great many years, and loved them lots, you would understand every little flicker that makes a change in expression, just as I understand what sort of a fly fish will want--from a look at the light and the depth of the water, and the sort of wings the insects have that hover above. . . . Sometimes I think that everything in the world is observation, that that is the only education. And that education perhaps, after all, only tries to make you do that. I was deeply impressed by the French pastries. Of course, I had never had them before, because almost everyone in Queensburg does their own baking, and there isn’t any bakery nearer than Parsons, and that deals in nothing more involved than macaroons. I asked Mrs. Crane whether she thought that I could get them in New York, and she said I could. I was ever so glad, for I think that if you are very homesick you can be diverted as well by cheerful things to go inside as by cheerful surroundings. I told them so. Mary Elinor agreed with me. “Eating,” she said, “is underrated. It has a great deal to do with the set of your spirits (mother, I would love having another pastry--the brown one was a complete disappointment, and I only ate it to save it), and when I grow up and am a doctor I am going to advocate complete freedom in gratifying appetite.” love complete only “Better advocate complete freedom in engulfing soda mints,” advised Doctor Crane. “Most people need ’em, even while eating with care.” Mary Elinor didn’t answer. She was too much occupied with the pink pastry. When she did speak, she announced something which excited me. “Natalie,” she said, “mother’s going to give you a present to-night, something that is really yours and ever so valuable because of historic association, and I am so anxious to see you get it. For it is really yours, your moth----” But her mother interrupted with “That’ll do, Chicky,” and she didn’t finish. And then an old coloured woman came in with little cups of coffee for Doctor and Mrs. Crane, and chocolate with whipped cream on top for Mary Elinor and me. We walked a little longer, went in a yellow room
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