Cakes! Cakes! My good hot cakes! The old cake woman had resumed her nightly tour, and again we heard her rapid footsteps and her shrill refrain.

Always at the same hour, with the regularity of an automaton, she went by our house.

And the long winter recommenced in the same manner as had the preceding ones, and as were similarly to begin the following two or three years.
Our neighbors, the D-----s, accompanied by Lucette, always came at eight o'clock Sunday evenings, and another neighbor visited us also upon this same evening.

These latter brought with them their little daughter Marguerite, who gradually insinuated herself into my affections.
That year Marguerite and I brought the Sunday winter evenings, over which the thought of the tasks of the morrow brooded sadly, to a close with an entirely new amusement.

After the tea, when I felt that the party was about to break up, I would hurry little Marguerite into the dining-room, and there we rushed madly about the round table and tried to catch or tag each other,--we played furiously.