her coach and four, the "observed of all
observers."

Mrs. Mumbles had one fair daughter, Mary Madeline, upon whom she doted
with true maternal fondness. This young lady was most perversely inclined
to smile upon one Mr. Dick Giblet, a clerk in her father's grocery. Mrs.
Mumbles was inconsolable, and Mr. Giblet was banished from the premises,
and taken into employ by the firm of Edson & Co., the largest merchants
in Wimbledon.

Rumor said these gentlemen were so well pleased with the young man, that
they had offered him a yearly salary of several hundred dollars, and
proposed, should he continue to perform his duties as well as hitherto,
to take him into the firm, on his coming of age. Mrs. Salsify now began
to regard Dick with different eyes, as what prudent mother would not? She
sent Mary Madeline to the store of Edson & Co., whenever she was in want
of a spool of cotton or yard of tape; but the young clerk had grown so
vain with his elevation, that he looked very loftily down upon her, bowed
in the most distant manner, and never exchanged more words with her than
were necessary in the buying and selling of an article. So Mary Madeline
told her mother, and upbraided her as the cause of the young man's cold
treatment. Mrs. Salsify bade her daughter be of good cheer. "'Twas all a
feint on Dick's part, to conceal his love till he was sure of hers,--all
would come round right in time." But Mary Madeline would not believe it,
and said she should die if she had to stay in the back store alone so
much, sorting spices and writing labels, for she was constantly thinking
of Dick, who used to be with her. She must have something to divert her
attention; and, at length, Mrs. Salsify hit upon the project of sending
her to school at the seminary one term. It was fitting that the daughter
of the rich Mr. Mumbles that was to be, should be possessed of suitable
polish and refinement to adorn the high circles in which her position
would call her to move. So Miss Mumbles answered to her name among the
two hundred scholars, male and female, that had assembled in the halls of
Cedar Hill Seminary, for the summer term. Quite a sensation she produced
in her gay muslin dress and fiery-colored sil