"It is evening," says Mr. Albert Smith; "mamma and her two daughters are seated at a table arranging the names of the visitors upon the back of an old letter, having turned out the dusty record of the card-basket before them in order that no one of importance may be forgotten. "ELLEN (_loc_.): 'I am sure I don't see why we should invite the Harveys, mamma. They have been here twice, and never asked us back again.' "FANNY: 'And we shall see those dreadful silver poplins again; they must be intimately acquainted with the cane-work of all the rout-seats in London.' "ELLEN: 'And William Harvey is so exceedingly disagreeable; he always looks at the ciphers on the plate to see if it is borrowed or not.' "FANNY: 'And last year he declared the pine-apple ice was full of little square pieces of raw potato; and when Mr. Edwards broke a tumbler at supper he told him "not to mind, for they were only tenpence apiece in Tottenham Court Road." The low wretch! he thought he had made a capital joke.' "MAMMA: 'Well, my dears, I think your papa will be annoyed if they are left out; but never mind him--we won't ask them.'" [Illustration: "MAMMA AND THE GIRLS."] The discussion respecting the guests goes on, opinion as to eligibility widely differing. Mamma proposes Mr. and Mrs. Howard and the four girls, to which Miss Ellen says: "All dressed alike, and standing up in every quadrille. I declare I will get George Conway to put an ice in Harriet's chair for her to sit down upon, in revenge for her waltzing last year, when she brushed down the Joan of Arc, and knocked its head off." This refined conversation continues till Miss Ellen speaks of her brother's disposition to interfere with the invitation-list; she says: "'We must tell Tom not to overdo us so much with his own friends. I declare last year I did not know half the young men in the room; and it was so very awkward when you had to introduce them.' [Illustration: "TWO RUDE YOUNG MEN."] "FANNY: 'And they were not nice persons. Two of them were in the pit of the Lyceum the next night, and, seeing us in Mr. Arnold's box, would stare us out of countenance. With a single glass, too!'" "And in this style," says our author, "the list is arranged, the hostess gradually becoming a prey to isinglass and acute mental inquietude, which gradually increases as the day draws nearer, until upon the morning of its arrival her very brain is almost turned to blancmange from the intensity of her anxiety!" [Illustration: "THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE."] The whole house is, of course, turned topsy-turvy; and Leech gives us a picture of the master of the mansion surrounded by some of the consequences of giving an evening party.