good?"

"The flowers were pretty, but the cake was heavy, don't you remember?"
said Polly, who hadn't recovered from that grief even yet.

"I thought it was just beautiful," cried Mrs. Pepper hastily. "No one
could have baked it better in the old stove you had. I'm sure we ate it
all up, every crumb."

"We kept it in the old cupboard," cried Joel, rushing over to the corner
to swing the door open. "And we never once peeked, Mamsie, so afraid
you'd suspect."

"You kept staring at the cupboard door all the evening, Joe, you know
you did," cried Ben; "you were just within a hair's breadth of letting
the whole thing out ever so many times. Polly and I had to drag you
away. We were glad enough when you went to bed, I can tell you."

"You were always sending me off to bed in those days," said Joel, taking
his head out of the cupboard to throw vindictive glances over to the
group around the stove.

"I wish we could do so now," said Ben.

"And those two," Joel went on, pointing to Polly and Ben, "used to go
whispering around a lot of old secrets, that they wouldn't tell us. Oh!
it was perfectly awful, wasn't it, Dave?" bestowing a small pinch on
that individual's shoulder.

"I liked the secrets best not to know them till Polly and Ben got ready