Page:Hollyhock house; a story for girls (IA hollyhockhousest00tagg).pdf/157

Rh one, either of which made of her brilliant, delicate beauty a jewel perfectly set. The golden gown won the day at last and in it Jane’s red-gold tints of hair and eyes became the attributes of a sun-maiden. Florimel was offered no choice of colour, only of design in various rose pinks. Above each one she glowed like a living rose. The frock they all voted for her to wear was the palest of them all, a shell-like rose colour, floating over its own shade.

Mrs. Garden was in ecstasy; she gained in strength on each of these happy days. “I don’t care what the party is like, I’m having such fun now!” she truthfully declared.

Mrs. Mills, whose cakes were the correct supplement to one’s own kitchen limitations in Vineclad, sparing the housekeeper the mortification of having recourse to a professional caterer, made the best examples of her skill for the Garden garden party. Ice cream might be ordered from the nearest large town; Vineclad did not disapprove of buying ice cream, so for this party it was ordered from abroad. But this did not release the Garden kitchen from weighty obligations and achievements. It was supplemented by Violet, Mrs. Moulton’s most competent and blackest of cooks, to whom the preparation of