I'll touch it up," said
Kittie, becoming thoroughly interested. "We can make a lovely
corner-piece out of it; there's all those limestones down in the yard,
and some of them are such pretty shapes, that will look lovely set in
moss, with vines going over them. We can hang the baskets in the
windows, and when the curtains are fresh and clean, it will look so
pretty."

"Hurrah for my better half," cried Kat, with a flourish of her hat.
"It's bliss to hear you talk. Your words are like wisdom
and--butter-scotch."

"What's in the wind?" asked an interested voice from the window. "And
what's all this I hear about limestones and butter-scotch and wisdom?"

"Don't you wish you knew?" said Kat, with an unfriendly grimace.

"I do, indeed; and what's more I'm going to find out, because you will
tell me, won't you, Posy?" said the new-comer, appealing to Bea, by the
nickname which her prettily-colored cheeks had won from him.

"Oh, yes, of course; and you must make yourself useful. I'm going to
give a little company for Miss Barnett," said Bea, with a friendly nod,
to make up for Kat's ungraciousness.

"So-ho, a party, and we are all going to make our _debut_, are we?"
asked Ralph, swinging himself into the open window, and taking a seat on
the sill, with an air of interest. "Good! Tell me what you want done,
and I'm ready, Posy."

"We'd like to have you take yourself off, somewhere, and stay till the
day after the party," was Kat's uncomplimentary remark.

"And I would like to oblige you, my dear, but I couldn't stay away from
you that long," retorted Ralph.

"I'm not your dear, shut up;" cried Kat, flapping her hat, and scowling
at the handsome, laughing face.

"There," cried Bea, with a suddenly exhausted air. "I don't see any way
of filling that big space between the windows in the back parlor. Dear
me, I wish there was more furniture."

"Bring the piano in," advised Ralph. "That's just exactly the place for
it, and it ought to be in here on such an occasion."

"Goodness! To be sure, but there's the expense of moving," exclaimed
Bea with a longing sigh. "And it would have to go back, of course."

"Why? Leave it here, a parlor's the place for a piano."

"Yes, but that would never do," said Bea with decision. "We always sit
in the other room, because it is so much more sunshiny and cozy than
these big parlors; and it would seem deserted without the piano there,
especially in the evenings."

"Reasons very good