cakes. Oh, they were such funny, quizzical
young fellows!

Four of the Meyer girls were now tall and stately, and all of them as
beautiful as could be, and not a year's difference between them. As they
grew up, and their virginal charms developed, Mr. Meyer's house became
more and more noisy and frequented. The old luxury, frivolity, and
extravagance returned, and a perpetual jollity took possession of it.
The most select company, moreover, assembled there--counts, barons,
gentlemen of high degree, bankers, and other bigwigs.

It is true that it struck Mr. Meyer as somewhat peculiar that when he
met these counts and barons in the street they did not seem to see him,
and if his girls were with him, they and these friends of theirs did not
even exchange looks; but it was his way not to trouble himself about
anything unpleasant; besides, he fancied that great folks always behaved
like this.

And now his youngest daughter also was growing up; she was already
twelve years old, and she promised to be more beautiful than any of her
sisters. At present she was in short frocks, and her long thick hair,
twisted into two pigtails, dangled down her back. The guests who
honoured her father's house with their presence had already begun to ask
her, in joke, when she was going to wear long dresses like her sisters.

One day Mr. Meyer had an unusual and surprising visitor. A bevy of
good-humoured youths were flirting with his daughters just then, while
papa was smashing flies on the wall at intervals, smiling complacently
whenever one of his daughters, startled by an extra loud bang, gave a
little shriek, when a knocking was heard at the door. As nobody answered
the door, the knocking was repeated twice, much louder each time, and at
last one of the jovial young fellows aforesaid jumped up and opened the
door, imagining that it was some other merry wag who wanted to surprise
them all--and behold! a dry, wrinkled old maid in a shabby black dress
stood before the brilliant assembly!

Papa was so frightened by this apparition that his knees knocked
together. It was Aunt Teresa!

The old spinster, without deigning to bestow the least attention on the
company assembled there, made straight for Mr. Meyer with the utmost
composure.

The worthy pater-familias was in the most unspeakable confusion. He knew
not whether to ask the old lady to take a chair, or whether to introduce
her to the gay throng as his sister, or whether to deny that