clock was the hour at which the old folks' party began, and the
reader will need a fresh introduction to the company which was assembled
at that time in Mary Fellows's parlor. Mary sat by her grandmother,
who from time to time regarded her in a half-puzzled manner, as if it
required an effort of her reasoning powers to reassure her that the
effect she saw was an illusion. The girl's brown hair was gathered back
under a lace cap, and all that appeared outside it was thickly powdered.
She wore spectacles, and the warm tint of her cheeks had given place to
the opaque saffron hue of age. She sat with her hands in her lap, their
fresh color and dimpled contour concealed by black lace half-gloves. The
fullness of her young bosom was carefully disguised by the arrangement
of the severely simple black dress she wore, which was also in other
respects studiously adapted to conceal, by its stiff and angular lines,
the luxuriant contour of her figure. As she rose and advanced to welcome
Henry and Jessie, who were the last to arrive, it was with a striking
imitation of the tremulously precipitate step of age.

Jessie, being rather taller than the others, had affected the stoop of
age very successfully. She wore a black dress spotted with white, and
her whitened hair was arranged with a high comb. She was the only one
without spectacles or eyeglasses. Henry looked older and feebler than
any of the company. His scant hair hung in thin and long white locks,
and his tall, slender figure had gained a still more meagre effect from
his dress, while his shoulders were bowed in a marked stoop; his gait
was rigid and jerky. He assisted himself with a gold-headed cane, and
sat in his chair leaning forward upon it.

George, on the other hand, had followed the hint of his father's figure
in his make-up, and appeared as a rubicund old gentleman, large in the
waist, bald, with an apoplectic tendency, a wheezy asthmatic voice, and
a full white beard.

Nellie wore her hair in a row of white curls on each side of her head,
and in every detail of her dress and air affected the coquettish old
lady to perfection, for which, of course, she looked none the younger.
Her cheeks were rouged to go with that style.

Frank was the ideal of the sprightly little old gentleman. With his
brisk air, natty eye-glasses, cane and gloves, and other items of dress
in the most correct taste, he was quite the old beau. His white hair was
crispy, brushed back, and his sn