“No, no; I only want Dora.”
“That child can’t be trusted to do the smallest errand correctly,” thought Auntie Prim, taking down the cook-book, with a sigh, and looking at the recipes for cake. Her husband was in Canada, and she had kindly offered to spend a month or so at Dr. Gray’s while his wife went away for her health. This would have been very pleasant, only Julia went with her mother, and little Flaxie was always troublesome without Julia.
Mrs. Prim had said that morning to Dora that she would go into the pantry and make three apple-pies, for she knew how to make them better than Dora; and then she must finish writing her lecture on Ancient History. And now Flaxie Frizzle had come and asked for a party! Mrs. Prim was called a “superior woman,” and knew more than almost anybody else in town except the minister; but she did think children very trying, and their parties “perfectly absurd.” Besides, Flaxie wasn’t her own niece.
“O auntie, auntie!” cried the little tease, coming back again, with Milly at her heels, “we’ve got to go and invite ’em!”
“Certainly; and why don’t you go, then?”
“Don’ know how; please tell us how,” said Flaxie, clutching Mrs. Prim by the skirt, and wishing there was a hinge in that lady somewhere, so she could bend.
“Don’t know how? Just go to the houses, child, and ask the little girls’ mothers.”
“O auntie, we don’t want the little girls’ mothers!”
“No, no; ask the mothers to let their little daughters come here to tea; that’s what I mean.”
Then Auntie Prim made out a list of ten little girls, for the table would seat twelve, and she wanted the party large enough to please Flaxie. She thought she would make some of her own delicious tarts and a nice sponge roll, and Dora might mix White Mountain cake and boil a tongue. Mrs. Prim meant to be very kind, though she was sure, if she had had any little girls of her own, they would never have had any parties!