Scarcely had she reached her room when the dinner-bell rang, every note falling like an ice-bolt on the heart of ’Lena, who, though hungry like her grandmother, still greatly dreaded the dinner, fearing her inability to acquit herself creditably.  Corinda had finished her hair, and Anna, looking over her wardrobe and coming upon the black dress which her father had purchased for her, had insisted upon ’Lena’s wearing it.  It was of rather more modern make than any of her other dresses, and when her toilet was completed, she looked uncommonly well.  Still she trembled violently as Anna led her to the dining-room.

Neither Mrs. Nichols nor Mrs. Livingstone had yet made their appearance, but the latter soon came languidly in, wrapped in a rose-colored shawl, which John Jr., said “she wore to give a delicate tint to her yellow complexion.”  She was in the worst of humors, having just been opening her husband’s trunk, where she found the numerous articles which had been stowed away by Nancy Scovandyke.  Very angrily she had ordered them removed from her sight, and at this very moment the little negroes in the yard were playing with the cracked bellows, calling them a “blubber,” and filling them with water to see it run out!

Except through the window, Mrs. Livingstone had not yet seen ’Lena, and now dropping into her chair, she never raised her eyes until Anna said, “Mother, mother, this is ’Lena.  Look at her.”

Thus importuned, Mrs. Livingstone looked up, and the frown with which she was prepared to greet her niece softened somewhat, for ’Lena was not a child to be looked upon and despised.  Plain and humble as was her dress, there was something in her fine, open face, which at once interested and commanded respect, John Jr., had felt it; his father had felt it; and his mother felt it too, but it awoke in her a feeling of bitterness as she thought how the fair young girl before her might in time rival her daughters.  At a glance, she saw that ’Lena was beautiful, and that it was quite as much a beauty of intellect as of feature and form.

“Yes,” thought she, “husband was right when he said that, with the same advantages, she’d soon outstrip her cousins—­but it shall never be—­never,” and the white teeth shut firmly together, as the cold, proud woman bowed a welcome.

At this moment Mrs. Nichols appeared.  Stimulated by the example of ’Lena, she, too, had changed her dress, and now in black bombazine, white muslin cap, and shining silk apron, she presented so respectable an appearance that her son’s face instantly brightened.

“Come, mother, we are waiting for you,” said he, as she stopped on her way to ask Vine, the fly girl, “how she did, and if it wasn’t hard work to swing them feathers.”

Not being very bright, Vine replied with a grim, “Dun know, miss.”

Taking her seat next to her son, Mrs. Nichols said when offered a plate of soup, “I don’t often eat broth, besides that, I ain’t much hungry, as I’ve just been takin’ a bite with Miss Atherton?”