," said Nan. And then she explained
the game. "I will call out a letter and you must try to think of a
sentence of three words, each word starting with that letter. Now then,
are you ready?"

"Yes! yes!" the girls and boys cried.

"B," said Nan.

There was a second of silence.

"Boston Baked Beans!" shouted Charley Mason.

"That is right, Charley. Now it is your turn to give a letter."

"F," said Charley.

"Five Fat Fairies!" cried Nellie Parks.

"Four Fresh Fish," put in another of the girls.

"Nellie has it," said Charley. "But I never heard of fat fairies, did
you?" and this question made everybody laugh.

"My letter is M," said Nellie, after a pause.

"More Minced Mushrooms," said Bert.

"More Mean Men," said another boy.

"Mind My Mule," said one of the girls.

[Illustration: AT SEVEN O'CLOCK A SUPPER WAS SERVED.--P. 129.]

"Oh, Helen, I didn't know you had a mule," cried Flossie, and this
caused a wild shriek of laughter.

"Bert must love mushrooms," said Nellie.

"I do," said Bert, "if they are in a sauce." And then the game went on,
until somebody suggested something else.

At seven o'clock a supper was served. The tables were two in number,
with the little girls and boys at one and the big girls and boys at the
other. Each was decked out with flowers and with colored streamers,
which ran down from the chandelier to each corner of both tables.

There was a host of good things to eat and drink--chicken sandwiches and
cake, with cups of sweet chocolate, or lemonade, and then more cake and
ice-cream, and fruit, nuts, and candy. The ice-cream was done up into
various fancy forms, and Freddie got a fireman, with a trumpet under his
arm, and Nan a Japanese lady with a real paper parasol over her head.
Bert was served with an automobile, and Flossie cried with delight when
she received a brown-and-white cow that looked as natural as life. All
of the forms were so pleasing that the children did not care to eat
them until the heat in the lighted dining room made them begin to melt
away.

"I'm going to tell Dinah about the ice-cream cow," said Flossie.
"Perhaps she can make them." But when appealed to, the cook said they
were beyond her, and must be purchased from the professional ice-cream
maker, who had the necessary forms.

There were dishes full of bonbons on the tables, and soon the bonbons
were snapping at a lively rate among the big girls and boys, although
the younger folks were rather