"My child," slowly murmured the eldest sister, "our family, no doubt,
came of a very old stock; perhaps we belong to the nobility. Our
ancestors, it is thought, came over laden with honors, and no doubt were
embarrassed with riches, though the latter importation has dwindled in
the lapse of years. Respect yourself, and when you grow up you will not
regret that your old and careful aunt did not wish you to play with the
butcher's offspring."

I felt mortified that I ever had a desire to "knuckle up" with any but
kings' sons, or sultans' little boys. I longed to be among my equals in
the urchin line, and fly my kite with only high-born youngsters.

Thus I lived in a constant scene of self-enchantment on the part of the
sisters, who assumed all the port and feeling that properly belonged to
ladies of quality. Patrimonial splendor to come danced before their dim
eyes; and handsome settlements, gay equipages, and a general grandeur of
some sort loomed up in the future for the American branch of the House
of Pettibone.

It was a life of opulent self-delusion, which my aunts were never tired
of nursing; and I was too young to doubt the reality of it. All the
members of our little household held up their heads, as if each said, in
so many words, "There is no original sin in _our_ composition, whatever
of that commodity there may be mixed up with the common clay of
Snowborough."

Aunt Patience was a star, and dwelt apart. Aunt Eunice looked at her
through a determined pair of spectacles, and worshiped while she gazed.
The youngest sister lived in a dreamy state of honors to come, and had