The girls gave a party to celebrate the recovery of Cuthbert. They were allowed to do this on one condition, that they made everything for it themselves.

This was Mr. Leighton's idea, and it found rapturous approval in the ranks of the family, and immediate rebellion in the heart of Mrs. Leighton. It was her one obstinacy that she should retain full hold of the reins of housekeeping. Once let a lot of girls into the kitchen, and where are you?

"Once let a lot of girls grow up with no kind of responsibility in life, and where are you then?" asked Mr. Leighton. "I don't want my girls to drift. No man is really healthy unless he is striving after something, if it's only after finding a new kind of beetle. I don't see how a girl can be healthy without a definite occupation."

"They make their beds, and they have their music," sighed Mrs. Leighton. "Girls in my day didn't interfere with the housekeeping."

"I've thought about their music," said Mr. Leighton. "I'm glad they have it. But it isn't life, you know. A drawing-room accomplishment isn't life. I want them to be equipped all round. Not just by taking classes either. Classes end by making people willing to be taught, but the experiences of life make them very swift to learn. We can't have them sitting dreaming about husbands for ever. Dreams and ideals are all very well, but one scamps the realities if one goes on at them too long. Elma means to marry a duke, you know. Isn't it much better that in the meantime she should learn to make a salad?"

"The servants will be so cross," said Mrs. Leighton. She invariably saw readily enough where she must give in, but on these occasions she never gave in except with outward great unwillingness.

"Oh, perhaps not," said Mr. Leighton. "They have dull enough lives themselves. I'm sure it will be rather fun for them to see Mabel making cakes."

"Mabel can't make cakes," exclaimed Mrs. Leighton. Her professional talents were really being questioned here. Throughout the length and breadth of the country, nobody made cakes like Mrs. Leighton.

Mr. Leighton grew a little bit testy.

"You know, my dear, if this house were a business concern it would be your duty to take your eldest daughter into partnership at this stage. As it is, you seem to want to keep her out for ever."

Mrs. Leighton sighed heavily.

"That's just it, John," said she; "I want to keep her out for ever. I want them all to remain little children, and myself being mother to them. Since Mabel got her hair up--already it's different. I feel in an underhand sort of way that I'm being run by my own daughter--I really do."

"More like by your own son," said Mr. Leighton. "The way you give in to that boy is a disgrace."

"Oh, Cuthbert's different," said Mrs. Leighton brightly.

"Poor Mabel," smiled Mr. Leighton.

It was an old subject with them, thrashed out again and again, ever since Cuthbert as a rather spoiled child of seven had had his little nose put out of joint by the first arrival of girls in the imperious person of Mabel. Mrs. Leighton had always felt a little grieved with the absurdly rapid manner in which Mr. Leighton's affections had gone over to Mabel.

"In any case, try them with the party," said he. "The only thing that can happen is for the cook to give notice."

"And I shall have to get another one, of course." Mrs. Leighton's voice dwelt in a suspiciously marked manner on the pronoun.

"Now there's another opportunity for making use of Mabel," said her husband.

Mrs. Leighton let her hands fall.

"Engage my own servants! What next?" she asked.

"Oh, I don't know," said he. "Cuthbert does heaps of things for me. You women are the true conservatives. If we had you in power there would be no chance for the country."

"Well, you might have persuaded Cuthbert to succeed you as Chairman of your Company, with a steady income and all that sort of thing," she exclaimed, "instead of rushing him into a profession which keeps him tied night and day, and gives him no return as yet for all his work."

"I should never stand in the way of enthusiasm," said her husband. "Cuthbert has a real genius for his profession."

"Then why not find a profession for Mabel?"

"I have thought of that. It seems right, however, that a man ought to be equipped for one profession, and a girl for several. I can always leave my girls enough money to keep the wolf from the door at least. I have an objection to any girl being obliged to work entirely for her living. Men ought to relieve them of that at least. But we must give them occupation; work that develops. Come, come, my dear; you must let them have their head a little, even although they ruin the cakes. A good mother makes useless daughters, you know."

"Well, it's a wrench, John."

"There, there," he smiled at her.

"And the servants are sure to give notice."

She regretted much of her pessimism, however, when she gave the news to the girls. Not for a long time had they been so animated. Each took her one department in the supper menu prepared under the guidance of Mrs. Leighton.

First, chicken salad inserted into a tomato, cut into water-lily shape, reposing on lettuce leaves--one on each little plate, mayonnaise dressing on top.

The mayonnaise captured Mabel.

"But you can't make it, it's a most trying thing to do--better let cook make it," interjected Mrs. Leighton.

"What about our party?" asked Mabel.

"Very well," said an abject mother.

So that was settled.

Then fruit salad, immediately claimed by Jean, who knew everything there was to be known of fruit, inside and out, as she explained volubly. Mrs. Leighton's quiet face twitched a trifle and then resolved itself into business lines once more.

Meringues! they must have meringues! Nobody seemed to rise to that. Elma felt it was her turn.

"They look awfully difficult," said she, "but I could try a day or two before. I'll do the meringues."

This cost her a great effort. Mother didn't appear at all encouraging, She snipped her lips together in rather a grim way, and it had the effect of sending a cold streak of fear up and down the back of the meringue volunteer.

"Are they very difficult, mummy?" she asked apologetically.

"Oh, no," said Mrs. Leighton airily. "After mayonnaise, one may do anything."

"I can whip cream--beautifully," explained Elma. "It's that queer crusty thing I'm afraid of."

"I shall be ruined in eggs, I see that very distinctly," said Mrs. Leighton.

After this, there seemed to be no proper opportunity for Betty.

"Couldn't I make a trifle?" she asked modestly. "A trifle at ten." Mrs. Leighton looked her over. "Oh! very well--Betty will make trifle."

Betty looked as though she would drop into tears. Elma put her hand through her arm and whispered while the others debated about cakes, "I can find out all about trifles. Miss Grace knows. She made them cen--centuries ago, and Miss Annie never lets the new cooks try."

Betty turned on her a happy face.

"Oh, Elma, you're most reviving," she said gratefully.

Then they had cakes to consider. Now and again they had been allowed to bake cakes, and they felt that here they were on their own ground. Betty revived in a wonderful manner, and immediately insisted on baking a gingerbread one.

"Nobody eats gingerbread at parties," said Mabel in a disgusted voice. "This isn't a picnic we're arranging, or a school-room tea. It's a grown-up party, and we just aren't going to have gingerbread."

"Yet I've sometimes thought that gingerbread at a party tasted very well," remarked Mrs. Leighton.

"Oh, mummy!" Mabel seemed very sorry for her mother.

But Betty had regained her confidence.

"I shall bake gingerbread," she exclaimed in her most dogged manner.

"There are always the rabbits, of course," said Jean, with her nose in the air.

"Girls, girls," said Mrs. Leighton.

"Gingerbread one, walnut cream cake another. What will you bake, Jean?"

"Orange icing," quoth Jean.

"And sponge cake cream for Elma," she added in a thoughtful way.

"I do like the way you fling all the uninteresting things at me," exclaimed Elma. "I think sponge cake cream is the moistest, flabbiest, silliest cake I know. We're putting cream in everything. Everybody will be sick of cream. Why can't I bake a coffee cake?"

"Why can't she?" asked Mrs. Leighton severely.

"Coffee cake, Elma," said Mabel. She had taken to paper and pencil. "I only hope we shall know what it is when it appears!"

"And you'd better all begin as soon as you can," said Mrs. Leighton; "so that we find out where we are a few days before the party occurs."

She still looked with foreboding on the whole arrangement.

Cook preserved a hauteur on the subject of the invasion, through which the girls found it very hard to break.

"Never seed such a picnic," she informed the housemaid. "My, you should have been here when Miss Betty burned her gingerbread!"

That was a sad occasion, and after all, there was nothing for it but the rabbits. Betty moaned over the lost raisins, the "ginger didn't count." "I stoned every one of them," she sighed. Mr. Leighton found some brown lumps in the rabbit hutches. "That's not the thing for these beasts," he said; "what is it?" And Betty explained that it would be quite safe for them, for (once more) hadn't she stoned every raisin herself?

"I'm glad you're a millionaire, John," said Mrs. Leighton grimly when she heard about it.

Elma made Betty try again. Elma's heart was in her mouth about her own performances, but she hung over Betty till a success was secured to the gingerbread. Then she couldn't get the kitchen for her coffee cake, because Mabs, in a neat white apron and sleeves, was ornamenting a ragged-looking structure of white icing with little dabs of pink, and trying to write "Cuthbert" in neat letters across the top. She had prepared a small cake--"just to taste it." They all tasted. It seemed rather crumply.

"Isn't there a good deal of walnut in it?" asked Mrs. Leighton humbly.

"It's nearly all walnut," said Mabel. "I like walnut."

Jean worried along with her piece.

"Nobody will survive this party," said she.

At last Elma's coffee cake got its innings. She was so nervous after the gingerbread fiasco that only the ultimate good humour of Cook saved her.

"Don't hurry over it, Miss Elma; it's coming nicely. I'll tell you when to stop beating."

Nothing else would have guaranteed the existence of the cake. Cook also saw to the firing. This gave Elma such a delightful feeling of gratitude that she opened out her heart on the subject of meringues. Cook said that of course it was easy for them "as had never tried" just to rush in and make meringues the first thing. The likes of herself found them "kittlish" things. You may make meringues all your life, and then they'll go wrong for no reason at all. It was "knack" that was wanted principally.

"Do you think I've got knack, Cook?" asked Elma humbly.

Cook gave her a clear night in the kitchen for the meringues, as a reward for her humility. It was marvellous that nearly all of them came fairly decently. Cook found the shapes "a bit queer," but "them as knew" who was providing the party wouldn't think they were "either here or there."

"I'll make it up with the cream," quoth Elma happily. A great load was off her mind.

She now devoted herself to Betty's trifle. As a great triumph they decided to provide a better trifle than even Cook knew how to prepare. Miss Grace entered heartily into the plan. They were allowed to call one morning when she was ensconced in the parlour. Saunders brought in solemnly, first, several sheets of white paper. These were laid very seriously on the bare finely-polished table. Then came a plate of sponge cake in neat slices, a thin custard in a glass jug, several little dishes, one of blanched almonds cut in long strips, another of halved cherries, one of tiny macaroon biscuits, and so on. Miss Grace set herself in a high chair, and proceedings began. Elma wondered to the end of her days what kind of a cook Miss Grace would have made if she had been paid for her work. Everything was prepared for Miss Grace, but she took an hour and a quarter to finish the trifle. She added custard in silver spoonfuls as though each one had a definite effect of its own, and she several times measured the half glassful of cordial which was apportioned to each layer of sponge cake. The ceremony seemed interminable. Elma saw how true it was what her father often said, that one ought always to have a big enough object in life to keep one from paying too much importance to trifles. She immediately afterwards apologized to herself for the pun, which, she explained in that half world of dreaming to which she so often resorted, she hadn't at all intended.

Elma and Betty, however, to the end of their days, never forgot how to make trifle.

Betty's trifle was a magnificent success.

Jean engaged a whole fruiterer's shop, as it seemed, for her salad, and found she made enough for forty people out of a fourth of what she had ordered. This put Mrs. Leighton back into her old prophetic position. Had she not told Jean a quarter of that fruit would be enough?

Mabel arranged everything in good order for her chicken concoction, and at last had only the mayonnaise to make. That occurred on the afternoon of the party. Cuthbert and Harry and Mr. Maclean were all about--supposed to be helping. May Turberville, Betty's great friend, and her brother Lance, a boy of fourteen, brought round various loans in the way of cups and cream and sugar "things." The table in the dining-room was laid for supper with a most dainty centre-piece decked with roses and candelabra. Most of their labours being over, the company retreated to the smoke-room, where "high jinks" were soon in process. Lance capered about, balancing chairs on his nose, and doing the wild things which only take place in a smoke-room.

In the midst of it appeared Mabel, wide-eyed and distressed, at the door. The white apron of a few days ago was smeared with little elongated drops of oily stuff. She held a fork wildly dripping in her hand.

"Oh--oh, isn't it awful," she cried, "the mayonnaise won't may."

It was the last anxiety, and, in the matter of the pints of the Leighton girls, quite the last straw. Just when they had begun to be confident of their party, the real backbone of the thing had given out.

Dr. Harry removed a cigarette from his lips.

"Hey--what's that?" he asked. "Mayonnaise--ripping! I knew an American Johnnie who made it. Bring it here, and we'll put it right."

Mabel spread her hands mutely. "In this atmosphere?" she asked.

Oh! They had soon the windows open. Harry insisted he could make mayonnaise. "You don't meet American men for nothing, let me tell you," he said. It was fun to see him supplied with plate, fork and bottles. He looked at Mabel's attempt at dressing.

"Good gracious!" he said, "where's the egg?"

Mabel turned rather faint. "I put in the white," said she.

Dr. Harry roared. Then he explained carefully and kindly.

"Mayonnaise is an interesting affair--apart from the joys of eating it. A chemical action takes place between the yoke of an egg and the oil and vinegar. You could hardly expect the white to play up."

"It was Cook," exclaimed Mabel. "She said something about yokes for a custard and whites for--for----"

"Meringues, you donkey," said Jean.

Dr. Harry made the mayonnaise.

Lance Turberville cut the most shameful capers throughout. He decorated Harry with paper aprons and the cap of a chef, and stuck his eyeglass in the wrong eye while Harry worked patiently with a fork in semicircles. He was sent off with Betty and May, only to reappear later dressed out as a maid-servant. Nobody except Dr. Harry could take the mayonnaise seriously while Lance was about. At that moment the outdoor bell rang. With the inspiration born of mischief, and before any one could stop him, Lance rushed off and opened it.

Three ladies stood on the doorstep.

He showed them solemnly into the drawing-room, tripping over his skirt merely a trifle, and nearly giving Bertha, who had primly come to attend to the door, hysterics. He advanced to the smoke-room, where the mayonnaise was nearly completed.

"Mrs. and Miss Dudgeon and Miss Steven are in the drawing-room," said Lance.