A splendid dinner was ready to be served, for which Mr.Belcher, who had been in constant communication with his convenient and most officious friend, had brought the silver; and the first business was to dispose of it.

Mrs.Dillingham led the mistress of the house to her seat, distributed the children, and amused them all by the accounts she gave them of her efforts to make their entrance and welcome satisfactory.

Mrs.Belcher observed her quietly, acknowledged to herself the woman's personal charms--her beauty, her wit, her humor, her sprightliness, and her more than neighborly service; but her quick, womanly instincts detected something which she did not like.

She saw that Mr.Belcher was fascinated by her, and that he felt that she had rendered him and the family a service for which great gratitude was due; but she saw that the object of his admiration was selfish--that she loved power, delighted in having things her own way, and, more than all, was determined to place the mistress of the house under obligations to her.

It would have been far more agreeable to Mrs.Belcher to find everything in confusion, than to have her house brought into habitable order by a stranger in whom she had no trust, and upon whom she had no claim.