I spoze it wuz partly on Robert Strong's account, he bein' high connected and rich, that we wuz all invited to a garden party gin by Mr. and Miss Curzon, she that wuz Miss Leiter, who used to be one of our neighbors, as you may say, out in Chicago, U.S. And then I spoze that it wuz partly on my account, they'd hearn of me, without any doubt, and craved a augience. Josiah thought that it wuz on his account that we wuz invited; he thinks he is a ornament to any festive throng. But 'tennyrate invited we wuz, and go we did, the hull caboodle on us, all but Tommy, who stayed to home with the good English maid that Miss Meechim had hired to take Aronette's place, but never, never to fill it. Oh, Aronette! sweet girl! where are you? Where are you? So my heart called out time and time agin; sometimes in the dead of night on my wakeful pillow, and anon when I wuz lookin' for her in places that I didn't want to find her. So did Dorothy's heart call out to her. I knew she wuz lookin' for her always, seekin' her with sad eyes full of tears, looking, longing for the playmate of her childhood, the loving, gentle helper and companion of her youth. Miss Meechim didn't speak of her so often as she thought of her, I believe; but she grew thin after her loss, and when grief for a person ploughs away your flesh you can call yourself a mourner. She lost five pounds and a half in less than a month; next to Dorothy she loved her. [Illustration: We wuz all invited to a garden party, gin by Mr. and Miss Curzon.--Page 240.] Arvilly openly and often bewailed the loss of the one she loved next to Waitstill Webb; I wuzn't anywhere in Arvilly's affections to what she wuz, though she sets store by me, and Tommy cried himself to sleep many a night talking about her, and wonnerin' where she wuz, and if somebody wuz abusin' her, or if she wuz to the bottom of the ocean. Why, he would rack my mind and pierce my heart so I would have to give him candy to get his mind off; I used pounds in that way, though I knew it wuz hurtful, but didn't know what to do. We often thought and spoke of poor Lucia, too, and that poor broken-hearted father who wuz searching through the world for her and would never stop his mournful search till he found her, or till death found him, but our hearts didn't ache for her as they did for the loss of our own. Martha wuz a kind, good girl, but she wuzn't Aronette, our dear one, our lost one. She wuz jest a helper doin' her work and earnin' her wages, that wuz all, but she was good natured and offered to look after Tommy, and we all went to the Viceroy's reception and garden party and had a real good time.