e that would have been
nearly meaningless if the features had not been emphasized--italicized,
so to speak--by the small-pox. Moreover, the brilliancy of her toilet
would have rendered any ghostly hypothesis untenable. Mrs. Solomon (we
refer to the dressiest Mrs. Solomon, which ever one that was) in all her
glory was not arrayed like Miss Margaret on that eventful summer
morning. She wore a light-green, shot-silk frock, a blazing red shawl,
and a yellow crape bonnet profusely decorated with azure, orange, and
magenta artificial flowers. In her hand she carried a white parasol. The
newly risen sun, ricocheting from the bosom of the river and striking
point-blank on the top-knot of Miss Margaret's gorgeousness, made her an
imposing spectacle in the quiet street of that Puritan village. But, in
spite of the bravery of her apparel, she stole guiltily along by garden
walls and fences until she reached a small, dingy frame-house near the
wharves, in the darkened doorway of which she quenched her burning
splendor, if so bold a figure is permissible.

Three quarters of an hour passed. The sunshine moved slowly up Anchor
Street, fingered noiselessly the well-kept brass knockers on either
side, and drained the heeltaps of dew which had been left from the
revels of the fairies overnight in the cups of the morning-glories. Not
a soul was stirring yet in this part of the town, though the
Rivermouthians are such early birds that not a worm may be said to
escape them. By and by one of the brown Holland shades at one of the
upper windows of the Bilkins Mansion--the house from which Miss Margaret
had emerged--was drawn up, and old Mr. Bilkins in spiral nightcap looked
out on the sunny street. Not a living creature was to be seen, save the
dissipated family cat--a very Lovelace of a cat that was not allowed a
night-key--who was sitting on the curbstone opposite, waiting for the
hall door to be opened. Three quarters of an hour, we repeat, had
passed, when Mrs. Margaret O'Rourke, _nee_ Callaghan, issued from the
small, dingy house by the river, and regained the door-step of the
Bilkins mansion in the same stealthy fashion in which she had left it.

Not to prolong a mystery that must already oppress the reader, Mr.
Bilkins's cook had, after the manner of her kind, stolen out
of the premises before the family were up, and got herself
married--surreptitiously and artfully married, as if matrimony were an
indictable offence.

And something