It was a busy day for Dolly, as well as for the rest of them, and there was a by no means unpleasant excitement in the atmosphere of business. The cookery, too, was a success, the game pâtés being a triumph, the tarts beautiful to behold, and the rest of the culinary experiments so marvellous, that Griffith, arriving early in the morning, and being led down into the pantry to look at them as a preliminary ceremony, professed to be struck dumb with admiration. “There,” said Dolly, backing up against the wall in her excitement, and thrusting her hands very far into her apron pockets indeed,--“there! what do you think of _that_, sir?” And she stood before him in a perfect glow of triumph, her cheeks like roses, her sleeves rolled above her dimpled elbows, her hair pushed on her forehead, and her general appearance so deliciously business-like and agreeably professional that the dusts of flour that were so prominent a feature in her costume seemed only an additional charm. “Think of it?” said Griffith. “It is the most imposing display I ever saw in my life. The trimmings upon those tarts are positively artistic. You don't mean to say you did it all yourself?” “Yes,” regarding them critically,--“ev-er-y bit,” with a little nod for every syllable. “Won-der-ful!” with an air of complimentary incredulity. “May I ask if there is anything you can _not_ do?” “There is absolutely nothing,” sententiously. And then somehow or other they were standing close together, as usual, his arm around her waist, her hands clasped upon his sleeve. “When we get the house in Putney, or Bayswater, or Peckham Eise, or whatever it is to be,” she said, laughing in her most coaxing way, “this sort of thing will be convenient. And it _is_ to come, you know,--the house, I mean.” “Yes,” admitted Griffith, with dubious cheerfulness, “it _is_ to come,--some time or other.” But her cheerfulness was not of a dubious kind at all. She only laughed again, and patted his arm with a charming air of proprietorship. “I have got something else to show you,” she said; “something up-stairs. Can you guess what it is? Something for Mollie,--something she wanted which is dreadfully extravagant.” “What!” exclaimed Griffith. “Not the maroon silk affair!” “Yes,” her doubt as to the wisdom of her course expressing itself in a whimsical little grimace. “I could n't help it. It will make her so happy; and I should so have liked it myself if I had been in her place.” She had been going to lead him up-stairs to show it to him as it lay in state, locked up in the parlor, but all at once she changed her mind. “No,” she said; “I think you had better not see it until Mollie comes down in state. It will look best then; so I won't spoil the effect by letting you see it now.”