mmediate friends. The four musical gentlemen
especially entirely lost their names in the confusion; and as they
looked very much alike, it was hazardous to address them, except upon
general and public grounds.

Mrs. Starkey was the most bewildered, and also the most bent upon
setting herself right,--a task which promised to occupy the entire
evening. "Which is the fifer?" she asked Nicholas; but he could not tell
her, and she appealed in vain to the others. Perhaps it was as well,
since it served as an unfailing resource with her through the evening.
When nothing else occupied her attention, she would fix her eyes upon
one of the four, and walk round till she found some one disengaged
enough to label him, if possible; and as the gentlemen had much in
common, while Mrs. Starkey's memory was confused, there was always room
for more light.

Miss Pix meanwhile had disentangled Nicholas from Mrs. Starkey, and, as
one newly arrived in the court, was recounting to him the origin of her
party.

"You see, Mr. Judge, I have only lived here a few weeks. I had to leave
my old house; and I took a great liking to this little court, and
especially to this little house in it. 'What a delightful little
snuggery!' thought I. 'Here one can be right by the main streets, and
yet be quiet all day and evening.' And that's what I want; because, you
see, I have scholars to come and take music-lessons of me. 'And then,' I
thought to myself, 'I can have four neighbors right in the same yard,
you may say.' Well, here I came; but--do you believe it?--hardly anybody
even looked out of the window when the furniture-carts came up, and I
couldn't tell who lived in any house. Why, I was here three weeks, and
nobody came to see me. I might have been sick, and nobody would have
known it." Here little Miss Pix shook her head ruefully at the vision of
herself sick and alone. "I've seen what that is," she added, with a
mysterious look. "'Well, now,' I said to myself, 'I can't live like
this. It isn't Christian. I don't believe but the people in the court
could get along with me, if they knew me.' Well, they didn't come, and
they didn't come; so I got tired, and one day I went round and saw them
all,--no, I didn't see the old gentleman in Number One that time. Will
you believe it? not a soul knew anybody else in any house but their own!
I was amazed, and I said to myself, 'Betsey Pix, you've got a mission';
and, Mr. Judge, I went on that mission. I made up