and it was
still no party, to be compared or thought of with any salad and
ice-pudding and Germania-band affair, such as they had had all
winter; but something utterly fresh and new and by itself,--place,
and entertainment, and people, and all.

After tea, they went out into the garden; and there, under the shady
horse-chestnuts, was a swing; and there were balls with which Hazel
showed them how to play "class;" tossing in turn against the high
brick wall, and taking their places up and down, according to the
number of their catches. It was only Miss Craydocke's "Thread the
Needle" that got them in again; and after that, she showed them
another simple old dancing game, the "Winding Circle," from which
they were all merrily and mysteriously untwisting themselves with
Miss Craydocke's bright little thin face and her fluttering cap
ribbons, and her spry little trot leading them successfully off,
when the door opened, and the grand Mr. Geoffrey walked in; the man
who could manage State Street, and who had stood at the right hand
of Governor and President, with his clear brain, and big purse, and
generous hand, through the years of the long, terrible war; the man
whom it was something for great people to get to their dinners, or
to have walk late into an evening drawing-room and dignify an
occasion for the last half hour.

Mrs. Ripwinkley was just simply glad to see him; so she was to see
Kenneth Kincaid, who came a few minutes after, just as Luclarion
brought the tray of sweetmeats in, which Mrs. Ripwinkley had so far
innovated upon the gracious-grandmother plan as to have after tea,
instead of before.

The beautiful cockles and their rhymes got their heads all together
around the large table, for the eating and the reading. Mr. Geoffrey
and Uncle Titus sat talking European politics together, a little
aside. The sugar-plums lasted a good while, with the chatter over
them; and then, before they quite knew what it was all for, they had
got slips of paper and lead pencils before them, and there was to be
a round of "Crambo" to wind up.

"O, I don't know how!" and "I never can!" were the first words, as
they always are, when it was explained to the uninitiated; but Miss
Craydocke assured them that "everybody could;" and Hazel said that
"nobody expected real poetry; it needn't be more than two lines, and
those might be blank verse, if they were _very_ hard, but jingles
were better;" and so the questions and the wards were