nnets,
and boots, apples, and cucumbers,--such as Diana and Hazel, and even
Desire and Helena had never seen before.

"It isn't quite fair," said good Miss Craydocke. "We were to go back
to the old, simple fashions of things; and here you are beginning
over again already with sumptuous inventions. It's the very way it
came about before, till it was all spoilt."

"No," said Uncle Titus, stoutly. "It's only 'Old _and_ New,'--the
very selfsame good old notions brought to a little modern
perfection. They're not French flummery, either; and there's not a
drop of gin, or a flavor of prussic acid, or any other abominable
chemical, in one of those contrivances. They're as innocent as they
look; good honest mint and spice and checkerberry and lemon and
rose. I know the man that made 'em!"

Helena Ledwith began to think that the first person, singular or
plural, might have a good time; but that awful third! Helena's
"they" was as potent and tremendous as her mother's.

"It's nice," she said to Hazel; "but they don't have inch things. I
never saw them at a party. And they don't play games; they always
dance. And it's broad, hot daylight; and--you haven't asked a single
boy!"

"Why, I don't know any! Only Jimmy Scarup; and I guess he'd rather
play ball, and break windows!"

"Jimmy Scarup!" And Helena turned away, hopeless of Hazel's
comprehending.

But "they" came; and "they" turned right into "we."

It was not a party; it was something altogether fresh and new; the
house was a new, beautiful place; it was like the country. And Aspen
Street, when you got down there, was so still and shady and sweet
smelling and pleasant. They experienced the delight of finding out
something.

Miss Craydocke and Hazel set them at it,--their good time; they had
planned it all out, and there was no stiff, shy waiting. They began,
right off, with the "Muffin Man." Hazel danced up to Desire:--

"O, _do_ you know the Muffin Man,
The Muffin Man, the Muffin Man?
O, _do_ you know the Muffin Man
That lives in Drury Lane?"

"O, yes, I know the Muffin Man,
The Muffin Man, the Muffin Man,
O, yes, I know the Muffin Man
That lives in Drury Lane."

And so they danced off together:--

"Two of us know the Muffin Man,
The Muffin Man, the Muffin Man,
Two of us know the Muffin Man
That lives in Drury Lane."

And the