“No, I haven’t the least idea, but I’m not going to tell her so. I will look it up in the recipe book. It is a curious thing about B. Lafferty. She never will acknowledge that she can’t do a thing. She is the most conceited person, as well as the most aggravating, that I ever met.” Katherine at the top of the ladder laughed as she adjusted the curtain. “You must be taking lessons from her,” she said, “telling her that you would show her how to make biscuits. I wonder what they will be like! It is bad enough to have had to give up dining late to suit Miss B. Lafferty’s fancies, without having to go without bread for supper.” “You take my place at the ladder, Vic,” said Honor, with the air of one who had determined to defy fate, “and I will find the recipe book and _make the biscuits_!” “How did school go to-day?” asked Victoria, when Honor had left them. “Oh, beautifully! Minnie Chase pinched Bertha Hickens, which naturally had the effect of making Bertha howl loudly, and that frightened Carry Deane so badly that she began to cry, which so affected Tommy Deane that he began to cry, and presently the whole school was weeping and in an uproar. Lessons had to be stopped for at least twenty minutes while Honor and I wiped eyes and patted shoulders and scolded Minnie for being the cause of it all. Oh, it went beautifully! Another tack please, Vic, and a good big one. There, that is the last! Dear me,” continued Katherine, standing in the middle of the room and looking about her, “they don’t look as they ought to, but I can’t help it! Honor won’t have the man from Fordham, so we shall have to go with crooked curtains. I must rush now, for I have a music lesson to give. I would so much rather stay at home and practise!” Honor had been wrestling with her recipe books and her biscuits for more than an hour, Katherine had given her music lesson and returned, and Victoria, aided by Sophy,—who was perhaps more of a hindrance than a help, but whom it pleased to be called into service,—had performed various household duties, and still Peter did not come back. It was no unusual matter for him to be off in the woods and meadows for hours at a time, and therefore his sisters were not in the least alarmed by his absence, especially as Victoria suspected that he had acted upon her suggestion and had gone to consult the Fordham florist. When the clock struck six, however, and he had not yet come, they began to wonder as to his whereabouts, and Sophy went to one of the second-story windows and took up her station there. The sun had set, but a young moon was shining brightly, and she could see plainly the beautiful lawn, dotted with the fine old trees now quite bare of leaves, across which Peter might be expected to come if he had gone to Fordham by the electric car, as Victoria supposed. Sophy watched for some time in silence, but at last her scrutiny was rewarded.