ch the egg.

Before this bubbled Miss Betty came in with a pink geranium in her hand,
and two green leaves. These she put in a very slender clear glass vase
she found in the sitting-room, just large enough for them. Then she
began to help Mildred with the tray.

"First you cover it with a clean napkin or tray cloth; that's a nice
napkin, Norah, thank you. Then you put on a glass of cold water, only
half full so it will not spill. Then the plate for the soup cup; and the
soup spoon at the side, with the fork for the egg, and the little folded
napkin and a cunning little salt and pepper. Next you get the egg and
toast ready, put them on a hot plate--_hot_, Mildred, not just a little
warm,--and cover it up with a hot cereal dish turned over it, unless you
happen to have a covered china dish that comes on purpose. Stand this at
the back of the tray. Get the little junket ready, too, and put the
glass on a small plate; but you need not put this on the tray. Let your
mother eat the hot things first, and take off the dishes and put the
dessert on the tray all by itself. You can get it while she is eating,
you know. Then, last of all, you put on the vase of flowers.
There--doesn't that look sweet?"

Mildred said it certainly did; then she began to poach the egg, and Miss
Betty went into Mother Blair's room and put an extra pillow behind her
shoulders and a scarf over her and opened the blinds. She drew a little
table close beside the bed and laid a fresh white cover over it, and
when the door opened and Mildred came in carefully carrying the white
tray with the good things to eat on it and the pretty geraniums, her
mother was delighted.

"Oh, how good it looks," she exclaimed. "Mildred, did you really make
that soup? And poach that beautiful egg? And actually make that junket?
Well, I never did see anything so perfectly lovely. I'm proud to have
such a daughter!" Then she ate everything, and declared her throat was
almost well already.

In spite of that, however, the doctor made Mrs. Blair stay in bed
several days, so that Mildred learned to make quite a number of new
dishes for sick people. For one breakfast she gave her cereal with cream
and bits of dates; for one luncheon she had the chicken broth, and for
one supper cream toast and baked custard; she had goldenrod eggs, too,
when her mother's throat was better, and baked apple. All of these
things she wrote down in her book so she would not forget how to make
any of t