CHAPTER IV.
COUSIN EMMA.
Agnes had been in town about two weeks, when my home was one morning thrown into a state of unusual excitement by the arrival of a letter from Boston, containing the intelligence that Cousin Emma Rushton, who had been an invalid for more than a year, was about to try the effect of country life and country air.
This piece of news operated differently upon different members of our family.

Juliet exclaimed, "Good, good; Carrie Howard won't hold her head quite so high now, for we shall have a city lady, too." Anna was delighted, because she would thus have an opportunity of acquiring city manners and city fashions.

Sally said snappishly, "There's enough to wait on now, without having a stuck-up city flirt, faintin' at the sight of a worm, and screechin' if a fly comes toward her." Mother had some misgivings on the subject.

She was perfectly willing Emma should come, but she doubted our ability to entertain her, knowing that the change would be great from a fashionable city home to a country farmhouse.

Grandmother, who loved to talk of "my daughter in the city," was pleased, and to console mother, said: "Never you mind, Fanny, leave her to me; you find victuals and drink, and I'll do the entertaining." Among so many opinions it was hard for me to arrive at a conclusion.
On the whole, however, I was glad, until told that during Cousin Emma's stay our garret gambols must be given up, and that I must not laugh loud, or scarcely speak above a whisper, for she was sick, and it would hurt her head.