“’Tis pretty, but it won’t wash, child; those colours always run.”

“Just look at that silk though—­now that’s cheap, you must acknowledge—­only eighty-seven and a half cents; if I only had a dress of that I should be fixed.”

“Laws, Caddy!” replied Mrs. Ellis, “that stuff is as slazy as a washed cotton handkerchief, and coarse enough almost to sift sand through.  It wouldn’t last you any time.  The silks they make now-a-days ain’t worth anything; they don’t wear well at all.  Why,” continued she, “when I was a girl they made silks that would stand on end—­and one of them would last a life-time.”

They had now reached Chestnut-street, which was filled with gaily-dressed people, enjoying the balmy breath of a soft May evening.  Mrs. Ellis and Caddy walked briskly onward, and were soon beyond the line of shops, and entered upon the aristocratic quarter into which many of its residents had retired, that they might be out of sight of the houses in which their fathers or grandfathers had made their fortunes.

“Mother,” said Caddy, “this is Mr. Grant’s new house—­isn’t it a splendid place?  They say it’s like a palace inside.  They are great people, them Grants.  I saw in the newspaper yesterday that young Mr. Augustus Grant had been appointed an attache to the American legation at Paris; the newspapers say he is a rising man.”

“Well, he ought to be,” rejoined Mrs. Ellis, “for his old grand-daddy made yeast enough to raise the whole family.  Many a pennyworth has he sold me.  Laws! how the poor old folk do get up!  I think I can see the old man now, with his sleeves rolled up, dealing out his yeast.  He wore one coat for about twenty years, and used to be always bragging about it.”

As they were thus talking, a door of one of the splendid mansions they were passing opened, and a fashionably-dressed young man came slowly down the steps, and walked on before them with a very measured step and peculiar gait.

“That’s young Dr. Whiston, mother,” whispered Caddy; “he’s courting young Miss Morton.”

“You don’t say so!” replied the astonished Mrs. Ellis.  “Why, I declare his grandfather laid her grandfather out!  Old Whiston was an undertaker, and used to make the handsomest coffins of his time.  And he is going to marry Miss Morton!  What next, I’d like to know!  He walks exactly like the old man.  I used to mock him when I was a little girl.  He had just that hop-and-go kind of gait, and he was the funniest man that ever lived.  I’ve seen him at a funeral go into the parlour, and condole with the family, and talk about the dear departed until the tears rolled down his cheeks; and then he’d be down in the kitchen, eating and drinking, and laughing, and telling jokes about the corpses, before the tears were dry on his face.  How he used to make money!  He buried almost all the respectable people about town, and made a large fortune.  He owned a burying-ground in Coates-street, and when the property in that vicinity became valuable, he turned the dead folks out, and built houses on the ground!”