y is as sound as ever;
and, to prove it to you, I will inform you, that I shall be sixty-four
years old this coming August; and by the same token, you are just
exactly half my age; and if you don't believe it, you may just take a
look at the family record, in the big Bible."

"C'listy's _scratched out her date,"_ said little Rosa, "and so has
Evelina."

"Hold your tongue, you impertinent little minx!" said Miss Calista; "I
really hope the prinky old governess who is coming will be able to whip
a little manners into you. I really wonder you can allow the children to
be so pert, mamma!"

The lady addressed as _"mamma"_ was the second wife of Mr. Fairland, a
rather handsome, but very languid lady of forty, who was sleepily
sipping her coffee during the foregoing conversation. Now, as Mrs.
Fairland did not look much older (perhaps not at all older, at the
breakfast table,) than the oldest of her step-daughters, the young
ladies quite prided themselves on so youthful a "mamma;" and when in
company, or at the various watering-places to which, in former tunes,
they had succeeded in dragging their parents, they hung round her, and
asked her permission to do this and that, with the most child-like
confidence in her judgment.

This was by no means relished by the step-mother, who had no fancy for
matronizing daughters so nearly her own age, and who wished no less
fervently than the young ladies themselves, that something in the shape
of a husband would appear to carry each of them off. She never failed
after such a display of filial affection on their part to explain to
those near her; that the young ladies were her _step-daughters;_ and to
mention how odd it sounded to her when she was first married, to hear
those great girls as tall as herself, call her "mamma."

It was a beautiful evening in the pleasant month of July, when Agnes
entered the lovely village of Wilston, and drove through its one long
street, to the spacious and rather showy dwelling of Mr. Fairland. Agnes
had heard much of the beauty of Wilston, but her heart was now so
oppressed with many agitating emotions, at the near prospect of the new
and strange scenes upon which she was about to enter in so new a
character, that not even the loveliness of the landscape, with its
variety of hill, and dale, and wood-land, on the one hand, and on the
other the peaceful lake tinged with crimson by the setting sun, had
power to win her attention.

Yet we need not fear