Let us go into the house.
Mrs. Meeker is just preparing for a short shopping excursion before dinner. At the distance from which we regard her, Time seems to have dealt very kindly with her. The figure is quite the same, the style the same, the face the same, and you see no gray hairs. In short, you behold our old friend Arabella, slightly exaggerated, perhaps—but it is she.
She leaves her room, and prepares to descend.
As she passes to the top of the staircase, a faint voice exclaims:
'Mamma!'
Mrs. Meeker stops with an expression of impatience, turns, and enters the adjoining apartment.
On a sort of couch or ottoman reclines a young lady, who, you can perceive at a glance, is a victim of consumption.
It is their oldest child, who for five years has been an invalid, and whose strength of late has been fast declining. One can hardly say how she would have looked in health, for disease is a fearful ravager. Still, Harriet (she is named for Mr. Meeker's mother) probably resembled her own mother more than any one else in personal appearance, but beyond that there was no resemblance whatever. Neither was she like her father, but more like her grandfather Meeker, of whom her uncle says she always reminds him. She possesses a kind and happy nature; and since she was stricken by the terrible malady, she has grown day by day more gentle and more heavenly, as her frame has been gradually weakened under its insidious inroads.
When Mrs. Meeker came in, she demanded, in an irritated tone, 'What do you want, Harriet?'
'I wish very much, mamma, you would send and ask Uncle Frank if he will not come and see me to-day.'