"We are," declared Mother Blossom. "Children, you have several things to do before you are ready for the table. Your faces and hands are a sight. Bobby, didn't you go to the post-office? Was there any mail?"
"I forgot, Mother--there was one letter for you," answered Bobby, pulling a crumpled envelope from his pocket. "The dog kind of took my attention," he added.
Mother Blossom went into the house to read her letter, and the four children scampered upstairs to wash their faces and hands. Meg and Dot shared the same room, and Bobby and Twaddles slept in the room adjoining. Each child had a little white bed and a separate bureau.
"I s'pose I'd better put on another dress," said Dot doubtfully. "Mother didn't say to, though. Shall I, Meg?"
"Well, I would," advised Meg. "Not a spandy clean one, 'cause you mussed up two yesterday. Put on the green one again, can't you?"
"I tore that," objected Dot, who certainly had bad luck with her clothes. "Oh, dear, I don't see why I wasn't a bird with a dress all glued on."
"'Most ready?" asked Mother Blossom, who had come upstairs while the little girls were talking. "Let Mother tie your ribbon, Meg. What's the matter with Dot?"
"She was wishing she was a bird with a dress glued on," she said. "Wouldn't that be funny?"
"Yes, it would," agreed Mother Blossom. "But bring me the white piqué, dear, and let me help you into it. Daddy is waiting for us."
Dot was buttoned into a clean dress in a minute, and then Mother Blossom had to call Twaddles away from the basin in the bathroom where he was playing in the water instead of washing his hands, and she had to find a clean handkerchief for Bobby, and then, at last, they could all go downstairs.
Father Blossom was playing the mechanical piano, but he stopped as soon as he saw them.
"Everybody here to-night?" he asked. "Well, that is fine! Come on, Dottie-mine, and Daddy will tie your bib for you."
The twins did not always have supper with Mother and Father Blossom. Sometimes they had their bread and milk at five o'clock and went to bed at half-past six. It was a treat for them to eat supper with their father.
Mother Blossom smiled at the eager faces.
"We've company coming," she announced. "Some one you love to have visit us."