"that
they ought to be brown; brown they shall be, if fire will do it." So
she proceeded to make a furious fire, in order to heat the griddle.
"Now," she said to Joanna, "carry in the coffee and chops, then come
and bake the cakes."

The husband and wife were engaged in cheerful chat when the first
instalment of cakes arrived; a few crumpled, burnt scraps of
something.

"Why, what is this?" said Mr. Thorne.

"_Cakes!_" said Joanna, triumphantly. "She fixed 'em;" pointing to
Mrs. Thorne.

The two looked at the cakes, then at each other, and broke into peals
of laughter.

"The griddle must be too hot," said Mrs. Thorne, and she vanished
into the kitchen. She scraped the smoking griddle, and washed it and
greased it, then she stirred the grey liquid and placed two or three
spoonfuls on the griddle, then she essayed to turn them--sticking
plaster never stuck tighter than those cakes adhered to that griddle;
she worked carefully, she insinuated her knife under just the outer
edge of the cake, then gradually approached the centre, but when the
final flop came, they went into little sticky hopeless heaps. "They
are too thin," she ejaculated. "Joanna, bring flour. Now we shall
have it all right." Then another set took their places on the
griddle; these held together, they turned--triumph at last! but they
did not look inviting. Mrs. Thorne tasted one, she then made a wry
face. "Joanna," she said, with forced calmness, "you can throw this
batter away." Then she went back to the dining-room, looking very hot
and red, and said meekly to Philip: "The cakes are a failure this
morning, we will try it again tomorrow."

Philip, who had lost himself in the morning paper, roused up to say:

"Don't trouble about them any more; we have enough else that is
nice."

"The cakes will be all right another time, Philip; there was a
mistake made, they were too thin this morning; mother never makes
them thin."

Philip looked as if he would like to say:

"I don't care what your mother does; my mother's cakes are nice and
thin, and can't be beaten;" but he didn't.

Mrs. Thorne had no intention of abandoning buckwheat cakes as a
failure, not she; it was not her way to give up easily and yield to
discouragement; difficulties only strengthened her determination to
conquer.

"I'll see if I am to be vanquished by a buckwheat cake," she said,
studying her receipt-book that same evening. "I shouldn't wonder if
there was not yeast enough i