ced upon the dessert and prepared to occupy an extensive territory of
ices, fruit, and jellied something or other. "It would be a sin for Aunt
Mary to leave this famous battlefield without a few honorable scars! We
must take her out in a bubble for one thing and--"

"In mine!" cried Clover. "To-morrow! Why can't she?--I held up my hand
first?"

"All right," said Jack; "to-morrow she's your's. At four o'clock."

"She must have goggles," cried Mitchell. "She must have goggles and be all
fixed up, and when you have got her the goggles and she has been all fixed
up, I ask, as a last boon, that I may go along, just so as to see everyone
who sees her."

"We'll all go," Clover explained. "I'll 'chuff' her myself and then
there'll be room for everyone."

"To the auto and to to-morrow!" cried Burnett, hastily pouring out a fresh
toast, which even Aunt Mary applauded, not at all knowing what she was
applauding.

"And now for the next day," said Jack. "I think I'll give her a box-party.
Don't you want to go to the theater in a box, Aunt Mary?"

"Go where in a box?" said Aunt Mary, starting a little. "I didn't quite
catch that."

"To the theater," Jack yelled.

"To the theater," repeated his aunt a trifle blankly, "I--"

"And the next day," said Mitchell suddenly (he had been reflecting
maturely), "I'll take you all up the sound in my yacht."

"Oh, hurrah," cried Burnett, "that'll be bully! And the day after I'll
give her a picnic."

"Time of your life, Aunt Mary," Jack shrieked in her ear-trumpet; "time of
your life!"

"Dear me!" said Aunt Mary, "I don't just--"

"Aunt Mary! glasses down!" cried Clover; "may she live forever and
forever."

"To Aunt Mary, glasses up," said Mitchell. "Glasses up come before glasses
down always. It's one of the laws of Nature--human nature--also of good
nature. Here's to Aunt Mary, and if she isn't the Aunt Mary of all of us
here's a hoping she may get there some day; I don't just see how, but I
ask the indulgence of those present on the plea that I have indulged quite
a little myself to-night. Honi soit qui mal y pense; ora pro nobis,
Erin-go-Bragh. Present company being present, and impossible to except on
that account, we will omit the three cheers and choke down the tiger."

They all drank, and the dinner having by this time dwindled down to coffee
grounds and cheese crumbs a vote was taken as to where they should go
next.

Aunt Mary suggested home, but she was over-ruled, a