Mrs. Maxwell poured the tea and portioned out the sugar with her
black-gloved hands, and Mrs. Field stiffly buttered her biscuits.
Nobody dreamed of the wolves at the vitals of these two old women.

However, the eyes of the guests from the first had wandered to a cake
in the centre of the table. It was an oblong black cake; it was set
on a plate surrounded thickly with sprigs of myrtle, and upon the top
lay a little bouquet of white flowers and green leaves. Mrs. Lowe and
Mrs. Robbins, who sat side by side, looked at each other. Mrs. Lowe's
eyes said, "_Is_ that a wedding-cake?" and Mrs. Robbin's said: "I
dunno; it ain't frosted. It looks jest like a loaf she's had on
hand."

But nothing could exceed the repose and dignity with which Mrs.
Maxwell, at the last stage of the meal, requested her nephew to pass
the cake to her. Nobody could have dreamed as she cut it, every turn
of her burned wrist giving her pain, of the frantic haste with which
she had taken that old fruit cake out of the jar down-cellar, and
pulled those sprigs of myrtle from the bank under the north windows.

"Will you have some weddin'-cake?" said she.

The ladies each took a slice gingerly and respectfully. Mrs. Lowe and
Mrs. Robbins nodded to each other imperceptibly. The cake was not
iced with those fine devices which usually make a wedding-loaf, it
was rather dry, and not particularly rich; but Mrs. Maxwell's perfect
manner as she cut and served it, her acting on her own little
histrionic stage, had swayed them to her will. Mrs. Lowe and Mrs.
Robbins both thought she knew. But the minister's wife still doubted;
and later, when the other women were removed from the spell of her