An hour later, seated in the hammock, the girls discussed their aunt's plan.
"We'll have the Jones girls," said Susie, "and Grace Tyler, and Nellie Dimock, she's such a dear little thing; and I suppose we must ask Fan Eldridge, because she lives next door, though I dread to have her come, she gets mad so easy; but mamma wouldn't like to have us leave her out; and then, let's see—oh! we'll ask Florence Austin, the new girl, you know."
"Would you?" said Mollie, doubtfully. "We don't know her very well, and she dresses so fine and is kind of citified, you know. Ar'n't you afraid she'll spoil the fun?"
"No," said Susie, decidedly. "Mamma said we were to be good to her because she's a stranger; and I think she's nice, too—not a bit proud, though her father is so rich."
"Well," Mollie assented, who, though thirteen months older than her sister, generally yielded to Susie's better judgment; "let her come, then. That makes six besides us, and Aunt Ruth said half a dozen would be plenty. Sue, I think it's going to be real jolly, don't you?"
CHAPTER III.
THE STORY OF DINAH DIAMOND.
Miss Ruth Elliot was the minister's sister. And two years before, when she came to live in the parsonage, an addition of two rooms was built for her on the ground floor because she was an invalid, and lame, and could not climb the stairs.
They were pretty rooms, with soft carpets, pictures on the walls, and in the winter time the sun shining in all day at the south window and the glass door. In summer with this door wide open and the piazza cool and shady with woodbine and clematis, you would have agreed with the little girls who made up Ruth Elliot's sewing circle, that first Wednesday afternoon, that they were "just lovely!"