teen candles on it.

It is needless to say they had a merry time. The hostess did the
honors with a great deal of grace, looking very pretty in a charming
gown brought to her from New York by Aunt Marcia. Mrs. Hazeltine was
in the habit of bringing home pretty things to her nieces, and as she
said she considered Dora one of them it was not possible to refuse
her gifts.

"Suppose we tell what we mean to be when we are grown up," suggested
Bess, when the feast was over and they had drawn their chairs together
in a cosey group.

"Dear me! I don't know," said Dora.

"Well, what you would like to be, then?"

"I think perhaps I shall be some kind of a teacher, but--I know you
will laugh--I believe I'd like to keep a store and live back of it, as
Mrs. Smith does."

"A confectionery, Dora?" asked Louise, as they all laughed at this
lofty ambition. "I'll promise you my custom."

"Ikey, you are next; what are you going to do?" inquired Bess.

"Well, after Carl and I go to college I am going to study medicine. By
that time Father will have left the navy, I hope, and we will all live
here together, and I'll practise."

"Perhaps there will be an office for you back of Dora's store," said
Carl.

"I'd like to write books," said Bess. "Beautiful stories that
everybody will want to read. Then I'll make lots of money and build
hospitals and do ever so much good."

"The hospitals will be for Ikey to practise in, I suppose, my great
and good cousin," remarked Aleck, with a profound bow.

"I mean to be a judge," announced Carl, who was next. "Now, Aleck."

"I am going to try for West Point next year. Father has given his
consent, and--well, I'll be a general."

"I don't see how you can unless there is a war," said Ikey.

"Perhaps there'll be one then, and if I am wounded I can go to Bess's
hospital and have you practise on me."

"Louise, you are the last; what noble ambition have you?"

"I think I'll illustrate Bess's books and help Dora keep store," she
said, laughing.

A knock at the door interrupted just then, and Uncle William's cheery
face appeared. "It is so late I must not stop," he said; "but I ran
away from a political meeting to wish my little girl many happy
returns."

* * * * *

"There is to be another wedding in the family," said Mrs. Howard,
entering the library one day with some hyacinths in her hand.

"Do you mean it really? I did not know there was anybody to get
m