n't have her an old
maid."

"What do you know about old maids, midget?" asked Clover.

"Why, Miss Clover, I have seen lots of them. There was that one at the
Pension Suisse; you remember, Tanta? And the two on the steamer when we
came home. And there's Miss Fitz who made my blue frock; Ellen said she
was a regular old maid. I never mean to let Mabel be like that."

"I don't think there's the least danger," remarked Katy, glancing at the
inseparable Mabel, who was perched on Amy's arm, and who did not look a
day older than she had done eighteen months previously. "Amy, we're going
to make wedding-cake next week,--heaps and heaps of wedding-cake. Don't
you want to come and help?"

"Why, of course I do. What fun! Which day may I come?"

The cake-making did really turn out fun. Many hands made light work of
what would have been a formidable job for one or two. It was all done
gradually. Johnnie cut the golden citron quarters into thin transparent
slices in the sitting-room one morning while the others were sewing, and
reading Tennyson aloud. Elsie and Amy made a regular frolic of the
currant-washing. Katy, with Debby's assistance, weighed and measured; and
the mixture was enthusiastically stirred by Alexander, with the "spade"
which he had invented, in a large new wash-tub. Then came the baking,
which for two days filled the house with spicy, plum-puddingy odors; then
the great feat of icing the big square loaves; and then the cutting up, in
which all took part. There was much careful measurement that the slices
might be an exact fit; and the kitchen rang with bright laughter and chat
as Katy and Clover wielded the sharp bread-knives, and the others fitted
the portions into their boxes, and tied the ribbons in crisp little bows.
Many delicious crumbs and odd corners and fragments fell to the share of
the younger workers; and altogether the occasion struck Amy as so
enjoyable that she announced--with her mouth full--that she had changed
her mind, and that Mabel might get married as often as she pleased, if she
would have cake like _that_ every time,--a liberality of permission which
Mabel listened to with her invariable waxen smile.

When all was over, and the last ribbons tied, the hundreds of little boxes
were stacked in careful piles on a shelf of the inner closet of the
doctor's office to wait till they were wanted,--an arrangement which
naughty Clover pronounced eminently suitable, since there should always
be a d