o be at the
table _all_ day, Miss.... There, Thomas! That'll be all the minced
chicken she can have."

"But I took just one little spoonful," protested Gwendolyn, earnestly.
"I wanted more, but Thomas held it 'way up, and--"

"Do you want to be sick?" demanded Jane. "And have a doctor come?"

Gwendolyn raised frightened eyes. A doctor had been called once in the
dim past, when she was a baby, racked by colic and budding teeth. She
did not remember him. But since the era of short clothes she had been
mercifully spared his visits. "N-n-no!" she faltered.

"Well, you look out or I'll git one on the 'phone. And you'll be sorry
_the rest of your life_.... Take the chicken away, Thomas. 'Out of sight
is'--you know the sayin'. (It's a pity there ain't some way to keep it
hot.)"

"A bit of cold fowl don't go so bad," said Thomas, reassuringly. And to
Gwendolyn, "Here's more of the potatoes souffles, Miss Gwendolyn,--_very_
tasty and fillin'."

Gwendolyn put up a hand and pushed the proffered dish aside.

"Now, no temper," warned Jane, rising. "Too much meat ain't good for
children. Your mamma herself would say that. Come! See that nice
potatoes and cream gravy on your plate. And there you set cryin'!"

Thomas had an idea. "Shall I fetch the cake?" he asked in a loud
whisper.

Jane nodded.

He disappeared--to reappear at once with a round frosted cake that had a
border of pink icing upon its glazed white top. And set within the
circle of the border were seven pink candles, all alight.

"Oh, look! Look!" cried Jane, excitedly, pulling Gwendolyn's hand away
from her eyes. "Isn't it a beautiful cake! You shall have a bi-i-ig
piece."

Those seven small candles dispelled the gloom. With tears on her cheeks,
but all eager and smiling once more, Gwendolyn blew the candles out. And
as she bent forward to puff at each tiny one, Jane held her bright hair
back, for fear that a strand might get too near a flame.

"Oh, Jane," cried Gwendolyn, "when I blow like that, _where_ do all the
little lights go?"

"Did you ever _hear_ such a question?" exclaimed Jane, appealing to
Thomas.

He was cutting away at the cake. "Of course, Miss, you'd like _me_ to
have a bite of this," he said. "You know it was me that reminded Cook
about bakin'--"

"Perhaps all the little lights go up under the big lamp-shade," went on
Gwendolyn, too absorbed to listen to Thomas. "And make a big light." She
started to get down from her chair to invest