"I was too frightened to notice, but I believe he flourished a stout stick of some sort, and I do remember a wicked gleam about his eyes--might have been spectacles."

The girls burst out laughing.

"Why, it's Professor Thing-a-my-Bob, or Dry-as-Dust, or somebody or other, from Washington. He's her _fiance_."

"Well, I don't care if he is," persisted Hilda. "He's a wicked-looking villain."

"Oh!" screamed the girls, and then Prudence added, with mock solemnity:

"Any one who could talk slightingly of a genuine college professor would speak disrespectfully of the equator or be sa.s.sy to the dictionary."

"I'd just enjoy telling the poor old proff what Hilda----" began Nannie, but the persevering president interrupted her.

"Young ladies, you will now come to order and consider the subject in hand."

"Which hand? Or in other words, where's that article? I should like to see it," said Hilda.

"It appeared in the _Tribune_, but I didn't see it," said Puddy, "but I can give you some little bits, here and there, that I jotted down as George Daly read them. Now listen."

"Order," said the president.

"'First catch your fish,'" Puddy read impressively, looking around for approval.

"First go a-fishing, I should say," said Hilda.

"'Don't hang up your fish on a hook in the housekeeper's department and think your work is done.'"

"That's Hugh Millett," murmured the president. "I don't think he's been home since he returned from his wedding trip."

"'Start with a clear fire, not too hot. Don't pile on all the wood and coal at once, for if the fire burns down before your fish is done it will be quite spoiled.'"

"Well, Mrs. Munsey is a spoiled fish, then," said Hilda. "Don't you remember, Prue, how Will Munsey heaped on the lovering at first? It was four inches deep--lovey this and dovey that till it fairly cloyed one. But the fire went out long ago. There's no spark or sparking on that hearth now."

"'Don't think, after the cooking is well under way, that you can leave it to take care of itself.' I had something more," said Puddy, fumbling in her reticule for another bit of paper. "Oh, here it is: 'Don't stuff your fish with dried crusts composed of the way your mother used to do this.' And here's another: 'Some husbands, after making it so hot in private that their poor wives are nearly reduced to a cinder, serve them up in public with a cold shoulder. Others toss them carelessly into a kettle to simmer from morning till night over the nursery fire.'"

"I'm going," said Nannie abruptly, and without further ceremony she departed, just as Evelyn Rogers came in again.

"Nannie Branscome is a perfect----" Hilda began.

"Sh-h!" said the president.

"Well, I trust she'll settle in a heavily wooded country, for the cooking she'll require before she's palatable would break a millionaire if fuel was dear."

"Oh! she'll do well enough when she has her growth," said Prudence in her dry way.

Nannie's growth was a subject of jest among her mates. At sixteen she suddenly thrust her foot forward into womanhood with saucy bravado, as it seemed. At seventeen she s.n.a.t.c.hed it back--pettishly, some said, but there were those who looked deeper, and they discerned a certain vague terror in the movement--a dread of the unknown. Since that time--almost a year now--Nannie had been hovering on the border line, something like a ghost that has ceased to be an inhabitant of this world and yet refuses to be well laid.

"Now listen to this, girls," said Puddy, who was intent on reading her excerpts to the bitter end. "'If a wife is allowed to boil at all, _she always boils over_.'"

"It would require a high temperature to boil you, Hilda," said Prudence with a laugh, for Hilda's good-nature had pa.s.sed into proverb.

The girl looked down from her five feet nine inches of height with her easy, comfortable smile.

"Why? Because of my alt.i.tude?" she asked.

"'And you will be sure to scald your fingers and get the worst of it,'" Puddy went on relentlessly.

This struck Evelyn's fancy and she exclaimed:

"Girls, I can just see Nannie's husband sitting in the doorway of their cabin blowing his fingers and wincing."

"Can you?" said a voice, and the girls started as they saw Nannie standing between the curtains of the folding doors.

Sometimes she resembled an elf in her weird beauty; just now she looked more like an imp.

Something disagreeable might have ensued, for Nannie's temper was uncertain and undisciplined, but Prudence said in a presidential tone:

"Young ladies, it is for you to decide how you will be served up in future. Will some one please make a motion?"

"Oh, let's decide how each other will be served," said Hilda. "You know at church n.o.body applies any of the sermon to himself, but fits it all on to his neighbors."

"Evelyn will be raked over the coals," said Nannie in a low, intense voice.

Evelyn's handsome face flushed and her lips parted for a retort, but Hilda exclaimed:

"Puddy will be made into delicious round croquets," and she smacked her lips with antic.i.p.atory relish.

"Hilda'll be kept in a nice continual stew," retorted Puddy.

"Nannie'll be parboiled, fried, frica.s.seed----" began Hilda, but Nannie exclaimed:

"No, I'll be roasted--you see if I'm not!"

"Prue will be baked in a genteel, modern way," said Evelyn.

"Yes!" shouted Hilda, to get above the noise. "Girls, mark my words.

Some day Mr. Smith, Brown, or Jones, whoever he is, will invite us all to a clambake, and when we arrive we'll find it's just dear old Prue served up."

This. .h.i.t at Prudence's usual silence struck the company forcibly, and after a little more from the recipe they broke up with noisy mirth.

On the doorstep Nannie paused and looked about her. Puddy's last extract from the article under discussion was wandering through her brain, something as a cat wanders through a strange house.

"Order a dressing as rich and as plentiful as you can afford."

Nannie understood this well enough. She was wearing such a dressing at that very moment, but the next sentence puzzled her.

"If you can't afford the best, heap your fish with crumbs of comfort.

Press some of these into pretty shapes, such as hearts, and roses, and true lovers' knots. If you have neither the patience nor the skill to follow these directions, take my advice and don't go a-fishing."