the children.

"Now," said Polly, as they shut the door tight, "don't you go to
looking at the cupboard, Joey, or mammy'll guess something."

"Can't I just open it a little crack, and take one smell when she isn't
looking?" asked Joel; "I should think you might, Polly; just one."

"No," said Polly, firmly; "not one, Joe; she'll guess if you do." But
Mrs. Pepper was so utterly engrossed with her baby when she
came home and heard the account of the accident, that she
wouldn't have guessed if there'd been a dozen cakes in the
cupboard. Joel was consoled, as his mother assured him in a
satisfactory way that she never should think of blaming him; and
Phronsie was comforted and coddled to her heart's content. And so
the evening passed rapidly and happily away; Ben smuggling
Phronsie off into a corner, where she told him all the doings of the
day--the disappointment of the cake, and how it was finally
crowned with flowers; all of which Phronsie, with no small pride
in being the narrator, related gravely to her absorbed listener. "And
don't you think, Bensie," she said, clasping her little hand in a
convincing way over his two bigger, stronger ones, "that Polly's
stove was very naughty to make poor Polly cry?"

"Yes, I do," said Ben, and he shut his lips tightly together.

To have Polly cry, hurt him more than he cared to have Phronsie
see.

"What are you staring at, Joe?" asked Polly, a few minutes later, as