At the period of which the present veracious history treats, the bereaved mother and daughter were living in subdued style in the locality designated above. Among their most intimate associates were the ORDETHS, between whose family and theirs there existed that pleasing and kindly familiarity which permits the most open recognition of mutual virtues in society and the most searching criticism of individual weaknesses at home. The ADAMSES and ORDETHS met at each other's houses with gushes of endearment that edified all beholders; and if Miss EVE said to her mother on their way home from church that LIBBY ORDETH looked like a perfect fright in that ridiculous new bonnet of hers, it was only because her affectionate heart felt a pang at seeing her bosom-friend appear to less advantage than her own self-sacrificing self. It is a touching peculiarity of this modern friendship, _mon ami_, that a majority of the errors its fairest votaries detect in each other, are those of the head--not of the heart. EVE ADAMS, whose diminutive size had given occasion to the _mot_ by which she was denominated the "Widow's Mite," was calling at the ORDETHS when Mr. BOB PETERS first came in under a flag of truce from Fortress Monroe, and was witness to the chivalric reception accorded to that gentleman by his relatives, before his pecuniary mission was known. In the exuberance of his nature, Mr. PETERS had kissed her with the rest of the family, and from the moment of receiving that chaste salutation, EVE had selected the Northern stranger as her hero in that ideal novel of spiritual yellow-covers in which all maidens live, and move and have their beings until stern reality bursts upon them in the shape of a husband or a snub.