"Well, yes; I think you might call it that," said Ladybird, gravely considering the case. Then after a pause she added, "And Martha, we'll have to fix high chairs for the babies; put cushions in the chairs, you know, or dictionaries, or something." "Did your aunts invite these people, miss?" said Martha, suspecting, more from Ladybird's manner than her words, that there was something toward. "I invited them," said Ladybird, with one of her sudden, but often useful, accessions of dignity, "and my aunts are at present entertaining them. You'll see about the high chairs, won't you Martha?" In reality, Ladybird's strong friend and ally, Martha, was always vanquished by the child's dazzling smile, and she answered heartily, "Indeed I will, miss; you'll find everything in the dining-room all right." Reassured, Ladybird went back to the parlor, to find her party still going on beautifully. Stella's graceful tact and ready ingenuity were the best assistance Ladybird could have had, and the child gave a sigh of relief as she thought to herself she had certainly succeeded in inviting the ones who would enjoy it the most. At five o'clock supper was served. Although the technical details of the table proved a trying ordeal to most of the guests (indeed, only the half-witted ones were wholly at ease), yet the delicious viands, and the kind-hearted dispensers of them, went far toward establishing a general harmony. The guests took their leave punctually at six o'clock, as they had been invited to do, and Miss Priscilla's parting words to each evinced a mental attitude entirely satisfactory to Ladybird. "Though I wish, Lavinia," she said much later, after they had discussed the affair in its every particular--"I _do_ wish that when you are about to cut up these fearfully unexpected performances of yours you would warn us beforehand." "I will, aunty," said Ladybird, with a most lamb-like docility of manner, "if you'll promise to agree to them as amiably beforehand as you do afterward." CHAPTER XIV SOME LETTERS As the weeks and months went on, life at Primrose Hall adjusted itself to the new conditions made necessary by the addition of a child and a dog to its hitherto unrippled routine. Miss Priscilla lived with her usual energy; Miss Dorinda existed a little more calmly, and Ladybird lived and moved and had her excited being with all sorts of variations, from grave to gay, from lively to severe, _ad libitum_. The winter passed much in its usual way, and after that the spring came, laughing. April tumbled into May, and May danced into June, bringing ecstasy to one little heart, for with late June days came the summer vacation from school. "My aunties," said Ladybird, looking up from a lesson she was studying, "who is the governor of this State?" "Hyde," replied her Aunt Priscilla. "Governor Horace E. Hyde."