CHAPTER VI.

A CANDY PULL.


Of all things in the world, what should grandmamma propose but my
sending for Miss Muffet! Great-aunt Jessamine had gone away long before.

"I believe it was to-day that the girls meant to have the candy pull at
Jeanie's, wasn't it?" grandmamma asked.

"Yes, darling grandmamma," I said, "they may have it; but I am not going
to desert you."

"Thee is very kind, dearie," replied grandmamma; "but I need only quiet,
and Hetty will come out of her attack just as well without thee as with
thee. I particularly wish that thee would go. How is thee to have the
fair unless thee has the candy pull? The time is passing, too. It will
soon be school and lessons again."

So, at grandmamma's urging, I went for Miss Muffet. The little woman
came without much delay, and took hold, as she expressed it, looking
after both our invalids; and in the meantime telling me how to broil a
steak for my grandmamma's and our own dinner, and how to fry potatoes so
that they should not be soaked with grease.

A girl I know gained a set of Dickens' works by broiling a steak so as
to please her father, who was a fastidious gentleman, and said he