“Mrs. Drane!  Miss Miriam!” exclaimed La Fleur, her face beginning to glow with emotion; “let me help to make this a grand occasion.  Let me get up a beautiful lunch.  There isn’t much time, it is true, but I can do it.  I’ll make Michael drive me to town early in the morning, and I’ll have everything ready in time.  A dinner would be all very well, but a luncheon gives so much better chance to the imagination and the intellect.  There’re some things you have to have at a dinner, but at a lunch there is nothing you are obliged to have, and nothing you may not have if you want it.  And if you don’t mind, I’d like you to ask old Miss Panney.  I’ve been a good deal at odds with her since I have known her, but I’m satisfied now, and if there is anything I can do to make her satisfied, I’m more than ready.  Besides, when I do get up anything extraordinary in the way of a meal, I like to have people at the table who can appreciate it.  And as for that, I haven’t met anybody in this country who is as well grounded in good eating as that old lady is.”

Her proposition gladly agreed to, La Fleur rose to a high heaven of excited delight.  She had had no chance to show her skill in a wedding breakfast, for the young couple had been married very quietly in Pennsylvania, and she was now elated with the idea of exhibiting her highest abilities in an Investiture Luncheon.

She handed the basin of peas through the open window to Seraphina, and retired to her room, to study, to plan, and to revel in flights of epicurean fancy.

“Mike,” said Seraphina to her brother, who was now raking the grass near the kitchen window, “did you hear dat ar ole cook a talkin’ jes’ now?”

“No,” said Mike, “I hain’t got no time to harken to people talkin’, ’cept they’re talkin’ to me, an’ it ’pends on who they is whether I listens then or not.”

“That fool thinks she made this world,” said Seraphina.  “I’ve been thinkin’ she had some notion like dat.  She do put on such a’rs.”

“Git out,” said Mike.  “You never heard her say nothing like that.”

“I didn’t hear all she said,” replied the colored woman, “but I heard more’n ‘nough, an’ I heard her talkin’ about her creation.  Her creation indeed!  I’ll let her know one thing; she didn’t make me.”

“Now look a here, Seraphiny,” said Mike; “the more you shet up now, now you’s in the prime of life, the gooder you’ll feel when you gits old.  An’ so long as Mrs. Flower makes them thar three-inch-deep pies for me, I don’t care who she thinks she made, an’ who she thinks she didn’t make.  Thar now, that’s my opinion.”

* * * * *

The Investiture Luncheon, at which the Tolbridges and Miss Panney were present, was truly a grand and beautiful affair, to which Dora would certainly have been invited had she not been absent on her bridal trip with Mr. Ames.  Seldom had La Fleur or either of her husbands prepared for prince, ambassador, or titled gourmand a meal which better satisfied the loftiest outreaches of the soul in the truest interests of the palate.