“Oh, Kitty, she’ll have to!  Why, she vowed it!”

“Oh, pshaw, she’ll get mad and forget all about that vow.  Say, Mops, what do you think?  I’ve learned to make cake.”

“You have!  Who taught you?”

“Eliza did, up at Grandma’s.  It was fine.  I’ll teach you, if you like.”

“Do!” urged King.  “Then Midge can make little cakes for the Sand Club.  Ellen makes ’em sometimes, but she says it’s a bother.”

Permission being granted by Mrs. Maynard, the girls tried cake-making that very afternoon.

“I’ll help yez, shall I?” asked Ellen, as the two energetic damsels raided her pantry.

“No, Ellen,” said Marjorie.  “Miss Kitty is going to teach me.  You go,—­go—­why, Ellen, you take an afternoon out!”

“It isn’t me day out, Miss Midget, but I’ll go to me room, an’ if yez wants me, yez can send Sarah afther me, sure.”

“Can I help?” asked King, who wanted to be in the fun.

“Yes, you can stone raisins,” said Kitty, kindly.

At home in Rockwell, Marjorie had always been chief directress in all their doings, but down here Kitty was more like a visitor, and the others politely deferred to her.  So King went contentedly to work, stoning raisins, and the girls made the cake.

“I didn’t bring my recipe book,” said Kitty, “but I guess I remember how to make it.  You see, Eliza is going to teach me to make lots of things, so I’ve quite a big book for recipes.”

“How many have you so far?” asked Midget, greatly interested.

“Well, only this one; but it’s sponge cake, you know.  I shall have more later.”

“Yes, of course,” said Midget, politely, and suddenly feeling that her younger sister was getting very grown-up, with her recipe book and her sponge cake.

“Now,” proceeded Kitty, “if I’m to show you, Midget, you must pay close attention.”

“I will,—­oh, I will!”

“First, you break the eggs, and separate them, white from yolk, like this,—­see!”

But whether she was rattled at having such an interested audience, or whether she was not very expert as yet, Kitty couldn’t make the eggs “separate” neatly.  Every one she broke persisted in spilling out its yellow and white together.

“Let me try,” said Marjorie, but her efforts were not much more successful.  Bits of shell would fall in the bowl, and even if she got most of the white in safely, some yellow would spill in, too.

“Does it matter much?” asked King.

“Oh, I don’t believe so,” said Kitty.  “I guess we’ll beat the eggs all up together, white and yellow both.”

Kitty put in the Dover eggbeater with an air of experience, and whisked its wheel “round and round.”

“Let me in, too,” said Midget.  “There’s another beater I found in the cupboard.”

There was room in the big bowl for both beaters, and the two girls whizzed the wheels around like mad.