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 time, chattering and admiring and speculating as to the impending glories. The boys, being sleepy after the conflicting duties and excitements of the day in the city, were the first to disappear. Then the Pratt girls were sent to bed, and presently Ben escorted his sister and nieces home, leaving Martha in solitary possession of her own magnificence.

While the voices of her departing guests were still audible on the stairs, Martha, who could no longer restrain her impatience for a complete view of herself, mounted upon a chair before her toilet-glass. From this eminence she could see her voluminous skirts to great advantage, and even the open-worked stockings encased in bronze slippers were visible. The head, to be sure, was not included in the reflection—a fact which quite escaped her notice; for Martha's vanity was of a singularly impersonal kind, and she was as unconscious of any charms of countenance as she was of the graces of disposition which others prized in her. It was the gown, and that alone, which commanded her respect and admiration. She stood there so lost in contemplation of its beauties that she scarcely noticed that her guests still lingered in the passage-way, till she heard the heavy thud of the front door closing upon them.

A sudden hush ensued. She stood upon the chair, turning slowly round and round after the manner of the lay figures in the shop-windows,