aunt, you
would send that old spinnet out of the room; it looks so odd by the
side of my beautiful piano."

"My dear Mabel," replied her aunt, "I have put as much _new_ furniture
as you wished into this room, but I cannot part with the old"--

"Rubbish!" added Mabel, snapping her worsted with the impatience of
the movement.

"It may be rubbish in _your_ eyes, Mabel, but I have told you before
that my dear father desired I should never part with the furniture of
the room he died in."

Mabel _looked_ the truth--"that she was not more inclined toward the
old furniture on that account;" but she did not say so. "Have you got
the key of the old spinnet, aunt? I should like to hear its tone."

"I have never found the key, my dear, though I have often looked for
it; I suppose my father lost it. I have danced to its music before now
to my mother's playing; but I am sure it has not a tone left."

"I wish you would dance now, dear aunt," exclaimed Mabel, jumping up
at the idea; "you never told me you could dance; I never, somehow,
fancied you could dance, and I have been obliged to practise my
quadrilles with two high-backed chairs and my embroidery frame. Do,
dear aunt; put by that book, and dance." It would be impossible to
fancy a greater contrast than aunt and niece. Sarah Bond's erect and
perfectly flat figure was surmounted by a long head and face, round
which an abundance of gray hair was folded; for by no other term can
I describe its peculiar dress; her cap plain, but white as snow; and a
black silk gown, that had seen its best days, was pinned and _primmed_
on, so as to sit as close as possible to a figure which would have
been greatly improved by heavy and abundant drapery. Mabel, lithe and
restless, buoyant and energetic, unable even to wish for more luxury
or more happiness than she possessed, so that her active mind was
_forced_ to employ its longings on trifles, as it really had nothing
else to desire; her face was round as those faces are which become
oval in time; and her bright laughing eyes sparkled like sunbeams
at the bare notion of making "aunt Sarah" take either the place of a
high-backed chair, or the embroidery frame in a quadrille. "Do dance,"
she repeated.

"My dear child, I know as little of your quadrilles as you do of my
country dances and reels. No, Mabel; I can neither open the spinnet
nor dance quadrilles; so you have been twice refused this morning; a
novelty, is it not, my dearest Mabel?