of bread and butter; 'your father isn't dead?'

'No.'

'Then he might send you a hamper.'

'He might, if he lived within easy reach of Mauleverer Manor,' replied
Ida; 'but as he lives in France--'

'He could send a post-office order to a confectioner in London, and the
confectioner would send you a big box of cakes, and marmalade, and jam,
and mixed biscuits, and preserved ginger,' said Lucy, her cheeks glowing
with the rapture of her theme. 'That is what my mamma and papa did, when
they were in Switzerland, on my birthday. I never had such a hamper as
that one. I was ill for a week afterwards.'

'And I suppose you were very glad your mother and father were away,' said
Ida, while the other children laughed in chorus.

'It was a splendid hamper,' said Lucy, stolidly. 'I shall never forget
it. So you see your father might send you a hamper,' she went on, for the
sake of argument, 'though he is in France.'

'Certainly,' said Ida, 'if I were not too old to care about cakes and
jam.'

'_We_ are not too old,' persisted Lucy; 'you might share them among us.'

Ida's heart had not stilled its stormy vehemence yet. She talked likely
to her young companions, and tried to eat a little bread and butter, but