e saw them coming down the path,
that they were a committee from the Dorcas Society, on some business.
But presently one of the ladies patted me on the head, and complimented
my pretty manners in delivering the invitation to tea.

"If a piece of the sky had fallen, mother could not have been more
surprised, but she gave no sign of it then. She only smiled and made a
pleasant answer.

"I began to feel very comfortable, and to congratulate myself on the
success of my little plan. Presently she excused herself, and beckoned
me to follow her out of the room. Without a word, or even a glance of
reproach, she bade me run across the street and ask my Aunt Rachel and
her daughter Milly to come over at once and help her prepare for the
unexpected guests. They were both of them quick, capable women and fine
housekeepers, and 'flew around,' as they expressed it, in such a
marvellous way that at the proper time the customary feast was spread.

"It did look so good! I walked around the table, my mouth watering as I
looked at the tarts and marmalade and spiced buns, and all the other
tempting dishes. Mother watched me do it, and then, just before she
invited the ladies out to the table, she sent me off to bed without a
morsel to eat,--not even a spoonful of mush and milk.

"I lay in an adjoining room, listening to the clatter of knives and
forks, and the ladylike hum of conversation, and knew that the good
things were slowly but surely disappearing, and that I could not have a
taste. I was so hungry and disappointed that I cried myself to sleep.
That disappointment and the lecture which followed next morning was
punishment enough, and you may be sure that that was the last time I
ever invited my mother's friends on my own responsibility."

Mrs. Brewster paused amid the girls' laughing exclamations, and just
then Mrs. Sherman came in from the train, hot and dusty, and her arms
full of little packages. "Come on up to my room with me," she said to
Mrs. Brewster, who was a frequent and familiar visitor at Locust.

"Don't take her away," begged the Little Colonel, "she is entertaining
us."

"My turn now," laughed Mrs. Sherman. And the two ladies went up-stairs,
once more leaving the girls to the task of providing their own
amusement.

"Wasn't that a picture?" said Joyce, when Mrs. Brewster had left the
room. "Can't you just see it? that quaint little girl in her
old-fashioned dress, going from door to door with her courtesies and