“Oh, yes,” said Patty confidently; “I can make most beautiful salad dressing.  Only it does take quite a long time, and I shall have a lot to do Thursday morning.  Perhaps I’d better leave it to you this time, Mancy.  Can you make it?”

“Laws, yes, honey; and yo’d better leave it to me.  Yo’ll have enough to do with yo’ flowers and fixin’s, and dressin’ yourself up pretty.  I’ll ’tend to the food.”

“Well, all right, Mancy; I wish you would.  And, now, just help me with this list.  I’ll read it to you, and see if you think of anything that I’ve forgotten.”

“Yas’m,” said Mancy, who was most anxious to help, but who had already learned that Patty was a little inclined to resent unasked advice.

They were deep in the fascinating bewilderments of grocers’ and greengrocers’ wares, when Pansy Potts appeared in the doorway.

“Miss Patty,” she said, “I’ve done all the things you told me to do; and I watered the palms, and I’ve poked around that bunchy rosebush, but I’m ’most sure it’s going to die; and now, if you please, when can I be let to fix up my own room?”

“Sure enough, Pansy,” said Patty; “we must get at that room of yours, and we’ll fix it up as pretty as we can.”

“Mine, too,” said Mancy; “I wants my room fixed up nice.  I fetched a lot of pictures to liven it up some, but I reckon I ain’t got no time to put ’em up to-day.”

“Oh, yes, you have, Mancy,” said Patty, rising; “and, anyway, we’ll go right up and look at those rooms; then I can tell what we need to get for them.”

“Mine won’t need anything,” said Pansy, “except what’s in it already, and what I’ve got to put in it myself.  I brought my decorations over this morning.”

“Oh, you did?” said Patty.  “Well, bring them along, and we’ll all go upstairs together.”

“I’ll get mine, too,” said Mancy, shuffling toward the kitchen.

The servants’ rooms were in the third story.  They had been freshly papered and neatly and appropriately furnished, though Patty had not, as yet, added any pictures or ornaments.

And, apparently, she would have no occasion to do so; for, as she went up to these rooms, she was immediately followed by their future occupants, each of whom came with her arms full of what looked like the most worthless rubbish.

“What is all that stuff, Pansy?” exclaimed Patty, as she beheld her young waitress fairly staggering under her load.

“They’re lovely things, Miss Patty, and I hope you don’t mind.  This is a hornet’s nest, and this is a branch of an apple tree, with a swing-bird’s nest on it.”

“A branch!  It’s a big limb,—­a bough, I should call it.  What are you going to do with it?”

“I thought I’d put it on the wall, Miss Patty.  It makes the room look outdoorsy.”

“It does, indeed!  Put it up, if you like; but will you have room then to get in yourself?”