The dog was, without doubt, very much hurt; but he seemed to appreciate all that was being done for him, and he looked lovingly at Peter as he bathed his wounds and bound up his leg. “How would you like to have your supper out here, Peter?” said Victoria, who had been pondering the situation. “Then you could stay near the dog and see that he is all right.” “Well,” said Peter, slowly, “I don’t know but it would be a good plan. What do you say, Carney?” But Carney was too bashful to speak. It was a happy solution of the difficulty, and Victoria and Sophy hurried back to the house, and had soon packed a basket for the picnic in the barn. Honor’s biscuits, made so early in the afternoon, had risen and fallen again long since, and were now little lumps of hard and sodden dough; but the sisters thought that the boys would doubtless enjoy them, and they bestowed them with a generous hand. “We can eat crackers ourselves,” said Katherine. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Honor, but—but—_do_ look in the bread-box to-morrow, please!” Honor had seated herself in her place at the head of the table. The old silver service and the delicate cups and saucers gleamed in the light which fell from the candles. The table was covered with a cloth of the finest damask, a silver _jardinière_ of ferns ornamented the centre, and at the four corners stood tall silver candlesticks of massive design. No one would ever have dreamed that the family who were to gather about this table had not all the money they needed. The eldest sister leaned back in her chair and sighed. “It is perfectly dreadful,” she exclaimed, “that I don’t know the first thing about cooking! What am I to do? I went into the kitchen determined that that odious B. Lafferty should never suspect that I hadn’t made biscuits every day of my life, but I couldn’t have impressed her that way, for she stood looking at me with the most supercilious expression. She insisted upon taking the dough and the roller right out of my hands. She declared that she knew better than I did about making them, and the worst of it was, I didn’t know whether she did or not, and these are the result. Hear them!” Honor lifted one of the biscuits and let it drop upon the table. It sounded like the fall of a little stone. “You will have to take cooking lessons,” said Katherine. “They don’t really cost much, and it would pay in the end.” “They may not cost much, but when we have scarcely a cent in our pockets and _owe bills_, we can’t afford lessons in anything. No, I shall have to keep a sharp lookout on the bread-box, and trust to luck about other things. I am afraid she only knows how to make two puddings, for when I speak about the dessert, there is always some reason why it must be either cornstarch or tapioca. I am perfectly certain they are the only kinds she can make.” “Why not give up having dessert?” suggested Victoria, as she adjusted the cover of the basket. “It would save a little money.”