When the girls met in the Ferrises’ dining-room, and surveyed Evelyn’s beautiful table arrangements, they were more than usually jolly, and as that sweet young housekeeper had taken much pride in her festive board, she was deeply gratified by their exclamations of approval. They pirouetted around and around it, admiring everything, beginning with the artistic lunch-cloth, embroidered by the same fingers which had laid a handful of Cathy’s flowers across each napkin; and they would have proceeded to scrutinize each separate detail, had not Bert seized upon a card bearing her name, attached to a cunning basket, which, in its turn, was tied with a gorgeous bow to one of the chairs. This discovery stimulated research on the part of the others, and immediately each guest was “pouncing,” as Bert said, on her own particular basket. Nan was the first to investigate the contents. “Bonbons!” she shouted. “What richness! After luncheon, let’s toast these marsh-mallows on the ends of hat-pins over a lamp!—But who is the giver?” Diving among the sweets for a clew, Cathy succeeded in finding a card which bore the inscription: “From the cook. Warranted pure.” “_You_ didn’t make ’em, Evelyn?” exclaimed Bert, popping a chocolate-cream into her mouth. “Yes, I did,” laughed Evelyn, “and it’s as _easy_!—But see here!” and she held aloft a tawny yellow vase, with a flight of butterflies, in all rich hues, encircling the top. “Waiting for the flowers with which I hope soon to be able to fill them,” Cathy said, as the girls looked radiantly at her work, and Bert hugged one of Pompeiian red, with dull blue butterflies, while Nan suggested the “divine” effect that scarlet nasturtiums would make with the yellow butterflies and the peacock-blue background of hers. In the meanwhile, Bert, making further search under the fringe of the table-cloth, brought to view a fascinating cabinet. “With a place for a plaque, a place for a jug, and a place for my jar!” she shouted; while Cathy added, as she lovingly surveyed hers, “Yes, and a place for _secrets_ behind the cunning little door!” “Don’t, girls!” protested Nan, as they heaped thanks upon her. “You needn’t worry; they are not mahogany, nothing but pine, and a cheap carpenter made them, and I stained and polished them myself, so they cost hardly anything.” “Oh, now, Nan, if you _have_ been to New York and do up your hair in a new way, you can’t get me to believe that!” said Bert decidedly; while Evelyn asked sarcastically, “And did you also design them, Nannie?” “Of course! What am I studying for, if I can’t design a simple shelf?” cried her sister.