"Do you? well, that's a happy thing. I understood quite the contrary, though, that you always carried the day, from what Mrs. Joe Culpepper said. I was at her house when your invitation came in, and after she had opened it, she exclaimed, with her sly laugh, 'Only think, Miss Debby, that manoeuvring, pushing Mrs. Pelby Smith has at last worried her poor husband into giving a party!' and from the way she pitied Mr. Smith, I inferred she must have some reason to believe that if you did not wield a pretty high hand, he would not be quite such a man of wax as he seems." Had Miss Debby been any thing less than a relation in common to the "Goldsboroughs, the Pendletons, the Longacres, and the Van Pelts," Mrs. Smith would have been tempted to request her to leave the house; but as it was, her policy taught her to endure whatever Miss Debby might choose to inflict. So she leaned back hopelessly in her chair, while the old lady snapped and cracked a plate of candied fruits with a vigor of which her teeth looked incapable. "Had you any of your borrowed things broken?--for I heard that you had to borrow nearly every thing," resumed her torturer. "Not any thing at all but two or three plates, which can easily be replaced," replied Mrs. Smith, not knowing what next to expect on that point. But Miss Debby tacked about. "I believe," said she, "you had a visiter staying with you for a few days?" "Yes--a cousin of Mr. Smith's--Miss Sabina Incledon--" "That's the name," interrupted Miss Debby, nodding; "the person that went out home with Mrs. Morgan Silsbee, this morning, I presume?" "The same," replied Mrs. Smith, feeling her consequence looking up; "Cousin Sabina is a very particular friend of Mrs. Morgan Silsbee, who for a long time had been soliciting the visit." "Then, surely, she could not have been the person you set to watching the kitchen and supper-room! Susan Goldsborough and Lydia Pendleton were talking about it, and repeating to each other what they overheard of a conversation between yourself and your husband, who seemed greatly shocked that you had done it. Susan Goldsborough remarked that if she had known that you had so little sense as to undervalue such a woman in that way, or so little feeling and good-breeding as to violate the laws of common hospitality and politeness so grossly, she would assuredly have declined the party for Julia when you proposed it to her." Mrs. Smith had grown quite pale, and could only answer tremulously, "What a misconstruction!--dear me--it was Cousin Sabina's wish--how strange a mistake."