Evelyn's table blossomed out into all manner of pretty devices, each studied from a newly purchased cook-book. The butter reposed in beautifully shaped rolls on a feathery bed of parsley; even homely roasted potatoes looked inviting as they lay in a nest made of the snowy folds of a fringed napkin. Mr. Ferris declared he was twice fed by Evelyn's banquets. So it was all very fine until the bills came in at the end of the month; not that daintiness in serving cost anything, but she had erred in other directions. Evelyn was in consternation, for she had confidently supposed she could save a snug little bit from the sum allotted for housekeeping expenses, and this amount she was at liberty to spend as she chose, and she had already chosen to get a dozen tinted finger-glasses, a Japanese bowl for broken ice, another for salad, and so on, until, to her mind's eye, her table was a dream of color and form; but when that eye opened on the grocery bill, and the butcher's bill, and the milk bill, and then on minus six dollars and eighty-five cents, it nearly dropped a tear of shame and disappointment.
"No," she thought, after suppressing her first impulse to ask her mother what to do, "no! If I have been extravagant, I must find out where, and pay for it; and this deficit shall come out of my own allowance. Next month I will do better."
And she did.
Nan wrote from New York, about the middle of November:
"Thanksgiving is coming, but I'm not. As my highest earthly desire is to earn twenty-five dollars, I'm not going to spend that much, especially as I haven't got it, for just two days' pleasure. I may mention, by way of a mere casual remark, that at present there isn't the dimmest possibility of my earning a punched coin this year, unless I happen to take a prize next spring. In my own humble imagination I have already done this and have, of course, chosen the things I shall buy with the money! But I do wish there were no rudiments to learn. They keep one back so! All this week I've devoted the forces of my nature to drawing straight lines and angles, However, I have long suspected that one of my faults was dislike of real hard work, so I am going to 'peg right along,' and lay foundations.
"There are several nice girls in the class, and Aunt Hettie says that I may invite Ruth Manning, who has no home to go to, here to Thanksgiving dinner. I am having a gay time shaking up this quiet house. I play "loud waltzes on the piano," and sing at the top of my voice, which you well know penetrates to the gables of the garret, until the silence of these sepulchral rooms is put to flight. I am also adding worldly touches to these same tombs, and dear Aunty sees how much prettier they look, and wonders she never thought of the little changes I've made. And what do you think—I trimmed her up a bonnet; quite different from her usual head-gear, I can tell you, with really a furtive air of style about it!—and I held her before the glass until I made her own that she liked it; and when I marched her in to show it to Uncle Nat, and commanded him to say it was becoming, he said it looked like one she wore when he was courting her, whereat he kissed her, and she blushed with pleasure. She will wear that bonnet next Sunday, although I think she expects instant excommunication.
"Tell Evelyn I long for the locusts and wild honey she seems to be serving up so charmingly; also that we made a great hit when we made over my brown suit, for it is quite 'the thing.' I think it is splendid of Fred Drake to loan Cathy the money to start her green things.
"I'm going to paper my room with common manilla paper, when I get home, and then put splashes of gilt on it, happy-go-lucky style. I saw a room done so.
"Hug yourselves all around, for
"Your loving