d that will help make the cocoa cold; we
will take it out at the last moment and put the cocoa in. Here comes
Jack with the berries, just in time!"

Jack had two baskets of them, one of the biggest, loveliest ones, all
laid on pretty strawberry leaves. Those Miss Betty washed and dried and
put on the ice at once, with the leaves; the smaller ones she gave to
Brownie to hull after washing. Then she read this receipt aloud:

STRAWBERRIES FOR A FIRST COURSE

Wash, dry, and chill the berries, but do not hull them. Put a
little paper doily on a small, pretty plate and arrange the
berries on the leaves around the edge in a circle, the points
toward the center; in the middle put a little heap of sifted,
powdered sugar. To eat them, take them by the hulls and dip in the
sugar.

"There!" she said, as she and Mildred finished arranging them, "don't
they look pretty? I think for breakfast or luncheon they are delicious
this way. Now you see, Brownie, why the finger-bowls had to go at the
top of the plate; these small plates go right before you on the table,
and when Ellen takes them off, she can take off the others, too. Aren't
the biscuits done yet, Mildred?"

Mildred ran to look--she had forgotten all about them, but luckily they
were exactly right, a beautiful brown. So she took them out of the pan
and carefully opened them at the side, using a knife at first, and then
tearing them gently apart so they would not be heavy. When Brownie
finished the berries, Mildred crushed them a little and sweetened them,
but did not put them on the biscuits; Miss Betty said that must be done
only just before serving, or the crust would be soaked with the juice.
So she helped fill the glasses with water, and put on the bread and
butter and cocoa, while Miss Betty and Brownie arranged the salad on
plates and put the hot chicken in little dishes, each with a bit of
parsley on top. Then they all sat down and ate up the luncheon, and
nobody could say which was the best thing, the beautiful berries, or the
lovely hot chicken, or the ice-cold cocoa, or the salad, or the
shortcakes--it was all so good.

When they had finished, Mildred said there was only one fault to find
with the lunch--that they had strawberries only twice.

"That's exactly the way I feel!" nodded Miss Betty. "In strawberry time,
I want to have them in the place of meat and potatoes and bread, and
everything else, and at least at all three meals