“Yes, yes, child,” said Mother Fisher.  “There, you mustn’t try to lean forward.  I’ll bring the little table Grandpapa bought, so;” she hurried over across the room and wheeled it into place.  “Now isn’t that fine, Phronsie?” as the long wing swung over the bed.  “Did you ever see such a tea-party as you and I’ll have?”

“Breakfast party, Mamsie!” hummed Phronsie; “isn’t that just lovely?” wriggling her toes under the bed-clothes.  “Do you think Sarah’ll ever bring that apple?”

“Yes, indeed—­why, here she is now!” announced Mrs. Fisher cheerily.  “Come in, Sarah,” as a rap sounded on the door.  “Our little girl is all ready for that good apple.  My! what a fine one.”

“Bless honey’s heart!” ejaculated Sarah, her black face shining with delight.  “Ain’t he a beauty, though?” setting down on the table-wing a pink plate in the midst of which reposed an apple whose crackling skin disclosed a toothsome interior.  “I bring a pink sasser so’s to match his insides.  But ain’t he rich, though!”

“Sarah,” said Phronsie, with hungry eyes on the apple, “I think he is very nice indeed, and I do thank you for bringing him.”

“Bless her precious heart!” cried Sarah, her hands on her ample hips, and her mouth extended in the broadest of smiles.

“Do get me a spoon, Mamsie,” begged Phronsie, unable to take her gaze from the apple.  “I’m so glad he has a stem on, Sarah,” carefully picking at it.

“Well, there,” said Sarah, “I had the greatest work to save that stem.  But, la!  I wouldn’t ‘a’ brung one without a stem.  I know’d you’d want it to hold it up by, when you’d eat the most off.”

“Yes, I do,” said Phronsie, in great satisfaction fondling the stem.

“And here’s your spoon,” said her mother, bringing it.  “Now, child, enjoy it to your heart’s content.”

Phronsie set the spoon within the cracked skin, and drew it out half-full.  “Oh, Mamsie!” she cried, as her teeth closed over it, “do just taste; it’s so good!”

“Hee-hee!” laughed Sarah, “I guess ’tis.  Such works as I had to bake dat apple just right.  But he’s a beauty, ain’t he, though?”

Phronsie did not reply, being just at that moment engaged in conveying a morsel as much like her own as possible, to her mother’s mouth.

“Seems to me I never tasted such an apple,” said Mother Fisher, slowly swallowing the bit.

“Did you, now?” cried Sarah.

Downstairs Polly was dancing around the music-room with three or four girls who had dropped in on their way from school.

“Give me a waltz now, Polly,” begged Philena.  “Dear me, I haven’t had a sight of you hardly, for so long, I am positively starved for you.  I don’t care for you other girls now,” she cried, as the two went whirling down the long room together.

“Thank you, Miss Philena,” cried the others, seizing their partners and whirling off too.

“I feel as if I could dance forever,” cried Polly, when Amy Garrett turned away from the piano and declared she would play no more—­and she still pirouetted on one foot, to come up red as a rose to the group.