s--a sort of _piece de resistance_ in the courses of
needlework, taken up by any clever fingers that happened to be at
liberty. It stretched across the front room picturesquely enough, Mrs.
Meyrick bending over it on one corner, Mab in the middle, and Amy at
the other end. Mirah, whose performances in point of sewing were on the
make-shift level of the tailor-bird's, her education in that branch
having been much neglected, was acting as reader to the party, seated
on a camp-stool; in which position she also served Kate as model for a
title-page vignette, symbolizing a fair public absorbed in the
successive volumes of the family tea-table. She was giving forth with
charming distinctness the delightful Essay of Elia, "The Praise of
Chimney-Sweeps," and all were smiling over the "innocent blackness,"
when the imposing knock and ring called their thoughts to loftier
spheres, and they looked up in wonderment.

"Dear me!" said Mrs. Meyrick; "can it be Lady Mallinger? Is there a
grand carriage, Amy?"

"No--only a hansom cab. It must be a gentleman."

"The Prime Minister, I should think," said Kate dryly. "Hans says the
greatest man in London may get into a hansom cab."

"Oh, oh, oh!" cried Mab. "Suppose it should be Lord Russell!"

The five bright faces were all looking amused when the old maid-servant
bringing in a card distractedly left the parlor-door open, and there
was seen bowing toward Mrs. Meyrick a figure quite unlike that of the
respected Premier--tall and physically impressive even in his kid and
kerseymere, with massive face, flamboyant hair, and gold spectacles: in
fact, as Mrs. Meyrick saw from the card, _Julius Klesmer_.

Even embarrassment could hardly have made the "little mother" awkward,
but quick in her perceptions she was at once aware of the situation,
and felt well satisfied that the great personage had come to Mirah
instead of requiring her to come to him; taking it as a sign of active
interest. But when he entered, the rooms shrank into closets, the
cottage piano, Mab thought, seemed a ridiculous toy, and the entire
family existence as petty and private as an establishment of mice in
the Tuileries. Klesmer's personality, especially his way of glancing
round him, immediately suggested vast areas and a multitudinous
audience, and probably they made the usual scenery of his
consciousness, for we all of us carry on our thinking in some habitual
locus where there is a presence of other souls, and thos