cepted with alacrity the golden block of cake which was offered him.

"Why, Eddy!" Charlotte said.

"Now, Charlotte, you know we never have cake like this at home," Eddy
said, biting into the cake. "Not since the egg-man won't trust us any
more. I know this kind of cake takes lots of eggs. I heard Marie say
so when Amy asked her to make it."

Charlotte colored pitifully, and made another effort to rise.
"Indeed, I think we must go now," said she. "Come, Eddy."

Mrs. Anderson turned to her son for support. "I tell her she must not
think of going until after tea," she said. "Then if she is not able
to walk, we will get a carriage."

Eddy removed the fast-diminishing square of cake from his mouth and
regarded his sister with an expression of the most open
ingenuousness. "Now, Charlotte, I'll tell you something," he said.

"What, dear?"

"You might just as well stay, and I'll tell you why. Papa and Amy and
Anna won't be home until after seven."

"Until after seven?"

"No. They are going to Addison."

"To Addison?"

Addison was a large town some fifteen miles from Banbridge.

"Yes; and they are going to get dinner there."

"Eddy, are you sure?"

"Yes, of course I am sure," replied Eddy, with the wide-open eyes of
virtue upon his sister's face. "Amy told me to tell you."

"Now, Eddy."

Eddy took another bite of his cake. "I think you are pretty mean to
speak that way. I never spoke to you so," he said. "When you say a
thing is so, I never say 'Now, Charlotte!'" Eddy, having imitated his
sister's doubtful tone exactly, took another bite of cake.

"Well, if Amy really said so," Charlotte returned, and still with a
faint accent of incredulity. It was very seldom that the Carrolls
took the drive to Addison. However, it was an exceedingly pleasant
day, and it did seem possible.

"Well, she did," Eddy declared, stoutly; and there was in his
declaration a slight trace of truth, for Mrs. Carroll had mentioned,
on starting, that it was such a lovely day, that if they had got an
earlier start they might have driven to Addison; and Anna had replied
that it was too late now, for they would not get home in time for
dinner if they went there. The rest Eddy had manufactured to serve
his own small ends--which a stay at the Andersons' to tea, for which
he had, remembering his dinner there, the pleasantest anticipations.
"You had better stay, Charlotte," Eddy urged, furthermore, "for you
do look awful pale, and as if yo