Page:Live and Let Live.djvu/203

Rh asked her to invite her friends to tea, the little girls busied themselves in preparing the nursery for their reception. Each brought some little favourite embellishment, shells, pictures, &c., from her own apartment to deck "mammy's."

Susan was mistress of ceremonies, and little Grace, and Kate, a child of five years, her ministers. They served the tea, and in due time tastefully arranged a supper-table, on the middle of which they placed a vase of flowers culled for the occasion from their own cherished plants. When the fruit, &c., was served, little Kate stole up to Miss Lane with a plate covered by her silk apron; and throwing off this screen, and looking archly from the brightest, most mischievous eyes, "No chicken-salad, no oranges, no grapes for naughty mammy!" she said, and presented her a breast-pin enclosing the interwoven hair of the children. Before mammy could speak or dash off the tear that trembled in her eye, Susan, holding the smiling baby in her arms, repeated the following lines composed by her sister.