little love-hungry Lydia into alien but, fortunately, loyal and
noble arms. Outsiders said, "What strange marriages!" But Lydia, at
least, married where the first real kindness she had ever known
called to her, and not one day of regret for that marriage ever
entered into her life.

It came about so strangely, so inevitably, from such a tiny
source, that it is almost incredible.

One day the stepmother, contrary to her usual custom, went into the
kitchen and baked a number of little cakelets, probably what we
would call cookies. For what sinister reason no one could divine,
but she counted these cakes as she took them from the baking-pans
and placed them in the pantry. There were forty-nine, all told.
That evening she counted them again; there were forty-eight.
Then she complained to her husband that one of the children had
evidently stolen a cake. (In her mind the two negro servants
employed in the house did not merit the suspicion.) Mr. Bestman
inquired which child was fond of the cakes. Mrs. Bestman replied
that she did not know, unless it was Lydia, who always liked them.

Lydia was called. Her father, frowning, asked if she had taken the
cake. The child said no.

"You are not telling the truth," Mr. Bestman shouted, as the poor
little downtrodden girl stood half terrified, consequently half
guilty-mannered, before him.

"But I am truthful," she said. "I know nothing of the cake."