“I declare, girls,” said Mrs. Varley to her daughters, in secret session, before she started on her errand, “I do feel like pizon about this affair! I am half skart out of my wits at such a breeze between us and Mrs. Tower! I wish to the mercy we had never seen these mischief-making Tylers! As if them that touches porcupines mustn’t expect the quills! Or them that insults, to be insulted back again. I don’t believe they are half so _rich_ and _uppercrust_ as they pretend—and then they make such a sight of trouble! Besides, you know what I told you I surmised about Mrs. Tower. If it _is_ so, she will be sure to let me and other people know it, if she hasn’t already!” The girls all looked doubtfully at each other. “I wish in my heart these Tylers would go,” said Annette, “for of all the conceited trumpery old sights that ever I saw, Mrs. Tyler is the foremost.” “I cannot express my detestation of Liz,” interrupted Adelaide. “She is as false and cunning as the very old snake himself, and bad as _I_ am, I do think _she_ is worse!” Charlotte had come to life enough by this time to mention Miss Tyler’s flirtation with Mr. Style, when she was checked by Adelaide with, “Hush! she is coming—it’s said _somebody_ is always at hand when you are talking about him!” “O, do go quick, Mrs. Varley! Havn’t you got ready _yet_? I’m terribly impatient for that woman’s apology;” said Miss Tyler, as she unceremoniously opened the door and thrust in her face. “But what are you talking about with closed doors? _Us_, I presume! You look caught, every one of you,” and Miss Tyler turned up her disdainful nose, as if there would be no further amity till she heard a disclaimer of that offence. “O, no, no, Lizzie, my dear!” supplicated Mrs. Varley, in her blandest and most conciliatory tone. “Pray come right in, love, and cheer up these poor disconsolate creatures while I am gone. Bring my hat and parasol, Adelaide. Shameful, isn’t it, to drag a body out in this briling sunshine, on such business?” “We were saying,” remarked Adelaide, as she handed the bonnet and parasol to her mother, “how much we do despise these deceitful kind of upstarts, who pretend to be so much more than they really are!” “It is the tendency of our American institootions,” replied Elizabeth, in a tone more pacific, but very affectedly sage, as she settled herself indolently into a rocking-chair. “They encourage upstarts! You don’t see nothing of this kind in England. For my part, I think it devolves on the higher classes to—to—hem—” she found herself unexpectedly wading beyond her depth, and unfortunately afloat in the high flown piece of wisdom she had started to express. Charlotte hastened to the rescue, in a very luminous climax to Miss Tyler’s halting proposition. “To let them know,” she interposed. “Yes, to let them know!” replied Elizabeth, with clinching emphasis.