"Why, here are some clouds all ready for us!" she exclaimed. "I guess 'Manda must have known we were coming! You take all you can carry, Doris, and I'll take the rest."
Doris plunged her hand bravely into the mass of beaten white of egg that filled the great platter and Mary Jane tumbled all that was left into her apron and they gleefully hurried back upstairs.
"There, now," said Mary Jane, "we'll make clouds all over our house and then we'll have the show." But that show never was held.
For just as they left the kitchen, Amanda came back into it to finish the cake she was making for the party and found that her eggs, the beautiful whites that she had beaten with such pains, were gone!
"It sooly do seem queer, Mis' Merrill," she said to her mistress, "them eggs was right here and then they wasn't here and eggs can't walk, kin they—leastwise not when they's beat up?"
"No, eggs can't walk but little girls can," said Mrs. Merrill for she suddenly recalled hearing mysterious sounds and giggles on the back stairs a moment or two before. "I think I know where your eggs are but why they are gone, I can't imagine!" And she hurried up to the nursery. And there, sure enough, were the eggs!
"What in the world are you girls doing with those eggs?" she demanded.
"Those aren't eggs," said Mary Jane scornfully, "those are clouds and this is going to be a paper doll show."
"I don't know about a paper doll show, daughter," said Mrs. Merrill seriously, "but I do know that those are the eggs which were to have gone into the cake for Alice's party."
"Oh, mother, not really?" exclaimed Mary Jane, and the tears came into her big eyes. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to spoil the party, truly I didn't, mother! We just wanted some clouds—anyway I did," she added honestly, "and we went down to 'Manda and she wasn't there but the clouds were so we took them. That's all. Will it spoil the party?"