The table was spread with acorn-cups and poppy teapots, the little housekeepers being advised not to make use of their china dishes for this establishment.
There was a very black stove in the kitchen, but the most of the cooking was done out of doors, farther down the bank, in ovens shaped like swallows' nests.

Here were baked delicious mud cakes, tempting currant tarts, and dainty custards.
Nothing pleased Miss Dimple so well as to govern a household.

She ruled with a rod of iron.
In the midst of a caution to her servant-maid, Prudy, "not to burn her biscuits as black as so'-leather," she was surprised to see her twinkling off a tear.
"O, Prudy, I didn't mean to scold," said she, in the tenderest tones.
"Poh, as if I minded your make-believe, Dotty! I was only thinking about aunt Madge--that's all." "What has she done ?" asked Dotty as she went on stamping her mud cake with the head of a pin.
"It isn't done yet, Dotty; but it will be.

She's going to be married." Dotty dropped her mud-cake.

"Why! who to?
Abner ?" "O, dear, no! To Mr .-- I mean Colonel--Augustus Allen.