The family of the Mr. Lemuel Atkins, of whom the Captain had spoken, belonged to what is called Good Society; but let no one suppose that they constituted a specimen of the Boston aristocracy, with its men, too often, indeed, cold and careless in the interests of mankind, yet always polished gentlemen in instinct and education, and with its women, cultured and noble, patrician from brow to foot, and many, very many of them, angels of compassion and succor to the weak and poor. The Atkinses were only of a large and dominant moneyed class, vulgar mushrooms—no, toadstools—who spring up thickly in the aristocratic quarter and call themselves Good Society. These fine people were expecting a guest to dinner that afternoon, who would have been a skeleton at any possible banquet of Harrington’s, could he have known that such a guest was in town. Mr. Atkins’s usual dinner hour was two o’clock, but on this occasion it had been postponed to four, while the merchant was showing the guest a few of the lions. It was within an hour of the dinner-time, and the servants in the kitchen were sweltering over the preparation of the meal in the hottest possible hurry, and the greatest possible trepidation, lest anything should be overdone or underdone, or in any way done wrong. For they had been duly impressed with the magnitude of the occasion, and they were trembling lest the magnitude of the occasion should be disgraced by their humble efforts. Meanwhile Good Society was filled with soft tremors in the drawing-room above. He had not come yet, but he was coming. Anxious eyes glanced occasionally out at the front windows on Mount Vernon street, to see if he was approaching. Eager ears listened momently for the slightest intimation of a pull at the bell-wire. Palpitating hearts leaped at every footfall in the highly respectable street, and Good Society was in a steady flutter of delicious expectation. Good Society, then and there represented by Mrs. Atkins, Miss Atkins, Miss Julia Atkins, Mr. Thomas Atkins, and Mr. Horatio Atkins; and elsewhere represented by the highly respectable father of this highly respectable family, Mr. Lemuel Atkins, was not so honored every day in the week—by no means. Distinguished gentlemen had come there to dine with us; Count Blomanosoff, when he was in Boston, had come there to dine with us; Lord Hawbury and Lord Charles Chawles, when they were in Boston, had come there to dine with us; and eminent clergymen, and able lawyers, and distinguished senators, and even a Massachusetts Governor, had come there to dine with us. But a rich Southern gentleman—oh! A child of the sunny South—ah! A gallant and chivalrous son of Louisiana, who owns an immense plantation, and nobody knows how many of his fellow creatures—decidedly; it is the next thing to having Mr. Webster to dine with us.