Correspondingly to this, Mrs. Van Arsdel, her next sister, was one who said habitually, "What would you do, and how would you do it?" and so the domestic duet was complete. Mrs. Wouverman did not succeed in governing or reclaiming her husband, but she was none the less self-confident for that; and having seen him comfortably into his grave, she had nothing to do but get together the small remains of the estate and devote herself to "dear Ellen and her children." Mrs. Wouverman managed her own house, where everything was arranged with the strictest attention and economy, and to the making a genteel appearance on a small sum, and yet found abundance of time to direct sister Ellen and her children. She was a good natured, pleasant-mannered woman, fond of her nieces and nephews; and her perfect faith in herself, the decision of all her announcements, and the habitual attitude of consultation in which the mother of the family stood towards her, led the Van Arsdel children as they grew up to consider "Aunt Maria," like the Bible or civil government, as one of the great ready-made facts of society, to be accepted without dispute or injury. Mrs. Wouverman had her own idea of the _summum bonum_, that great obscure point about which philosophers have groped in vain. Had Plato or Anaxagoras or any of those ancient worthies appealed to her, she would have smiled on them benignantly and said: "Why yes, of course, don't you see? the thing is very simple. You must keep the best society and make a good appearance." Mrs. Van Arsdel had been steadily guided by her in the paths of fashionable progression. Having married into a rich old family, Aunt Maria was believed to have mysterious and incommunicable secrets of gentility at her command. She was always supposed to have an early insight into the secret counsels of that sublime, awful, mysterious "_they_," who give the law in fashionable life. "_They_ don't wear bonnets that way, now!" "My love, _they_ wear gloves sewed with colored silks, now!" or, "_they_ have done with hoops and flowing sleeves," or, "_they_ are beginning to wear hoops again! _They_ are going to wear long trains," or, "_they_ have done with silver powder now!" All which announcements were made with a calm solemnity of manner calculated to impress the youthful mind with a sense of their profound importance.