ild as a bird and gay as the sunset. She
talked and laughed incessantly, saying all sorts of merry things in a
childish fashion, that kept Mrs. Harrington in explosions of laughter,
more natural than she often indulged in, while Elizabeth Fuller leaned
back in her seat, listening, absently sometimes, to their graceful
banter, glancing at the young girl with affectionate admiration of her
youthful loveliness, but oftener losing herself in the pleasant train of
thought which had absorbed her all the afternoon.

Three persons more unlike in appearance than these ladies, it would have
been difficult to find; but a casual observer would probably have been
most attracted by the buoyant loveliness of Elsie Mellen.

She was eighteen,--but seemed younger with her fair curls, her brilliant
bloom, and the childish rapidity with which smiles chased each other
across her face. She looked the very personification of happiness, with
a bewitching _naivete_ in every word or movement, that made her very
childishness more captivating than the wisdom of older and more sensible
women.

Mrs. Harrington was a stylish, dashing widow, with a suspicion of rouge
on her somewhat faded cheeks, and an affectation of fashionable
listlessness which a look of real amiability somewhat belied. She was
one of those frivolous, good-natured women, who go through life without
ever being moved by an actual pleasure or pain, so engrossed by their
petty round of amusement, that if they originally possessed faculties
capable of development into something better, no warning of it ever
touches their souls.

Really the most noble and imposing person present was Miss Fuller. The
contrast between her grave, sweet beauty and the frivolous loveliness of
the other two, was striking indeed. Sometimes her large gray eyes seemed
dull and cold under their long black lashes, and the dark hair was
banded smoothly away from a forehead that betokened intellectual
strength; the mouth was a little compressed, giving token of the
reticence and self-repose of her nature, and a classical correctness of
profile added to the quiet gravity of her countenance.

But it was quite another face when deep feeling kindled the gray eyes
into sudden splendor, or some merry thought softened the mouth into a
smile--then she looked almost as girlish as Elsie herself.

But grave or smiling, it was not a face easy to read, nor was her
character more facile of comprehension, even to those who k