Good, comfortable Mrs. Foster (the wife of stout Silas Foster, who
was to manage the farm at a fair stipend, and be our tutor in the art
of husbandry) bade us a hearty welcome. At her back--a back of
generous breadth--appeared two young women, smiling most hospitably,
but looking rather awkward withal, as not well knowing what was to be
their position in our new arrangement of the world. We shook hands
affectionately all round, and congratulated ourselves that the
blessed state of brotherhood and sisterhood, at which we aimed, might
fairly be dated from this moment. Our greetings were hardly
concluded when the door opened, and Zenobia--whom I had never before
seen, important as was her place in our enterprise--Zenobia entered
the parlor.
This (as the reader, if at all acquainted with our literary biography,
need scarcely be told) was not her real name. She had assumed it,
in the first instance, as her magazine signature; and, as it accorded
well with something imperial which her friends attributed to this
lady's figure and deportment, they half-laughingly adopted it in
their familiar intercourse with her. She took the appellation in
good part, and even encouraged its constant use; which, in fact, was
thus far appropriate, that our Zenobia, however humble looked her new
philosophy, had as much native pride as any queen would have known
what to do with.
III. A KNOT OF DREAMERS
Zenobia bade us welcome, in a fine, frank, mellow voice, and gave
each of us her hand, which was very soft and warm.
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