"It is Miss Debby Coggins, ma'am," said the colored girl, returning, with a grin; "I let her in, because she's very partic'lar."
Miss Deborah Coggins, from being connected in some way or other with each of the great families of the town, and having money enough not to be dependent on any of them, was what is called a privileged character—a class of individuals hard to be endured, unless they possess the specific virtue of good-nature, to which Miss Debby had no claim. She talked without ceasing, and her motto was to speak "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." She was of a thin figure, always dressed in rusty black silk, which must sometimes have been renewed or changed, though no one could ever tell when, and a velvet bonnet, of the same hue, with a peculiar lateral flare, which, however, was really made to look something like new once every three or four years. She wore a demi-wreath of frizzly, flaxen curls close above her shaggy eyebrows, which were of the same color; and her very long, distended nose was always filled with snuff, which assisted in giving a trombone sound to as harsh a voice as ever passed through the lips of a woman.
She had drawn up the blinds, and opened the sash of the windows when Mrs. Smith entered the front parlor. "How're you this evening, Mrs. Smith?" said she, in answer to the bland welcome she received; "I was just telling your black girl that if you ever should happen to have a party again, she should open the rooms and have the air changed better the next day; and as you are not used to such things yourself, I thought I might as well let you know it, too. I raised the windows myself. Now," she added, "the room is too cold to sit in, and I would prefer going to your dining-room, or wherever you were when I came in."
"Certainly, certainly, Miss Debby," said Mrs. Smith, marshaling the way.
"Stop!" said Miss Debby, "I want to take a look at your wall paper—I never noticed it before. I can't say I like your taste; though, no doubt, you took it for the sake of economy—ugly papers sometimes go very cheap."
"You are quite mistaken, I assure you, Miss Debby," began Mrs. Smith, eagerly.
"Well, it's of no consequence," interrupted Miss Debby, "only I heard Matilda Shipley say yesterday, that there would be no use in dressing much for Mrs. Pelby Smith's party, as her low rooms, with their dingy, dirt-colored paper, could never be lighted up to make any one look well."
Mrs. Smith cleared her throat, but said nothing, recollecting by this time that all retort or explanation was lost upon Miss Deborah Coggins. To change the subject she remarked, "How disappointed I was at your not coming last night, my dear Miss Debby—one of the friends I most wished to see."
"I have been rather sorry myself that I did not come, since I heard that the party turned out better than could have been expected. I supposed that there would have been a great many here that I did not know, and that my own set, mostly, would have stayed away, like myself, not caring much to meet them."
"What an idea, Miss Debby! there was scarcely one in the room that you did not know. My company was very select."