"No, dey ain't; is yo' fren's gwine stay ter breakfus'?"
"Oh, no, I'd want the bacon for the club-sandwiches. Don't worry, Mancy, they'll all come out right."
"Dey mought and den again dey moughtn't," grumbled the old woman, but undaunted Patty went on measuring and weighing with a surety of success that is found only in the young and inexperienced.
At one o'clock Marian walked out into the kitchen.
"Good gracious, Patty Fairfield," she exclaimed, "what are you doing? And what are all those things? Do you expect the Democratic Convention to be entertained here, or are you going to give the Sunday-school a picnic? And are we never to have lunch? I'm simply starving!"
Patty turned a flushed face to her cousin, and looked dazed and bewildered.
"Two and five-eighths ounces of sugar," she said, "spun to a thread; add chopped nuts and the well-beaten whites of six eggs; brown with a salamander. Marian, I haven't any salamander!"
The tragic tone of Patty's awful avowal was too much for Marian, and she dropped into a kitchen chair and went off into peals of laughter.
"Patty," she cried, "you goose! What are you doing? Just making up the whole recipe-book, page by page? I believe you're crazy!"
"It's for the Tea Club," exclaimed Patty, "and I want things to be nice."