“I think you’re rather hard on the poor young thing,” said kind, motherly Mrs. Holmes, as she smoothed down carefully her best dress, which she wore in honor of the occasion; “it must certainly be a hard thing for her to come to such a change, after having had every thing so comfortable about her all her life.” “Well, for my part,” said Miss Chatterton, “I quite pity her. And they say she’s such a dear, sweet little thing--yes, children, I’ll be with you presently--and all the fault of her husband. Not that I ever heard she complained of him. By the way, Mrs. Holmes, how’s your husband’s rheumatism to-day? I’ve heard of a new remedy for it. Ah! my dear Mrs. Brown,” she added, turning to another of the party, “I saw Henry Cole only yesterday, and he told me they were all well at his father’s. But, as I was saying, they say it was all his fault--” “Maggie, are you never going to tell us that story?” “Yes, dears, presently, when I’ve done here. Yes, she is quite a dear little thing, and Sally Irish, who lives with them, you know, says she’s so good and so gentle, and goes about every thing so nicely and so pleasantly, that she has quite won Sally’s heart already, and that, you know, is not very easy to do. It was only a day or two after they moved up, before they had got all fixed to rights, that she came up to Sally, who was washing out some things, and said to her, as she held out a bundle of nice muslins--‘Do, Sally, please wash these out for me this time, and I will stand by whilst you do it and learn how, and then, you know, another time I can do it myself, and perhaps, in time, I may learn to do it almost as well as you, Sally.’” “Well, I am glad to hear she’s not so set up with her piany and such nicknakeries as to be above being willing to help herself some. When I heard what a heap of help they had down there, I thought sure as how they were going to bring all their city notions as well as their piany down here into the country.” “Why, what harm can there be in a piano,” said the oldest of the Holmes girls, before whose eyes visions of a boarding-school, and a piano, and such like things had been for some time dancing; “I can’t see what harm there can be in having a piano. For my part I think it must be very nice, and I mean to go over and see that dear, pretty Mrs. Dawson, and perhaps she will play on hers for me.” “No doubt she will, my dear,” said Miss Susan Bitterly; “accomplished ladies like her when they’re settled down among such barbarians as we, are glad to find some one as accomplished as yourself with whom to associate.” A tart reply arose to Susan Holmes’ tongue, but an opportune look from her mother arrested it.