ONLY A ROSE 293

“4

Oh, what fun it was to see the butter and sugar, all
lumpy and mottled when first stirred together, grow into
a smooth golden paste under the strokes of her wooden
spoon! to see the beaten eges, like a little sea of foam,
erow less and less in their fragrant bed! then the snow-
like fall of flour, as with one hand she shook the sieve,
while stirring briskly with the other! and, above all, to
see the completed dough flatten out under the rolling-pin,
ul ready to be stamped into cookies! Marie, being the
eldest, always had the privilege of stamping out a few with
the tin cover of the little nutmeg-can; and, provided T had
faithfully kept my fingers out of the cinnamon-box and
not upset anything upon the table, I was sometimes
allowed to test my skill too. As soon as the cookies were
finished came the grand performance of bogie-baking. Such
lovely men! One for Marie, one for Gerty, and one for me

 

all with arms thicker than their legs, and noses bigger
than their feet ; or, rather, they often developed these pe-
culiarities after they were put into the oven. Two pieces
of cloves for eyes, and a strip of citron for the mouth, com-
pleted their charms. Soon the oven was quite filled. The
kitchen grew more and more delightful with the odor of
baking cookies, and we children clustered together on the
great window-bench, while Eliza made the kitchen, as she
said, look “a leetle scrumptuous” again.

When we went up-stairs, Miss Ellis let us play in the
nursery until tea-time ; so the afternoon passed away pleas-
antly enough, though we felt lonely at supper, notwith-
standing the cookies and our beautiful little bogies. It
seemed doleful to close our eyes that night without
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