There were scattered about in the settlement lordly mansions, whose owners rolled in emblazoned carriages, and whose wide halls were the scenes of a showy and almost princely hospitality.  By her husband’s side, Mrs. Katy Scudder was allied to one of these families of wealthy planters, and often recognized the connection with a quiet undertone of satisfaction, as a dignified and self-respecting woman should.  She liked, once in a while, quietly to let people know, that, although they lived in the plain little cottage and made no pretensions, yet they had good blood in their veins,—­that Mr. Scudder’s mother was a Wilcox, and that the Wilcoxes were, she supposed, as high as anybody,—­generally ending the remark with the observation, that “all these things, to be sure, were matters of small consequence, since at last it would be of far more importance to have been a true Christian than to have been connected with the highest families of the land.”

Nevertheless, Mrs. Scudder was not a little pleased to have in her possession a card of invitation to a splendid wedding-party that was going to be given, on Friday, at the Wilcox Manor.  She thought it a very becoming mark of respect to the deceased Mr. Scudder that his widow and daughter should be brought to mind,—­so becoming and praiseworthy, in fact, that, “though an old woman,” as she said, with a complacent straightening of her tall, lithe figure, she really thought she must make an effort to go.

Accordingly, early one morning, after all domestic duties had been fulfilled, and the clock, loudly ticking through the empty rooms, told that all needful bustle had died down to silence, Mrs. Katy, Mary, and Miss Prissy Diamond, the dressmaker, might have been observed sitting in solemn senate around the camphor-wood trunk, before spoken of, and which exhaled vague foreign and Indian perfumes of silk and sandal-wood.

You may have heard of dignitaries, my good reader,—­but, I assure you, you know very little of a situation of trust or importance compared to that of the dress-maker in a small New England town.

What important interests does she hold in her hands!  How is she besieged, courted, deferred to!  Three months beforehand, all her days and nights are spoken for; and the simple statement, that only on that day you can have Miss Clippers, is of itself an apology for any omission of attention elsewhere,—­it strikes home at once to the deepest consciousness of every woman, married or single.  How thoughtfully is everything arranged, weeks beforehand, for the golden, important season when Miss Clippers can come!  On that day, there is to be no extra sweeping, dusting, cleaning, cooking, no visiting, no receiving, no reading or writing, but all with one heart and soul are to wait upon her, intent to forward the great work which she graciously affords a day’s leisure to direct.  Seated in her chair of state, with her well-worn cushion bristling with pins and needles at her side, her ready