s a very good
woman, but she _never_ liked to be disturbed.

"Party?" said she, gazing sternly at Flaxie Frizzle and her little
cousin Milly. "Saturday morning, and your mother gone, too! I should
think this was a queer time for a party!"

Flaxie rolled her apron over at the corners and chewed it.

"Well, 'cause it's my birthday, and my mamma said--"

"Yes, and her grammy said--" Little Milly got as far as this and then
stopped. Flaxie was her darling "twin cousin," and she wanted to help
her; but that tall lady with the rolling-pin was just dreadful.

"Oh, now I remember," said Mrs. Prim, paring off the dough around the
edge of a pie. "Your mother did say, if you were a good girl all the
week, you might have a few children here to tea. But _have_ you been a
good girl, Mary Gray?" added she, with a look through her spectacles
that pierced her little niece to the soul.

"Yes um," replied Flaxie, gazing down at her boots. "Only once, you
know, you had to set me on the shelf behind the stove."

"Very true. So you see you _were_ naughty. What did you do?"

"Meddled," said Flaxie in a low voice, with another nibble at her apron.

Mrs. Prim smiled a very small smile, but it was behind her lips, where
the children could not see it.

"Well, Mary, perhaps you have been as good as could reasonably be
expected under the circumstances."

Poor little Milly couldn't help feeling as if _she_ were the
"circumstances," or why did those spectacles shine straight upon her?

"And I suppose you must have the party."

Flaxie gave a scream of delight, and caught Mrs. Prim round the waist.

"O you darling, darling auntie!"

"There, there; don't smother me, or I can't cook your supper. What do
you want?"

"Oh, _may_ I have what I want? _Pinnuts_ and peaches, and candy and
preserves, and jelly and choclids, and oranges and _everything_?"

"No, you absurd child, not everything; but whatever is most suitable and
proper,--if you will only run away out of my sight, you and Milly. But
go first and tell your grandmother to send Dora to me."

"Grammy's quilting a quilt, and Dodo's quilting a quilt; but I'll tell
'em to come."

"No, no; I only want Dora."

"That child can't be trusted to do the smallest errand correctly,"
thought Auntie Prim, taking down the cook-book, with a sigh, and looking
at the recipes for cake. Her husband was in Canada, and she had kindly
offered to spend a month or so at Dr. Gray's while his wife went aw