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"What do you want it for?" "Please, mammy," Lena said coaxingly. "I won't buy cream-cakes or anything to eat. I want to invest in a gold mine." Mrs. Quincy gave her a sharp look and grudgingly handed out a dime; for Lena's voice was instinct with hope, and hope was such a rare visitor in the dingy little lodgings that Mrs. Quincy grew generous under its magnetic warmth.

Betty seized the can, and mounted the stool, and Vera, thus relieved, ran to the closet, returning with the cream-cakes and the fudge. The white counterpane stripped from the bed, and spread upon the floor, served as a lunch-cloth, and when the "goodies" were set upon it, the big can in the center, steaming, if not boiling, the four sat cross-legged around the feast, and prepared to enjoy it.

The daughter of the house was well-favoured and played the piano with some skill. One of us spent all his spare time at this café in silent adoration of the piano, for his French was exiguous in the extreme. There was a patisserie crammed full of the most delicious cream-cakes. The despatch rider who went to Hinges about 3.30 P.M. and did not return with cakes for tea, found life unpleasant.

He looked at his watch: "There is just time to go and have some lunch before your dinner. What would you say to cocoa and cream-cakes at Bauermann's?" This suggestion cheered away the left-behindish feeling that they all experienced as they watched that distant pear-shaped object floating in the sky.

"Your éclairs are too small, your cream-cakes too irresistible. I eat too much here. How, I ask you in the name of common sense, can a man dine who takes tea here! Bring the bill." The man, smiling, hastened away. Not a word had passed between the three, yet the other two understood the situation perfectly.

"Yes, but in point of companionship one would prefer that she should be represented by her brandy-cherries and cream-cakes. I think with a shudder that her daughter will always be present in person, and have no agreeable proxies of that kind, a fat, blond girl, with round blue eyes, who will stare at us silently."

"Oh well, you mustn't worry about me, father; if there's plenty of turkey and ice-cream and the cream-cakes, I can stand it. Mother can't come, anyhow, so that's settled, and it's no use to think about it. But the motor that's different. There's hope, anyway. The wheel may go round. If you didn't hope so, you wouldn't go on fussing over it, would you? You'd go and do something else.

Quincy reluctantly lifted her skirt and began to explore her petticoat below. She shook open the mouth of a pocket into which she dived to return with a knotted handkerchief. Lena looked on impatiently as the knot was slowly untied and a small hoard of silver disclosed. "There," said Mrs. Quincy. "You can take this quarter, Lena, and do get something nourishing. Don't buy cream-cakes.

She thrust some cream-cakes upon them, and they did so, looking doubtfully at her cloudy eyes; and when the door shut, she turned to Mrs Gunning. "Madam, you know well't is my wish to serve you and yours. But seeing this invitation, there's thoughts comes into my head that I must needs speak out. 'T would scarce become me to tell a lady like yourself what must be faced there, but but 't is much!

Mary Pinfall slid her romance into the pocket of her waterproof; Matilda Meane swallowed her last mouthful of the four cream-cakes which she had valorously demolished without assistance, and hastily washed her hands at the faucet; Kate and Elise and Grace brushed by her with a sniff of generous contempt. In two minutes, the wheels and feeds were buzzing and clicking again.