The eldest Miss Willis grew ill-tempered and religious--the four Miss Willises were ill-tempered and religious directly.

Whatever the eldest did, the others did, and whatever anybody else did, they all disapproved of; and thus they vegetated--living in Polar harmony among themselves, and, as they sometimes went out, or saw company 'in a quiet-way' at home, occasionally icing the neighbours.

Three years passed over in this way, when an unlooked for and extraordinary phenomenon occurred.

The Miss Willises showed symptoms of summer, the frost gradually broke up; a complete thaw took place.

Was it possible?
one of the four Miss Willises was going to be married! Now, where on earth the husband came from, by what feelings the poor man could have been actuated, or by what process of reasoning the four Miss Willises succeeded in persuading themselves that it was possible for a man to marry one of them, without marrying them all, are questions too profound for us to resolve: certain it is, however, that the visits of Mr.Robinson (a gentleman in a public office, with a good salary and a little property of his own, besides) were received--that the four Miss Willises were courted in due form by the said Mr Robinson--that the neighbours were perfectly frantic in their anxiety to discover which of the four Miss Willises was the fortunate fair, and that the difficulty they experienced in solving the problem was not at all lessened by the announcement of the eldest Miss Willis,--'_We_ are going to marry Mr.
Robinson.' It was very extraordinary.