tion, of the cook. But I hadn't really begun yet,
and I was wild to get the girls together.

Bloomdale is a sort of scattered up-hill and down-dale place, with one
long and broad street running through the centre of the village, and
houses standing far apart from each other, and well back from the
pavement in the middle of the green lawns, swept into shadow by grand
old trees. The Bloomdale people are proud of the town, and keep the
gardens beautiful with flowers and free from weeds. Life in Bloomdale
would be perfectly delightful, all the grown-up people say, if it were
not for the everlasting trouble about servants, who are forever changing
their places and going away, and complaining that the town is dull, and
their church too distant, and life inconvenient; and so every one envies
my mother, who has kept Hetty all these years, and never had any trouble
at all.

At least I fancied that to be so, till I was a housekeeper myself, and
found out that Aunt Hetty had spells of temper and must be humored, and
was not perfect, any more than other people vastly above her in station
and beyond her in advantages.

I stopped for Linda Curtis, and she jumped into the phaeton and went
with me. We asked Jeanie Cartwright, Veva Fay, Lois Partridge, Amy
Pierce and Marjorie Downing to tea the next day, and every girl of them
promised to come bright and early.

When I reached home I ran to grandmamma to ask her if I had done right,
and to get her advice about what I would better have for my bill of
fare.

"Thee is too precipitate, dear child," said grandmamma. "Why not have
waited two or three days before having a company tea? I fear much that
Hetty will be contrary, and not help as she ought. And I have one of my
headaches coming."

"Oh, grandmamma!" I exclaimed. "Have you taken your pills?" I was
aghast.

"Thee needn't worry, dear," replied grandmamma, quite unruffled. "I have
taken them, and if the headache does not vanish before dark, I'll sleep
in the south chamber to-night, and be out of the way of the stir
to-morrow. I wish, though, Aunt Hetty were not in a cross fit."

"It is shameful," I said. "Aunt Hetty has been here so long that she
does not know her place. I shall not be disturbed by her moods."

So, holding my head high, I put on my most dignified manner and went to
the kitchen. Aunt Hetty, in a blue gingham gown, with a gay kerchief
tied on her head, was slowly and pensively rocking herself back and
forth in