At five o'clock, they were called in, and, before their sharp young appetites, everything disappeared like dew in the sunshine. It was a queer meal,--bread of various shapes and kinds, and not a large supply; cakes, an equally miscellaneous collection, from cup-cake which old Mrs. Kellogg had kept in a jar two months, "in case a body dropped in unexpected," to bread-cake fresh from some one else's oven; cookies of a dozen kinds; doughnuts and ginger-cakes, and half a dozen dishes of sweet-meats, no two alike. But all deficiencies were forgotten when they came to the nuts and candies, for of these there was no lack. Augusta had filled every extra dish in the house with these delightful things, and I sadly fear the children ate shocking amounts of trash. But they had a good time. The entertainment was exactly to their liking,--little bread and butter, and plenty of candy and raisins. It was incomparably superior to ordinary teas, where bread predominated and candy was limited. After eating everything on the table, putting the remainder of the candy in their pockets, as Nimpo insisted, they flocked into the front room, where Mrs. Primkins told them they might play a while, if they would not make a noise, as a little sprinkle of rain had come up. To insure quiet, each girl took off her shoes, and played in stocking-feet on the bare, rough floor, "blind-man's-buff," "hunt the slipper," and other games, for an hour more. Suddenly, Nimpo held up her foot. "Girls! look there!" Nimpo's tone was tragic. The soles of her stockings were in awful holes! All eyes were instantly turned on her, and forty feet were simultaneously elevated to view. The tale was the same,--every stocking sole was black as the ground, and worn to rags! "What will Ma say?" rose in horror to every lip. This awful thought sobered them at once, and, finding it getting dark, shoes were hastily sought out of the pile in the corner, sun-bonnets donned, and slowly the long procession moved down the back stairs and out again into the street. Nimpo flung herself on to the little bed in her room, and sighed with happiness. "Oh! wasn't it splendid?--and I know mamma'll forgive my stockings. Besides, I'll wash them myself, and darn them." (While I am about it, I may as well say that every girl who went to Nimpo's party had a long and serious task of darning the next week.) When it was all over, and Mrs. Primkins and Augusta, assisted by two or three neighbors, had washed and returned dishes, brought down tables and chairs, swept out front hall, and reduced it to its normal condition of dismal state, to be seen and not used, and the neighbors had gone, and it was nine o'clock at night, Augusta sat down to reckon up debts, while Mrs. Primkins "set the bread." Augusta brought out her account, and read: "Mrs. A., blank loaves of bread, ditto cake, one dish preserves; Mrs. B., ditto, ditto; Mrs. C., ditto, ditto."