"
"Is it an African jungle?" said Laura, "or is it only Smith's flower
store moved up here bodily?"
"I think it looks like a page out of the _Misses' Home Guide_" said
Polly Stevens. "You ought to have this table photographed, it would take
the first prize! But where are we going to eat? Surely you don't expect
us to sit down at this Louis XlV. gimcrack?"
"Nonsense," said Patty. "I fixed it up pretty because I thought it would
please you. If you don't like it--"
"Oh, we like it," cried Christine Converse, "we love it! We want to take
it home with us and put it under a glass case."
"Stop your nonsense, girls," said Marian, who had noticed Patty's rising
colour, "and take your places. It's a beautiful party, and a lot too good
for such ungrateful wretches! If you can read writing, you'll find your
names on your cards."
"I can read writing," said Lillian Desmond, "but not such elegant gold
curlycues as these. Won't you please spell it out for me, Miss
Fairfield?"
"Oh, take any place you choose," said Patty, laughing good-naturedly. She
didn't really mind their chaff, but she began to think herself that she
had been a little absurd.
Then Pansy brought in the various dishes that Patty had worked so hard
over, and perhaps you will not be surprised to learn that they were
almost uneatable, or, at least, very far from the dainty perfection they
ought to have shown.
On discovering this, the girls, who were really well-bred, in spite of
their love of chaffing, quite changed their manner and, ignoring the
situation, began merrily to discuss the play.
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