"Because the spring courts are held in Olneyville next week." 

 "What if they are?" 

 "I would like to attend." 

 "You would, would you? No doubt, and confine me at home to superintend the domestic affairs. No, Mr. Pimble, you don't enslave me in that manner. I'm a free woman, and acknowledge no man master. I'll see if I'm not mistress in my own house. Here, Dilly Danforth, take your hands out of that wash-tub, and pack off home, instanter. There will be no more washing done in my house to-day, or ever again, unless I order it done. And you, Peggy Nonce, make a pea soup and broil a nice steak, with all the appropriate dishes, and have a dinner prepared in half an hour, to serve myself and guests." 

 There was an instant commotion in the kitchen, and the mistress swept back to her guests in the parlor. 

 CHAPTER III. 

"She is a saucy wench,

Somewhat o'er full

Of pranks, I think—but then with growing years

She will outgrow her mischief and become

As staid and sober as our hearts could choose."

 Old Play. 

Old Play

 

 Mr. Salsify Mumbles was a grocer in a small way, and his good wife took boarders,—young ladies and gentlemen from different parts of the country, who came to attend Cedar Hill Seminary, a school of high repute and extended celebrity. Her number was limited to three this summer, because she conceived her health to be delicate, and because Mr. Salsify had communicated to her in private that he was certainly "rising in his profession;" and the quick-sighted lady foresaw the day speedily approaching when she would no longer be obliged to perplex herself with so ungrateful a class of beings as boarders, but should roll through the streets of 

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