Aged about Fifteen. The Cave, in July.

It wasn't a job I liked. Nor would almost anybody. Still people can't say very much to a girl, and I had been at school and so had lost my—what shall I call it?—"sensitiveness."

As Sir Toady says, the golden rule is a first-rate thing—when you leave school. Even with a little addition, it flourishes there too. But you don't want to set up as a Christian martyr at school, I can tell you. It was very noble in the time of St. Francis, and Dr. Livingstone, and these people, and now-a-days there are people to whom we have to send our sixpences—people we never see. Perhaps I shall be one when I am older, but at school—these are Sir Toady's words—you find out what boy has a down on you and down him first! It saves trouble.

Afterwards you can be as sweet and child-like as possible, and go about the world taking people in with blue Madonna eyes all your life. But at school, if you don't want to have the life of a dog, it has got to be different.

Hugh John, of course, says that the principle of school life is for everybody to obey one person. But, you see, that person is Hugh John. If they don't, most likely he will hammer them. And afterwards he will prove how they were wrong. He will do it at length, and at breadth, and at depth, and unto the fourth dimension, till even fellows who can stand up to his fists give in to him so as not to get lectured—or "jawed" as they ignorantly call it. For really what Hugh John says could be taken down and printed right off in a book.

And you have got to believe it, too. For he is always ready to support his opinion, in the same manner as the Highland chief in Kidnapped. "If any gentleman is not preceesely satisfied, I shall be proud to step outside with him."

Joined to this faculty for laying down the law, he possesses an admirable barbaric power of enforcing it, which would have been invaluable in feudal times, and is not without its uses even now.

Well, three days after I went and called on Mrs. Donnan. It came about quite naturally. She is a first-class person to call upon. No fuss or anything—only you have to catch her on the hop. This time I saw her in the garden gathering gooseberries, and in a moment she had her sunbonnet half off her head, and the basket dropped in the furrow, but I was upon her before she could get away.

"Oh, Mrs. Donnan, do let me help you!" I said.

"But, Miss——" she began, not knowing how to go on.

"I should love it," I added quickly, "and I promise not to eat a single one. In fact I shall whistle all the time!"

"Oh, miss," she said, all in a flurry, "you know it is not that! You or any of your family are only too welcome to come, and take as many as they like."

"If you want to keep any for the preserving pot," I said, smiling at her, "I should advise you not to say that to my entire family. There are certain members of it who are capable of cleaning up the branches as your dog Toby there would clean a bone!"

"Oh, you mean Master Toady," she said, all dimples in a moment at the recollection. "He comes here often. But the garden is large, and bless him! even he can't eat more than he can. More than that, he often leaves a rabbit, or even a brace—and my man havin' been a butcher, is remarkable fond of a bit o' game."

"Yes," I said, "my brother's shootings are like your garden, extensive. Still, it is a wonder how he can keep them up on a shilling a day, and all but twopence of it deferred pay!"

"It is a wonder, now I come to think of it!" said the good lady meditatively. "He must be a careful lad with his money!"

"What I wonder at,"—I went on talking as soon as I had got her settled back again at the picking of the gooseberries—"is that you never thought of making the prettiest little shop-window in the world of your cakes and pasties and jams and candies. You know nobody can make them in the least like you. Besides, I have spoken to my father and others who know lots more about it, and every one is sure that such a thing would be a great boon to Edam, and that you are the very person to take it in hand. It would not be like an ordinary shop. For every one knows that your husband has made his fortune and retired. But it would give you something to do. Shall I speak to Mr. Donnan about it?"

The poor woman flushed with pleasure at the very idea. So much I could see. Yet she hesitated.

"HE would never consent—his position—his politics—Oh, no!" Mrs. Donnan considered that I had better not speak to the master—at least not then.

However, I thought differently, and it was after the good lady had asked me to stay to tea that my chance came.

Donnan came in, fanning himself with his broad-brimmed Panama. Things had not been going well that afternoon. Nipper had been busy on account of a rush of trade, and had not welcomed his father's criticisms too gratefully. You see, the old man was accustomed to find fault with Nipper's management, and that day there had been a shortage of ice in the shop and a corresponding shortage in Nipper's temper.

Also, Mr. Donnan's more general perambulation had not turned out well. Some rude and vagrant boys had dug out the pet wasp-nest he had been saving up for the next dark night, and there were green flies all over his best Lasalle rose-tree. Two of his best Dorkings had "laid away."

"I don't want any tea to-day, Cynthia!" he grumbled crossly. And without looking at me he went to the sofa and threw himself down with a heavy creaking of furniture.

"My dear," said his wife, "surely you have not seen this young lady who has come to do you the honor of taking tea with you?"

"Nonsense," said I, "as long as there are such cakes to be had at New Erin Villa, the honor is all on my side."

But the polite Irishman was already on his feet.

"Miss Sweetheart—Miss Sweetheart!" he said, "what a blind old hedge-carpenter ye must have thought me! And you your own folks' daughter, and your father treating me like a long-lost brother, and instructin' me on hist'ry and the use of the globes!"

So we had tea, the prettiest little tea imaginable, with Mrs. Donnan going about as soft-footed as a pussy cat, and purring like one too.

Butcher Donnan looked after her with a kind of sudden bitterness. "It's all very well for her," he said; "she makes her life out of such things, but what is there for me to do? I'm about at the end of my tether!"

"Why, help her!" said I.

"Help her!" he muttered, not understanding. "Me, Butcher Donnan—why, the girl is mazed! I can't do housework!"

But I soon showed him I was not so mazed as he thought. He was tired of doing nothing. He wanted a change. Very well then; here was this little house right at the top of Edam Common, with the railway station opposite, and everybody's business taking him that way two or three times a day. What Edam wanted was a confectioner's shop. His wife was dying to have one. He would look a fine figure of a man in a white overall and cap! Hugh John had said it!

He whistled softly, and his little, deep-set eyes twinkled.

"I might ha' known," he said, "when I saw that long-legged brother of yours looking at me as if to calculate what I was good for. He's the fellow to make plans. Now the other——"

Here he laughed as he remembered Sir Toady Lion.

"More like me when I was his age!" he said. "But about the pastry-cook foolishness. What put that into his head?"

"It isn't foolishness," I answered, "and nobody that I know of ever puts anything into Hugh John's head!"

"He certainly is a wonder!" ("Corker" was what he said.)

Then I explained. One side of the villa was certainly expressly designed for a shop, the drawing-room and back drawing-room having side connections with the kitchen, only needed to be fitted with shelves and counters. The other side of the house and all above stairs might remain intact.

To my surprise Mr. Donnan never said a word concerning his position, his political aspirations, his illuminations, and disporting of the green harp of Ireland.

"But what are we to do with Cynthia's parlor furniture?" he asked instead. I could see a look of joy flash across his wife's face.

"Donnan," she said, "we will make the empty room above into a parlor. It's a perfect god-send. That boy should be paid by Government to make plans for people!"

Butcher Donnan bent his brows a moment on his wife. "Oh, you are in it, are you, Cynthia? Then I suppose I may as well go and order my white apron and cap?"

"Think how well they will become you!" said his wife, who also must have kissed the Blarney stone—the old one, not the new.

I agreed heartily. Butcher Donnan heaved a sigh. "And me, that never was seen but in decent blue," he said, "me to put on white like a mere bun-baker—and at my time of life!"

I said that it was certainly scandalous, but seeing that he would have nothing to do with the work except to sell, and arrange the windows for market-days, it would not matter so much.

"I shall need a small oven!" said his wife, "and a new set of French 'casserole molds' (which is to say patty-pans) and some smaller brass pans, also——"

"Perhaps I was wrong," I interposed cunningly, "to lead Mr. Donnan into so much expense."

I knew that, if anything, this would fetch him, and it did.

"Expense, is it? Expense, Miss Sweetheart! Ha, Ha!" He slapped his pocket. "Ask your friend Mr. Anderson down at the Bank (not that he will tell you!) whether Butcher Donnan is a warm man or not? He did not retire on four bare walls and a pocket-handkerchief of front-garden like some I could tell you of. Cynthia, you shall have all the brass pans you want, and as for the front shop—well, there won't be the like of it, not as far as Dumfries! We shall have a van too, gold and blue!"

Butcher Donnan was all on fire now, and when Nipper came in he clapped him on the shoulder, crying that he had better look sharp. He, Butcher Donnan, was going to set up such a shop as never was seen in Edam, and people would never be wanting "fresh meat" any more, but live on pies and shortcake and sweets for ever and ever.

At this Nipper looked no little relieved, and even listened to the details with a secret satisfaction.

"Father," he said, "the shop down town can run itself the first day of the opening of yours. I'm coming up to see you face the public in your new nursing togs!"

"You're an impudent young jackanapes," said his father, clenching his fists, "and if it were not that you have to stick to business and pay me the money you owe me, I would thrash you on the spot, old as you are!"

"Oh, let Nipper alone," said I, as cheerfully as I could, "he has the sweet tooth. I know it well, and I will wager he will yet be one of your best customers!"

"He will bring his money along with him then every time," growled his father. "And now I am off to see Mr. Hetherington, the architect. We must get things ship-shape!"

"But," cried his wife, "you have never tasted your tea!"

"Oh, bother my tea!" said Butcher Donnan, flouncing out, having fallen a victim to Hugh John's dangerous imagination. But he looked in again, his topper hat of Do-Nothing Pride already exchanged for the cap of Edam Commerce.

"Tell that young gentleman of yours," he said, "that, if things turn out well, he is always welcome at our shop, eh, Cynthia? And nothing to pay! And you, Miss Sweetheart, I hope to live long enough to bake your bride's-cake!"

"There he goes!" murmured his wife, "in a week Donnan will think that he has made every single thing in the shop, from the brass weights on the counter to the specimen birthday-cake in the window!"