Then Alice realized how flat every game seemed without Peggy. It was all right so long as they were playing dolls, but one could not play dolls all day. The geography game would be a pleasant change. Alice proposed having an afternoon tea for the dolls, and Diana agreed, although it did not seem quite a suitable hour for it in the middle of the morning.
“I wish mother would let us go out into the kitchen and help her,” Alice said.
They had had too much play, and this was the truth. A little real work would have been interesting.
“I guess they are making some kind of a surprise for your birthday dinner,” said Diana.
And when dinner came, and they saw the big biscuits and the little ones, and large cookies with caraway seeds in them, and the small ones, they were perfectly delighted.
The dolls were all allowed to come to the table with them, and, as there were four people and five dolls, each doll was well looked after. Alice had two on one side of her and one on the other. It was a merry meal; Peggy, having made up her mind to play dolls, did it thoroughly. She answered for the dolls in a different voice for each. Her namesake, Peggy Owen Carter, who sat beside her, ate so much her little mother had to reprove her.
“My dear child, you mustn’t be so greedy,” said Diana. “I should think you had never tasted lamb stew before.”
“I haven’t,” said Peggy Owen Carter, in a shrill, high-pitched voice that made the children laugh. “We only have such things as legs of lamb and roast beef and turkey and broiled chickens at our house.”
“Oh, please, can’t we help to do the dishes?” Diana asked, when the lively meal was over.
“Yes, you and Alice can do the dishes inside while Peggy helps me in the kitchen with the pots and pans.”