be so glad to see an old neighbor," the honest youth said,
"for she did not know many folks in the city. 'Till had made some flashy
acquaintances, of whom he did not think much, and they kept a few
boarders, but nobody had called, and mother was real lonesome. He wished
Miss Barlow would come; she would have no difficulty in finding them,"
and on a bit of paper he marked out the route of the Fourth Avenue cars,
which passed their door, and which Aunt Betsy would take after arriving
at the New Haven depot. "If he knew when she was coming he would meet
her," he said, but Aunt Betsy could not tell; she was not quite certain
whether she should go at all, she was so violently opposed.

Still she did not give it up entirely, and when, a few days after Tom's
return to New York, there came a pressing invitation from the daughter
Matilda, or Mattie, as she signed herself, the fever again ran high, and
this time with but little hope of its abating.

"We shall be delighted, both mother and me," Mattie wrote. "I will show
you all the lions of the city, and when you get tired of us you can go
up to Mrs. Cameron's. I know exactly where they live, and have seen her
at the opera in full dress, looking like a queen."

Over the last part of this letter Aunt Betsy pondered for some time.
That as good an orthodox as Miss Tubbs should let her girl go to the
opera, passed her. She had wondered at Helen's going, but then she was a
'Piscopal, and them 'Piscopals had queer notions about usin' the world
and not abusin' it. Still, as Helen did not attend the theatre and did
attend the opera, there must be a difference in the two places, and into
the old lady's heart there slowly crept the thought that possibly she
might try the opera too, if 'Tilda Tubbs would go, and promise never to
tell the folks at Silverton! She should like to see what it was, and
also what full dress meant, though she s'posed it was pilin' on all the
clothes you had so as to make a show; but if she wore her black silk
gown with her best bunnet and shawl, she guessed that would be dress
enough for her.

This settled, Aunt Betsy began to devise the best means of getting off
with the least opposition. Both Morris and her brother would be absent
from town during the next week, and she finally resolved to take that
opportunity for starting on her visit to New York, wisely concluding to
keep her own counsel until she was quite ready. Accordingly, on the very
day Morris and th