“Here she is!” said uncle, as soon as he saw me. “Here’s Monde. Monde, our friend, Mr. Cullen. Our niece, Miss Hedelquiver, Alfred. Ponto, be still; behave yourself, Ponto.” Ponto wouldn’t behave himself at all, in the way uncle proposed; he was quite too glad to see me. When I would have stepped forward a little to meet Mr. Cullen, he was jumping on my long skirts and catching them in his teeth; and when I would have shaken hands with him, he sprang up between us, and was so unmanageable, that we were forced to dispense with the hand’s-shaking altogether. We called him a vicious puppy and boxed his soft ears a little; but, as we laughed all the while, he only dragged my skirts the more pertinaciously and jumped the higher. And judge you whether I was not glad that he did; glad that I must be busy scolding him and getting my skirts and gloves and riding-stick away from him; for uncle said, turning to Mr. Cullen-- “How do you like Monde’s hat, Alfred?” “I was just thinking that it is the most becoming thing I ever saw,” replied he. “I think so,” said uncle. I can’t very well bear having any thing about my person commended, you know; especially if it brings such eyes as uncle’s and Mr. Cullen’s to bear upon my figure; and so I was glad enough to have aunt come into the room, and forward into our midst, that the survey might be broken. But it was not long, for aunt looked down on my long train, and then said: “Paulina has been trying to persuade Rosamonde to put on a Bloomer with her, she didn’t like to adopt it alone. But I think Rosamonde is wise in clinging to the long skirts, especially for riding. Do you like the Bloomers, Alfred?” “Not at all! not at all!” and his eye ran over my figure again. “Nor I,” said uncle. “To tell the truth,”--with his eyes on my face--“Monde wrote us spirited letters; I remembered a certain sort of dash and courage in her character, and I was more than half afraid that she would come amongst us looking up out of a Bloomer, and that the first thing she began to talk about would be Women’s Rights. Not, as Heaven knows,” added uncle, with increasing seriousness, “because there is not need of changes here, as every where else; but because the changes proposed are, as it appears to me, poor, one-sided things. I would not, therefore, like to hear so thoroughly sensible a girl as Monde, clamoring for them.” “You will make Monde blush,” said aunt. “Not at all,” Aunt Alice, replied I, doffing my hat, “I can bear very well having my brain praised, you know, at any time. Ponto--Ponto, bring me my glove.” “Yes, that is true,” said aunt. And added, after a moment’s pause--“_I_ can never make much out of this Woman’s Rights business. With sister Eunice it is ‘equal rights, equal privileges, equal pantaloons,’ and some more, I don’t know what else. I never pretend to understand a word of it.” This was cunning in aunt. We all had a hearty laugh over it. But good-night, dearest; I will finish in the morning.