"Who will be invited to your party?" asked Harriet of Anna Melville, the eldest daughter of my old friends, Col. and Mrs. Melville, who resided in the town of H., and to whom I had been making a visit of some weeks.
Anna was a lively good-tempered girl, who wanted only two days of being twelve years old. For the last week, she had scarcely been able to speak of any thing but the party which was to be given on her birth-day, and to which Harriet's question referred.
"Who?" said Anna in reply; "oh, all the girls I know. Let me see—there are Helen Lamar, and Lucy Liston, and Mary and Ellen Leslie—"
"Ellen Leslie," exclaimed Emma, a younger sister of Anna who stood near her listening, "Ellen Leslie—why, Anna, you surely will not ask her. You know she will get into a passion with somebody before the evening is over; or even if she should not, we shall all be so much afraid of offending her that there will be no fun."
"But, Emma, if we do not ask Ellen, Mary will not come, and you know none of us would enjoy ourselves half so much if Mary were not here."
"No, we should not; but at any rate I will take care not to bring out my handsome doll and my best teacups, for if Miss Ellen gets angry, she will not mind breaking them."
Having overheard this dialogue, I felt no little curiosity to see the two sisters who were so differently regarded by their young friends.
The two days passed away slowly enough to the expecting children; but they did pass, and the birth-day arrived. All was bustle and preparation at Col. Melville's. Anna superintended and directed and hurried every one, and was dressed herself an hour before the time appointed for her visiters. At length, just as she had become weary of watching for them, and was beginning to express her opinion that no one was coming, a group was seen approaching. Then came another and another, till twenty young girls, neatly dressed, and with smiling, happy faces, were collected. Among the latest arrivals were Mary and Ellen Leslie. I had seen them from the windows before they entered the house, and was much pleased with their appearance. They wore very simple white dresses, and their hair fell in natural ringlets over their shoulders, unconfined and without ornament of any kind. As they entered the parlor, all the girls went forward to welcome them; but it was easy to see that the gladness which all expressed was more for Mary than for Ellen—their greetings being made something in this way:
"Oh, Mary! I am so delighted to see you—and Ellen too!"
But for the conversation between Anna and Emma Melville which I had overheard, I should not have known how to account for this difference, for Ellen was not at all less pleasing in appearance than Mary. Indeed she would have impressed many persons more agreeably, for Mary's countenance, though very gentle, was very serious, while Ellen's was gay and animated.