"I assure you I can appreciate your feelings, from sad experience! I, myself, am positively longing for a nice sirloin steak." Then, a sudden thought striking her, "I will tell you what we will do, Nat, we will have a little feast!" "A feast?" repeated Nattie, not exactly comprehending. "Yes--I have a little gas stove--low be it said, lest Mrs. Simonson hear and bring in a terrific bill for extra gas!--I use it sometimes to cook my dinner, when I do not feel like going out, and why should we not have a feast all to ourselves some day? and the sirloin steak shall be forthcoming! and what do you say to Charlotte Russe? In short, we will have everything we can think of, and you shall be assistant cook!" "That would be splendid!" cried Nattie, delighted, "only it will have to be some Sunday, as that is my only leisure day, you know." "All the better, for then we will be less liable to intrusion," responded Cyn, gayly. "So make a memorandum to that effect, for next week. We must not let Mrs. Simonson know, however, on account of the gas stove; I pay her too much rent now. I am afraid we shall have a little difficulty about dishes. The few I have are not exactly real Sevres china, or even decently conventional. But--" "Oh! never mind the dishes!" interrupted Nattie. "Anything will do! I have myself a cracked tumbler, and a spoon, that will perhaps be useful for something." Agreeing therefore to hold dishes in strict contempt, the following Sunday found the two girls with closed doors, in the midst of great preparations for a truly Bohemian feast, as Cyn termed it; Nattie with her crimps tied down in a blue handkerchief, and Cyn with her sleeves rolled up, and an old skirt of a dress doing duty as apron. "Let me see," said Nattie merrily, taking account of stock. "Two pounds of steak--the first cut of the sirloin, I think you said?--waiting, expectant of making glad our hearts, on the rocking-chair, potatoes in plebeian lowliness under the table, tomatoes and two pies on your trunk, Charlotte Russes--delicious Charlotte Russes--where? Ah!--on your bonnet-box, in a plate ordinarily used as a card receiver, and sugar, butter, et cetera, and et cetera lying around almost anywhere, and the figs, oranges and homely, but necessary bread, where are they? I see, on top of 'Dombey & Son!'" "And our dishes will not quarrel, because thev are none of them any relation to each other!" laughed Cyn, as she peeled the tomatoes. "I fear goblets will have to take upon themselves the duties of cups, and that cracked tumbler of yours must be used for something. I am sorry that saucepan is so dilapidated, but it is the best I own!" "And in that saucepan we must both boil the potatoes and stew the tomatoes. Won't one cool while the other is doing?" queried Nattie, hovering lovingly over the steak. "I think not;" Cyn answered. "You won't mind the coffee being boiled in a tin can, once the repository of preserved peaches, will you?"