'Tis Ralph's favorite cake.

Let's see; besides Ralph there are coming all the Schmidts, Lucy Robbins, the school teacher, and Sibylla entertains her Jake in the kitchen.

I promised to treat him to ice cream; Sibylla was so good about helping me crack the ice to use for freezing the cream.

We shall have an 'Old Song Evening' that will amuse every one." Quite early, as is the custom in the country, the guests for the evening arrived; and both Mary and Aunt Sarah felt fully repaid for their hard work of the past weeks by the pleasure John Landis evinced at the changed appearance of the room.
The Professor's wife said, "It scarcely seems possible to have changed the old room so completely." Aunt Sarah replied, "Paint and paper do wonders when combined with good taste, furnished by Mary." During the evening one might have been forgiven for thinking Professor Schmidt disloyal to the Mother Country (he having been born and educated in Heidelberg) had you overheard him speaking to Ralph on his favorite subject, the "Pennsylvania German." During a lull in the general conversation in the room Mary heard the Professor remark to Ralph: "The Pennsylvania Germans are a thrifty, honest and industrious class of people, many of whom have held high offices.

The first Germans to come to America as colonists in Pennsylvania were, as a rule, well to do.