rd pudding sauce so that they can be eaten
as puddings instead of cakes."

"The girls have made candies and cookies for everybody. That basket for
the Flynns has enough cookies for eight children besides the father and
mother."

"If their appetites are like Roger's there must be a good many dozen
cookies stowed away there."

"You can see it's the largest of all," laughed Mrs. Morton.

Roger played Santa Claus at each house and his merry face and pleasant
jokes brought smiles to faces that did not look happy when their owners
opened their doors. The Flynns' was the last stop and everybody in the
car laughed when all the Flynns who could walk, and that meant nine of
them, fairly boiled out of the door to receive the visitor. Roger jumped
the small fry and joked with the larger ones, and left them all in a
high state of excitement.

It was a very merry party that gathered around the Smiths' table, the
largest dinner party that Dorothy and her mother had given since they
came to Rosemont to live after they had met their unknown Morton
relatives at Chautauqua the summer before. To Mrs. Smith it gave the
greatest happiness to see the children of her brothers sitting at her
table and to know that her sister-in-law was her very dear friend as
well as her relative by marriage.

After dinner they all snapped costume crackers and adorned themselves
with the caps that they discovered inside them, and they set the new
Victrola going and danced the butterfly dance that they had learned at
Chautauqua and had given at their entertainment for the Christmas Ship.
Dusk was coming on when the Ethels said that they must go to the Old
Ladies' Home or they would have to run all the way. Grandfather Emerson
offered to whirl all of them over in the car, and they were glad to
accept the offer.

They stopped at home to get the boxes of candy which they had prepared.
It was while they were running up stairs to gather them together that
Katharine asked Ethel Blue if Mary might press a dress for her.

"I want to wear it this evening," she said.

Ethel Blue gasped. Mary had not yet come back from Mrs. Smith's where
she had served dinner for the large party and was still occupied in
clearing up after it. Supper at home was yet to come. Mrs. Morton had
always urged upon the girls to be very careful about asking to have
extra services rendered at inconvenient hours, and a more inconvenient
time than this hardly could have been selected.

"W