was scooped out from the side of the hill, he heard signs of unusual bustle in the kitchen, and poking his head cautiously round the post of the door, he was amazed to see a big baking in progress.

“Is that you, Reggie Furness?” called the voice of Miss Galena, who was darting here and there, apparently trying to do three things at once. “Step lively, will you, and help me here. I want eggs whisked, and currants washed, sugar rolled, and a dozen things done all nearly at once. You can’t have a sitting-down breakfast this morning. But none of us have had that. You will have to be content to feed as you run about.”

“I don’t care how I have my breakfast as long as I do have one,” said Reggie, who had got hold of the whisker, and was turning it at a great rate, while the eggs churned into yellow foam under his active exertions.

Galena laughed at the broadness of the hint, but she had not had six brothers without knowing that boys were the hungriest creatures under the sun; so she brought him a great wedge of pumpkin pie, just to keep him from starving, and promised him some hot cookies as soon as they were out of the oven. The pie was fragrant with spice and black with currants. Reggie was in clover for once in his life. Breakfast, which was part of his wage, consisted in a usual way of buckwheat or oatmeal porridge drowned out with skim milk. There was no porridge pot visible this morning, so plainly there was something very unusual on hand.

“Please, are you going to be married to-day?” he asked, his eyes fairly bulging with curiosity. The ham boiler was on the stove, and it was beginning to bubble, while delicious odours filled the kitchen and made their way out through the open door. His question was only a wild hazard. He had never heard that Miss Galena had any views with regard to matrimony, but he guessed that in any case it would please her to be asked, and so he would be the more likely to find out what he wanted to know so badly. He was through with the whisking by now, and Miss Galena had set him rolling sugar. He would not have taken any, of course, being irreproachably honest so far as he understood what honesty meant; but he saw no harm in continually licking his fingers as he drew the sugar in a lump for the rolling-pin. It was good! He would have enjoyed rolling sugar all day long.

Galena burst into a great laugh of derision, but she was not ill-pleased at the suggestion.

“Dear me, no; I am not going to be married yet, though you never can tell what may happen.” She 

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