Patty's ambitions in the culinary line ran to the fanciful and elaborate confections which were pictured in the cook-books and in the household periodicals; especially did she incline toward marvellous desserts which called for spun sugar, and syllabubs, and rare sweetmeats, and patent freezing processes. For her New Year's dinner party she had decided to try the most complicated recipe of all, and, moreover, intended to surprise everybody with it. Warning her father to keep out of the kitchen on pain of excommunication, she rolled up her sleeves and tied on a white apron; and with her open book on the table before her, began her proceedings. Pansy Potts was set to whipping cream with a new-fangled syllabub-churn, and Mancy was requested to blanch some almonds and pound them to a paste in a very new and very large mortar. Though the good-natured Mancy was more than willing to help her young mistress through what threatened to be somewhat troubled waters, yet she had the more substantial portions of the dinner to prepare, and there was none too much time. As Patty went on with her work, difficulties of all sorts presented themselves. The cream wouldn't whip, but remained exasperatingly fluid; the sugar refused to "spin a thread," and obstinately crystallised itself into a hard crust; the almonds persisted in becoming a lumpy mass, instead of a smooth paste; and the gelatine, as Patty despairingly remarked, "acted like all possessed!" But, having attempted the thing, she was bound to carry it through, though it was with some misgivings that she finally poured a queer and sticky-looking substance into the patent freezer. Pansy Potts had declared herself quite able to accomplish the freezing process; but, as she was about to begin, she announced in tragic tones that the extra ice hadn't come. "Oh!" exclaimed Patty, in desperation, "everything seems to go wrong about that dessert! Well, Pansy, you use what ice there is, and I'll telephone for some more, right away." But when Patty called up the ice company she found that their office was closed for the day, and, hanging up the receiver with an angry little jerk, she turned to find her father smiling at her. "I see you have begun to amuse me," he said; "but never mind about my entertainment now, Puss; run away and get dressed, or you won't be ready to receive your guests. It's half-past one now." "Oh, papa, is it so late? And I have to get into that new frock!" "Well, scuttle along, then, and make all the haste you can." Patty scuttled, but during the process of making all the haste she could, she very nearly lost her temper. The new white frock was complicated; the broad white hair-ribbons were difficult to tie; and, as it was the first time that she had made a toilette in her new home, it is not at all surprising that many useful or indispensable little articles were missing.