“I declare, Miss M'Corde,” said an old lady with a paralytic shake in her head, and a most villanous expression in her one eye,--“I declare I would speak to her, if I was in your place.” “Unquestionably,” exclaimed another, whose face was purple with excitement; and thus encouraged, a very thin and very tall personage, with a long, slender nose tipped with pink, and light red hair in ringlets, arose from her seat, and approached where Helen was standing. “You are perhaps not aware, ma'am,” said she, with a mincing, lisping accent, the very essence of gentility, “that this instrument is not a 'house piano.'” Helen blushed slightly at the address, but could not for her life guess what the words meant. She had heard of grand pianos and square pianos, of cottage pianos, but never of “house pianos,” and she answered in the most simple of voices, “Indeed.” “No, ma'am, it is not; it belongs to your very humble servant,”--here she courtesied to the ground,-“who regrets deeply that its tone should not have more of your approbation.” “And I, ma'am,” said a fat old lady, waddling over, and wheezing as though she should choke, “I have to express my sorrow that the book-shelf, which you have just ransacked, should not present something worthy of your notice. The volumes are mine.” “And perhaps, ma'am,” cried a third, a little meagre figure, with a voice like a nutmeg-grater, “you could persuade the old lady, who I presume is your mother, to take her feet off that worked stool. When I made it, I scarcely calculated on the honor it now enjoys!” Lady Eleanor looked up at this instant, and although unconscious of what was passing, seeing Helen, whose face was now crimson, standing in the midst of a very excited group, she arose hastily, and said,-- “Helen, dearest, is there anything the matter?” “I should say there was, ma'am,” interposed the very fat lady,--“I should be disposed to say there was a great deal the matter. That to make use of private articles as if they were for house use, to thump one lady's piano, to toss another lady's books, to make oneself comfortable in a chair specially provided for the oldest boarder, with one's feet on another lady's footstool,--these are liberties, ma'am, which become something more than freedoms when taken by unknown individuals.” “I beg you will forgive my daughter and myself,” said Lady Eleanor, with an air of real regret; “our total ignorance--” “I thought as much, indeed,” muttered she of the shaking head; “there is no other word for it.” “You are quite correct, ma'am,” said Lady Eleanor, at once addressing her in the most apologetic of voices,-“I cannot but repeat the word; our very great ignorance of the usages observed here is our only excuse, and I beg you to believe us incapable of taking such liberties in future.”