"Now give me some of that candy, and I'll tell," demanded the young Shylock, bound to make the best of his power while it lasted.
"Did you ever see such a little torment? I can't give the nice bonbons, because we haven't decided who is to have them."
"Never mind. Pick out a few and get rid of him," cried the girls, hovering round their prey, and longing to shake the truth out of him.
A handful of sweeties were reluctantly bestowed, and then all waited for the name of the evil-doer with breathless interest.
"Well," began Phil, with exasperating slowness, "Alf wrote the cards, and gave me half a dollar to put 'em round. Made a nice thing of it, haven't I?" and before one of the girls could catch him he had bolted from the room, with one hand full of candy, the other of mince-pie, and his face shining with the triumphant glee of a small boy who has teased seven big girls, and got the better of them.
What went on just after that is not recorded, though Phil peeped in at the windows, hooted through the slide, and beat a tattoo on the various doors. The opportune arrival of his mother sent him whooping down the street, and the distressed damsels finished their lunch with what appetite they could.
Edith got the prize, for her pie was pronounced a grand success, and partaken of so copiously that several young ladies had reason to think it well named "Nightmare" by the derisive Alfred. Emboldened by her success, Edith invited them all to her house on the next Saturday, and suggested that she and her cousin provide the lunch, as they had some new dishes to offer, not down in the receipt-book they had been studying all winter.
As the ardor of the young cooks was somewhat damped by various failures, and the discovery that good cooking is an art not easily learned, anything in the way of novelty was welcome; and the girls gladly accepted the invitation, feeling a sense of relief at the thought of not having any dish to worry about, though not one of them owned that she was tired of "messing," as the disrespectful boys called it.
It was unanimously decided to wither with silent scorn the audacious Alfred and his ally, Rex, while Phil was to be snubbed by his sister till he had begged pardon for his share of the evil deed. Then, having sweetened their tongues and tempers with the delicious bonbons, the girls departed, feeling that the next lunch would be an event of unusual interest.
The idea of it originated in a dinner which Patty got one day, when Nancy, who wanted a holiday, was unexpectedly called away to the funeral of a cousin,—the fifth relative who had died in a year, such was the mortality in the jovial old creature's family. Edith's mother was very busy with a dressmaker, and gladly accepted the offer the girls made to get dinner alone.