"_You_ must," said Edith; "Nanna would weep if you didn't."

"I don't think I can--possibly," said Anne, who was already reaping her
sowing to the winds of emotion in a whirlwind of headache.

"Let's all eat it--and die," said Majendie. He hacked, laid a ruin of
fragments round the evil thing, scattered crumbs on all their plates, and
buried his own piece in a flower-pot. "Do you think," he said, "that
Nanna will dig it up again?"

Anne turned white over her tea, pleaded her headache, and begged to be
taken to her room. Majendie took her there.

"Isn't Anne well?" asked Edith anxiously, when he came back.

"Oh, it's nothing. She's been seedy all day, and the sight of that cake
finished her off. I don't wonder. It's enough to upset a strong man.
Let's ring for Nanna to take it away."

He rang. When Nanna appeared Edith was eating her crumbs ostentatiously,
as if unwilling to leave the last of a delicious thing.

"Oh, Nanna," said she, "that's a heavenly wedding-cake!"

Majendie was reminded of the habitual tender perfidy of that saint, his
sister. She was always lying to make other people happy, saying that she
had everything she wanted, when she hadn't, and that her spine didn't
hurt her, when it did. When Edith was too exhausted to lie, she would
look at you and smile, with the sweat of her torture on her forehead. He