At this exhibition of broken English the twins, who were waiting on the
table, thought it safe to rush to the kitchen on pretence of changing
plates, while Dorothea, seated at the Professor's left, found it
necessary to bite both lips and to stare hard at the vinegar-cruet for
fully a second to keep from laughing. Then, to make sure of her
self-possession, she artfully changed the subject, remarking, dryly,

"My nickel buyed the ice."

This was much funnier than the Professor's speech, judging from the
laughter that followed it. And Miss Dorothea Frey's manners were saved,
which was the important thing.

It would be impossible in this short space to give a full account of
this novel and interesting dinner party, but if any one supposes that
there was a dull moment in it, he is altogether mistaken.

Mrs. Frey and Ethel saw to it that no one was neglected in conversation;
Meg and Conrad looked after the prompt replenishing of plates, though
the alert little waiters, Felix and Felicie, anticipated every want, and
were as sprightly as two crickets, while Dorothea provoked frequent
laughter by a random fire of unexpected remarks, never failing, for
instance, to offer ice-water during every "still minute"; and, indeed,
once that young lady did a thing that might have proved quite terrible
had the old lady Saxony, who sat opposite, been disagreeable or
sensitive.

What Dorothea said was innocent enough--only a single word of two
letters, to begin with.

She had been looking blankly at her opposite neighbor for a full minute,
when she suddenly exclaimed,

"Oh!"

That was all, but it made everybody look, first at Dolly and then across
the table. Whereupon the little maid, seeing her blunder, hastened to
add:

"That's nothin'. My grandma's come out too."

And then, of course, every one noticed that old lady Saxony held her
dainty hemstitched handkerchief quite over her mouth. Fortunately Mrs.
Saxony's good sense was as great as her appreciation of humor, and, as
she shook her finger threateningly at Dorothea, her twinkling eyes gave
everybody leave to laugh. So "Dolly's terrible break," as Conrad called
it, really went far to making the dinner a success--that is, if
story-telling and laughter and the merry clamor such as distinguish the
gayest of dinner parties the world over count as success.

It was while the Professor was telling a funny story of his boy life in
Germany that there came a rap at the door, and the