"Invite! Who? What? When? How? Where?"
Such was the chorus that greeted Meg's astounding proposition.
"Why, I say," she explained, nothing daunted, "let's put all our Christmas money together and get the very best dinner we can, and invite all the roomers to come and eat it with us. Now I've said it! And I ain't foolin', either."
"And we haven't a whole table-cloth to our names, Meg Frey, and you know it!" It was Ethel who spoke again.
"And what's that got to do with it, Sisty? We ain't goin' to eat the cloth. Besides, can't we set the dish-mats over the holes? 'Twouldn't be the first time."
"But Meg, dearie, you surely are not proposing to invite company to dine in the kitchen, are you? And who'd cook the dinner, not to mention buying it?"
"Well, now, listen, Sisty dear. The dinner that's in my mind isn't a society-column dinner like those Momsy writes about, and those we are goin' to invite don't wear out much table-linen at home. And they cook their own dinners, too, most of 'em—exceptin' when they eat 'em in the French market, with a Chinaman on one side of 'em and an Indian on the other.
"I'm goin' to cook ours, and as for eatin' in the kitchen, why, we won't need to. Just see how warm it is! The frost hasn't even nipped the banana leaves over there. And Buddy can pull the table out on the big back gallery, an' we'll hang papa's old gray soldier blanket for a portière to keep the Quinettes from lookin' in; and, Sisty, you can write the invitations an' paint butterflies on 'em."
Ethel's eyes for the first time sparkled with interest, but she kept silent, and Meg continued:
"An' Buddy'll bring in a lot of gray moss and latanier to dec'rate with, an'—"