tive. She is very perceptive. When they travel in the cab to the ball she notices every little detail around her, such as the bolster in the cab, the lamp-posts, the fences and the trees. She is also very imaginative. The lamp-posts are waltzing in her eyes, and the bolster in the cab feels like "the sleeve of an unknown young man's dress suit" (192). In her mind she is already at the ball and throughout the story she paints very vivid pictures of everything she sees. Leila seems to be a soft and gentle girl from to the way she responds to her cousins' fascination with her lack of experience and their amazement that she has never attended a ball before. She is not offended, nor does she try to pretend that she is as sophisticated as they are. She simply accepts the situation and while gently playing with her fan tells them that that is the way it is when living far away from other people. In fact she admires her cousins; their elegance, their beauty and the friendliness and ease between them. She wishes that she too had brothers and sisters who would ask her for dances or comment on her hair. She is a shy girl by she "quite forgot to be shy" 195 when she
             Thus the easy banter between her cousins contributes to Leila's sense of being different. She cannot help feeling a bit like an outsider. Leila is aware of the fact that people around her are not as astounded by everything as she is, and in the beginning of the story she thinks to herself that she is not like them: "Oh, dear, how hard it was to be different like the others!" (192). Still this feeling does not seem to bring her down; it seems more like a mere observation she makes. She is not ashamed over her inexperience but she is a little self-conscious and anxious to fit in, trying "not to smile too much". But most of all she is delighted with the bright magic of the evening. Nevertheless these are important pieces of
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