ippers" took in theirs. But it was not the eggs only; it was
everything: never was a luncheon so delicious, the girls protested. New
potatoes roasted in the ashes were a feast for the gods; and as for the
grandmother's cake with which the repast wound up, it baffled analysis
and description.

Mrs. Gray had made this cake with her own hands, "in order to carry out
the historic verities," as she said. It used to be part of the religion
of New England, especially of Connecticut, she explained; and she told
them how once, when she was a girl, making a visit to an old aunt in
Wethersfield, she had sat up nearly all night over a "raising" of
Election cake.

"But why did you do that?" asked the girls.

"Well, you see, my aunt had a sudden attack of rheumatism in her arm.
She was going to have the sewing-society meet at her house; and such a
thing as a sewing-society without Election cake was not to be dreamed
of. So I offered to make it; and I was bound that it should be good. The
peculiarity of this particular cake is that it must rise twice before it
is baked. You mix half the butter and sugar, and so on, with the yeast;
and when that is light, you put in the other half. Now, my first half
refused to rise."

"What did you do?"

"Oh, I sat beside it with one of Scott's novels, and I waited. It was
rather poky; for my aunt and her servant had gone to bed, and there were
queer creaks and noises now and then, as there always are in old houses.
Midnight struck, and one, and two, before the first bubbles appeared on
the surface of the cake; and I had fallen asleep over my book more than
once, before I could be quite sure that it was safe to stir in the
remainder of the spice and fruit, and go to bed. It was just four
o'clock when I finally put out my lamp; and very sleepy I was next day,
as you may imagine: but the cake turned out a great success, and I had
many compliments about it from the crack housekeepers in the
neighborhood, when they found that it was of my making."

"Wasn't it a dreadful trouble to have to make cake and things like that
at home?" asked Maud Hallett. "I think I would rather have had it not
quite so good, and got it from the confectioner's, than to have all that
fuss and bother."

"My dear, there _were_ no confectioners in those days except in two or
three of the largest cities, and none even then who would be thought
worth speaking of in our time. It was a case of home-made cake or none;
and though