"Five years old," she said to herself. "That means dolls, I guess. I'm pretty old for dolls, but of course I _could_ get Araminta down from the attic, only she's packed up so nicely that I hate to disturb her. I wonder if five year olds play games? Mother Blair, do you think we could play in the attic with Helen's doll and Araminta, if I get her out, or what can we do?" "Helen has had a bad cough, dear, and I'm afraid her mother would think that she must stay where there were no draughts. Why don't you have a little bit of a party for her? We could ask four other children about her age--" "Oh, Mother, _I_ know! I'll have a dolls' party, and cook cunning things in tiny little dishes just big enough for dolls to eat. That would be perfectly lovely, and I know Mildred would help me make some of them the day before." "That would really be ever so much fun," Mother Blair said. "Run and ask Norah if she has any very little tins and molds that you can use, and I'll look up some receipts for you. Brownie, that dolls' party is what I call a really bright idea." Norah was not at all busy just then so she got a kitchen chair and hunted on the top shelf in the tin closet and found several things for Brownie. One was a little tumbler of heavy glass, half the size of a small jelly glass; it had been used in traveling one summer when the Blairs were younger. Then there were six muffin tins fastened together like a pan which were never used because they made muffins so tiny that Jack said six were only a bite. And beside these she found a little tin cutter meant to cut vegetables into shapes for soup; this one was a tube with a star on the end, or rather the outline of one. Norah said that it would make lovely little cookies, each one the size of a five cent piece. Brownie was delighted with it. "But, Norah, we won't want muffins," she said. "I remember when I was five, I couldn't have even one for breakfast--not till I was about seven, I guess it was. And Mother says Mrs. Lane is just as partickler as can be about Helen." "I know something you can make in 'em," nodded Norah. "Not muffins. You just wait. You make it out of rice, and rice is awful good for children." So Brownie ran into her mother's room to tell her what they had found and plan the meal with her. "Suppose you have a really nice luncheon for both the dolls and the girls," she said. "You can have the low sewing table and set it with small plates and little napkins and have low chairs around it; the four children could sit on two sides of the table and Helen at one end and you at the other, and the company could all hold their children in their laps and you need not have any doll at all because you are hostess. How would that do?" "Perfectly lovely, Mother. And now what shall we have to eat?" "How would you like a hot first course--perhaps some kind of chicken and potatoes, with jelly and little cups of cocoa!" "Oh, yes, Mother; and tiny sandwiches!"