A toy duck emerged from her package, and Jim shouted with laughter.
“Oh!” she cried, delightedly, “it quacks!” as she accidentally pressed a spring in its neck.
Martha’s prize was a purse labeled, “For Captain Kidd’s coin.”
“Lovely!” she exclaimed. “I’ll put it right in.”
Jeanette received a small clothes brush, for she was always fussing about dust; and then Martha and Jeanette together presented Miss Ashton with a small basket filled with tiny dolls, and bearing a label “Some of your protégées.”
“She is always taking some girl under her wing,” exclaimed Nancy to Jim.
“I did not have much time or many opportunities for providing an elaborate lunch for this party,” said Miss Ashton, after the prizes had been examined and laid aside; “but I did my best.”
She laid a paper lunch cloth on the table, and in the center placed a big box of delicious looking chocolates and bonbons which she had bought in Boston.
“Don’t start on those,” she directed, as she added a box filled with fancy English cookies which she had picked up in Halifax, and not opened before.
“Now as soon as the boy brings over the coffee which I ordered from the hotel, we can begin.”