"Ah, go 'long wid yez,—all of yez! Shure I'll be afther clanin' up. An' niver a shcold I'll shcold yez if ye'll kape outen o' my kitchen afther this."
"Good for you, Ellen!" shouted King. "I thought you'd raise a row! Nice Ellen, good Ellen! Good-bye, Ellen!"
"Good-bye, ye bad babies! I'll make ye some tea-cakes now as ye can eat!"
"Isn't she a duck!" exclaimed Kitty.
"Oh, that's 'cause you're sort of company. If you hadn't been here, and we'd done that she'd have tuned up, all right!"
This was King's opinion, and Marjorie agreed with him. "We never go in the kitchen," she said. "I guess Ellen was so surprised she didn't know what to say."
"Well," said Kitty, quite undisturbed by the circumstances, "you see, at Grandma's, Eliza helps me, and sort of superintends what I put in."
"Yes, I see," said King. "Now you do a lot of cooking after you get back there, Kit, and try to learn your recipes better."
Kitty laughed and promised, and then the three children wandered into the dining-room to see what their elders were doing.
"Can't we start at once?" Cousin Ethel was saying. "Oh, here are the kiddies now! Come in, you three blessings in disguise! Do you want to go on a jamboree?"