Potts that Patty feared the girl would spend the whole day nursing them.

"Come, Pansy," she called; "let them grow by themselves for a while; I
want your help in the kitchen."

"But, oh, Miss Patty, they're daisies! Real white daisies, with
yellow centres!"

"Well, they'll still be daisies to-morrow, and you'll have more time to
admire them then."

Patty's ambitions in the culinary line ran to the fanciful and elaborate
confections which were pictured in the cook-books and in the household
periodicals; especially did she incline toward marvellous desserts which
called for spun sugar, and syllabubs, and rare sweetmeats, and patent
freezing processes.

For her New Year's dinner party she had decided to try the most
complicated recipe of all, and, moreover, intended to surprise
everybody with it.

Warning her father to keep out of the kitchen on pain of excommunication,
she rolled up her sleeves and tied on a white apron; and with her open
book on the table before her, began her proceedings.

Pansy Potts was set to whipping cream with a new-fangled syllabub-churn,
and Mancy was requested to blanch some almonds and pound them to a paste
in a very new and very large mortar.

Though the good-natured Mancy was more than willing to help her young