been greatly improved by heavy and abundant drapery. Mabel, lithe and
restless, buoyant and energetic, unable even to wish for more luxury
or more happiness than she possessed, so that her active mind was
_forced_ to employ its longings on trifles, as it really had nothing
else to desire; her face was round as those faces are which become
oval in time; and her bright laughing eyes sparkled like sunbeams
at the bare notion of making "aunt Sarah" take either the place of a
high-backed chair, or the embroidery frame in a quadrille. "Do dance,"
she repeated.

"My dear child, I know as little of your quadrilles as you do of my
country dances and reels. No, Mabel; I can neither open the spinnet
nor dance quadrilles; so you have been twice refused this morning; a
novelty, is it not, my dearest Mabel?"

"But why do you not break open the spinnet? Do break it open, aunt; I
want to see the inside of it so much."

"No, Mabel; the lock is a peculiar one, and could not be broken
without defacing the marquetre on the cover, which I should not like
to do. My poor mother was so proud of that cover, and used to dust and
polish it with her own hands."

"What! herself?" exclaimed the pretty Mabel; "why did not her servants
do it?"

"Because, my dear, she had but one."

"But one! I remember when my poor mamma had none," sighed Mabel, "and
we were _so_ miserable."