"Would Miss Muffet undertake to show a few girls how to make bread and rolls and biscuit and sally-lunn, and have patience with them till they were perfect little housekeepers, so far as bread was concerned."
It was some little time before we could make Miss Muffet understand our plan, and persuade her to let us pay for our lessons; but when she did understand, she entered into the plan with enthusiasm.
"La me! What a clever notion to be sure! Sister Jane, poor dear, would approve of it highly, if she weren't so deaf. Begin to-day? Well, well! You don't want the grass to grow under your feet, do you? All right! I'll be at your house, Milly, at six o'clock this evening to give the first lesson. Have the girls there, if you can. It's as easy to teach a dozen as one."
"Milly," said Linda, "the club ought to have a uniform and badges. I don't think a club is complete that hasn't a badge."
"We all have white aprons," I said.
"Yes; ordinary aprons, but not great kitchen aprons to cover us up from head to foot."
"Well, if the club adopts the plan it will not be hard to make such aprons. We must certainly have caps, and those should be thought of at once."
Grandmamma was always my resort when I was at my wits' end, and so I went to her with a question: "Had she anything which would do for our caps?"
"There must be something in my lower left-hand wardrobe drawer," said grandmamma, considering. "Thee may bring me a green bag, which thee will see in the far corner, and then we will talk about those caps in earnest."
That wonderful green bag proved a sort of fairy find. There were remnants of mull, Swiss, jaconet and other fabrics—white, plain and barred. Grandmamma cut us a pattern. At four the seven girls were assembled in her room. Jeanie on a hassock at her feet, the remainder grouped as they chose.