the more devout members had remained to pray all through
the midday. The congregation came straggling in by twos and threes.
Many of the women had exchanged the severely corseted discomfort of the
morning's splendor for the comparative ease of second-best silks.
Mrs. Brandeis, absent from her business throughout this holy day, came
hurrying in at two, to look with a rather anxious eye upon her pale and
resolute little daughter.

The memorial service was to begin shortly after three, and lasted almost
two hours. At quarter to three Bella slipped out through the side aisle,
beckoning mysteriously and alluringly to Fanny as she went. Fanny looked
at her mother.

"Run along," said Mrs. Brandeis. "The air will be good for you. Come
back before the memorial service begins." Fanny and Bella met, giggling,
in the vestibule.

"Come on over to my house for a minute," Bella suggested. "I want
to show you something." The Weinberg house, a great, comfortable,
well-built home, with encircling veranda, and a well-cared-for lawn, was
just a scant block away. They skipped across the street, down the block,
and in at the back door. The big sunny kitchen was deserted. The house
seemed very quiet and hushed. Over it hung the delicious fragrance of
freshly-baked pastry. Bella, a rather baleful look in her eyes, led the
way to the butler's pantry that was as large as the average kitchen.
And there, ranged on platters, and baking boards, and on snowy-white
napkins, was that which made Tantalus's feast seem a dry and barren
snack. The Weinberg's had baked. It is the custom in the household of
Atonement Day fasters of the old school to begin the evening meal, after
the twenty-four hours of abstainment, with coffee and freshly-baked
coffee cake of every variety. It was a lead-pipe blow at one's
digestion, but delicious beyond imagining. Bella's mother was a famous
cook, and her two maids followed in the ways of their mistress. There
were to be sisters and brothers and out-of-town relations as guests at
the evening meal, and Mrs. Weinberg had outdone herself.

"Oh!" exclaimed Fanny in a sort of agony and delight.

"Take some," said Bella, the temptress.

The pantry was fragrant as a garden with spices, and fruit scents,
and the melting, delectable perfume of brown, freshly-baked dough,
sugar-coated. There was one giant platter devoted wholly to round, plump
cakes, with puffy edges, in the center of each a sunken pool that was
all plum, be