“I do; I will,” said Grace, “and only too thankful will I be to undertake it; but what about the multiplication table, and the straight and the curved lines, and Webster’s speller?”

“Papa,” said Amy, gravely, “please mention me to the judge.  I will teach those midgets the arithmetic and drawing and other fundamental studies which my gifted friend fears to touch.”

“You?” said papa, in surprise.

“Why not, dear?” interposed mamma.  “Amy’s youth is against her, but the fact is she can count and she can draw, and I am not afraid to recommend her, though she is only a chit of fifteen, as to her spelling.”

“Going on sixteen, mamma, if you please, and nearly there,” Amy remarked, drawing herself up to her fullest height, at which we all laughed merrily.

“I taught school myself at sixteen,” our mother went on, “and though it made me feel like twenty-six, I had no trouble with thirty boys and girls of all ages from four to eighteen.  You must remember me, my love, in the old district school at Elmwood.”

“Yes,” said papa, “and your overpowering dignity was a sight for gods and men.  All the same you were a darling.”

“So she is still.”  And we pounced upon her in a body and devoured her with kisses, the sweet little mother.

“Papa,” Amy proceeded, when order had been restored, “why not take us when you go to interview the judge?  Then he can behold his future schoolma’ams, arrange terms, and settle the thing at once.  I presume Grace is anxious as I am to begin her career, now that it looms up before her.  I am in the mood of the youth who bore through snow and ice the banner with the strange device, ‘Excelsior.’”

“In the mean time, good people,” said Frances, appearing in the doorway, “luncheon is served.”

We had a pretty new dish—­new to us—­for luncheon, and as everybody may not know how nice it is, I’ll just mention it in passing.

Take large ripe tomatoes, scoop out the pulp and mix it with finely minced canned salmon, adding a tiny pinch of salt.  Fill the tomatoes with this mixture, set them in a nest of crisp green lettuce leaves, and pour a mayonnaise into each ruby cup.  The dish is extremely dainty and inviting, and tastes as good as it looks.  It must be very cold.

“But,” Doctor Raeburn said, in reply to a remark of mother’s that she was pleased the girls had decided on teaching, it was so womanly and proper an employment for girls of good family, “I must insist that the ‘interpretations’ be not entirely dropped.  I’ll introduce you, my dear,” he said, “when you give your first recital, and that will make it all right in the eyes of Highland.”

“Thank you, doctor,” said Grace.  “I would rather have your sanction than anything else in the world, except papa’s approval.”

“Why don’t your King’s Daughters give Grace a boom?  You are always getting up private theatricals, and this is just the right time.”