"Pardon this intrusion.
We understood the servant that you were not at home." "Engaged, she meant," said I, a deeper crimson suffusing my face.
"The fact is, we are working for dear life, to get the children ready for a party to-night, and wished to be excused from seeing any one." "Certainly--all right," returned Mrs.Williams, "I merely came in to say to your domestic (I had forgotten it at the door) that my sister expected to leave for her home in New York in a day or two, and would call here with me, to-morrow afternoon." "I shall be very happy to see her," said I,--"very happy.

Do come in and sit down for a little while.

If I had only known it was you." Now that last sentence, spoken in embarrassment and mental confusion, was only making matters worse.

It placed me in a false and despicable light before my visitors; for in it was the savor of hypocrisy, which is foreign to my nature.
"No, thank you," replied my visitors.

"Good morning!" And they retired, leaving me so overcome with shame, mortification, confusion, and distress, that I burst into tears.
"To think that I should have done such a thing!" was my first remark, so soon as I had a little recovered my self-possession; and I looked up, half timidly, into the face of my niece.