transits through the apartment.

"No," answered Mary, innocently. "Why wasn't she?"

"'Cause neber was a man could run fast enough to cotch her," said
Candace; and then her portly person shook with the impulse of her own
wit.

By two o'clock a goodly company began to assemble. Mrs. Deacon Twitchel
arrived, soft, pillowy, and plaintive as ever, accompanied by Cerinthy
Ann, a comely damsel, tall and trim, with a bright black eye, and a
most vigorous and determined style of movement. Good Mrs. Jones, broad,
expansive, and solid, having vegetated tranquilly on in the
cabbage-garden of the virtues since three years ago, when she graced
our tea-party, was now as well preserved as ever, and brought some
fresh butter, a tin pail of cream, and a loaf of cake made after a new
Philadelphia receipt. The tall, spare, angular figure of Mrs. Simeon
Brown alone was wanting; but she patronized Mrs. Scudder no more, and
tossed her head with a becoming pride when her name was mentioned.

The quilt-pattern was gloriously drawn in oak-leaves, done in indigo;
and soon all the company, young and old, were passing busy fingers over
it; and conversation went on briskly.

Madame de Frontignac, we must not forget to say, had entered with
hearty abandon into the spirit of the day. She had dressed the tall
china vases on the mantel-pieces, and, departing from the usual rule of
an equal mixture of roses and asparagus-bushes, had constructed two
quaint and graceful bouquets, where garden-flowers were mingled with
drooping grasses and trailing wild vines, forming a graceful