“Oh, oh! aren’t they beauties?”

“They be; that’s a fact,” agreed Rhoda.  “Royal, he’s done his best for ye now, anyway.  He’s kind o’ quick, like all the Purcels, but he’s real accommodatin’.”

“So he is, Rhoda, and I’ll give him one of the prettiest eggs we turn out for being so ‘accommodatin’;’ and we are going to have some extra pretty ones this time.  See this now, and this, and this!” and Elsie whipped out of her pocket several bits of bright calico.  One was a pattern of tiny rosebuds; another a little lily on a blue ground.

“The lily ones will be just lovely if they turn out well, and they will be the real Easter egg with that lily pattern,” said Marge, enthusiastically.

By Saturday afternoon a goodly array of eggs of all colors and patterns were “ready for company,” as Elsie and Marge expressed it; for on Saturday night a party of their friends were coming to them for a three days’ visit.  It was about an hour after these friends had arrived, and they were all hanging admiringly over the pretty display of eggs, that a box was brought in by one of the servants.  It was neatly tied, and directed in a bold round handwriting to “Miss Elsie and Miss Marge Lloyd.”

“What can it be?” said Marge, wonderingly.

“We’ll open it and see,” cried Elsie.  And suiting her action to her word, she cut the string and lifted the cover; and there she saw six eggs undyed, but each painted delicately with a different design.  On one was a cross with a tiny vine running from the base; on another a bunch of lilies of the valley; and another showed a little bough of apple blossoms.  On the remaining three the subjects were strangely unusual,—­a palm and tent, with a patch of sky; a bird with outstretched wings, soaring upward with open beak, as if singing in its flight; a cherub head with a soft halo about it.

“Oh! oh! oh!” exclaimed the girls, in a chorus; and, “Who could have painted them?” wondered Marge; and, “Who could have sent them?” cried Elsie.

In vain they hunted for card or sign of the donor.  They could find nothing to give them the slightest clew.

“Perhaps, papa, it is Mr. Archer,” said Marge at last, turning to her father.  Mr. Archer was an artist friend.

“Oh, no, this isn’t Archer’s work; it’s a novice’s work, though very promising,” her father replied.

“Cousin Tom’s, then?”

“And too strong for Tom.”

“Then it must be Jimmy Barrows.”

“Well, it may be Jimmy.  We shall know when he comes with Tom on Monday.  It’s bold enough for Jimmy, but I didn’t think he had so much fancy.”

And finally it was settled that it could be no other than Jimmy Barrows.  Jimmy was a great friend of their cousin Tom; but while Tom was only an amateur artist, Jimmy was studying to be a professional one.

“It’s such fun to have Jimmy do these, and send them without a word,” said Elsie to her sister.