had ten dollars sent to each of them as a Christmas gift. Chris
went out straightway and bought a new coat. Lily's was new the winter
before. There were a great many things she needed, but most of all she
wanted a party. She had been to two already.

"What a silly idea!" said her father.

But Lily kept tight hold of her idea and her money, and the last of
January, with Chris' help, she brought it about. They took the bedstead
out of the back parlor and changed the furniture around. And though her
mother called it foolishness, she baked some tiny biscuits and made a
batch of crullers and boiled a ham. Lily bought fancy cakes, mottoes,
candies, and nuts, and a few oranges which were very expensive.

The Underhill boys were invited, of course. Benny said "he didn't
believe he would go. He shouldn't know what to do at a party."

"Why, follow your nose," laughed Jim. "Do just as the rest do. Don't be
a gump!"

"And I hate to be fooling round girls."

"You don't seem to mind Dele Whitney. You're just cracked about her."

I don't know how the boys of that day managed without the useful and
pithy word "mashed."

"It's no such thing, Jim Underhill! She's always down-stairs with her
mother. I go in to see Mr. Theodore;" yet Ben's face was scarlet.

"You know you like her," teasingly.

"I _do_ like her. And it's awful mean not to ask her when she's in the
same crowd and lives on the block. But she doesn't care. She wouldn't
go."

"Sour grapes." Jim made a derisive face.

"You shut up about it."

"Don't get wrathy, Benjamin Franklin."

When his mother said "Benny Frank," he thought it the best name in the
whole world. Perhaps part was due to his mother's tone. And Ben was a
splendid boy's name. But his schoolmates did torment him. They asked him
if he had finished his roll, and if he had any to give away. They
pestered him about flying his kite, and inquired what he said to the
King of France when he went abroad--if it was "_parley vous de donkey_."
If there is anything the average school-boy can turn into ridicule he
does it. When Jim wanted to be exasperating he gave him his whole name.
And then Ben wished he had been called plain John, even if there had
been two in the family.

But the day of the party Jim coaxed him, and Jim could be irresistible.
Then Margaret said: "Oh, yes, I think I would go." She fixed up both of
the boys, and scented their handkerchiefs with her "triple extract," and
hoped they would h