THE STRAWBERRY PARTY, 



I have less reason to remember it than some of my com- 

 panions, but I shall certainly never forget that Strawberry party. 

 It was a bright and beautiful morning when we set off, each 

 bearing a basket to contain our expected spoils. We were 

 rather an incongruous set, for there was Alice May, a city-bred 

 belle, cold, proud, and beautiful, with a manner of such perfect 

 repose that no one could tell whether she was indifferent or 

 reserved ; and little Fanny Wilson, a gay hoyden, fresh from 

 boarding-school, as good-natured as she was ugly ; and Louisa 

 or, as we better loved to call her, Lily Bell, one of those pale, 

 fair, gentle creatures, who seem so nun-like in the quietude of 

 their own happy thoughts. Then we had two or three of those 

 pleasant, cheerful, commonplace girls, who always seem de- 

 signed to fill vacancies ; chatty, good-tempered and obliging ; 

 just the sort of women who become, in after life, what Cowper 

 styled "comfortable people." We were escorted as ladies- 

 errant always should be, by loyal knights and true. Cousin 

 Tom Harris, the young owner of the rich domain in which we 

 were to forage, was as good a creature as ever hooked a fish 

 or brought down a bird, though the highest reach of his intellect 



