But as she proceeded with her preparations she discovered that her knowledge was deficient in regard to many of the details of the business in hand; she did not know exactly how much time to allow for the cooking of each dish--how long it would take the chicken to roast, pie and tarts to bake, pudding and vegetables to boil. She grew anxious and nervous in her perplexity; there was no one to give her the needed information, the cookery books did not supply it, and in sheer desperation she filled her oven, her pots and kettles as fast as possible, saying to Elsie it would surely be better to have food a little overdone than not sufficiently cooked. It proved an unfortunate decision, especially as the fishing party were an hour later in returning than had been expected. Poor Violet was too much mortified to eat when she discovered that there was no sweetness left in the corn, that her potatoes were water-soaked, her oysters tough as leather, the chicken scorched and very much overdone, the fish burnt almost to a cinder, and--oh worst of all! cooked with the scales on. She had forgotten they had any. Her friends all comforted her, however, taking the blame on themselves. "If they had not been so late, things would not have been so overdone; it was their fault. And the lettuce, the cold-slaw, and bread and butter were all very nice. The tarts too." But as soon as she tasted them Violet knew she had forgotten the salt in her crust and that it was tough compared to her Cousin Mary's. And then the pudding! oh why did it turn out so heavy? Ah, she had made it with sour milk and put in no soda. "Oh what shall I do?" she said despairingly to Mary, who was helping her to dish it up. "There's hardly anything fit to eat, and I know you are all very hungry." "Indeed, dear little coz, there is a great deal that's fit to eat," Mary said, glancing toward he table on which the last course was set out--except the ice cream, which had not yet been taken out of the freezer. "Yes, those are nice, but the substantial of the meal--just what are most needed--are all spoiled. Oh what's that?" with a sudden change of tone as a man bearing a large hamper appeared at the open door; "something from mamma, I do believe." "Yes," said Edward, stepping in after the man as the latter set the hamper down; "and as it's more than an hour past dinner time, I suppose it's very well I didn't come empty handed." "O Ned, Ned, you dear, good fellow!" cried Violet, springing to his side and throwing her arms around his neck.