"I do like the way you fling all the uninteresting things at me," exclaimed Elma. "I think sponge cake cream is the moistest, flabbiest, silliest cake I know. We’re putting cream in everything. Everybody will be sick of cream. Why can’t I bake a coffee cake?" "Why can’t she?" asked Mrs. Leighton severely. "Coffee cake, Elma," said Mabel. She had taken to paper and pencil. "I only hope we shall know what it is when it appears!" "And you’d better all begin as soon as you can," said Mrs. Leighton; "so that we find out where we are a few days before the party occurs." She still looked with foreboding on the whole arrangement. Cook preserved a hauteur on the subject of the invasion, through which the girls found it very hard to break. "Never seed such a picnic," she informed the housemaid. "My, you should have been here when Miss Betty burned her gingerbread!" That was a sad occasion, and after all, there was nothing for it but the rabbits. Betty moaned over the lost raisins, the "ginger didn’t count." "I stoned every one of them," she sighed. Mr. Leighton found some brown lumps in the rabbit hutches. "That’s not the thing for these beasts," he said; "what is it?" And Betty explained that it would be quite safe for them, for (once more) hadn’t she stoned every raisin herself? "I’m glad you’re a millionaire, John," said Mrs. Leighton grimly when she heard about it. Elma made Betty try again. Elma’s heart was in her mouth about her own performances, but she hung over Betty till a success was secured to the gingerbread. Then she couldn’t get the kitchen for her coffee cake, because Mabs, in a neat white apron and sleeves, was ornamenting a ragged-looking structure of white icing with little dabs of pink, and trying to write "Cuthbert" in neat letters across the top. She had prepared a small cake--"just to taste it." They all tasted. It seemed rather crumply. "Isn’t there a good deal of walnut in it?" asked Mrs. Leighton humbly. "It’s nearly all walnut," said Mabel. "I like walnut." Jean worried along with her piece. "Nobody will survive this party," said she. At last Elma’s coffee cake got its innings. She was so nervous after the gingerbread fiasco that only the ultimate good humour of Cook saved her. "Don’t hurry over it, Miss Elma; it’s coming nicely. I’ll tell you when to stop beating." Nothing else would have guaranteed the existence of the cake. Cook also saw to the firing. This gave Elma such a delightful feeling of gratitude that she opened out her heart on the subject of meringues. Cook said that of course it was easy for them "as had never tried" just to rush in and make meringues the first thing. The likes of herself found them "kittlish" things. You may make meringues all your life, and then they’ll go wrong for no reason at all. It was "knack" that was wanted principally. "Do you think I’ve got knack, Cook?" asked Elma humbly.