"No one except Quimby, who stopped me to ask about bringing a friend to call some evening," Cyn replied, displaying the fruit, and producing the soap-dish. "Mercy on us!" Nattie said, looking rather aghast, "it is rather large, isn't it? and what did you bring-that soap-dish for?" "I thought it might come handy," laughed Cyn. "We will make a potato holder of it for the time. 'To what base uses may we come at last?'--Why--" in a tone of surprise, "here is the Duchess!" And sure enough, up by the window sat that sagacious animal, winking and blinking complacently, and evidently determined to be a third in the feast. "She came in unnoticed under the shadow that fruit-dish threw," said Nattie, teasingly. Cyn shook an oyster fork at her threateningly. "Say another such word and you shall have no steak!" she said tragically, "instead, a dungeon shall be your doom. We will let the Duchess remain as a receiver of odds and ends. I suppose her suspicions were excited by the sight of these articles. A rare cat! a learned cat! now please set the table, for our feast will soon be prepared!" and Cyn bent over the sizzling steak, that emitted a most appetizing odor. Setting that table was no such easy matter as might appear, for what with the big fruit-dish, wooden covers, different sizes of plates and other incongruous articles, considerable management was necessary. "I shall have to put the sugar on in the bag," Nattie said, incautiously backing to view the general effect, and so stumbling over the saucepan of potatoes that sat on the floor, but luckily doing no damage. "Ah, well! Eccentricity is quite the rage now, you know," responded the philosophical Cyn, "and certainly, a sugar-bowl so closely resembling a brown paper bag as not to be distinguishable from the real thing, is quite _recherche_. But my dear Nat, where am I to set the steak if you have that big fruit-dish in the center of the table, taking up all the room?" "I shall have to put it on the floor, then," Nattie answered, despairingly, "for I have tried it on all parts of the table! If you set it on the edge," she added hastily, seeing Cyn about to do so, "you will tip the whole thing over!" "Then we must have a side-board," Cyn announced, with a plate of steak in one hand, and the big fruit-dish in the other. "Put my writing-desk on a chair, please; spread a towel over it, and there you have it!" "But what a quantity of eatables we have! Two pounds of steak, ten big potatoes, a two-quart dish of tomatoes, two large pies, two Charlotte Russes, an urn of coffee, a dozen oranges and a box of figs--good gracious! Think of two people eating all that!" exclaimed Nattie, decidedly dismayed at the prospect.