kind, and perhaps I did not go about it the easiest way, but I knew
how it should look when done, and of course I knew precisely how it
should taste. Eliza makes delicious every-day cake, but was no
assistance whatever with the fruit cake, beyond encouraging me with
the assurance that it would not matter in the least if it should be
heavy.

Well, for two long, tiresome days I worked over that cake, preparing
with my own fingers every bit of the fruit, which I consider was a
fine test of perseverance and staying qualities. After the ingredients
were all mixed together there seemed to be enough for a whole
regiment, so we decided to make two cakes of it. They looked lovely
when baked, and just right, and smelled so good, too! I wrapped them
in nice white paper that had been wet with brandy, and put them
carefully away--one in a stone jar, the other in a tin box--and felt
that I had done a remarkably fine bit of housekeeping. The bachelors
have been exceedingly kind to me, and I rejoiced at having a nice cake
to send them Christmas morning. But alas! I forgot that the little
house was fragrant with the odor of spice and fruit, and that there
was a man about who was ever on the lookout for good things to eat. It
is a shame that those cadets at West Point are so starved. They seem
to be simply famished for months after they graduate.

It so happened that there was choir practice that very evening, and
that I was at the chapel an hour or so. When I returned, I found the
three bachelors sitting around the open fire, smoking, and looking
very comfortable indeed. Before I was quite in the room they all stood
up and began to praise the cake. I think Faye was the first to mention
it, saying it was a "great success"; then the others said "perfectly
delicious," and so on, but at the same time assuring me that a large