my sister," put in Genie, who was a restless spirit, and having finished her supper, was roaming around among the tables talking to different ones.
"So she is," and Dolly patted the glossy, black curls.
"Looks like a spitfire, though, if she should get mad," commented Tod Brown, who was an outspoken boy.
"Oh, I don't think so," returned Dolly; and then she remembered the few trifling quarrels they had already had. "No," she went on, "Dotty isn't a spitfire; but when she gets mad she just flounces off and gets over it."
"Just like a girl!" said Tod; "why don't you have it out, and done with it?"
"That's what Bert always says," and Dolly laughed. "I guess girls and boys are different about such things."
"I guess they are," said Grace, looking rueful. "Maisie May and I have been 'mad' for two weeks now."
"Oh, how silly!" exclaimed Lollie Henry. "I'm going to get you two girls together and make you make up!"
"Yes, let's," said Tad; "come on now; I've finished my ice cream, haven't you, Dolly?"
They all had, and they followed Tad, who was ringleader in this game. The others had mostly risen from the tables, and Tad told Dolly to get Maisie and bring her over to their group.
Grace Rawlins looked a little uncertain. She honestly wanted to be friends with Maisie but she was not sure she liked the way it was being brought about.
Dolly came back, arm in arm with Maisie.
The two boys stood in front of Grace until the girls came up, and then Tad, whisking aside, said, with a low bow: "Miss Maisie May, I want to make you acquainted with Miss Grace Rawlins, the nicest girl in Berwick, except the rest of them."
Maisie coloured and looked half-angry, half-amused, and Tad went on: "I see by the papers that you two girls don't know each other to speak to, so Dolly Fayre and us two boys are a committee of three to see that you become acquainted immediately if not sooner. You two will therefore now greet each other with a nice, sweet kiss."
Tad's manner was so funny and so like a kindly old gentleman, that the girls had to laugh.
But though Grace looked willing to obey the order, Maisie did not.
"Don't be silly, Tad," she said; "I guess you don't know what Grace said about me, or you wouldn't ask me to kiss her!"
"Tell me," said Tad, with the air of an impartial judge, "and I and my wise colleague, Mr. Lorillard Henry, will size up the case and pronounce judgment."
"Why, she said I was the meanest girl in Berwick, because I wouldn't tell her the answer to an algebra example. And I couldn't, because Miss Haskell had made us all promise not to tell the answers to anybody—she wanted everybody to do them without help."
"Seems to me you did the right thing," and Tad looked at Grace.
"I didn't know that," said Grace. "I wasn't at school the day Miss Haskell said that."
"Then you couldn't be expected to know," said Tad; "now, it's just as I said, a boy would fight it out with another boy, and he might punch his head, but the matter would be understood and straightened out, and not sulk for two weeks over it."
"I didn't sulk," said Grace.
"Well, you two sillies didn't speak to each other,—it's about the same thing. Now will you be good! Will you kiss and make up?"
"I will," said Maisie May, heartily, and she flung her arms round Grace, and gave her a most friendly kiss, which was as heartily returned.
"Bless you, my children!" said Tad, dramatically. "Now don't let me hear of your quarrelling again! Are you mad at anybody, Dolly?"
"No, sir, thank you; but if I am, at any time, I'll come to you for a peacemaker."
"Oh, look who's here!" cried Lollie, spying a strange figure walking across the lawn.
The group joined the others and found themselves invited to take a seat in the rows of chairs which were lined up in front of an interesting-looking table.
They did so, and soon all present were seated in breathless anticipation of what might happen.
The tea tables had been whisked away, and at the door of the tent the stranger stood,—a table in front of him.
He was a magician, and the tricks he did held his young auditors spellbound.
Turning back his coat sleeves to prove he was concealing nothing, he would take a large sheet of white paper, and with a swift movement twirl it round into a cornucopia. This was, of course, empty, and shaking it about to prove its emptiness, he then held it upright, and invited Dolly to look into it. But he held it so high, that she had to stand on tiptoe to peep in. However, she caught a glimpse, and it seemed to her there were pink flowers in it.
Then the magician asked Dotty to peep in. She peered over the edge, and just as she exclaimed, "Why, it's full of flowers!" he overturned it on her head, and she was showered with lovely pink rosebuds made of tissue paper!
"Where did they come from?" cried everybody, as they scrambled to pick them up. "The cone was empty! Where did he get them?"
But the magician only smiled, and went on with his other tricks.
"Has any one a gold watch?" he asked.
Not many of the boys had gold watches, but Lollie Henry exhibited with pride one that his grandfather had given him on his birthday.
"May I borrow it?" said the magician; "ah, thank you," and he took it before Lollie had really consented.
"Now, a silk hat. Much obliged, sir," as Mr. Fayre provided the hat.
"Now, my young friends, we'll make an omelet. Two eggs, somebody,—please?"
Nobody had any eggs, and the magician seemed nonplussed. "What, no eggs in all this well-dressed crowd? Incredible! Ah, come here, little girl!" He caught Genie, who was running about. "Why, here is an egg in the big bow of your hair-ribbon! And here is another in the other bow! What a strange place to carry eggs! Did Mother send you to the store for them?"
"No, sir," said Genie, looking in amazement at the unmistakable eggs the man had evidently found in her ribbon. "I should think they would have dropped out sooner!"
"I should think so too," returned the magician; "lucky for me they didn't, or I could not have made the nice omelet I'm about to concoct."
He set the silk hat on the table, laid the watch and eggs beside it, and then called for a cup of milk.
Somehow or other Mrs. Fayre had that all ready and handed it to him with a smile.
"Good!" said the magician; "now we'll to work! I suppose many of you girls know how to make an omelet, so you must look sharp and see that I do it right. First, we'll break the eggs and whisk them up."
He broke the eggs right into the silk hat, and stirred them with a fork and then poured in the milk slowly,
