As it is, it must be confessed that the arrival of Miss Prissy in a family was much like the setting up of a domestic show-case, through which you could look into all the families in the neighborhood, and see the never-ending drama of life,—­births, marriages, deaths,—­joy of new-made mothers, whose babes weighed just eight pounds and three-quarters, and had hair that would part with a comb,—­and tears of Rachels who wept for their children, and would not be comforted because they were not.  Was there a tragedy, a mystery, in all Newport, whose secret closet had not been unlocked by Miss Prissy?  She thought not; and you always wondered, with an uncertain curiosity, what those things might be over which she gravely shook her head, declaring, with such a look,—­“Oh, if you only could know!”—­and ending with a general sigh and lamentation, like the confidential chorus of a Greek tragedy.

We have been thus minute in sketching Miss Prissy’s portrait, because we rather like her.  She has great power, we admit; and were she a sour-faced, angular, energetic body, with a heart whose secretions had all become acrid by disappointment and dyspepsia, she might be a fearful gnome, against whose family-visitations one ought to watch and pray.  As it was, she came into the house rather like one of those breezy days of spring, which burst all the blossoms, set all the doors and windows open, make the hens cackle and the turtles peep,—­filling a solemn Puritan dwelling with as much bustle and chatter as if a box of martins were setting up housekeeping in it.

Let us now introduce you to the sanctuary of Mrs. Scudder’s own private bedroom, where the committee of exigencies, with Miss Prissy at their head, are seated in solemn session around the camphor-wood trunk.

“Dress, you know, is of some importance, after all,” said Mrs. Scudder, in that apologetic way in which sensible people generally acknowledge a secret leaning towards anything so very mundane.  While the good lady spoke, she was reverentially unpinning and shaking out of their fragrant folds creamy crape shawls of rich Chinese embroidery,—­India muslin, scarfs, and aprons; and already her hands were undoing the pins of a silvery damask linen in which was wrapped her own wedding-dress.  “I have always told Mary,” she continued, “that, though our hearts ought not to be set on these things, yet they had their importance.”

“Certainly, certainly, Ma’am,” chimed in Miss Prissy.  “I was saying to Miss General Wilcox, the other day, I didn’t see how we could ‘consider the lilies of the field,’ without seeing the importance of looking pretty.  I’ve got a flower-de-luce in my garden now, from one of the new roots that old Major Seaforth brought over from France, which is just the most beautiful thing you ever did see; and I was thinking, as I looked at it to-day, that, if women’s dresses only grew on ’em as handsome and well-fitting as that, why, there wouldn’t be any need of me; but as