't mind what people say," observed Mrs. Smith, with a
distorted smile.

"I know you don't, or, at least, that you don't resent any thing
toward persons of such standing as those two, or I would not have
repeated the conversation. But, is it true, that you had some trouble
to get the party out of your husband?"

"Mr. Smith and I always act in concert," said Mrs. Smith, looking
dutiful.

"Do you? well, that's a happy thing. I understood quite the contrary,
though, that you always carried the day, from what Mrs. Joe Culpepper
said. I was at her house when your invitation came in, and after she
had opened it, she exclaimed, with her sly laugh, 'Only think, Miss
Debby, that manoeuvring, pushing Mrs. Pelby Smith has at last worried
her poor husband into giving a party!' and from the way she pitied Mr.
Smith, I inferred she must have some reason to believe that if you did
not wield a pretty high hand, he would not be quite such a man of wax
as he seems."

Had Miss Debby been any thing less than a relation in common to the
"Goldsboroughs, the Pendletons, the Longacres, and the Van Pelts,"
Mrs. Smith would have been tempted to request her to leave the house;
but as it was, her policy taught her to endure whatever Miss Debby
might choose to inflict. So she leaned back hopelessly in her chair,
while the old lady snapped and cracked a plate of candied fruits with
a vigor of which her teeth looked incapable.

"Had you any of your borrowed things broken?--for I heard that you had
to borrow nearly every thing," resumed her torturer.

"Not any thing at all but two or three plates, which can easily be
replaced," replied Mrs. Smith, not knowing what next to expect on that
point. But Miss Debby tacked about.

"I believe," said she, "you had a visiter staying with you for a few
days?"

"Yes--a cousin of Mr. Smith's--Miss Sabina Incledon--"

"That's the name," interrupted Miss Debby, nodding; "the person that
went out home with Mrs. Morgan Silsbee, this morning, I presume?"

"The same," replied Mrs. Smith, feeling her consequence looking up;
"Cousin Sabina is a very particular friend of Mrs. Morgan Silsbee, who
for a long time had been soliciting the visit."

"Then, surely, she could not have been the person you set to watching
the kitchen and supper-room! Susan Goldsborough and Lydia Pendleton
were talking about it, and repeating to each other what they overheard
of a conversation between yourself and your husband, who seemed