ad cake at the Finkboners. Things might have been
different, but they had kept still about cake. He listened intently,
hearing laughing references to Merle in his new home. Then once more
Winona came to the front door and called him.

"Wilbur--Wil-bur-r-r! Where can that child be!" he heard her demand. She
went to the back of the house and more faintly he heard her again call
his name--"Wilbur, Wil-bur-r-r!" Then, with discernible impatience, more
shortly, "Wilbur Cowan!" He was intently regarding a printed placard
that hung on the wall beside Winona's bureau. It read:

A gentleman makes no noise; a lady is serene.--Emerson.

He remained silent. He was not going to make any noise. At length he
could hear preparations for departure.

"Merle, dear, your hat is on the piano--Mother, hand him his hat--I'll
bring his suitcase."

"Well, I'll be sure to come back to see you all some day."

"Yes, now don't forget us--no, we mustn't let him do that."

They were out on the porch, going down the walk. The listener stepped
lightly to a window and became also a watcher. Ahead walked Patricia
Whipple and her new brother. The stepmother and Mrs. Penniman followed.
Then came Winona with the suitcase, which was of wicker. Judge Penniman
lumbered ponderously behind. At the hitching post in front was the pony
cart and the fat pony of sickening memory. Merle was politely helping
the step-mother to the driver's seat. It was over. But the watcher
suddenly recalled something.

In swift silence, descending the stairs, he entered the parlour. On a
stand beneath the powerful picture of the lion behind real bars was a
frosted cake of rare beauty. Three pieces were gone and two more were
cut. On top of each piece was the half of a walnut meat. He tenderly
seized one of these and stole through the deserted house, through
kitchen and woodshed, out to the free air again. Back of the woodshed he
sat down on the hard bare ground, his back to its wall, looking into the
garden where Judge Penniman, in the intervals of his suffering, raised a
few vegetables. It was safe seclusion for the pleasant task in hand. He
gloated rapturously over the cake, eating first the half of the walnut
meat, which he carefully removed. But he thought it didn't taste right.

He now regarded the cake itself uncertainly. It was surely perfect
cake. He broke a fragment from the thin edge and tasted it almost
fearfully. It wasn't going right. He persisted with a lar