dered could be as nice as parfait. But when the maid set the orange
sherbet at her place, Mary Jane was quite satisfied, for the ice was set
in a real orange, all cut out in dainty scallops and trimmed with green.

"Yummy-um!" she whispered, happily. "I'm so glad you had this party,
Dadah!"

Dadah seemed to want everything to be all right, for he had added to their
order some little cakes, done up in frilly papers and unlike anything the
girls had ever seen. They almost hated to eat them, they were so pretty,
but cakes one cannot eat are not good for much, Mr. Merrill reminded them,
and so the cakes were eaten up.

"Now then," said Mary Jane, as she dabbled her fingers in the finger bowl
and ate up the candy she found at the side of the tiny tray, "what do we
do next?"

THE BUS RIDE

"What do we do next?" asked Mr. Merrill, repeating Mary Jane's question.
"I'm sure of this much--we must do something _very_ nice because it's such
a nice day."

"_Nice day_!" exclaimed Alice. "What in the world are you talking about,
Dadah? This is the worst weather we've had since we came to Chicago--but
we don't care 'cause we're having such a good time anyway."

Mr. Merrill laughed and replied, "Suppose you look out of the window."

So they left their cozy table, where nothing but empty dishes told the
story of their delightful lunch party, and wandered over to the window
where Mary Jane had looked down at the street not much over an hour
before. But what a difference! With a sudden, unexpected shift of wind
that only the Chicago weather man knows how to bring about, the stiff,
cold northeaster that had brought the cold rain of the morning had been
sent off and in its place a warm breeze from the south blew softly across
the city, bringing with it sunshine and warmth and pleasantness for all.

"Why--" exclaimed Mary Jane, much puzzled, "where's the rain?"

"Did you want it back?" laughed Mrs. Merrill, and then she explained to
the girls something about the effect the big lake might have on weather
and told them that one of the queer things about Chicago was its sudden
changes to good, or sometimes bad, weather.

"So I was wondering," said Mr. Merrill, "if you folks wouldn't like an
hour of fresh air and then, if you're not through shopping we can come
back to the stores."

The girls hadn't an idea what he might want to do, but they were pretty
sure it would be fun. So they agreed that an hour out of doors was just