Having thus become acquainted with the two Miss Byleses, and understanding that they were always delighted when strangers were brought to see them in a similar manner, I afterwards became the introducer of several friends from other cities, who successively visited Boston in the course of that summer, and who expressed a desire to pay their compliments to these singular old ladies. In every instance, the same routine was pursued upon these occasions by the two sisters, and the practice of nearly half a century had, of course, made them perfect in it. I was told by a lady who had known the Miss Byleses long and intimately, and had introduced to them, at their house, not less than fifty persons, that she had never observed the slightest variation in their usual series of sayings and doings. And so I always found it, whenever I brought them a new visitor. Miss Mary always came to receive us at the front door,—and Miss Catharine always produced her own effect by not making her appearance, till we had sat sometime in the parlour. The attention of the stranger was always, in the same words, directed to the cornelian ring on their father’s picture, and always the new guests were placed in the great carved chair, and the same wonder was expressed that “they should sit easy under the crown.” Always did their visiter hear the history of “their nephew, poor boy, whom they had not seen for forty years.” Always did Miss Catharine with the same diffidence exhibit the snake,—and always was the snake unwilling to re-enter his box, till he had been brought to obedience by a little wholesome chastisement. The astounding trick of the alphabetical bits of paper was unfailingly shown;—and, always when the visiters gave symptoms of departure, did Miss Mary slip out of the room, and lock the front door, that she might have an opportunity of repeating her excellent joke about the ladies’ night caps. It was very desirable that all ladies and gentlemen, taken to see the Miss Byleses, should have sufficient tact to be astonished up to the exact point at the exhibition of their curiosities, that they should laugh, just enough, at their witticisms; and that they should humor, rather than controvert, their gratuitous manifestations of loyalty to the person they called their rightful king. My friend Mr. Sully, (who was glad to have an opportunity of seeing Copley’s portrait of Dr. Byles,) enacted his part _à mervëílle_;—or rather, it was no acting at all; but the genuine impulse of his kind and considerate feelings, and of his ever-indulgent toleration for the peculiarities of such minds as are not so fortunate as to resemble his own.