But I had scarcely traced once, "Do not contradict your elders," before Lydia came in, flushed and glowing, with a basket upon her arm. She exhibited the contents to my mother,--who, I suppose, approved thereof, as she said they might be disposed of in the kitchen,--and then, with a sort of sigh, began, before she left the room, to remove her walking dress. "Oh! it is hopeless; the present price is a guinea." "I was fearful it would be so, my dear girl," replied my mother, in a tone of mingled condolence and authority she was fond of assuming. "It would be neither expedient nor fitting that I should allow you to go, though I very much wish it; but should we suffer ourselves such an indulgence, we should have to deprive ourselves of comforts that are necessary to health, and thus to well being. I should not like dear Millicent and yourself, young as you are, to go alone to the crowded seats in the town-hall; and if I went with you, we should be three guineas out of pocket for a month." This was true; my mother's jointure was small, and though we lived in ease, it was by the exercise of an economy rigidly enforced and minutely developed. It was in my own place, indeed, I learned how truly happy does comfort render home, and how strictly comfort may be expressed by love from prudence, by charity from frugality, and by wit from very slender competence. "I do not complain, dear mother," Lydia resumed, in a livelier vein; "I ventured to ask at the office because you gave me leave, and Fred thought there would be back seats lowered in price, or perhaps a standing gallery, as there was at the last festival. But it seems the people in the gallery made so much uproar last time that the committee have resolved to give it up." This was getting away from the point, so I put in, "Is the festival to be soon, then, Lydia?" "Yes, dear; it is only three weeks to-day to the first performance." "Will it be very grand?" "Oh, yes; the finest and most complete we have ever had." Then Lydia, having quite recovered her cheerfulness, went to the door, and speedily was no more seen. No one spoke, and I went on with my copy; but it was hard work for me to do so, for I was in a pricking pulsation from head to foot. It must have been a physical prescience of mental excitement, for I had scarcely ever felt so much before. I was longing, nay, crazy, to finish my page, that I might run out and find Millicent, who, child as I was, I knew could tell me what I wanted to hear better than any one of them. My eagerness impeded me, and I did not conclude it to Clo's genuine satisfaction after all. She dotted all my i's and crossed my t's, though with a condescending confession that I had taken pains,--and then I was suffered to go; but it was walking time, and my mother dressed me herself in her room, so I could not catch Millicent till we were fairly in the street. CHAPTER III.