ed somewhat doubtfully as Patty went on to
describe the beautiful things she intended to have.

"I want rissoles," she said, as she turned over the cookery-book, and
looked in the index for R. "They're awfully good."

"What's dem, missy? I never heard tell of 'em."

"I forget what they are," said Patty, "but we had them at Delmonico's one
day, when papa and I were there at lunch, and I remember thinking then
they'd be nice for the Tea Club. They were either some little kind of a
cake, or else a sort of croquette. Either would be nice, you know. Why,
they're not here. What a silly book not to have them in! Oh, well, never
mind, here's 'Richmond Maids of Honour.' We used to have those at Aunt
Isabel's, and they're the loveliest things. I'll make those, Mancy; and
while I'm doing it you make me some wine jelly and some Bavarian cream,
and then I can put them together with _marrons_ and candied cherries and
whipped cream and things, and make a Royal Diplomatic Pudding."

"'Pears like yo's makin' things fine enough for a weddin',"
growled Mancy.

"Well, now, look here, last night you thought the things I had for my
evening company were too plain, and now you're grumbling because they're
too fancy."

"Laws, honey, can't you see no diffunce 'tween plain bread and butter and
a lot of pernicketty gimcracks that never turns out right nohow?"

A haunting doubt regarding the proportion between her elaborate plans and
the simple Tea Club hovered round Patty's mind, but she resolutely put it
aside, thinking to herself, "I don't care, it's my first function, and
I'm going to have it just as nice as I can."

Patty always felt particularly grand and grown up when she used the word
_function_, and now that she had mentally applied it to the Tea Club
meeting, that simple affair seemed to take on a gigantic amplitude and
fairly seemed to cry out for elaborate devices of all sorts.

"Never you mind, Mancy," she said, "you just go ahead and do as I tell
you. Get the jelly and cream ready, and I'll do the rest."

"But ain't yo' gwine to have no solidstantial kind o' food?"

"Oh, yes, of course. I want a _croustade_ of chicken and
club-sandwiches."

"Humph," said Mancy, her patience giving out at this, "ef yo' does, yo'll
hab to talk English."

Patty laughed. "You must get used to these names, Mancy, because these
are the kind of things I like. Well, you just boil a couple of chickens,
and cut them up small, and see that there a