“What have you got there?” was all Aunt Judy asked, as she went up to the table to look at them.

“Cowslip-tea,” was No. 4’s answer, laying her hand on the fat pink tea-pot; and thereupon the laughing explosion went off nearly as loudly as before, though for no accountable reason that Aunt Judy could divine.

“It’s so good, Aunt Judy, do taste it!” exclaimed No. 8, jumping up in a great fuss, and holding up his little cup, full of a pale-buff fluid, to Aunt Judy.

“You’ll have everything over,” cried No. 4, calling him to order; and in truth the table was not the steadiest in the world.

So No. 8 sat down again, calling out, in an almost stuttering hurry, “You may keep it all, Aunt Judy, I don’t want any more.”

But neither did Aunt Judy, after she had given it one taste; so she put the cup down, thanking No. 8 very much, but pulling such a funny face, that it set the laugh going once more; in the middle of which No. 4 dropped an additional lump of sugar into the rejected buff-coloured mixture, a proceeding which evidently gave No. 8 a new relish for the beverage.

Aunt Judy had got beyond the age when cowslip-tea was looked upon as one of the treats of life; and she had not, on the other hand, lived long enough to love the taste of it for the memory’s sake of the enjoyment it once afforded.

Not but what we are obliged to admit that cowslip-tea is one of those things which, even in the most enthusiastic days of youth, just falls short of the absolute perfection one expects from it.

Even under those most favourable circumstances of having had the delightful gathering of the flowers in the sweet sunny fields—­the picking of them in the happy holiday afternoon—­the permission to use the best doll’s tea-service for the feast—­the loan of a nice white table-cloth—­and the present of half-a-dozen pewter knives and forks to fancy-cut the biscuits with—­nay, even in spite of the addition of well-filled doll’s sugar-pots and cream-jugs—­cowslip-tea always seems to want either a leetle more or a leetle less sugar—­or a leetle more or a leetle less cream—­or to be a leetle more or a leetle less strong—­to turn it into that complete nectar which, of course, it really is.

On the present occasion, however, the children had clearly got hold of some other source of enjoyment over the annual cowslip-tea feast, besides the beverage itself; and Aunt Judy, glad to see them so safely happy, went off to her business at the wardrobe, while the little ones resumed their game.

“Very extraordinary, indeed, ma’am!” began one of the fancy old ladies, in a completely fancy voice, a little affected, or so.  “Most extraordinary, ma’am, I may say!”

(Here there was a renewed giggle from No. 4, which she carefully smothered in her handkerchief.)

“But still I think I can tell you of something more extraordinary still!”