Very sincerely your friend,
Marian V. Morrison.
Miss Eleanor Morrison to Miss Grace Fairfax, Washington, D. C.
November 19th.
Dearest Grace: We are sending out invitations to dinner and small dance afterward in honor of a cousin of ours, Helen Hammersley, who is coming from England to spend the winter with us, and of course we thought of you first and foremost. You must come and save the situation with your brilliancy and tact. There! can you refuse me after that? To tell you the truth, dear, we are all awfully worried about the whole thing. We none of us know Helen at all, and we are simply au désespoir about her because she is such a strange girl. She has been at college for five years—first in America and then at Oxford, and we all feel miserably sure of what an impossible sort of girl she is. She even took some sort of honor in mathematics at Oxford—just fancy! What she is going to be like in a ball-room no mortal can guess! So we have done the best we can—mamma has invited some old fogies to entertain her, and I propose we make our end of the table as much of a shining contrast as possible. I shall ask that Canadian you adore so—Reggie Montrose—for you, and your brother Jerry for Margaret, and shall reserve Wayne Claghart for myself; so please take warning and let that youth severely alone. He is my especial property, and I consider him simply the nicest man I know. He has hinted two or three times that he would like to sketch my head. He needn’t be afraid of my refusing, if he’d only ask me outright! I shall tell Helen, of course, that I asked him because he has lately returned from England, and she has just returned, etc., etc., but I’m afraid he’ll be so far away from her and she’ll be so busy talking theologies with Professor Radnor (forgot to tell you mamma has asked him!), and the East End with Percy Beaufort, that I don’t think she’ll have a chance to stun him with her learning. Besides, I don’t think he is the man to devote much time to that sort of a girl.
Now, don’t disappoint me! I count on you. Later there will be a lot of people in—the usual crowd, you know—and if you’ll say positively you’ll come, we will make it a small cotillon and you shall lead with Reggie.
I’ll let Margaret write to Jerry—they are such chums, but you be sure and make him come. Don’t, for Heaven’s sake, let him know about Helen’s homeliness and flabbergastering attainments, or he won’t stir a foot.
Good-by. Expect you down Wednesday. Telegraph me you will come.
As ever,
Eleanor.
Miss Eleanor Morrison to Reginald Montrose, Esq., Murray Hill Hotel, New York City.
November 19th.