Sara laughed. After all, there was something in this honest, transparent child, from which evil had always seemed to slide, as dust slips from a polished mirror; and she said with conviction,—
"Molly, we'll both do differently. I like people too little, you perhaps too much; but after this I'll cultivate a fondness for them. There is no reason why we shouldn't both go out more, in certain ways, and see something of the life about us. If you will give up these wretched street acquaintances you shall have a party next Saturday."
"A party? O Sara!" her eyes dazzling in their delight.
"What kind of one?"
"A tea-party. Let's see, you might have nine girls, besides yourself; that would about fill our table, and I'll wait on you. I presume Morton will be off, as usual, on a geological ramble, so we needn't count him."
"O Sara! and may I have the table trimmed, and flowers all around? and may I make the cake? And oh!" clasping her hands together, "may I have Mr. Hoffstott freeze some cream?"
"Yes," laughed Sara; "yes, every one, if you'll keep your part of the contract."
"Sara," with intense solemnity, "if a student speaks to me I'll look right through him, like this," with a stare of Gorgonian stoniness; "and if he isn't completely silenced, I'll wither him this way," and she swept her sister with a slow, lofty, contemptuous glance, that would have scathed an agent.
"O Molly! Molly!" was all Sara said, as she laughed in spite of herself; but she felt she could trust the child who, with all her faults, had not a grain of slyness or deception in her nature.