r in all.

If we go in, we shall find the outward primness well supported by the
appearance of things within. In the front parlor--we may peep through
the door, but it would be high treason in the present moistened state of
our boots, to step within its sacred precincts--there are six high
backed chairs standing in state, two at each window. One can easily see
from the general arrangement of the furniture, that from romping
children, unceremonious kittens, and unhallowed intruders generally,
this room is most sacredly guarded.

Without speaking particularly of the other rooms, which, though not
furnished in so stately a manner, bear a family resemblance to "the best
room," we will usher the reader into the opposite room, where he will
find the owner and occupant of this prim-looking residence.

Courteous reader, Miss Hetty Henderson. Miss Hetty Henderson, let me
make you acquainted with this lady (or gentleman), who is desirous of
knowing you better.

Miss Hetty Henderson, with whom the reader has just passed through the
ceremony of introduction, is a maiden of some thirty-five summers,
attired in a sober-looking dress, of irreproachable neatness, but most
formal cut. She is the only occupant of the house, of which likewise she
is proprietor. Her father, who was the village physician, died some ten
years since, leaving to Hetty, or perhaps I should give her full name,
Henrietta, his only child, the house in which he lived, and some four
thousand dollars in bank stock, on the income of which she lived very
comfortably.

Somehow, Miss Hetty had never married, though, such is the mercenary
nature of man, the rumor of her inheritance brought to her feet several
suitors. But Miss Hetty had resolved never to marry--at least, this was
her invariable answer to matrimonial offers, and so after a time it came
to be understood that she was fixed for life--an old maid. What reasons
impelled her to this course were not known, but possibly the reader will
be furnished with a clue before he finishes this narrative.

Meanwhile, the invariable effect of a single and solitary life combined,
attended Hetty. She grow precise, prim and methodical to a painful
degree. It would have been quite a relish if one could have detected a
stray thread even upon her well swept carpet, but such was never the
case.

On this particular day--this Thanksgiving day of which we are
speaking--Miss Hetty had completed her culinary preparations, that is