Aren't you ready yet to attend to these crewels, Phebe?
Miss Brooks is snarling them terribly." "Phebe's really a very good girl in her way though," remarked Mrs.
Hardcastle, indulgently, from her easy chair.

"I will testify that she can make quite eatable cake at a pinch." Phebe secretly thought Mrs.Hardcastle ought to know.

She remembered her once spoiling a new-made company loaf by slashing into it without so much as a by-your-leave.
"That was very nice cake Miss Lynch gave us last night," piped in Miss Delano.
"Too much citron," pronounced Mrs.Upjohn, decisively.

"You should never overload your cake with citron.

It turns it out heavy, as sure as there's a sun in the heavens." "There isn't any to-day; it's cloudy," Phebe could not help putting in, demurely, but no one paid any attention, except that Mrs.Upjohn turned on her an unworded expression of: "If I say so, it is so whether or no." An animated debate on cake followed, in the middle of which Mrs.Lane reappeared with a trayful of cookies hot from the oven; and two more callers came in, Bell Masters and Dick Hardcastle, which last first woke up Miss Lydia with a boisterous kiss, frightening the poor soul half to death by assuring her she had been snoring so that he heard her way down street, and then devoted himself to the cookies with a good-will and large capacity that filled one with compassionate feelings toward his mother's larder.