make one for her. "I'll bring it down the last of the week,"
she promised, later, when she rose to go, and Mrs. Perkins introduced
the subject again. But that was not what the old woman wanted.

"Why can't you come down here and make it in my kitchen?" she whined,
"same as you did in Mrs. Crisp's. I get dreadful lonesome setting here,
and it would be so much company to see you whisking around beating eggs
and rolling out the crust. Then I could smell it baking, and eat it hot
out of the oven. It's been many a long day since I've done a thing like
that. It makes my mouth water, just thinking of it."

"Certainly I could do it heah, if you would like it bettah," promised
Lloyd, rashly. "Is there anything I can do for you befoah I go?"

"Yes, there is," was the ready answer. "I didn't eat much dinner, and
I'm that weak and faint I'd like if you'd make me a cup of tea."

"Certainly," answered Lloyd again. "If you'll just tell me where to find
things."

"I'll be going on," said Minnie Crisp, beginning to wrap the baby up in
its shawl again. "Those kids will be turning the house upside down if
I'm not there to watch them."

Nobody paid any attention to her departure, for Lloyd, hanging her coat
over the back of a dusty chair, had gone into the kitchen before Minnie
finished making a woollen mummy of the baby.

"The tea is in a paper bag in the corner cupboard," called Mrs. Perkins.
"Mrs. Moore sent it to me. It's green tea, and I never did care for any
kind but black. I'd pretty nigh as soon have none as green. You might
poach me an egg, too, if you feel like it, and make a bit of toast."

With a shiver of disgust, Lloyd looked around her. Everything was dirty.
She wished she dared run across the street and prepare the lunch in Mrs.
Crisp's immaculate kitchen. There everything shone from repeated
scrubbings with soft soap and sand. She enjoyed cooking over there. As
she opened the cupboard door a roach ran out, and she jumped aside with
another shiver of disgust. She wanted a pan in which to poach the egg,
but nothing looked clean enough to use. Finally she chose a battered
saucepan, but dropped it when she discovered that a spider had woven a
web inside.

Spiders had always been an abomination to Lloyd. It made her feel cold
and creepy to touch a cobweb. But the story of Ederyn flashed through
her thoughts, and she grasped the pan, determined to use it or die in
the effort. She had started and she would not turn bac