asons, and he said he had told Matilda to make us a plain
pudding."

The plain pudding instantly cast its shadow over the deepening gloom of
our young minds.

"I wonder _how_ plain she'll make it?" Dicky said.

"As plain as plain, you may depend," said Oswald. "A
here-am-I-where-are-you pudding--that's her sort."

The others groaned, and we gathered closer round the fire till the
newspapers rustled madly.

"I believe I could make a pudding that _wasn't_ plain, if I tried,"
Alice said. "Why shouldn't we?"

"No chink," said Oswald, with brief sadness.

"How much would it cost?" Noel asked, and added that Dora had twopence
and H.O. had a French halfpenny.

Dora got the cookery-book out of the dresser drawer, where it lay
doubled up among clothes-pegs, dirty dusters, scallop shells, string,
penny novelettes, and the dining-room corkscrew. The general we had
then--it seemed as if she did all the cooking on the cookery-book
instead of on the baking-board, there were traces of so many bygone
meals upon its pages.

"It doesn't say Christmas pudding at all," said Dora.

"Try plum," the resourceful Oswald instantly counselled.

Dora turned the greasy pages anxiously.

"'Plum-pudding, 518.

"'A rich, with flour, 517.

"'Christmas, 517.

"'Cold brandy sauce for, 241.'

"We shouldn't care about that, so it's no use looking.

"'Good without eggs, 518.

"'Plain, 518.'

"We don't want _that_ anyhow. 'Christmas, 517'--that's the one."

It took her a long time to find the page. Oswald got a shovel of coals
and made up the fire. It blazed up like the devouring elephant the
_Daily Telegraph_ always calls it. Then Dora read--

"'Christmas plum-pudding. Time six hours.'"

"To eat it in?" said H.O.

"No, silly! to make it."

"Forge ahead, Dora," Dicky replied.

Dora went on--

"'2072. One pound and a half of raisins; half a pound of currants; three
quarters of a pound of breadcrumbs; half a pound of flour;
three-quarters of a pound of beef suet; nine eggs; one wine glassful of
brandy; half a pound of citron and orange peel; half a nutmeg; and a
little ground ginger.' I wonder _how_ little ground ginger."

"A teacupful would be enough, I think," Alice said; "we must not be
extravagant."

"We haven't got anything yet to be extravagant _with_," said Oswald, who
had toothache that day. "What would you do with the things if you'd got
them?"

"You'd 'chop the suet as fine as possible'--I wonder how fine that