neither the resurrection nor the "new family" had disturbed their slumbers. 

 Jenny Andrews and Amy Seaton, who slept in the room above, never heard a sound, nor did Charlie in his cosey chamber beyond, and great was the astonishment of the young people, on opening their casements, to behold the long line of heavy-loaded teams drawn up in the yard of the splendid mansion which stood next above Dea. Allen's, the former residence of Esq. Williams. Teamsters in blue frocks were unfastening the smoking oxen from the ponderous carts, and as the girls hurried below to impart the intelligence of the arrival of the new family to Mrs. Allen, they heard the voice of Mrs. Salsify Mumbles, and entering the sitting-room found that lady laying aside her bonnet and shawl. Mary Madeline was standing by the window gazing into the adjoining yard. Jenny and Amy had not seen their former boarding mistress since they left her house at the close of the summer term, several months before. But she was so elate about the arrival of the new family that all memory of their former ill-usage seemed to have escaped her, and she grasped the hands of both and shook them cordially. "I am glad to see you," she exclaimed; "why have you not called on us this fall? Mary Madeline has often said I wish Jenny and Amy would come in, it would seem so much like old times. Here, my dear," said she, seizing hold of the young lady's shawl and pulling her from the window, "don't be so taken up with the new family that you can't speak to your old friends." Mary Madeline now turned and spoke to her former schoolmates. Then, drawing a chair close to the window, she resumed her gaze, with her gloves and handkerchief lying unheeded on the floor and her gay shawl dragging behind her. "O, mother! mother!" she exclaimed at length, "there comes the family." 

 Mrs. Salsify, who was engaged in telling Mrs. Allen of Mr. Salsify's prosperity, and how he was "rising in his profession," and how he meditated adding another story to his house and putting a piazza round it next spring, dropped all, even her snuff-box, and rushed to the window as a large covered wagon, drawn by a span of elegant black horses, drove rapidly into the adjoining yard. First alighted a tall man in a black overcoat,—the master no doubt, the gazers decided,—then a tall man in a gray overcoat, then a tall man in a brown overcoat. And the man in the black overcoat and the man in the gray overcoat moved away, the former up the steps of the mansion and around the terraces, trying the fastenings of the Venetian blinds, and examining the cornices and pillars of the porticos; the latter turned in the direction of the stables and outhouses, while the man 

 Prev. P 29/360 next