regret that she had not followed Sophy's advice. Mrs. Judge Howell
and her daughter-in-law were refined, cultivated women, and ere
Ella had conversed with them five minutes, she felt that if there
was between them any point of inferiority, it rested with herself,
and not with them. They had traveled much, both in the Old and New
World; and though their home was in Boston, they spent almost
every summer in Dunwood, which Mrs. Howell pronounced a most
delightful village, assuring Ella that she could not well avoid
being happy and contented. Very wonderingly the large childish
blue eyes went up to the face of Mrs. Howell, who, interpreting
aright their expression, casually remarked that when she was
young, she fell into the foolish error of thinking there could be
_nobody_ outside the walls of a city. "But the experience of
sixty years has changed my mind materially," said she, "for I have
met quite as many refined and cultivated people in the country as
in the city."

This was a new idea to Ella, and the next visitors, who came in
just after Mrs. Howell left, were obliged to wait while she made
quite an elaborate toilet.

"Oh, Ella, how much better you are looking than you were an hour
or two since," exclaimed Mr. Hastings, who entered the chamber
just as his wife was leaving it.

"There's company in the parlor," answered Ella, tripping lightly
away, while her husband walked on into the dressing-room, where he
stepped first over a pair of slippers, then over a muslin wrapper,
and next over a towel, which Ella in her haste had left upon the
floor, her usual place for everything.