f this kitchen."

"Mother, I don't see why it is called the 'cold-pack' process, when you
heat the jars," said Peggy.

"Oh, do run along, children; you might go down to Diana's and see how
Lady Janet is getting along."

"She is getting quite big," said Alice. "Can we bring her home to-day?"

"Not to-day," said her mother firmly. "I must get this preserving done
before she comes."

Picking raspberries was even more delightful than picking strawberries,
because they were bigger, and there were so many more of them; but going
for blueberries was the best of all, for there were such quantities of
them in the pasture on the hill that one could get quarts and quarts.
Indeed, there were so many that Mrs. Owen was glad of extra pickers. She
proposed having a picnic and asking Miss Rand and Clara, and Diana and
her brothers. Diana was much stronger now, and her father was going to
take her to the picnic in his automobile. Mrs. Carter decided she would
like to go, too, and so did her brother, who was staying with them for a
few days. Diana thought that, next to her father, there was no other man
in the whole world so delightful as her Uncle Joe. He was tall and slim
and had friendly brown eyes, and such a kind face and merry smile that
Peggy and Alice and Clara liked him the first moment they saw him.

The first moment had been the day Clara went for her kitten. He had put
the struggling Topsy into the basket in such a nice way, and he talked
to her as if she had been a person. "Topsy, you are going to a very good
home," he said. "Miss Rand is one who understands people like you, and
so does Clara. You will have the choicest food--lamb and fish, and all
that you most desire, and you will be so well fed you will not have to
live, like the Chinese, on mice."

Lady Janet was still living at the Carters' on account of the
preserving, but she was getting so big she was to come to them very
soon.

"If we wait until she gets much bigger, she will be running home just as
her mother did," said Peggy.

The day of the picnic was a glorious one. Peggy called it a "blue day"
because the sky was so blue. It was a deep blue, and there were great
fleecy clouds floating about. The blueberries were the most wonderful
blue, two shades, dark and light, with a shimmer to them, and Peggy's
blue frock seemed a part of all the brightness of the day. Alice had on
her yellow frock, and Diana was in green, and Clara in pink. It was
almost too be