360 
THE LADIES' FLORAL CABINET. 
Chandler’s. At the door of her room, sitting flat on the 
floor in a dejected attitude, she found Kitty Deming, 
one of her most intimate friends. 
“ Oh, Kitty !” exclaimed Laura. 
“ I might as well be only a kitty if I am always to 
stay outside people’s doors ; I have been here an age ! ” 
protested Kitty, a willful, vivacious girl of sixteen, 
petite, pretty, and spoiled. 
‘ ‘ Which being interpreted means you have been here 
about ten minutes,” said Laura, laughingly, as she un¬ 
locked the door and let in her offended visitor, 
“ Mamma sent me to invite you to eat Thanksgiving 
dinner with us,” announced Kitty, sinking into the one 
easy chair. “ Oh, how good this chair feels ! I have 
sat on the floor at your inhospitable door until I feel like 
an old lady of sixty ; of course, you’ll come ? ” 
“ ‘ It never rains but it pours !’ ” exclaims Lama de¬ 
spairingly. “ Why didn’t you ask me a few hours 
sooner? You know I would rather go to your house 
than anywhere else, but I have already accepted two in¬ 
vitations.” 
“ Why, Laura Edmonds ! what a greedy girl you must 
be ! I’m perfectly shocked ! But you’ll have to come. 
to us all the same,” continued Kitty; “Mamma won’t 
mind if you don’t eat a great deal; she’s economical, 
you know. I’m not sure but it is providential; she’ll 
save half a dinner toward the next day ! ” 
“ But, Kitty, I couldn’t possibly eat three dinners even 
if I did eat lightly ; it’s too much to expect of a girl; if 
I were only a boy—but I’m not,” sighed Laura, regret¬ 
fully. 
“Where are the other dinners to be?” questioned 
Kitty. 
‘ ‘ I am to dine with Miss Chandler at twelve and at 
Prof. Ryder’s at three,” replied Laura. 
“And we shall not have dinner until five, so you can 
come as well as not. That is another providential cir¬ 
cumstance,” announced Kitty, with the air of one who 
has arrived at a satisfactory solution of a knotty 
problem. 
“You seem to forget, Kitty, that I can’t possibly eat 
three dinners, and it would spoil the dinner for all if 
one were to sit at table and not eat; I will spend the 
evening with you instead.” 
“That won’t do at all; you were expected to spend 
the evening anyway, and I would let the very nicest of 
the boarders see you safe home ; only think of it! I 
never was so magnanimous to any one else. Mamma 
said you must come, so I'll not hear another word ; so 
there ! ” And, as Laura began to expostulate, the willful 
Kitty put a daintily gloved hand over each ear and ran 
laughingly away. 
Thanksgiving day dawned bright and sunny as such 
a day should be, and all St. Botolph’s was astir with 
preparation and expectation. Savory odors floated out 
from the block and were met by appetizing smells from 
the Professor’s houses. Young ladies in holiday attire 
walked in twos and threes up and down the long plank 
sidewalk that extended from one end of the village to 
the other, meeting young gentlemen, also in holiday 
dress, and mutually exchanging surreptitious notes, 
pictures, and other tokens of regard, besides the con¬ 
ventional bow of recognition which was the only com¬ 
munication allowed between the two sexes at St. 
Botolph’s. 
At widow Deming’s pretty cottage the four young 
gentlemen whom she lodged and boarded, more for 
their company than to increase her ample income, were 
in the parlor gathered about the piano singing hymns 
which Kitty rattled off on that much-enduring instru¬ 
ment in a very lively and spirited manner. Mrs. Dem¬ 
ing herself, a happy motherly soul, bustled about from 
dining-room to kitchen overseeing everything and put¬ 
ting finishing touches to her arrangements for dinner, 
and meaning soon to go into the parlor and listen to the 
singing. In the pantry on the broad shelf before the 
open window lay a plump turkey, stuffed and ready to 
put into the oven when his hour should come. Across 
the field, over which this window looked, came Tom 
Rollins, one of the students and a cousin of Laura Ed¬ 
monds. Tom had been for a long walk and was taking 
a short cut to his room, which led him past that open 
window. Tom saw the turkey; how plump and white 
it looked ! Tom smelled the turkey; how deliciously 
suggestive! Tom was a fine-looking fellow, not at all 
like a sneak thief in appearance. Tom’s overcoat hung 
over his arm. Tom reached his hand cautiously in at 
the wiudow and drew out the turkey, hastily threw his 
overcoat around it lest it should suffer from too 
sudden exposure to the bracing autumnal air, and 
walked rapidly along on his way. Ten minutes 
later, Mrs. Deming discovered and bewailed her loss. 
Kitty and the four boarders rushed into the dining-room 
to condole with her and to lament their own share in the 
misfortune. 
“ Must we do without a turkey dinner ? ” eagerly de¬ 
manded the stoutest and fattest boarder, who might 
have gone without several dinners and not suffered. 
“Show me the thief and I will give him a lesson or 
two in craniology!” cried the smallest and thinnest 
boarder, making a great show of rolling up his sleeves 
and doubling up a minute pair of fists. 
“ May the fowl villian be banished from Turkey and 
smothered in Greece, and buried in Malt-a ! ” anathema¬ 
tized the would-be-witty boarder. 
And the fourth boarder, who was of a philosophical 
turn, looked wise and wisely held his peace. 
But Mrs. Deming was a woman of resources, and had 
a pair of nice large chickens in the store-room, besides 
those which were already reposing in a huge pie, having 
intended, like a skillful manager as she was, to let her 
boarders down gently from Thanksgiving fare, by way 
of stewed chickens, to the every-day dinners of baked 
beans, or corned-beef and vegetables. 
She soon had the chickens ready for the oven, in place 
of the absent turkey, and the preparations for dinner 
went on without further mishap. 
Meanwhile Tom Rollins, who, with two other boys 
roomed at Miss Spicer’s, two houses beyond Mrs. Dem¬ 
ing’s, stepped hesitatingly into his landlady’s kitchen, 
with Mrs. Deming’s turkey in his hands. Miss Spicer 
looked up wonderingJy; she had not felt that she could 
afford a turkey. 
“Miss Spicer,” began Tom timidly, “our club voted 
against a turkey dinner this year, but a kind friend has 
provided a turkey for me and the boys upstairs, and I 
thought perhaps you would be willing to cook it, and— 
help eat it.” 
Miss Spicer readily undertook to do both, and her 
social and friendly nature was so roused by the savory 
odor of the turkey, that she provided vegetables and 
cranberry sauce to eat with it, and spread the table in 
