Evening came at last, and the ladies were forced to leave the scene of their labors to array themselves for the coming festivities.  The tables had been set in a back room, the meats were ready, the pickles were displayed, the cake was baked, the blanc-mange had stiffened, and the ice-cream had frozen.

At half past seven o’clock, the Colonel, in costume, came into the front parlor, and proceeded to light the lamps.  Some were good-humored enough and took the hint of a lighted match at once.  Others were as vicious as they could be,—­would not light on any terms, any more than if they were filled with water, or lighted and smoked one side of the chimney, or spattered a few sparks and sulked themselves out, or kept up a faint show of burning, so that their ground glasses looked as feebly phosphorescent as so many invalid fireflies.  With much coaxing and screwing and pricking, a tolerable illumination was at last achieved.  At eight there was a grand rustling of silks, and Mrs. and Miss Sprowle descended from their respective bowers or boudoirs.  Of course they were pretty well tired by this time, and very glad to sit down,—­having the prospect before them of being obliged to stand for hours.  The Colonel walked about the parlor, inspecting his regiment of lamps.  By and by Mr. Geordie entered.

“Mph! mph!” he sniffed, as he came in.  “You smell of lamp-smoke here.”

That always galls people,—­to have a new-comer accuse them of smoke or close air, which they have got used to and do not perceive.  The Colonel raged at the thought of his lamps’ smoking, and tongued a few anathemas inside of his shut teeth, but turned down two or three wicks that burned higher than the rest.

Master H. Frederic next made his appearance, with questionable marks upon his fingers and countenance.  Had been tampering with something brown and sticky.  His elder brother grew playful, and caught him by the baggy reverse of his more essential garment.

“Hush!” said Mrs. Sprowle,—­“there ’s the bell!”

Everybody took position at once, and began to look very smiling and altogether at ease.—­False alarm.  Only a parcel of spoons,—­“loaned,” as the inland folks say when they mean lent, by a neighbor.

“Better late than never!” said the Colonel, “let me heft them spoons.”

Mrs. Sprowle came down into her chair again as if all her bones had been bewitched out of her.

“I’m pretty nigh beat out a’ready,” said she, “before any of the folks has come.”

They sat silent awhile, waiting for the first arrival.  How nervous they got! and how their senses were sharpened!

“Hark!” said Miss Matilda,—­“what ’s that rumblin’?”

It was a cart going over a bridge more than a mile off, which at any other time they would not have heard.  After this there was a lull, and poor Mrs. Sprowle’s head nodded once or twice.  Presently a crackling and grinding of gravel;—­how much that means, when we are waiting for those whom we long or dread to see!  Then a change in the tone of the gravel-crackling.