e helped it. They're very pretty. Blossom, what's wrong with
legs anyway?"

But for once Jemima was unable to enlighten her.

The collector of impressions had several occasions to congratulate
himself, during the course of that evening. He ceased to trust his
memory, and commenced a series of surreptitious notes on his cuff, to
the acute discomfort of his uncle. Among them appeared items such as the
following: "7 vegetables and no soup." "Pancakes are called bread." "The
butler has bare feet."

The butler was one of the stable-boys disguised for the occasion in a
white coat and apron, who partially concealed himself behind the
dining-room door and announced in a tremulous roar, "White folks, yo'
supper's dished!"--stage-fright having conquered recent instructions.

Mrs. Kildare, who was usually served by an elderly housewoman, gazed at
this innovation in frank astonishment; but it was only the first of her
surprises. The table was frivolously alight with pink candles, and in
the center stood a decoration consisting of a scalloped watermelon
filled with flowers, leashed to a little fleet of flower-filled
canteloupes, by pink ribbons.

Jacqueline could not dissemble her admiration of this effect. "Isn't it
artistic?" she demanded of the company at large. "Jemmy saw a table like
this in the ladies' page of a magazine, and she copied it exactly."

"So helpful, those ladies' pages," murmured the author. "Once I got an
idea out of them for turning a disused cook-stove into a dressing-table,
with the aid of cretonne and a little white paint."

Jemima gave him a glance that was swift and sharp as the gleam of a
knife, but she said nothing. She was too preoccupied at the moment to
decide whether he was laughing at her or not. Temporarily, she gave him
the benefit of the doubt. Weighty matters were on her mind that night.
While Mrs. Kildare, as usual, sat at the head of her table, it was
Jemima who ably and quite visibly conducted affairs.

From the pantry came suppressed guffaws, the shuffling of many feet, the
steady fusillade of rattling china.

"It is a regiment preparing to charge!" thought Channing.

But when it charged, the author forgot his note-making and was content
to eat. All day Jemima had been busy in the kitchen with Big Liza; both
notable cooks in a country where cookery is justly regarded as one of
the fine arts.

At one time Mrs. Kildare counted no less than five unaccustomed
servitors, white-coated