Page:Ballinger Price--The Happy Venture.djvu/220

200 bona fide mutton-chops and a layer cake, the Sturgis family gathered about the fireside.

"This is home to you," Mrs. Sturgis said. "How strange it seems! But you've made it home—I can see that. How did you, you surprising people? And such cookery and all; I don't know you!"

Phil and Ken looked at one another in some amusement.

"The cookery," said Felicia, "I'll admit came by degrees. Do you remember that very first bread?"

"If I recall rightly, I replaced that loose stone in the well-coping with it, didn't I?" said Ken, "or did I use it for the Dutchman's bow anchor?"

"Nothing was wrong with those biscuits, tonight," Mrs. Sturgis said. "Come and sit here with me, my Kirk."

Felicia blew out the candles that had graced the supper-table, drew the curtains across the windows where night looked in, and came back to sit on the hearth at her mother's feet. The contented silence about the fire was presently broken by a tapping at the outer door, and Ken rose to admit the Maestro and Martin. The