It was on a raw and gusty evening in the month of November, a few years
subsequent to our last war with Great Britain, and the cold and vapor-laden
winds, which form such a drawback to the coast-clime of New England, were
fitfully wailing over the drear and frost-blackened landscape, and the
wayfarers, as if keenly alive to the discomforts of all without, were seen
everywhere hurrying forward to reach those comforts within which were
heralded in the cheerful gleams that shot from many a window, when a showy
and conspicuous mansion, in the environs of Boston, was observed to be
lighted up to an extent, and with a brilliancy, that betokened the advent
of some ambitious display on the part of the bustling inmates. Carriages
from different parts of the city were successively arriving, discharging
their loads of gaily-dressed ladies and gentlemen at the door, and rattling
off again at the crack of the whips of the pert and jauntily equipped
drivers. Others on foot, and from the more immediate neighborhood, were, in
couples and singly, for some time constantly dropping in to swell the
crowd, witness, and perhaps add to, the attractions of the occasion, which
was obviously one of those social gatherings that have been sometimes, in
conventional phrase, not inaptly denominated a _jam_; where people go to be
in the fashion, to see, be seen, and try as hard as they can to be happy;
but where the aggregate of happiness enjoyed is probably far less, as a
general rule, than would be enjoyed by the same company at home in the
pursuit of their ordinary avocations.

Meanwhile, as the guests were assembling and being conducted to the
withdrawing rooms, through the cash-bought and obsequious politeness of
some of the troop of waiters hired for the occasion, the master of the
mansion had taken his station in the nook of a window commanding the common
entrance, and was there stealthily noting, as the company, severally or one
group after another, mounted the doorsteps, who had honored his cards of