"Susan," said she, pausing as she was stepping off the threshold, "if anybody calls you'll say I have been gone to Mrs. Hanaway's some time; and, Susan, just put a pin in this calash to keep it back, it falls over my eyes so that I can't see." And Susan pinned a fold in the calash, and away went the triumphant Miss Cecilia. She did not wish to be guilty of the vulgarity of arriving first at the party; so she lingered about till it wanted a quarter to eight, and then she knocked at Mrs. Hanaway's door, which a smart footman immediately opened, and, with the alertness for which many of his order are remarkable, proceeded to disengage the lady from her external coverings--the cloak, the overalls, the calash; and then, without giving her time to breathe, he rushed up the stairs, calling out "Miss Cecilia Smith;" whilst the butler, who stood at the drawing-room door, threw it open, reiterating, "Miss Cecilia Smith;" and in she went. But, O reader, little do you think, and little did she think, where the turban was that she imagined to be upon her head, and under the supposed shadow of which she walked into the room with so much dignity and complacence. It was below in the hall, lying on the floor, fast in the calash, to which Susan, ill-starred wench! had pinned it; and the footman, in his cruel haste, had dragged them both off together. With only some under-trappings on her cranium, and altogether unconscious of her calamity, smiling and bowing, Miss Cecilia advanced toward her host and hostess, who received her in the most gracious manner, thinking, certainly, that her taste in a head-dress was peculiar, and that she was about the most extraordinary figure they had ever beheld, but supposing that such was the fashion she chose to adopt--the less astonished or inclined to suspect the truth, from having heard a good deal of the eccentricities of the two spinsters of B----. But to the rest of the company, the appearance she made was inexplicable; they had been accustomed to see her ill dressed, and oddly dressed, but such a flight as this they were not prepared for. Some whispered that she had gone mad; others suspected that it must be accident--that somehow or other she had forgotten to put on her head-dress; but even if it were so, the joke was an excellent one, and nobody cared enough for her to sacrifice their amusement by setting her right. So Miss Cecilia, blessed in her delusion, triumphant and happy, took her place at the whist table, anxiously selecting a position which gave her a full view of the door, in order that she might have the indescribable satisfaction of seeing the expression of Miss Charlotte's countenance when she entered the room--that is, if she came; the probability was, that mortification would keep her away.