“Molly, we had better leave our packages and make a chastened departure,” said Judy, the irrepressible. “We have some interior decorations besides the mistletoe, Miss Fern, in the way of an old ham and a fruit cake, and some Rosemary pickles. Are you also chairman of the committee on that kind of interior decorations? If you are not, I should think it were best for us to interview the secretary of the interior, if we are not allowed to see the head of the department.” At that moment who should come bounding up the steps but Edwin Green himself. “Good morning to both of you! I am so glad to see you back in Wellington, Miss Kean. I have just come from the Quadrangle, where I went to call on you, but saw Miss Oldham, who told me you and Miss Molly were on your way to see my sister. Why don’t you come in? Grace is in the pantry, preparing for the ‘astonishment party,’ as I am told Miss Sen calls it. I will call her directly.” “Grace has asked to be excused to callers, Edwin,” said the stately Miss Fern. “Nonsense, Alice, she was expecting Miss Brown to decorate the parlors, and Miss Kean is not a stranger to any of us. Come in, come in,” and the indignant professor ushered them into the parlor and went to call his sister, confiding to her, as she hastened to greet the girls, that if Alice Fern did not stop trying to run their affairs he was going to do something desperate. “I am afraid you brought it on us by being too nice to her two years ago when she first came home from abroad,” teased his sister; and he remembered that he had been rather attentive to his fair cousin at a time when Miss Molly Brown of Kentucky had had a little misunderstanding with him. “How good of you, you dear, sweet girl, to have this mistletoe sent all the way from Kentucky for our party, and what a wonderful piece of walnut it is growing to, this great, knotted, knobby branch! But, Alice, don’t break any of it off! You will ruin it.” Miss Green stopped Alice just in time, as she had begun with rapid tugs to pull the mistletoe from the branch that Kent had sawed off with such care, and to stick it in vases among the holly, where it did not show to any advantage. “Of course, it must be hung from the chandelier just as it is.” “Oh, very well, Cousin Grace; but it seems to me to be a very heavy looking decoration.” And the young woman flounced off, leaving Molly and Judy feeling very much mystified, to say the least. “Aunt Mary sent you a ham, Professor Green. I brought it to-day, thinking maybe your sister would like it for part of the night’s festivities.” “Not a bit of it. That ham is to be brought out when there are not so many to devour it. I am not usually a greedy glutton, but beech-nut fed, home-cured ham is too good for the rabble, and I am going to hide it before Grace casts her eagle eye on it.” He accordingly picked it up and pretended to conceal it from his smiling sister.