home” with rheumatism.  So they only knew there was one person who would not come.  Elizabeth Eliza had sent in Circumambient ways to all the members of that society,—­by the little boys, for instance, who were sure to stop at the base-ball grounds, or somewhere, so a note was always delayed by them.  One Circumambient note she sent by mail, purposely omitting the “Mass.,” so that it went to the Dead-Letter Office, and came back six weeks after the party.

But the Peterkin family were not alone in commotion.  The whole town was in excitement, for “everybody” had been invited.  Ann Maria Bromwick had a book of costumes that she lent to a few friends, and everybody borrowed dresses or lent them, or went into town to the costumer’s.  Weeks passed in preparation.  “What are you going to wear?” was the only question exchanged; and nobody answered, as nobody would tell.

At length the evening came,—­a beautiful night in late summer, warm enough to have had the party out-of-doors; but the whole house was lighted up and thrown open, and Chinese lanterns hung in the portico and on the pillars of the piazzas.

At an early hour the Peterkins were arrayed in their costumes.  The little boys had their legs and arms and faces browned early in the day, and wore dazzlingly white full trousers and white turbans.

Elizabeth Eliza had prepared a dress as Queen Elizabeth; but Solomon John was desirous that she should be Desdemona, and she gave up her costume to her mother.  Mrs. Peterkin therefore wore a red wig which Ann Maria had found at a costumer’s, a high ruff, and an old-fashioned brocade.  She was not sure that it was proper for Queen Elizabeth to wear spectacles; but Queen Elizabeth must have been old enough, as she lived to be seventy.  As for Elizabeth Eliza, in recalling the fact that Desdemona was smothered by pillows, she was so impressed by it that she decided she could wear the costume of a sheet-and-pillow-case party.  So she wore a white figured silk that had been her mother’s wedding-dress, and over it draped a sheet as a large mantle, and put a pillow-case upon her head, and could represent Desdemona not quite smothered.  But Solomon John wished to carry out the whole scene at the end.

As they stood together, all ready to receive, in the parlor at the appointed hour, Mr. Peterkin suddenly exclaimed,—­

“This will never do!  We are not the Peterkins,—­we are distinguished guests!  We cannot receive.”

“We shall have to give up the party,” said Mrs. Peterkin.

“Or our costumes,” groaned Agamemnon from his ass’s head.

“We must go out, and come in as guests,” said Elizabeth Eliza, leading the way to a back door, for guests were already thronging in, and up the front stairs.  They passed out by a piazza, through the hedge of hollyhocks, toward the front of the house.  Through the side windows of the library they could see the company pouring in.  The black attendant was showing them upstairs; some were coming down, in doubt whether to enter the parlors, as no one was there.  The wide middle entrance hall was lighted brilliantly; so were the parlors on one side and the library on the other.