ly a
half-dozen women who are admitted to be the best housekeepers. All
others are only imitators. And the strife is between these for the
pre-eminence. It is at least safe to say that no other in Lewisburg
stood so high as an enemy to dirt, and as a "rat, roach, and mouse
exterminator," as did Mrs. Matilda White, the wife of Ralph's maternal
uncle, Robert White, Esq., a lawyer in successful practice. Of course no
member of Mrs. White's family ever stayed at home longer than was
necessary. Her husband found his office--which he kept in as bad a state
as possible in order to maintain an equilibrium in his life--much more
comfortable than the stiffly clean house at home. From the time that
Ralph had come to live as a chore-boy at his uncle's, he had ever
crossed the threshold of Aunt Matilda's temple of cleanliness with a
horrible sense of awe. And Walter Johnson, her son by a former marriage,
had--poor, weak-willed fellow!--been driven into bad company and bad
habits by the wretchedness of extreme civilization. And yet he showed
the hereditary trait, for all the genius which Mrs. White consecrated to
the glorious work of making her house too neat to be habitable, her son
Walter gave to tying exquisite knots in his colored cravats and combing
his oiled locks so as to look like a dandy barber. And she had no other
children. The kind Providence that watches over the destiny of children
takes care that very few of them are lodged in these terribly clean
houses.

But Walter was not at the table, and Ralph had so much anxiety lest his
absence should be significant of evil, that he did not venture to
inquire after him as he sat there between Mr. and Mrs. White disposing
of Aunt Matilda's cakes with an appetite only justified by his long
morning's ride and the excellence of the brown cakes, the golden honey,
and the coffee, enriched, as Aunt Matilda's always was, with the most
generous cream. Aunt Matilda was so absorbed in telling of the doings of
the Dorcas Society that she entirely forgot to be surprised at the early
hour of Ralph's arrival. When she had described the number of the
garments finished to be sent to the Five Points Mission, or the Home for
the Friendless, or the South Sea Islands, I forget which, Ralph thought
he saw his chance, while Aunt Matilda was in a benevolent mood, to
broach a plan he had been revolving for some time. But when he looked at
Aunt Matilda's immaculate--horribly immaculate--housekeeping, his