Nothing daunted by the glow of indignation which followed a look of astonishment on the face of Cousin Sabina, she paused for a reply. After a moment's reflection, Miss Incledon answered calmly, "I am your guest, Sarah--dispose of me as you please;" and returning her cap and white gloves to their boxes, she refastened her wrapper to enter upon the office assigned to her. The party passed off with the crowding, crushing, talking and eating common to parties. The supper was a handsome one--for Mr. Smith wisely decided that if the thing must be done at all, it should be done well--and therefore he had hinted no restrictions to his wife as to the expense. Many "regrets" had been sent in, but still Mrs. Smith was at the post she had coveted for years--that of receiving a fashionable assemblage in her own house; and if her choicest guests courted her notice as little as they would have done any where else, she was too much elated and flustered, and overheated to think about it. One of her principal concerns was to keep her eye on her husband, who, being a shy, timid man, with very little tact, was not much calculated for playing the host on such an occasion. He had, however, been doing better than she expected, when, a little before supper, he wandered through the crowd to where she was standing, for the moment, alone, and asked, "Where is Cousin Sabina?" "In the supper-room. It is necessary at such times to have some one behind the scenes, and I had to get her to remain in the supper-room, to watch that things went on properly; and, in particular, to see that none of the silver was carried off, nor the refreshments wasted after supper." Mr. Smith looked disturbed, and exclaimed, rather too loudly, "Is it possible that you could ask a woman like Sabina Incledon to do such a thing! one of my most respectable relations, and a visiter in my house?" "Don't speak so loudly. I left out all my own relations, and I dare say they would, any of them, have looked as creditably as Sabina Incledon. When we have established our own standing, Mr. Smith, it will be time enough for us to bring out such people as your Cousin Sabina. To be sure, if I had had any one to trust in her place, I should not have objected at all to her coming in." Mrs. Smith was turning away, when she saw, at her elbow, Mrs. Goldsborough and Miss Pendleton, who must have overheard the conversation. To her it was the mortification of the evening.