"Oh, just ingenious little pieces of iron, so contrived that they will open and shut like an old-fashioned pair of tongs, only much more gracefully; they adjust themselves to the size of the tin, or plate, and close firmly, so that even a novice can lift the hottest pumpkin pie that ever bubbled, and set it with composure and complacency on the table at her leisure."
"I should think they would be splendid!"
This, in varying phraseology, was the general vote.
"Then I'll tell you of one of the greatest nuisances out. Look here! Did you ever see a more starched-up linen cuff than this is?"
The girls looked admiringly. No; they never did. It shone with a lovely polish, the means of securing which was unknown to the most domestic of them.
"Well," explained Miss Benedict, "it isn't linen at all. By the way, I am trying to economize in laundry work. It is nothing but paper, but with such a good linen finish that nobody ever discovers it, and they answer every purpose. I find they don't keep them at the corner store, and your young gentleman friends would like them, I am sure. They can be had at the factory very reasonably, indeed. I shouldn't wonder if we would better invest in some. But that was not what I started out to say. When you get a pair of cuffs nicely laundried, so that they are stiff and shining, how do you enjoy struggling with them to get the cuff button in, or to get it out—especially if you are in a hurry?"
This query produced much merriment among two of the girls, which the elder sister presently explained:
"You ought to ask that question of our brother Dick. He does have the most trying times with his cuff buttons. He wants his cuffs so stiff they can almost walk alone, and then he fusses and struggles to get the buttons in so as not to break the cuff. He is just at the age, Miss Benedict, to be very particular about such things, and sometimes he gets into such a rage. Last Sunday he split one of his buttons in half a dozen pieces tugging at it. I tried to help him, but I couldn't get the thing in; they are a dreadful nuisance."
"Ah, but look at this." A sudden, dexterous movement, and the button was standing perpendicularly across the button-hole, and could be slipped in or out with perfect ease.
The girls looked and admired and exclaimed. They had never seen such a contrivance.