's what it was!" And the big black eyes rolled in terrified
apprehension. "Yas'm, sho'ly fer certain, dat's what happened. It's de
work of dem sperrits!"

Mrs. Rose went on into the house unwilling to subscribe to Maria's
theory, but equally unable to propound any of her own.

* * * * *

The girls reached the hotel where the fair was held and joined the gay
throngs of people that were entering.

"Hello," said Maisie Norris as she met them. "Where's your cake?"

Now Dolly and Dotty had made up their minds not to tell of the
catastrophe, until they could make some endeavour to find out if there
were any suspicious looks or hints to be noticed among the other young
cake makers.

"Where's yours?" Dotty said to Maisie.

"Oh, I left mine in the committee room. You know the committee take all
the cakes, and then those that haven't any chance at all, they send out
to the cake table to be sold. But the ones that have a chance at the
prize they keep for final decision. They've kept mine so far, but Edith
Holmes' was just sent out. It's too bad, it's a lovely chocolate cake."

"It is too bad," agreed Dotty, "but I don't believe a chocolate cake
will take the prize, do you?"

"No, probably not," said Maisie. "Mine's a variety cake. What sort is
yours?"

Dotty hesitated, for she well knew they had no cake in the committee
room, but Dolly said: "We made up ours. We mixed things together that we
never heard of combining before. It was mostly Dot's invention."

"But Dolly made the layers and did the icing," put in Dotty, unwilling
to take all the credit.

"Sounds lovely," said Maisie, and then her attention was diverted
elsewhere and she ran away.

No more embarrassing questions were asked, for every one assumed that
Dotty and Dolly had given their cake to the committee when they arrived.

A dozen times during the afternoon they were asked, "Has your cake been
sent out yet?" And they truthfully answered no.

But no hint could they glean from the words or looks of any girl to make
them suspect wrong-doing.

"I can't keep it up any longer, Dot," said Dolly at last, in an
undertone. "I feel as if I'm telling a lie, when I let them all think we
have a cake with the committee."

"Fiddlesticks! it's none of their business. And anyway they have just
that much more chance at the prize. Don't tell anybody, Doll, it can't
do any harm to keep it to ourselves, and if one certain person takes
the