veral months before. But she was so elate about the
arrival of the new family that all memory of their former ill-usage
seemed to have escaped her, and she grasped the hands of both and shook
them cordially. "I am glad to see you," she exclaimed; "why have you not
called on us this fall? Mary Madeline has often said I wish Jenny and Amy
would come in, it would seem so much like old times. Here, my dear," said
she, seizing hold of the young lady's shawl and pulling her from the
window, "don't be so taken up with the new family that you can't speak to
your old friends." Mary Madeline now turned and spoke to her former
schoolmates. Then, drawing a chair close to the window, she resumed her
gaze, with her gloves and handkerchief lying unheeded on the floor and
her gay shawl dragging behind her. "O, mother! mother!" she exclaimed at
length, "there comes the family."

Mrs. Salsify, who was engaged in telling Mrs. Allen of Mr. Salsify's
prosperity, and how he was "rising in his profession," and how he
meditated adding another story to his house and putting a piazza round it
next spring, dropped all, even her snuff-box, and rushed to the window as
a large covered wagon, drawn by a span of elegant black horses, drove
rapidly into the adjoining yard. First alighted a tall man in a black
overcoat,--the master no doubt, the gazers decided,--then a tall man in a
gray overcoat, then a tall man in a brown overcoat. And the man in the
black overcoat and the man in the gray overcoat moved away, the former up
the steps of the mansion and around the terraces, trying the fastenings
of the Venetian blinds, and examining the cornices and pillars of the
porticos; the latter turned in the direction of the stables and
outhouses, while the man in the brown overcoat assisted three ladies to
alight, all grown-up women, one short and fat, the other two tall and
thin. The gazers were a little puzzled by the appearance of the new
family. As far as they could discover there was no great difference in
the respective ages of the six individuals who had alighted from the
wagon, and Mrs. Salsify Mumbles declared it as her opinion that the
family consisted of three brothers who had married three sisters for
their wives. The short, fat woman, who had a rubicund visage and
turned-up nose, and wore a broad-plaided cashmere dress, drew forth a
bunch of keys from a wicker basket that hung on her arm, and with a
pompous tread ascended the marble steps, unlocked t