I can't help it if I'm twenty-two, and not married or engaged either.

But I will be both before I am a year older." So saying, she quitted the apartment, and repaired to her own room.
Ere we follow her thither we will introduce both her and her sister to our readers.

Lucy and Lizzie were the only children of Mr.Dayton, a wealthy, intelligent, and naturally social man, the early death of whose idolized, beautiful wife had thrown a deep gloom over his spirits, which time could never entirely dispel.

It was now seventeen years since, a lonely, desolate widower, at the dusky twilight hour he had drawn closely to his bosom his motherless children, and thought that but for them he would gladly have lain down by her whose home was now in heaven.

His acquaintances spoke lightly of his grief, saying he would soon get over it and marry again.