a
lock and key. Ruth had seen some of these nice things put on the stand,
but she had not seen all, and she had a great wish to see them. She
thought, if the door should not be shut, she would just peep in. She
went twice to the door, but she found it fast. When she went a third
time she found the key left in, and as she thought she could turn the
key, she did, and went in.

Now it was wrong in Ruth to want to go near this room, as she knew
quite well that Mrs. Grey did not wish her to go in. Once when she was
near the door she thought she heard some one, and then she ran off as
fast as she could. This she would not have done if she had not felt
sure it was wrong to go in that room.

But now she was in! and what did she see there? Why, she saw the stand
quite full of all sorts of nice sweet things. There were sponge cakes,
and plum cakes, and queen cakes; there were two turn-outs, and whips
and creams of all sorts; and there was a cake hid in red jam, with
small thin white things put all up and down it, which stuck out. What
could _this_ be? She was sure it was jam, and yet she was sure jam was
too soft to stand up in that way: she would just touch it. She _did_
touch it, and she felt there was some hard thing in it: _that_ could
not be jam! It was strange! She would just like to know what it was:
she must taste a small bit of the top--_that_ could not spoil it, and
she did _so_ much want to know. She _did_ taste--it _was_ jam, spread
on a sponge cake.

"A sponge cake! well, this _is_ odd," thought Ruth. "I will just taste
a bit: the jam will hide where I take it from."

She then tore a bit from the cake: it was more than she meant to take;
but it was done, and she could not help it now. In vain did she try to
hide the place--she could not do it; for if she took jam from this
place, the cake was left bare on that. And the shape of the cake was
not the same as it had been. She thought she would try to make that
side of the cake on which the jam still was, like the side on which it
was not; so off she took a piece from that side too. The cake was now
in such a state that she could not hope to hide what she had done; and
_she_ was in such a state that she did not seem to care at all.

She next took up a spoon, and took a large piece from one of the
turn-outs. She then went to the plum cake, and to the grapes, and to
all the fruit. In short, she went from dish to dish, till there was not
one in which she had not put